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It's Up to You, New York: 'BradCast' 3/21/24
Trump staring down barrel of both civil and criminal accountability in NY; Also: Biden forgives another $6B in student loans; U.S. seeks 'sustained ceasefire' in Gaza; Scientists baffled by spike in record global heat...
'Green News Report' 3/21/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
Biden EPA issues biggest climate regulation in U.S. history; Rio hits 144°F heat index!; Exxon CEO blames YOU for climate change; PLUS: U.N. issues climate change 'red alert'!...
Previous GNRs: 3/19/24 - 3/14/24 - Archives...
'It All Comes Down to Brett and Amy': 'BradCast' 3/20/24
Guest: Slate's Mark Joseph Stern on another stunning week of federal judiciary debacles; Also: Primary results from AZ, FL, IL, KS, OH, CA; Biden EPA's 'biggest climate move yet'...
American 'Bloodbath':
'BradCast' 3/19/24
Trump is promising political violence whether he wins or loses; Also: Navarro goes to prison; Scofflaw MI MAGA attorney arrested; SCOTUS allows TX to override federal law, Constitution; Biden's SOTU success...
'Green News Report' 3/19/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
EPA finally bans all uses of asbestos; Biden unveils billions for rebuilding communities broken by highway construction; Extreme heat in Africa; PLUS: MA coastal town follies...
Previous GNRs: 3/14/24 - 3/12/24 - Archives...
Corporations 'Taking a Bazooka' to NLRB, Hoping to Declare it 'Unconstitutional': 'BradCast' 3/18/24
Guest: Labor journo Steven Greenhouse; Also: Putin's 'election'; Trump can't find $450M...
Sunday 'Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya' Toons
FEATURING: Moses Mike...Trump II Terror...TikTok Truth...and more in our latest collection of the week's most secular toons!...
Schumer Steps Up; Trump Associates Paid Biden 'Bribe' Liar $600k: 'BradCast' 3/14/24
Also: TikTok foolishness; NY hush-money trial delay?; Navarro must go to jail; Trump owes $400k for failed 'Steele Dossier' suit in UK...
'Green News Report' 3/14/24
FL bans heat protections for workers; Methane leaks continue; GOP Project 2025 would ban Paris Agreement; PLUS: CA snowpack is back, but too late for salmon...
After Accountability for Fraud, What's Next for the Corrupt NRA and Gun Safety Reforms?: 'BradCast' 3/13/24
Guest: Brady Center's Kelly Sampson; Also: Biden, Trump clinch; GA judge nixes 6 counts...
How to Media Better and Other Smart Ideas:
'BradCast' 3/12/24
Press quietly resets weeks of misreporting on Biden; Suggestions for NYT; Stephanopoulos v. Mace; Also: Buck quits; RNC 'bloodbath'; WI's MAGA Speaker Recall...
'Green News Report' 3/12/24
Biden touts climate jobs boom at SOTU; Feb. obliterated global temp and ocean heat records; PLUS: Great Barrier Reef hit with yet another 'mass bleaching event'...
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GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...

Criminal GOP Voter Registration Fraud Probe Expanding in VA
State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...

DOJ PROBE SOUGHT AFTER VA ARREST
Arrest of RNC/Sproul man caught destroying registration forms brings official calls for wider criminal probe from compromised VA AG Cuccinelli and U.S. AG Holder...

Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...

ALL TOGETHER: ROVE, SPROUL, KOCHS, RNC
His Super-PAC, his voter registration (fraud) firm & their 'Americans for Prosperity' are all based out of same top RNC legal office in Virginia...

LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
So much for the RNC's 'zero tolerance' policy, as discredited Republican registration fraud operative still hiring for dozens of GOP 'Get Out The Vote' campaigns...

'Fired' Sproul Group 'Cloned', Still Working for Republicans in At Least 10 States
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...

FINALLY: FOX ON GOP REG FRAUD SCANDAL
The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...

COLORADO FOLLOWS FLORIDA WITH GOP CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
Repub Sec. of State Gessler ignores expanding GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, rants about evidence-free 'Dem Voter Fraud' at Tea Party event...

CRIMINAL PROBE LAUNCHED INTO GOP VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL IN FL
FL Dept. of Law Enforcement confirms 'enough evidence to warrant full-blown investigation'; Election officials told fraudulent forms 'may become evidence in court'...

