Every 20 years, Illinois voters get to vote on whether to hold a constitutional convention to rewrite or amend our state constitution.  I was more or less ambivalent to this (only vaguely aware the vote was goign to take place) until I saw this piece on Progress Illinois that lays out the discussion nicely.

To be fair, we have a dramatically incompetent governor who is unfortunately a democrat.  He was elected after the previous republican governor went to jail for corruption that ended getting dozens killed.  Republicans are in minorities in both chambers of our legislature as well as this state has long since realized the destructiveness of their ideas.

That is why it was with shock and horror I realized that a convention is being driven by the right and no one in the progressive community has called them out on this yet.  It's not just any republican, but it is radically right-wing psychopath, John Bambenek, who is leading the effort to rewrite our state constitution.  

Once again, trying to outdo himself as the right-wing internet ubertroll, John Bambenek has proven himself once again to be wanker of the year. Not happy with his last year's wanker award over the FEC complaint against the Daily Kos that was not only criticized on all sides of the political spectrum, but unanimously thrown out of the FEC; he has chosen not to let his petty quest go.

Yesterday, continuing his ongoing obsession with this site, he registered an account an published his "conversion" to progressive politics and pledged support for Obama. He even managed to continue the charade long enough to get the one person who knew it was a troll to get "troll-rated".

All his right wing friends are, of course, laughing it up. The delicious irony is that while Obama and his many grassroots supporters are working to change this country for the better for everyone (including them), they are the ones resorting to childish tactics.

For most of my life I have been a staunch conservative, not sure really when that started, I just always was. It was the way of things. However, after 7 years of a conservative presidency, a quagmire of a war, an economy in tatters and on the way down, it is clear that conservative policies are simply wrong.

If the "free market" big business policies of Republicans worked, why are millions of us losing our homes and millions more on the edge? If tax cuts for the rich were to herald in an era of unpresidented prosperity, why are there records of numbers of people on food stamps? We've seen tort reform, where is the health care for the 50+ million people who don't have insurance?

It's clear that the ideas have simply failed, which is largely why I (and conservatives and right-wingers) were so vicious. When you don't have anything else to stand on, you attack and claw away. But eventually (hopefully) you realize that you are fighting for a failed idea. And that's why I've jettisoned conservatism, the Republican party and I'm going for Obama.

Everybody's favorite scary Catholic douchebag John Bambenek is back, this time with a column in the local campus rag, The Daily Illini about... gasp drinking at college!

Something is bizarrely tragic and sad for a 31-year old who can only get his trash published in college newspapers. I'm not sure that 30-somethings who spend all day hanging out with 19-year olds playing "journalist" has any standing to criticize, but that doesn't stop him anyway.  That's why he can't even get elected to the local school board, everyone knows he's a nut... and this latest column doesn't disappoint.

If you are like me and most rational Americans, you consider the health care crisis to be the fact that over 50 million Americans lack access to health care. Right now, hard-working families lack access to health care for their children. This is a national disgrace that any rational individual can see. Conservatives, however, are not rational individuals.  They're the same people who think everything is rosy in Iraq.

When conservatives talk about the health care crisis, it isn't about the 50 million people who don't have health care. They are worried that upper middle-class workers don't get enough choices in their employer-provided health care options. Resident knuckle-dragger John Bambenek writes in his latest steaming pile of excrement, The Health Care Crisis and Why it was Inevitable, that the health care crisis involves high-paid IT workers like himself having to get insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield when they really want CIGNA.  Boo Freaking Hoo.

In John Bambenek's latest semi-literate rant, The Problem with the Men's Rights Movement, we see the usually diatribe those of us who are feminist are used to.  "There clearly is a need to stop the abuse men suffer from the excesses of the women’s rights movement."

Oh, wah.  Women have been treated like chattel for millenia (and in most of the world we still are), in this country many women are beaten into submission by men, and yes, men are still taking that abuse out on their children too.  Bambenek says, "Retraining orders are far too easy to get without any evidence whatsoever..."  Excuse me?  Over 10% of women who seek protection orders are STILL getting stalked, assaulted and even killed by those they seek protection from.  Women don't run to court for protection orders because things are going great!  We go to court to protect ourselves from misogynist Christian Taliban like Bambenek who think women belong in the kitchen.

Everyone's second favorite scary conservative Catholic after Mel Gibson is at it again.  John Bambenek is apparently taking a break from trying to censor the Daily Kos off to internet with the FEC and is going after... Grand Theft Auto.

