Behind Orly Taitz, Gary Kreep is probably the most relentless and prominent of the birther attorneys — and he is on the verge of getting on the bench in California as a superior court judge. He got 50.1% of the votes in his district, finishing with 56 more votes than opponent Garland Peed. But since it’s so close, I would be surprised if there isn’t a challenge brought to the tally and a recount demanded.
Jun 08 2012
Birther Wins Judgeship in California
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daved
June 8, 2012 at 11:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m almost afraid to ask about his campaign slogan, if any. “Put another Kreep in office?”
d cwilson
June 8, 2012 at 11:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Rachel Maddow played excerpts from the birther video he was peddling back in 2009. All I have to say is, wow, someone that crazy shouldn’t be allowed to practice law, much less serve on the bench.
Tualha
June 8, 2012 at 11:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Says a lot about the electorate in that district. All bad.
Assuming he survives the recount, I anticipate another Roy Moore moment coming up. In California, of all places.
slc1
June 8, 2012 at 11:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yet another reason why electing judges is a thoroughly bad idea.
frog
June 8, 2012 at 11:50 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m sorry, but my inner 12-year-old boy can’t stop laughing at both candidates’ names long enough to let my adult brain say anything sensible.
Eskeptrical Engineer
June 8, 2012 at 11:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It looks like the absentee ballots haven’t all been counted yet, so it’s possible Peed could still win.
http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/voters/results/transform.htm?paramVal1=superior_court.xsl
Eskeptrical Engineer
June 8, 2012 at 11:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And since that link will get updated, at the time I’m posting, 108,000 absentee/provisional ballots need to be counted. Kreep is leading Peed 50.02% to 49.98%.
So yes, your individual vote is important! A spread of less than a tenth of a percent will probably decide this.
Eskeptrical Engineer
June 8, 2012 at 12:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh wait, it’s actually Peed leading Kreep 50.02% to 49.98%. Still too close to tell.
Modusoperandi
June 8, 2012 at 12:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Kreep & Peed sounds like a folk band. Add a “The” in front of it and it’s a pub.
Rip Steakface
June 8, 2012 at 1:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Replace that “The” with an “A” and it sounds like a drink.
Skip White
June 8, 2012 at 2:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The name “Gary Kreep” sounds like some D-list Batman villain from the 60′s. No comment on the other guy.
Nentuaby
June 8, 2012 at 3:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hmm. The link you posted says Peed won. Last minute reprieve by the absentee ballots, I guess?
Shawn Smith
June 8, 2012 at 3:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
d cwilson said,
And she could barely get through the segment without turning into a nine-year-old boy herself. And that was a few months after the on-air dressing down she gave her staff when they were cracking up like Beevis and Butthead when Chuck Todd was describing the FL primary and drew an oval around the northern part of the state.
Chris from Europe
June 8, 2012 at 3:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It doesn’t matter what the outcome is, electing judges remains wrong and in my view violates the guarantee of a republican form of government.
Ichthyic
June 8, 2012 at 8:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I gotta side with Chris on this one.
nominating judges by people who aren’t judges is bad enough.
electing judges by the general populace?
seems a bad idea on the face of it.
What if we had the general populace voting on whether a grad student should get a PhD or not?
would that make any sense?
StevoR
June 9, 2012 at 5:04 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So would people in California like a Kreep for a judge or would they prefer to be Peed upon by their Justice in cheif?
Yep, both very silly names!
Then again, KREEP is found all over the moon as a major lunar rock type.
As for electing Judges is electing the politicians that make the laws any sillier or smarter than electing thos ewho help enforce them? It gives people their democratic say and input.
StevoR
June 9, 2012 at 5:23 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
PS. ^ That’s about consistency and democracy and relies on having a well-informed public making intelligent choices. In prinicple I’ve nothing agianst the idea of elcting Judges. Or congresscritters and POTUSes and Aussie Prime Ministers.
In practice, it seems you’re ending up with some very dodgy drongoes in positions that have all too much power. This birther clowns being exhibit A.
Perhaps we need to have a caveat of soemkind that only some peopel get tovote having passed some tests of ability to think rationally before people are allowed to vote or be ruled by an Asimov style Council of Science a la the Lucky Starr novels but that’s heading towards dangerously totalitarian territory isn’t it?
Chris from Europe
June 9, 2012 at 5:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@StevoR
I think the evidence is pretty clear, both within the United States and in comparison with other countries, that electing judges is the worse system.
The criteria for judges should be solely their professional qualification. They shouldn’t be forced to adapt their decisions so they increase the likelihood of reelection.
Yes/No elections putting judges into office are thus the least worst, but all others, all types of reelection (including retention) are unacceptable.
I think nothing leads to clearer examples of mob rule as electing judges (see California).
No, a republican democracy with a strong, hard-to-change constitution with good procedures protecting basic rights and proportional voting should be entirely sufficient.
And why oligarchy and/or aristocracy (in literal meaning) are not a good idea has been elucidated over two millenia ago.
We need better education, including civics and similar supposedly not business-relevant subjects, and regulation against media concentration. And as we’ve seen in the last week, we need to enable people without much money to have fair access to election ads, both through strong public financing and discounted access to advertising in broadcasting.
Ichthyic
June 9, 2012 at 7:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
We need better education, including civics and similar supposedly not business-relevant subjects, and regulation against media concentration.
+1
Western society has failed to participate in democracy; I blame our own educational systems for failing to get across just how important it is.
…and I of course DON’T mean just “voting”.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
June 13, 2012 at 4:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Peed and Kreep are even funnier than Semon as names in politics.
I kind of hope Jeff Semon, who seems to be another right-wing Catholic, gets some national attention. Dan Savage wouldn’t have to do anything with his name except point and laugh.