Brad Breaks PA Photo ID & GOP Registration Fraud Scandal News on Hartmann TV
Another visit on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture with new news on several developing Election Integrity stories...

CAUGHT ON TAPE: COORDINATED NATIONWIDE GOP VOTER REG SCAM
The GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal reveals insidious nationwide registration scheme to keep Obama supporters from even registering to vote...

CRIMINAL ELECTION FRAUD COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST GOP 'FRAUD' FIRM
Scandal spreads to 11 FL counties, other states; RNC, Romney try to contain damage, split from GOP operative...

RICK SCOTT GETS ROLLED IN GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) sends blistering letter to Gov. Rick Scott (R) demanding bi-partisan reg fraud probe in FL; Slams 'shocking and hypocritical' silence, lack of action...

VIDEO: Brad Breaks GOP Reg Fraud Scandal on Hartmann TV
Breaking coverage as the RNC fires their Romney-tied voter registration firm, Strategic Allied Consulting...

RNC FIRES NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION FIRM FOR FRAUD
After FL & NC GOP fire Romney-tied group, RNC does same; Dead people found reg'd as new voters; RNC paid firm over $3m over 2 months in 5 battleground states...

EXCLUSIVE: Intvw w/ FL Official Who First Discovered GOP Reg Fraud
After fraudulent registration forms from Romney-tied GOP firm found in Palm Beach, Election Supe says state's 'fraud'-obsessed top election official failed to return call...

GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD FOUND IN FL
State GOP fires Romney-tied registration firm after fraudulent forms found in Palm Beach; Firm hired 'at request of RNC' in FL, NC, VA, NV & CO...
The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...

Scientific Report Finds 'Serious Security Vulnerability' Similar to 'Princeton Diebold Virus Hack' in Widely Used iVotronic System, Allowing a Single Person to Change Election Results Across Entire County Without Detection
Despite GAO Confirmed Mandate to Serve as Info 'Clearinghouse,' Embattled EAC Says They Will Take No Action to Alert Elections Officials, Public
By Michael Richardson on 4/16/2007 9:05am PT  

By Michael Richardson and Brad Friedman

While revelations surrounding the mysterious 18,000 "undervotes" in the November 2006 U.S. House election between Christine Jennings and Vern Buchanan in Florida's 13th Congressional district continue to inform the nation about the dangers of electronic voting machines, new information has recently come to light exposing a shocking lack of responsible oversight by those entrusted with overseeing the certification of electronic voting systems at the federal level.

An investigation into what may have gone wrong in that election has revealed a serious security vulnerability on some, and possibly all, versions of the iVotronic touch-screen voting system widely used across the country. The iVotronic is a Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen voting machine manufactured by Elections Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S), the nation's largest distributor of such systems.

The vulnerability is said to allow for a single malicious user to introduce a virus into the system which "could potentially steal all the votes in that county, without being detected," according to a noted computer scientist and voting system expert who has reviewed the findings.

And yet, despite their federal mandate to serve as a "clearinghouse" to the nation for such information, a series of email exchanges between an Election Integrity advocate and officials at the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) has revealed that the federal oversight body is refusing to notify states of the alarming security issue.

The recent email conversation shows that even in light of the EAC's review of the warning from the computer scientist who characterized the "security hole" as severe, needing to be "taken very seriously," and among the most serious ever discovered in a voting system, the EAC is unwilling to take action.

Recent reports by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) have taken the EAC to task for a failure to meet their legislated mandate for informing the public and elections officials about such matters. However, a review of the email communications to and from the EAC's Jeannie Layson shows that the federal body is steadfast in their refusal to take action to alert either elections officials or the public about the security risk recently discovered by a team of eight noted computer scientists.

The EAC's current Chairwoman, Executive Director, Director of Voting System Certification, and other top officials at both the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), and even the GAO, were included in the series of email communications, The BRAD BLOG has learned.

The vulnerability was initially discovered by a panel of scientists convened by the State of Florida to study the possible causes for the FL-13 election debacle. The team's discovery revealed that a design issue in the widely used iVotronic system could allow for a viral attack, by a single individual, which could then spread unnoticed throughout the electronic election infrastructure of an entire county.

A similar vulnerability was found in DRE touch-screen system made by Diebold last Summer by a team of computer scientists at Princeton University.

