CBS reported that a prisoner in Texas, Keith Russell Judd, “conned” his way into the Idaho Democratic Primary Ballot by following the applicable law and legally applying for the ballot. Judd used the same method as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama but I can find no citation of their filings being a ‘con’. Apparently CBS and the other news organizations consider this legal filing a con based on who did the filing, and not the action itself.
This article was repeated almost verbatim in other newspapers like the New York Times, providing a hint of the way current mainstream news is created.
Idaho state Secretary of State Ben Ysursa said, “We did some checking,” Ysursa said. “There was nothing legally to keep him off.” Ysursa does not say if they then tried illegal means to try and keep him off. Ysursa continued, “We may rethink how we get on our presidential ballot next time,” Ysursa said. “We’ll take a look at it. We’ve got four years to think about it.” I am glad they are working hard to get those pesky non-corporate backed candidates off the ballot. Why they consider Judd an issue when he has no chance to win, and they do not fix the well known problems in the voting system that got Bush to President, is a mystery.
The article states, as if mocking Orwell, “No matter how many votes he gets this time, he won’t get any national convention delegates. Idaho’s delegates are chosen at party caucuses. “The good thing is the Democratic presidential primary has absolutely no legal significance,” Ysursa said. Oh thank God for the reassurance that we don’t have to worry that any of our votes for a legally qualified candidate will be counted.
Summarizing the article: a person desiring to enter the presidential primary ballot in multiple states, conforms to all legal requirements, and is rejected by most states. A state that does accidentally accept his ballot now regrets it and will do more in the future to find ways to keep ordinary citizens off the ballot. But do not worry, your vote won’t count anyway, so no cause for alarm. I commend CBS and other news organizations, and representatives for the Democratic Party and Idaho government for being so honest about how they are trying to subvert the Amercian democratic voting system. Meanwhile, the public is more concerned with how Geore Bush stole the last 2 elections.
Who is Keith Russell Judd? The articles’ only background is “Keith Russell Judd is serving time at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas for making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999. He’s scheduled for release in 2013″ Fourteen years in federal prison for making a threat? I started digging (news reporter word that means typing into Google and calling friends).
Most court records involving Judd have been sealed or unpublished, other than rejected appeals that do not mention details of the original case or cause of imprisonment. The courts specifically reject Judd’s lawsuits due to multiple defective filings. Could Judd be imprisoned for making multiple court filings against the University and other large organizations? Through Google I found the earliest reference to Judd and University of New Mexico is from 1995, “Judd v. University of N.M., No. 94-2236, 1995 WL 228234″. This rejection of appeal mentions “the United States Secret Service was voluntarily dismissed from this case on May 16, 1994″.
I did find, in the text of a book ‘The American Dictionary of Criminal Justice’ that Judd was barred by judicial order in Texas to not file any non-criminal complaints, due to his many ‘frivolous’ filings. Probably, it appears, his imprisonment deals with a threat of lawsuit, also based on this text from a court proceeding:
“On September 27, 1999, the petitioner was convicted by a jury of two
counts of mailing a threatening communication with intent to extort money or
something of value in violation of 18 U.S.C.§ 876. See United States v. Judd,
252 F.3d 435 (5th Cir. 2001) (per curiam) (not published) (affirming conviction
and sentence). Because of various aggravating factors that increased the
offense level by a total of eighteen and the criminal history category from one
to four, the petitioner was sentenced to 210 months’ imprisonment. “
Multiple frivilous court filings is the status quo for large corporate entities like the RIAA and the Democratic party (when trying to keep third party candidates off the ballot). The surprising success of Judd in getting his name on the Idaho ballot could provide us with insight on how the United States surpresses political speech in individual non-corporate sponsors and treats the mentally ill. If enough people in Idaho that vote for Judd it will do more to shine light on the issues in our voting system that need to be addressed for American democracy.
For more information on this candidate, see the informative site Project Vote Smart. Among their information on Judd is his coloful nicknames (Mr. President, Dark Priest, W.D., Rusty), religion (Rastafarian-Christian), and his general background helping homeless people vote or producing music.
“Don’t hate the media, become the media” -Jello Biafra-
