By Chris Bedford and John Daniel Davidson
Most Americans might not know the name Ozzie Myers, although a part of his tale was told in the hit 2013 movie “American Hustle” about the FBI sting that sent four congressmen to prison in the 1970s.
If you’re from Philadelphia, though, you know his name, and knew it well before 2013. He’s important to the country now because he’s currently under indictment for bribing a state elections judge to stuff ballots for Democratic candidates. Among the candidates he was paid to get elected are three as-yet-unnamed judges sitting on the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. That’s where President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has to go when local election officials refuse to let campaign monitors oversee ballot integrity, as has been the case these past few days throughout Pennsylvania.
In addition, Trump’s U.S. attorney, William McSwain, has hinted that in addition to the three unidentified judges, those Democrats tainted by election-fixing go all the way from local officials to the U.S. Congress.
Why should anyone care about that court? Because it’s playing a major role in the presidential election.
On Tuesday, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Stella Tsai ruled that the city’s Board of Elections was complying with state laws governing partisan election monitors, contradicting claims from the Trump campaign that GOP monitors were being kept too far away from absentee ballot-counters to observe whether ballots were being properly counted.
Then on Thursday, a state appellate court sided with the Trump campaign, ordering that election observers be allowed to stand within six feet of ballot-counters to ensure meaningful monitoring of the process. The City of Philadelphia immediately appealed the ruling to the state’s top court, which has yet to decide whether it will take up the matter.
Meanwhile, Republicans filed a lawsuit Tuesday in state court accusing Democratic election leaders of violating state code by authorizing local election officials to give information about rejected mail-in ballots to Democratic operatives so they could contact those voters and offer them a new ballot. Not only would such actions violate state law, they would defy a ruling from Pennsylvania’s state Supreme Court last month, which stated “mail-in or absentee voters are not provided any opportunity to cure perceived defects (to their ballot) in a timely manner.”
The back-and-forth in the courts, and the accusations of corruption at multiple levels of government, underscores the outsized role local Democratic officials are playing in the presidential election, with President Trump narrowly trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in a few key states, including Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia, those local officials are often connected to a Democratic Party machine with a long history of corruption, organized crime, and election fraud.
Myers, for example, is accused of bribing former Judge of Elections Domenick J. Demuro, who pleaded guilty in May to accepting bribes to stuff ballot boxes for certain candidates during the 2014, 2015, and 2016 primaries. According to a July report in Philly Voice, “At his polling station, Demuro admitted he would ‘ring up’ extras votes on machines, add them to the totals and later falsely certify that the results receipts from voting machines were accurate, prosecutors said.”
A Life In The Machine
Ozzie’s story is an illustrative one, and an example of how things work in Philadelphia politics—a “machine,” one insider told The Federalist, that has a lot more in common with “a living organism” that doesn’t need instructions “to know how to breathe.”
Michael “Ozzie” Myers was born in 1943 in Philadelphia. When he was 19, he was arrested for burglary but later acquitted (“a misunderstanding,” he’d say). When he was 27, his illegally owned handgun was used by his cousin to kill a non-union construction worker in what one newspaper characterized as “a union quarrel.” His cousin was fine, winning office as an election judge while still in prison, assuming his new office after release, and pleading the Fifth to stealing ballots shortly after taking the job.
Ozzie quickly made a name for himself. In 1975, by then 32 and a member of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, he sued to cut off federal funds to the local federal prosecutor. The next month, he was the lone vote against expelling a colleague on his way to prison. He was rewarded for being such a reliable guy, and the following year the 16 ward leaders of District One nominated him to replace the Democratic congressman who had died in office (with the mayor easing early concerns Myers wasn’t even Italian). “I’m not going to tell you what I’m going to do until I get there,” Ozzie told the Democrats voting to send him to Washington.
When he did get to Washington, he partied. In 1979, when a Northern Virginia motel security guard told them they had to quiet down, Ozzie replied, “I’m a congressman, we don’t have to be quiet,” before beating the man with his friends. When the 19-year-old girl who worked the register tried to help the guard, they attacked her as well. When the police arrived, one of Ozzie’s buddies was naked from the waist down, screaming “beat me!” The naked man was arrested, and a warrant issued for the congressman’s arrest. During their sentencing, the judge warned the two to “keep their records clean.”