Attempts to seek information about EAC plans to notify other states and local jurisdictions that use the same vulnerable voting systems as the ones in FL-13 have been met with an astounding refusal, troubling denial, buck-passing, and a lack of accountability by the federal commission of Presidential-appointees. The agency has also come under fire in recent weeks for a number of questionably partisan decisions and other failures to perform as mandated by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002.

Of late, the EAC has been forced to respond to a great deal of controversy, on a number of different operational matters and policies, as revealed by a series of articles on this site and in mainstream outlets such as the New York Times and USA Today. Several of those matters have drawn Congressional notice, questioning of EAC officials, and letters of inquiry. Thus, this latest revelation is likely to add to the rising concern of Congress members as new federal legislation introduced by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), currently facing mark-up by a Congressional committee, would permanently fund the now-embattled EAC. Funding for the agency was originally mandated by HAVA only through 2005.

The new ES&S iVotronic vulnerability first emerged on February 23, 2007, when the Florida Dept. of State released a report detailing their findings from the investigation into what happened in Sarasota's still-contested Jennings/Buchanan race. That election was ultimately decided by just 369 votes. The state's official findings included a report [PDF] conducted by an eight-member computer science and technology team under the auspices of Florida State University (FSU). The report sought, unsuccessfully, to determine the cause of the unexplained "undervotes" reported by the iVotronic touch-screen voting systems used in Sarasota's portion of the FL-13 race on Election Day and in early voting.

Although the reason thousands of votes turned up missing from those systems remained unknown, the study team did discover a serious security flaw in the iVotronic system that is used in Sarasota and many other jurisdictions across the country (and even the world, as France is set to use the same systems in their upcoming Presidential Election.)

Election integrity watchdog John Gideon, a frequent BRAD BLOG contributer and the Co-Director and Information Manager for VotersUnite.org, says that the security flaw may pertain to "every ES&S iVotronic voting machine used in the US and overseas." A total of eight separate versions of the system --- without and without so-called "voter verified paper audit trail" (VVPAT)" printers --- are currently approved as qualified at the federal level, he explained. Three of those are definitely affected and it is likely that the others are as well.

The details, the dangers, and the denials are all described below...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Alan Breslauer on 4/16/2007 1:46am PT  

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

The Reno 911 Sheriff's Department tackles many important election issues including poorly written ballot initiatives, race, custody, legality of peeking inside the ballot box and actual election fraud. At a minimum, the ease with which a two person conspiracy can circumvent the will of the Reno voters is extremely disheartening. The video runs 6:46.

Thought from Brad: Not to be a stickler, but Reno doesn't use paper ballots (they use Sequoia EDGE II DRE's with the VeriVote "Paper Trail" printer), but point taken nonetheless. :-)




By Brad Friedman on 4/15/2007 10:13pm PT  

Robert Reich on today's This Week:

I think the question here is that once you start asking, 'Should the emails have been disclosed?' --- 'Which emails to disclose?' --- is that the public loses sight of what the big issue is in the background.
...
The issue at stake here has to do with what the White House was trying to do with the US attorneys. What the White House was trying to do in terms of, perhaps, creating a public image of voter fraud across this country that would entitle the White House to make it more difficult for people to vote. That seems to be to be a very large issue that needs to be discussed.

Thank you, Mr. Reich. Consider it done. (For the last three years and counting.)

RAW STORY has the video and transcript...




Democratic Secretary of State Acted Properly, Voter Registration Database Meets Federal Standards, No 'Voter Fraud' Found...
By Brad Friedman on 4/15/2007 10:05pm PT  

Whaddaya know? A federal judge has found no "voter fraud" in Missouri, finding in favor of the Secretary of State, and against the Department of Justice in their continuing attempt to game the election system and keep voters from voting via bogus claims of "voter fraud".

Missouri’s chief election officer has fulfilled her legal obligations toward keeping local election authorities’ voter registration rolls up to date, a federal judge ruled yesterday in a defeat for the U.S. Department of Justice
...
"It is also telling that the United States has not shown that any Missouri resident was denied his or her right to vote as a result of deficiencies alleged by the United States," [U.S. District Judge Nanette] Laughrey wrote [in her ruling]. "Nor has the United States shown that any voter fraud has occurred."