MercatorNet.org, an Australian religious magazine, published a piece by John Bambenek called Unsuitable for Children (and apparently publishes a good deal of Bambenek's excrement).  In this article, Bambenek repeats the usual religious right fist-pumping horror about violent video games.  Except he takes it one step further... he goes beyond keeping it away from children and is honest about the agenda of the religious right... he's about taking it away from grown adults.

He says, "If some video games are too violent to be suitable for kids, what exactly makes them suitable for adults?"  So not only does Bambenek want to be the censor of political speech, he wants to censor video games too.  Why?  Because he's special and knows what's good for you, even when you don't.

Last week, John Bambenek made a complete fool of himself by sending a complaint to the Michigan Attorney General about us evil Kossacks using our voting rights by picking up a ballot for the "Democrats for Romney" campaign.  He whined and cried that it is interfering with the "free assiociation" rights of the Republican Party by allowing Democrats to vote.  That was last week.

This week it is a new week and John Bambenek has apparently changed his mind.

John Bambenek is at it again. He's "filed a complaint with" (i.e. written a letter to) the Michigan Attorney General complaining about the suggestion made by kos of Daily Kos that Michigan Democratic voters vote for Romney in Michigan's open primary. TheSquire pretty much eviscerated his complaint by looking at what Michigan law actually says, as does Adam B.

I'm not posting about the silliness that is Mr. Bambenek's latest attempt at notability, but rather about some things he's said elsewhere. He is also a "freelance columnist" at a Kankakee paper, where he wrote this about a possible Illinois Constitutional Convention:

Remember our friend, John Bambenek?  The clown who filed an FEC complaint against Kos, and then complained to the Michigan Attorney General?  It seems that he may himself have violated the law in actuality by engage in such banality during work time.

First, John Bambenek is an employee of the University of Illinois, a state university, and is a well-known kook there.  The University is bound by the ethics act as are its employees.  In fact, Bambenek is required to take annual ethics training (and filed a federal lawsuit last year to get out of it).

Sorry, kos, as of this afternoon, according to exit polls, nobody but Republicans seems very interested in the Michigan Republican primary. It's not a very nice day, turnout is light, according to the Grand Rapids Press.

On Tuesday there were both Democratic and Republican primaries and though ballot maneuvering left the Democratic side in essence non-competitive, apparently it kept some Democrats from migrating to the Republican contest — where they made up fewer than one in 10 voters. In 2000, Republicans made up only 48 percent of the GOP primary electorate; Tuesday they were two-thirds of it. A quarter of Republican primary voters Tuesday called themselves independent, down from 35 percent eight years ago.

It has already been front paged by several people about how John Bambenek has filed a complaint against Kos with the Michigan Attorney General. The complaint argues that Kos encouraging Democrats to vote for Romney in the primary constitutes election fraud.

John, you are a true patriot. Your Nation thanks you, and we call on you once again to help the downtrodden. It is all due to this:

Boo hoo.

Illinois Review editor Fran Eaton is rather upset that  her bud John Bambenek is again being pilloried as a fool for his incredibly dense lack of reasoning when it comes to the application of electoral law. For some reason her dour mood has led her to pull a completely idiotic Potemkin argument out of her cracker jack box of irrational rants by suggesting that the American folks over at Daily Kos must be overly violent due to ... video games.

What?!

Wanker of the Year, Blogosphere Division winner John Bambenek has topped his crowning achievement.

Adam B already gave you what you need to know about how wrong Bambo is on the law. But I just couldn't resist a point-by-point look at the various and ridiculous wrong turns Bambenek made along the way to his audaciously stupid conclusion.

So yes, the yo-yo who filed the FEC complaint against Daily Kos that was so wholly without merit that the Commission actually disposed of it (wearing clothespins on their noses, no doubt) in record time is back again with another publicly-financed Morons-a-Poppin^TM boondoggle: a criminal complaint to the Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox (control yourself, Beavis) alleging that urging Democrats to vote for Romney in the Michigan Republican presidential primary constitutes voter fraud.

Oh. My. God.

Will these right-wing "bootstrappers" never tire of making the public pay for their inevitable smackdowns? Is this some kind of a weird fetish I just don't understand? Surely there are privately-financed ways Bambenek can come to grips (if such were his wont, let's say) with his hard-on for Markos, no?

But Bambenek wants none of that. He wants to do this on your dime. Make the FEC waste the time and resources to restate the rules it had already promulgated a year before. Make the Michigan Attorney General explain that an open primary is... well, open. All on the taxpayer dime. What a prince, eh?

Here's the thing: It's. Not. Voter. Fraud.