Ozzie did not follow the judge’s advice, and the following year, 1980, he explained to undercover FBI agents delivering him a $50,000 bribe that “money talks in this business, and bullshit walks.” When video emerged he was expelled from Congress — the first congressman expelled since the Civil War—and went to prison. When Ozzie got out, he appears to have gone right back to work, and in July 2020 was charged with bribing a Philadelphia elections judge to stuff ballots for his candidates.
But there’s no reason to suspect fraud played a part in Trump’s massive lead disappearing.
The Federalist, much like Trump himself, is no more than a conspiracy and pseudoscience promoting arm of the Republican propaganda machine, churning out gaslighting lies with abandon.
Trump and his machine have been trying to convince us of voter fraud since he took office, all without evidence or merit. They’ve set the stage (again without merit or evidence but that’s just the con man’s style) to play the “rigged” card from the start.
It really gets down to this reality: the very people who have been trying to convince us to deny science are now trying to convince us to deny math.
It will be interesting to see how history will look back on the charlatan who infected, wrecked, and looted the country as well the boot licking fools who like blind obedient sheep, carried his water.
@Ronald J. Ward:
It was not us who claimed Russian interference and collusion, then spent 10s of millions to not prove it.
We are not the ones who claim there is such a thing as settled science on a dynamic system, then have to change the claims by rewording.
In July Fauchi said the test approved by the CDC (who admitted they do not have a sample of H1N2) Will produce false positives if run over 37 cycles, oh btw the recommendation for testing is 40 cycles or more.
Trump never looted that would be BLM and Antifa that the democrat party has never ever condemned.
Every post you prove how terribly ignorant and hateful you are, Trump will sue to insure only legal votes count. No ballot stuffing, no dead voting, no non citizens, only those living in the district they vote will count.
Laws put in place by state legislations up held as per the constitution.
We must play the game by the rules, and will make sure the democrats do too.
@kitt:
Your response is rather all over the place so it’s unclear precisely what your argument is other than Dems are mighty bad, Trump was victimized by a Russian hoax, saved the country from an infectious disease, never looted $1.5 trillion from the cares act or with his GOP ilk shifted another couple trillion to the rich with their tax scam, never sent his white supremist thugs in to assault peaceful protestors (even giving them a live demonstration with his bible photo op), and then got cheated out of reelection because around 7 million voters rejected him, or, or, or something. And I’m sure, I have no doubt in the world, that had Trump machine gunned a school bus load of kindergarteners for no apparent reason (which is pretty much akin to his other atrocious actions), you’d be here exonerating him while portraying him as a victim. We’ve been watching this movie for 4 years and there’s no indication the narrative will change.
As our newly soon to be President-elect would likely put it: “Here’s the deal”. There is no evidence of voter fraud. Trump has been building this fabricated case his entire term, obviously to use as a tool should he lose. The courts, the world, most of the populous, and even most of his own party are scoffing or eye rolling.
But here’s where it’s really a deal. When one’s a winner and in power, many around him will bow to his whims (I’m thinking Graham Lindsay, Ted Cruz, and many others). Fox News will likely soon drop him like a used condom. Even you and the bulk of on FA who denounced him in 2015 and then went full blown Trump ass wipers once he was elected will eventually claim you never supported the imposter of a President. That’s what happens when false idols go from hero to zero. Scales will fall from the eyes of the fools and they will be able to actually see the numbers of the BLS and deduce that Trump never built any kind of economy at all, miles and miles of a useless wall was never built and Mexico was never going to pay for it, COVID is real and the economy is crashed. His foreign policies were an abject failure and he was the most lying president in history.
Trump is obviously losing and his fraudulent argument of voter fraud is coming up short. It ain’t gonna work and people around him and those in power who enabled him know it. He was a useful tool for them but now he’s useless. They’ll likely be looking at the sky or pretending to not notice while the Secret Service drag his kicking and screaming ass out of the WH on 1-21-2021.
And on 1-22-2021, I suspect the Mueller report and many other lumps under the rug will take on an entirely new meaning with dire consequences.
@Ronald J. Ward: There are more than a few who disagree with you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R9-Az2uXoE
@Ronald J. Ward: So, “can’t find any cries to prosecute” will suddenly become, “We have the power to settle accounts and become the totalitarian police state Fraudocrats have been dying to become!”?
@kitt:
There are more than a few who disagree with me that the world is round so I’m unsure of your point.
This nonsense of voter fraud to protect a losing candidate won’t fly because in doesn’t exist.