Yesterday in a statement, Carnahan said the ruling "concluded that my office not only complied with federal law but also went beyond its requirements through our many efforts to assist the county clerks and election boards with their responsibilities. The ruling also confirmed that there is no evidence of voter fraud in Missouri.

"This is the culmination of 18 months of an unnecessary, unwise and costly lawsuit by the Department of Justice," Carnahan added, "and I am glad my office can now direct all of its attention on continuing to ensure fair and accurate elections in Missouri."

This is what your Dept. of Justice has been wasting their time on, at the behest of the most criminally politicized bunch who has ever occupied the White House.

As BRAD BLOG readers likely know, Missouri is "Thor" Hearne country. The St. Louisan Hearne was the national general counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. and the cofounder of the currently-defunct "non-partisan" "American Center for Voting Rights" (ACVR). The ACVR was ground zero for entire GOP "voter fraud" scam and Hearne cut his teeth disenfranchising Missouri voters on behalf of Gov. Matt Blunt (and his father Roy, who once served as MO Sec. of State, and now serves as Minority Whip in the U.S. House).

See this page for more on the snakeoil salesemen of the ACVR --- who have, since the U.S. Attorney Purge scandal broke, slithered back underground. For now anyway...

The judge's full ruling in the trumped up MO "Voter Fraud" case is here [PDF].

(Hat-tip Victoria Parks!)




David Iglesias Removed Shortly After Phonecall Between Sen. Domenici and 'President'...
By Brad Friedman on 4/15/2007 7:18pm PT  

Just back in town, and catching up with much that we've been unable to keep up with. That process will likely continue for several days, even as we've got a "biggie" coming tomorrow.

In the meantime, today's "biggie" news comes out of The Albuquerque Journal indicating that the order to fire New Mexico's U.S. Attorney David Iglesias seems to have come directly from George W. Bush after Sen. Pete Domenici's (R-NM) attempts to get the prosecutor to either bring "voter fraud" cases or be removed had otherwise failed.

Domenici's attempts preceded the Nov. 2006 election between Rep. Heather Wilson (R) and NM's former Democratic Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who ended up being reported as the loser by fewer than 900 votes.

Talking Points Memo distills the Journal piece, we distill TPM's distillation...

[H]ere's what it amounts to.

It was Sen. Domenici's (R-NM) call to David Iglesias to get him to game the November election with an election-timed indictment that got this scandal really rolling. And it's always been the key question just how and whether Domenici's failed play to get Iglesias to tamper with the November election led to his firing on December 7th.
...
No one disputes that Domenici's call to Iglesias was at best inappropriate. But there's been a lack of direct evidence that Iglesias's refusal to bow to political pressure led directly to his firing. Now we have that evidence. And it's not Kyle Sampson or even Alberto Gonzales whom Domenici went to to get sign off for Iglesias's ouster. It was right to the president. And the available evidence now points strongly to the conclusion that the final decision to fire David Iglesias came from the President of the United States.

A TPM followup to the piece notes that it's "curious" the White House has yet to comment --- at all --- on the report...




A Whistleblower on Why Whistleblowing Matters, and Why You Should Be One...No Matter the Price...
By Steve Heller on 4/15/2007 5:22pm PT  

Guest Blogged by Stephen Heller

The truest act of patriotism is to protect the public from a corrupt and wasteful government.
--
TheFirstWhistleblower.org

The United States government and American corporations are counting on you to keep your mouth shut.

According to Transparency International's Peter Eigen, the World Bank estimates that every year corruption costs one trillion dollars. Here in the United States, billions of our tax dollars are stolen every year due to corruption, bribery, fraud, willful malfeasance and misfeasance, and plain old greed. And if you come across evidence of this fraud and corruption, you are expected to keep quiet about it.

The government and the corporations want you to shut up. Stay asleep, people. Nothing to see here, just move along. Go to work, earn your pay, watch TV so you'll know what products you should be buying, then go to the mall and buy them. Don't worry about what your government is doing, don't think about what the corporations are doing, just trust us and be good little "sheeple." Just. Shut. Up.

To hell with 'em.

Don't shut up. Don't let the bastards win. When you see something, say something. Take a deep breath, and blow that whistle HARD!

You should know that you'll probably get hammered for it. You'll likely lose your job, get harassed and threatened, you might even be charged with a crime.