When people entitled by Michigan law to participate in elections held at public cost do so under their own names, in their assigned polling places, and cast just one ballot, there's no fraud. None.

Special Note #1 for the media: This case should tell you in no uncertain terms that when wingnuts cry to you about voter fraud -- and let's be honest, they're constantly crying about it -- they have not a clue in the world what they're talking about, and they should be given no more attention than if they'd told you they've got video of Elvis descending from a UFO to cast a stretchy, sequined ballot.

Do not forget this. There's nothing the Republicans whine about more annoyingly or more frequently these days than "voter fraud." And here they are, once again, demonstrating embarrassingly for all to see, that all they can really hope for is for the media not to ask any questions when they slap that oh-so-scary-sounding label on... well, whatever the hell they happen to have at hand.

Do not believe Republican crocodile tears about voter fraud. They don't know what it is.

So Bambenek is just stupid, right? Wrong. Bambenek is spectacularly stupid. Why? Here's a point-by-point rundown of the idiocy (and a second Special Note for the Media), after the break.

Well, it seems like our site's Inspector Javert Clouseau is back, and John Bambenek has really got us on the ropes now:

Yesterday, I filed a complaint with the Michigan Attorney General against Daily Kos' blogger Markos Moulitsas, requesting an investigation into whether Moulitsas is encouraging voter fraud in next week's Michigan GOP primary.

The idea of the freedom to vote is part of the bedrock foundation of this nation.  Vote fraud is not a new concept; likely it reaches back even to the time of the founders.  However, once vote fraud is discovered, it should be prosecuted aggressively like all flagrant violations of the law. Daily Kos' call, under the direction of Markos Moulitsas himself, for a conspiracy to commit massive vote fraud during the Michigan primaries may be one of those serious attempts to circumvent election law.

Let's look at that complaint:

I am writing to file an official complaint and a request for your office to investigate a case of conspiracy to commit voter fraud. On Jan 10, 2008 at 01:31:01 PM (PST), Marcos Moulitsas Zuniga... posted on his blog a request for Michigan Democrats to vote for Romney in order to help Democrats win in November. I allege that this violates 168.932a(c) of Michigan state law by "aiding or counseling a person who is not a qualified and registered elector to vote or offer to vote at the place where the vote is given during an election." Further, I allege that such voters who do participate in "crossing party lines" potentially violate 168.933 of Michigan state law. Lastly, I allege that using a high-profile blog with many editors and contributors, such an attempt also violates 750.157a of Michigan state law....

This attempt constitutes a conspiracy against the voters of Michigan in calling for and organizing a massive criminal conspiracy to commit vote fraud. The fact that it is being done so in a public and flagrant way demands a response to ensure the integrity of our election system or other attempts to engage in more far-reaching voter fraud may appear justified by lack of enforcement. I ask your office to investigate this matter and take the appropriate criminal action if the facts so warrant.

[links mine.]  If this blustering reminds you of Doug Neidermeyer's indictment of the "Roman Toga Party" in Animal House, you're not alone -- though in this case decorum requires me to review the relevant facts:

• Michigan has an open primary.  In other words, it is legal for voters to decide what party's ballot they want for the presidential primary.  Indeed, "An elector shall not be challenged at a presidential primary based upon the participating political party ballot selected by the elector."

  As long as you meet the age and residency requirements, you're qualified.  And when you register to vote in Michigan, there's no place on the form to even indicate party registration.

• Which leads Bambenek to argue "but open primaries are unconstitutional!"  Which is true, to a point: it is unconstitutional to force a political party to accept primary voters from outside the party.  It is completely constitutional for a party to choose an open primary, as the Supreme Court held in Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut (1986).  Michigan's Republican Party has done so here, as have the Democrats.

  Here's the thing: once you concede that there is an open primary, then there's nothing that Markos has done which can possibly be illegal.  Since it is legal for all registered Michigan voters to choose to vote in its GOP primary, it is legal to encourage them to do so.  Period.

Those with good memories may recall that this isn't Bambenek's first limp attack on this site; that one didn't end well for him, and his promised appeal never happened.  I am confident the Michigan Attorney General's office will feel similarly as to this lecture from an Illinois resident as to how to run their state's primaries.  Our friend Bob Bauer put it accurately last time:

There once was a complainant named Bambenek:
Setting sail against Kos, all (two) hands on deck:
Though his ship’s run aground,
He thinks his course is quite sound,
Seeing not that he’s stuck in the sand -- a wreck.

As of the latest poll, Mitt Romney now leads in the Michigan GOP Primary.  Or does he?