I know CNN’s John King would be soundly rejected by the rabid Trump indoctrinated but he is a man of math. His presentations, reporting results, and rare predictions are based on math. He does his homework and knows how every county of every states vote, their history of voting, their reasoning of voting, their make up of minorities and wealth class of people. I watched his election results on Roy Moore and Doug Jones. It was a roller coaster of votes coming in and he would tell there’s no reason for Dems or Rs to feel excited because returns from other red or blue districts were still uncounted.
This is precisely how this election has played out. Trump took a big lead in the beginning as expected. It was also expected that more Ds would vote by mail. There’s your roller coaster-as expected. Key blue areas in both AZ and GA were yet to be counted and there are no surprises.
Also, these states have both Ds and Rs counting under camera. There have been no reports of any errors of any merit.
CNN by the way, just called the election for Biden.
The Rs now have no need for their loser. He’s a has been. People will indeed turn from this nightmare of evil they’ve allowed themselves to blindly follow.
May the disgusting evil son of a bitch rot in a jail cell and then in hell.
As far as my neighbors with their Trump signs in their yards, hopefully the rest of us and God can forgive them.
@Ronald J. Ward: #ALLGLITCHESMATTER
Do you spout off to them like you do here or are you a coward?
@Ronald J. Ward: If King wasn’t a liar, he wouldn’t be on CNN.
@Deplorable Me: Can Ward provide chapter and verse in the Bible where having a different political leaning is a sin? I really dont care if Ward forgives anyone. But I’ll bet he isnt out calling his neighbor names for having a Trump sign.
@kitt: Nah, not the kind to meet someone face to face. Good thing is, we will only be required to give Biden the same consideration they gave Trump, which is zero.
@Deplorable Me: We dont have to worry much, nothing is official not one state, like talking heads that wouldnt call PA when Trump was up by 600 thousand votes on election night now Saturday Biden up by a couple of thousand get to call the race pffft.
No surrender.
No one should be trusted who would lead a nation into a war against itself.
@Greg:
Blame those that started the war, not those who stood up against it.
@kitt:https://bigleaguepolitics.com/project-veritas-pennsylvania-usps-official-willing-to-testify-under-oath-on-the-backdating-of-mail-in-ballots/
@Greg:
The courts will never reverse the outcome of an election when the electoral college vote is 290 to 214, there’s been a corresponding popular vote win by the largest margin in the history of the nation, and the arguments against it boil down to rumors and conspiracy theory.
It’s not as if only one state’s count made the difference. Multiple states did. Biden won the popular vote with a margin of 4.3 million votes. The electoral college count would normally be expected to reflect that sort of difference. It would be extraordinarily odd if it didn’t.
There’s a point where the details of a conspiracy theory can become too complex to be plausible. If you carefully consider all the details that would be required to falsify over 4 million votes and orchestrate that over multiple polling places, post offices, and vote counting centers in multiple states, that’s the level of complexity that would have to be assumed. This simply didn’t happen.
Biden in the White House can restore a capacity that’s utterly essential to a functional government—the ability for opposing forces to reach and act on compromises. Nobody is going to be in a position to unilaterally impose their will or always get their way. With the serious problems facing us all, that would be a good thing.
@Greg: Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania are all being contested. Democrats have raised enough suspicion in all of these for investigation.
So go ahead and beat your heads against a fence post, for all the good it will do.
This is the sort of thing that perceptive voters have always disliked about Donald Trump. He’d tear the country in two to get his way, because it’s all about Donald Trump. But he’s not going to get his way this time. The Constitution and the institutions that protect it are stronger than Trump and his lawyers. Ultimately, truth is stronger than bullshit.
@Deplorable Me: The spoiled cry babies have refused to call Alaska that hasnt voted blue since the early 60s. This propaganda push by the media of a Creepy Joe win by calling states under dispute ,recounts and Supreme court orders is getting comical.
Joe is way ahead in electoral votes in China and has taken Epstiens island.
@kitt, #19:
Alaska hasn’t been called because only 50 percent of the vote is in.
Georgia and Wisconsin will have recounts. Michigan legislators have issued subpoenas to Wisconsin election officials. Maricopa County, Arizona election offical affirms sharpies can affect the counting of a ballot. And the list goes on.
Hillary claimed the election was stolen from her and demanded recounts in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. When the recounts did not come out in her favor, the lie that Trump cheated to win was continued by the Democrats who called Trump an “illegitimate” President will Hillary still claiming she was cheated and really won. Comrade Greggie was solidly on that team. Now he says “Nothing to see here. Move on” when there has clearly been corruption in our election systems.