I know whereof I speak...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




In Case You Missed 'Em.... Important Developments and Other Neat Stuff From the Past Seven Days
By Desi Doyen on 4/14/2007 4:19pm PT  

Guest Blogged by DES...

The Progressive blogosphere has a long-running joke "theory" regarding a holy grail of sorts - the one story or the one piece of evidence that would tie together all the scandals rolling out of the Bush Administration on a near-hourly basis. A sort of Unified Field Theory, only of corruption, political style.

This week, the U.S. Attorney Purge Scandal has mushroomed like a toxic Turdblossom cloud over the Executive Branch, tying together the electoral and campaign machinations of the Bush White House with the increasingly obvious, and now documented, politicization of the Department of Justice. Not only were U.S. Attorneys fired for not pursuing bogus "voter fraud" cases while other U.S. Attorneys retained for misusing their substantial power in politically motivated prosecutions, but considerable taxpayer resources have been devoted (and misused) towards trumping up claims of "epidemic" voter fraud where none exists: even the supposedly non-partisan U.S. Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) is in on it, covering up their own reports whenever the results don't jibe with the Bush Admin Master Plan.

Democratic advocacy organization People For The American Way (PFAW) is still inexplicably mis-stating (or purposely obfuscating) the true nature of the difference between paper trails vs. paper ballots in the Holt bill, HR 811 and has now been found to be deceptively using Brad's name, and that of The BRAD BLOG to do it. We will, of course, remain vigilant in keeping the pressure on PFAW and their friends to do the right thing, and several articles this week call on you to write pfaw@pfaw.org to demand exactly that.

The unsinkable Secretary of State for California, Debra Bowen, presented a knock-out editorial last week spelling out the steps ahead for truly verifiable elections. And sitting right next to the Secretary of State's op/ed was BRAD BLOG's own guest blogger Emily Levy's op/ed, literally and figuratively on the same page!

As Arlen Parsa exposed last week, the Iraq surge is (unsurprisingly) unraveling like the U.S. Attorney Purge cover-up, and the next few weeks of House Oversight and Reform Committee hearings (will Condi Rice show? will Gonzales?) should be nothing if not, er, interesting.

And as Michael Richardson detailed, voter registration issues in Florida are once again drawing questions, even as AP reported thousands of destroyed voter registration forms found in Atlanta.

Catch up on the key headlines you may have missed last week at The BRAD BLOG, so you'll be upped for this coming week's istallment of Incompetence and Corruption on Parade. If lastweek's developments were any indication, hold onto your hats, folks, it's becoming an increasingly bumpier and bumpier ride...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Maher Takes Issue With Monica Goodling, Pat Robertson's Regent University and the Bush Hayseeds
Says More Than 150 DoJ Appointees are Graduates of Religous Fundamentalists' Law School...
By Alan Breslauer on 4/13/2007 11:14pm PT  

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Tonight on HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher smacks down the Bush administration for the hiring and promotion of unqualified personnel including #3 Justice Department official Monica Goodling and the other 150 graduates from Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School that work for the administration. For more on Regent's Law School be sure to check out my post, "When Jesus Calls" (at HotPotatoMash), from earlier in the week.




UPDATE: Feinstein Sends Letter of Inquiry on both Matters to the EAC...
By John Gideon on 4/13/2007 11:55am PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

As previously reported by The BRAD BLOG (here and here) the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is being accused of altering a report that they commissioned and that did not meet their expectations.

In this case the EAC was apparently hoping to show widespread voter fraud had taken place in recent elections but the report that they commissioned revealed just the opposite. The EAC buried the report and issued one of their own that came to no conclusion at all.

Today Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) sent a letter to Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Chairwoman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which has oversight over the EAC, "expressing his concern over the revelations and asking her to examine the process by which the EAC report was produced. Menendez maintains that the use of the EAC to advance a political agenda is a blow to the integrity of the electoral system and that an investigation into the motivations behind the panel's report is warranted."

Mendendez's press release on the matter is now posted here...

LATE UPDATE: Feinstein sends letter of inquiry on these matters to EAC, demanding all communications and processes leading to the alteration and/or hiding of both the EAC's "Voter Fraud" report and the report showing that Voter ID laws depress voter turnout. Announcement and Letter to EAC posted here...

