"Personal responsibility"

I haven't really been writing about the Moore-Ahner race in the 3rd District. Moore will win with his largest margin ever, and Ahner is tragically underqualified to be in Congress. He seems to think a photograph of him shaking hands with Bob Dole and the fact his name sounds a little bit like a positive personal quality are enough to justify a run for Congress (which is why all his ads and campaign signs spell his name "aHner").

Given the way that Republicans have run up a massive national deficit, mired themselves in bribery scandals, underaged sex scandals, and have set the Congress on a course for teh same relevance the Roman Senate hand in Imperial Rome, one has to question whether the webpage of Ahner for Congress should brag that:

I am on a mission to restore a Republican voice to the United States House of Representatives from the Kansas Third District. One that is in tune with the principles of conservative fiscal policy, personal responsibility, and values important to our families

Of course, if he's going to brag about taking personal responsibility and fiscal accountability, he should have filed his FEC reports right. Several of the contributions he reported from political action committees, including five grand from Sam Brownback's Restore America PAC and another 5 Gs from Denny "pedophile protector" Hastert's Keep Our Majority PAC, wound up reported as coming from individuals, not from PACs. Plus, $1000 from Dan Dreier's American Success PAC and another $1000 from the Textron PAC wound up improperly reported as Other Receipts.

As it is, he reported only $5,000 from PACs, when he actually took $23,000 from PACs last quarter. He's like a poster-child for what's wrong with the Republican's that are already in Washington.

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First, I assume these numbers are available somewhere?

Second, how 'criminal' are these kinds of misreporting? Does declaring the incorrect contributions result in any penalty? (The obvious penalty of immediately being disqualifeid it can be shown that is was intentional, and not just a mistake being completely unheard of, seemingly...)

Third, who is responsible for investigating and possibly prosectuing these things? Let me guess, our attorney general?

Based on the rather well known shenanigans that went on with the school board financing and the PACs that were nothing more than a front (well documented at Redstaterabble), I'm guessing no one cares.

Cheers.

The data are available from the FEC website. Misfiling is a technical violation, and the FEC is responsible for enforcing this sort of thing. Chances are, they'd issue some sort of fine, but I expect that putting this on the wrong line is not too big a violation.