Since mock execution is not an accepted method of investigating election results in South Florida, confessed torturer and probable one-term congressman Allen West has turned to the next-best thing: a team of high-powered attorneys.
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Tuesday's results in West's contest with young Patrick Murphy for U.S. House District 18 left the borderline insane fiery ex-colonel trailing his opponent by a bit more than 2,000 votes, too much to trigger an automatic recount but close enough to cry foul.
To steal the election make sure of the result -- and purely out of his well-known concern for factual accuracy and fair play -- West has called in the legal firepower of Holtzman Vogel Josefiak, whose partners have made their bones by, among other things, masking right-wing propaganda mills, trampling on women, and... gaming previous elections. They've asked the courts to impound ballots and voting machines.
HVJ's founding partner, Jill Vogel, holds an undergrad degree in government and religion but appears not to know the difference: As a Virginia state senator, she sponsored a theologically derived bill early this year that forces women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, one of a number of medieval measures passed by that state's Taliban GOP-dominated legislature.
Graciously, the final version of Jill's law allows its victims to choose between transvaginal probe and abdominal ultrasound. A "both of the above" option was left off the measure.
Firm partner Alex Vogel, Jill's husband, previously served as general counsel to Dan Quayle, during the half-wit Hoosier's 2000 presidential run, then as gc to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the senator from Hospital Corporation of America Tennessee.
In addition to his lawyering, Alex puts his legislative experience to work at his other business, D.C. "bipartisan government relations firm" Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, where lobbyists from both sides of the aisle maul and/or massage our elected representatives on behalf of Corporate America.
Both Vogels are familiar with Florida from their time here in the 2000 presidential election recount, the great school of GOP ballot shenanigans, whose legalistic maneuvers resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court's notorious Bush v. Gore, the eight-year reign of Stupid Dubya, the War in Iraq, exploding deficits, and so on and so forth.
The firm's most recent high-profile legal corner-cutting was in California, where partner Jason Torchinsky worked to mask the big-money donors behind a GOP front group's efforts to (1) beat back funding for schools and (2) further defang working people (as if working people could be rendered any more powerless).
Cashiered Col. Crazy West certainly knew who to turn to in his time of electoral trouble. When the rabble get out of hand, the Vogels' firm is the one to call.
Fire Ant -- an invasive species, tinged bright red, with an annoying, sometimes fatal bite -- covers Palm Beach County. Got feedback or a tip? Contact [email protected].
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