ADDITIONAL NOTE: The BRAD BLOG will have an EXCLUSIVE new report next week, on yet another recently discovered and astounding failure by the EAC on the heels of a few questions we had ourselves for them over the past week or two...




Eric Boehlert Documents the Consistenly Irresponsible Rightwing Warbloggers and the MSM's Failure to Report It...
By Brad Friedman on 4/13/2007 10:35am PT  

Blogged by Brad on the road...

Imagine if the reporting at The BRAD BLOG was as wrong as often and consistently as the entire swath of the Rightwing Blogosphere. We'd be marginalized and completely ignored by every legitimate mainstream media outlet...even more than we are now. And we're almost never wrong. But in those rare occassions where we are, we're eager to admit it. Prominently.

We're not talking about the small potatoes on the wingnut side, either. We're talking about the most prominent of them, from DRUDGE to Malkin to Power Line to the entire plethora of echo monkeys in the wrong after wrong after wrong wingnut 'sphere.

And yet, despite their consistent record of getting the story wrong, time after time after time, they continue to be referenced as "news" sources by the MSM --- that supposed "liberal media" --- nonetheless.

"In the last month National Public Radio, MSNBC, Bloomberg Radio, Fox News, CNN, and CNBC have all (foolishly) cited the Drudge Report as a source or an on-air reference to support a particular story," Eric Boehlert reported at Media Matters on Tuesday. "Yet all of them turned away last week when Drudge smeared a well-known journalist with a lie. And here's 10 bucks that says those very same news outlets in coming weeks will go back to citing Drudge items," he predicts, in what would be a sucker's bet for anyone to take.

Boehlert's latest report is long overdue. Not that any of it will get the attention that the now-discredited wingnut reports did, as he details, following last week's monkey-echoed (and completely wrong) debacle, claiming that a CNN reporter had "heckled" John McCain at a Baghdad press conference.

I guarantee that if Huffington Post, or Daily Kos, or any other very high-profile progressive online site had billboarded an "exclusive" accusing a public figure of outlandish, unprofessional public behavior, and liberal bloggers coast-to-coast linked to the story, and then it quickly became apparent that the report was a complete fraud, The Washington Post, for instance, would have covered that event as news, highlighting, no doubt, the "angry" tone of the loose-lipped liberal bloggers.

But when Drudge made up a story about a CNN reporter, the Post played dumb.

Boehlert is dead right, of course. And while his report details one instance after another of high-profile wingnuts making absolute asses of themselves, and failing to correct in most cases or apologize in all cases, it's the corporate mainstream "liberal" media who continue to help perpetuate this sort of bullshit by both reporting it as "news" and failing to expose it as garbage when it's found to be wrong. As it usually is.

Meanwhile, the same MSM fail to cover even a fraction of the news reported from the Progressive 'sphere, despite the fact that it's consistently correct.

As Boehlert details:

[D]espite being wrong about the war for four years running, warbloggers still retain an unfortunate amount of media influence, thanks in part to the fact that the mainstream press refuses to detail the warbloggers' blatant failings.

And as the Ware attack illustrated, left to their own woefully inadequate ethical standards, warbloggers have almost no interest in acknowledging their sloppy errors or expressing regret for the harm those errors cause.

Read his report and be appalled.

Beyond that, let us know if you have any ideas on how we could get away with being so wrong, so often, and still become so popular. It would save us a helluva lot of time. And we could use the money.




Attacks Utterly Irrelevent Malik Shabazz in Utterly Pointless, Embarrassing Exchange
(Following Incredibly Gratuitous, Imus Segments...During War Time...)
By Alan Breslauer on 4/13/2007 2:04am PT  

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

It really doesn't get any worse than this Michelle Malkin (filling in for Bill O'Reilly) interview of Malik Shabazz Thursday night on Fox "News". There is so much wrong with the exchange that no analysis can do it justice. The clip picks up about halfway through a discussion on the Duke lacrosse case. Here is a taste:

Shabazz: Will you apologize for being a political prostitute for Bill O'Reilly, a white-male-chauvinist-racist, as a woman of color?

Malkin: You want to call me a whore on national TV?

Shabazz: Yes.

Malkin: There is only one whore on this split-screen and it's you Mr. Shabazz.

Shabazz: As a woman of color, you should be ashamed of yourself...