You see, for over four years those like Comrade Greggie has railed on President Trump. Now they want everyone to just relax, suck it up and sing Kumbaya.
Biden may win but there will always be a shadow over him and his presidency. He will never gain the respect from the entire nation that he claims he wants and personally, I hope every Republican treats him with the disrespect he has won.
What I heard them affirm was that Sharpie ink dries so quickly that it doesn’t foul the lenses of the ballot counting machines resulting in malfunctions, and that the ballots were designed so any bleed-through to the other side can’t be misread as a vote, because the registration spots are offset from one side to the other.
The bogus Sharpie story is pretty much typical of the b.s being floated in an effort to sow distrust and uncertainly. It’s like the bogus security camera video of counters openly marking unmarked ballots while the police, who “are in on it”, watch on. They’re not even allowed to have pens or pencils at the counting stations.
@Greg: How much of the vote was in when they called Nevada? and California and Washington?
You need to really begin to think outside of your idiot box.
@Greg: How much of the vote was in when they called Nevada? and California and Washington?
You need to really begin to think outside of your idiot box.
Alaska has been reliably red since the early 60s it is an oil state. Sep 27, 2019 — Nearly every Alaskan will get $1,606 oil check .
@Greg:
As with other corruption that gets exposed, when your side is the guilty party, you simply don’t care about it. However, institutionalized voter fraud is important to find and punish because, like Obama’s DOJ abuses and weaponizing the FBI and IC, unpunished these attacks on our liberties have a tendency to become habit-forming. THAT’S why it’s important.
If we are not going to be critical of fraud and election corruption, why have elections at all? Of course, if they killed the filibuster, packed the Supreme Court with obedient radical liberals and added 4 more Democrat Senators by giving Puerto Rico and DC statehood, no more elections would suit Fraudocrats just fine.
Why do Democrats rely so heavily on fraud and corruption?
Rudy is hilarious. He set up his Saturday press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, PA instead of the Philly Four Seasons Hotel, if anyone was wondering about the bizarre setting with the NFPA chemical hazards sign in the background. Maybe they’ve cut his budget. Or maybe he felt it would be a good idea to have a very large supply of manure nearby. Either way, there could be more good material here for inclusion in the next Borat movie.
Trump may be right to be questioning the competence of his lawyers.
@Greg: I dont think that Trump minds his people rubbing elbows with real people that have small businesses.
Look at you, that aint swanky enough well la de da you must get the wording for the pic from the snobs at propaganda central. Bizarre, real workers have to deal with hazardous chemicals all the time.
@Greg: I’ll remind you that, without ONE shred of any viable evidence, you have believed Trump to be a Russian asset working in the White House to… do “something”. Apparently the Russians groomed him to make the US energy independent, threaten their primary source of income, strengthen NATO’s strength and resolve, create a Muslim firewall to oppose Iran and make the US once again the most powerful economic power on the planet. You are always more than ready and willing to believe, as a matter of total faith, that Trump NEVER has any motive but an evil motive for anything and everything he does.
So, do this: take a step back, try to objectively look at the hundreds of glaring examples of what legitimately looks like election irregularities, incompetence and outright fraud and TRY to draw a reasonable conclusion of what YOU would be doing were this shoe on the other foot.
@Deplorable Me, #28:
Have you forgotten about all the secret meetings between top Trump campaign organization figures and known Putin operatives, and the related testimony and evidence that still remains classified?
I assume all “evidence” of election irregularities will soon be made public, since the Trump administration remains in power until January and has every reason to reveal it. I’ll certainly look at it when they show it.
Not to forget…..Al Gore was declared President elect for 37 days. We know how that turned out. Our media doesn’t get to anoint a leader.
Fox news also projected ratings to be same as CNN.
Michelle Obama: Democrats Must Reach Out to Trump Supporters Who Endorsed ‘Lies, Hate, Chaos and Division’
Hey big lying Mike ,reach out to me you draw back a nub.
@Greg:
Such as? If there were any, they HAVE been made public. Who HAS this alleged testimony and evidence? Have you forgotten about how Schiff said he HAD evidence, which all vanished as soon as the Mueller report showed him, you and every other liberal that believed that crap was full of shit? How about Brennan’s, Clapper’s, Rice’s and Lynch’s testimony that they never had ANY evidence Trump colluded with Russians on anything?
@Deplorable Me: The same ones that when not under the threat of perjury told a different story on the boob tube.
We expected a last ditch effort to stop the investigations into the origins of the Russian hoax Tuesday night they pulled that trigger.