Only on Fox "News" and immediately after back to back to back Don Imus segments!




Bush Appointee Admits 'Mistake', White House Has 'Full Confidence', Despite First Ever Call for Resignation of a World Bank President
Staffer Received Pay Increase Double Amount Allowable by Rules...
By Brad Friedman on 4/12/2007 7:16pm PT  

Blogged by Brad on the road...

Jesus...does this nightmare ever end?!...

April 12 (Bloomberg) --- World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz apologized for his role in the promotion of a woman with whom he was romantically involved as the international finance agency's employees demanded he quit.

Wolfowitz told a press conference in Washington today that he's prepared to accept whatever "remedies" the bank's board proposes. He later addressed the group's Staff Association in the atrium of the bank's headquarters, where colleagues shouted "resign, resign."
...
"I made a mistake, for which I am sorry," he said at the press conference. He also acknowledged the need to reorganize his personal office, where aides have been criticized for a lack of expertise in development aid and for ties to the Republican Party.

The Staff Association, which represents about 13,000 World Bank employees, hasn't called for the resignation of a president before, according to Alison Cave, who heads the group.
...
The Bush administration, which nominated Wolfowitz for the job, has "full confidence" in the World Bank president, said Deputy White House Press Secretary Tony Fratto.
...
Riza's promotion came with a pay increase that was more than double the amount allowed by staff rules, according to Cave. She later received an annual increase of 7.5 percent, also larger than rules allow.

(Hat-tip BRAD BLOG commenter "Ancient")




PLUS: The Freeway Blogger's 'Public Punditry' Contest Begins!
By Brad Friedman on 4/12/2007 6:54pm PT  

It was "60 feet long and only lasted about fifteen minutes," the legendary and mysterious Freeway Blogger reports about the above handiwork, courtesy of a brave minion in Chicago. But it was "well worth it according to the artists," says FB, who points out the sign, seen by thousands in that short moment, was "Made with cheap latex paint and disposable plastic tablecloths: about ten dollars for a hundred foot roll. Brilliant."

But leave it to the legendary and mysterious one himself to hit it out of the park with this latest beauty featuring what just may be one of the best catch phrases of our time...

"Blowing the job" bumper stickers coming soon, FB tells us, along with a request that we alert folks to his new "public punditry" contest in league with a few other freedom fighting sites.

Consider it done, and a job decidedly not blown, amigo...Far it be for The BRAD BLOG to leave any unfortunate stain on our reputation.

(Be sure to click the link above, btw, for a sampling of some of FB's greatest historical hits!)




Active Voters' Social Security Numbers Exposed
By Desi Doyen on 4/12/2007 3:11pm PT  

Guest blogged by DES...

Apropos of voter registration database problems elsewhere, as covered by BRAD BLOG's Michael Richardson earlier today, the Georgia Secretary of State's office has announced an investigation into how 75,000 voter registration cards ended up in an Atlanta trash bin, exposing sensitive information with voters' full names, addresses, and social security numbers.

AP has the details...




To Replace Promoted Mikel Haas, County Hires Riverside County, CA's Mischelle Townsend as 'Interim' Registrar, Who In Turn Hires Disgraced Cuyahoga County, OH Registrar Michael Vu as 'Assistant'...
By Brad Friedman on 4/12/2007 12:00pm PT  

{Ed Note: This article was original to have been published at ComputerWorld on 4/12/07. Due to a technical problem there, it never ran, I'm running it here, back-dated to tje originally planned publication date so at least it's available here on the Internets, at least for the "historical record". --- BF, 5/22/07}}

Blogged by Brad from the road...in San Diego, of all places...

The latest news out of the People's Republic of San Diego brings to mind Scooter Libby's now infamous note, sent to former NY Times' administration plant Judith Miller, encouraging her to maintain her silence while she was in jail.

"Out West, where you vacation," the disgraced Libby wrote to the disgraced Miller, "the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."

The same seems to be true for the Elections Officials, and their various operative/enablers around the country. Where ever you turn over the rock of a disastrously administered election in any part of the country --- such as in San Diego or Riverside County, CA or Cuyahoga County, OH --- it seems you also find the same band of recognizable folks slithering amongst the slime time and again. Turning in clusters, if you will, because their roots connect them.

Such seems to be the case now that one of America's worst Registrars of Voters, San Diego's Mikel Haas --- he of the infamous Busby/Bilbray debacle and voting machine "sleepover" fame --- has been promoted by the county. Failing up, if you will, like so many other 21st Century Wingnuts before him in Bush's America.

He's been replaced on an interim basis by Mischelle Townsend, the retired former Registrar of Voters in Riverside County, CA. She was responsible for bringing unverifiable, inaccurate, hackable touch-screen voting systems to America for the first time, as Riverside was the first in the nation to offer this "luxury" to voters. Riverside has been on a collision course with election integrity ever since.

Aside from conflicts of interests she brought to the dubious transaction in 1998 --- her husband, was VP for a firm which directly benefited from the county's purchase of the Sequoia touch-screen voting systems --- Townsend is tellingly quoted during an interview on the DVD version of HBO's Hacking Democracy proudly declaring: "Electronic touch-screen ballots are 100% accurate. We've not seen a single example in which their accuracy can be disputed."

As if that's not a horrific enough punishment to subject the otherwise beleaguered and battered voters of San Diego to --- they deserve far far better, especially following in the carnage of the county's disastrous Reign of Haas --- she has now hired as her "assistant," the disgraced and recently resigned-by-force, Michael Vu, the Election Supervisor for Cuyahoga County, Ohio.

Vu was pushed out of his job in the Buckeye State just weeks ago after two of his poll workers were convicted and sentenced to the maximum allowable time in prison for having rigged --- yes, rigged --- the 2004 President Recount in the county.

Vu oversaw the entire affair and reportedly admitted that county workers opened sealed ballot boxes to do a pre-count prior to the recount which was requested and paid for by the Green and Libertarian parties. As the trial revealed, the outrageous violation of law was carried out to ensure the mandated the 3% "randomly" selected precincts (which were not randomly selected after all) would match the previously reported results. Both the judge and the prosecutor made it clear that they believed the conspiracy went much higher up the food chain.

As well, Vu ran one of the worst election debacles of the 2006 cycle --- and that's saying quite a bit --- when absentee ballots couldn't be read by his Diebold optical scan system and his brand-spanking new Diebold DRE touch-screen voting systems failed to record votes properly, as determined by an independent analysis commissioned after the primary election meltdown in the county.

But that's not all. Another new criminal investigation is now underway in Cuyahoga looking into a number of troubling recent discoveries. Among them, computer audit logs have been discovered to reveal that early and absentee voting results were printed by someone at Vu's county headquarters prior to Election Day. (The same thing also was recently discovered to have occurred in Pima County, AZ where a law suit is currently underway to get to the bottom of it...just so you'll keep your eye out for what may well prove to be a concerted national conspiracy if the Aspens keep on turning in such remarkable clusters.) Oh, and a network cable was left in one of the tabulation computers overnight, and in violation of regulations, for some odd reason. But certainly that was just an accident, right?

Little surprise then, that San Diego's North County Times reported that Haas told them "the county immediately moved to contact Vu when he became available and felt lucky to hire him."

Of course they did.

Haas also continued his impressive, and growing track record as an accomplished liar of some reknown, by telling the paper that "Vu resigned for personal reasons and had family living on the West Coast."

Of course he did.

The BRAD BLOG has spoken at length with Vu in the past, and we've found him, like Haas the Horrible, to be a very affable fellow. Even if his actions, not his words, reveal him, like Haas, to have an extraordinary disdain for democracy and the voters who they supposedly serve.

We've been told that Vu has said he regards Townsend as "a mentor". So it comes as little surprise that he'd show up when beckoned by her, and littler surprise, after all we've come to learn about the County of San Diego, that their Board of Supervisors so despise their own voters that they'd allow Vu, despite all that's known about him, to be hired as an "assistant".

Rest assured, however, with Townsend --- who had previously been enjoying a quiet retirement from the madness that she had wrought on Riverside --- only committing to "interim" status at the Registrar's office, it won't be long before the full Reign of Vu commences. We believe you can bank on it. On a Diebold ATM if you wish.

America's Elections Officials, those who are most assiduously dedicated to subverting democracy with electricity, and those who time and again are found at the rotten core of virtually every bad election in the country, are indeed connected at the roots. And they continue turning in clusters.

And the voters continue to pay the price.




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