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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...

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Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...

BRAD BLOG Responds With Evidence to the Unfortunate Article in The St. Petersburg Times by the Pulitzer Prize Winning Lucy Morgan
An Object Lesson in the Failures of Today's American Mainstream Media
By Brad Friedman on 4/11/2005 2:04pm PT  

For months supporters and critics alike have been requesting that Clint Curtis take a polygraph test to help shore up (or debunk) the veracity of his explosive sworn allegations that then-Florida State Senator (and Speaker of the House) Tom Feeney, now a U.S. Congressman from Florida's 24th District, asked Curtis to create an electronic vote-rigging software prototype back in 2000 when Curtis worked at Yang Enterprises Inc. (YEI) where Feeney was also the corporate counsel and registered lobbyist in his "non-conflicting" day job while working as Florida's Speaker of the House.

Curtis has now taken --- and passed --- the much requested lie-detector test as discussed here Saturday and as broken in a one-sided, unbalanced and unfortunate story by Lucy Morgan, the Pulitzer Prize winning investigative Tallahassee Bureau Chief for The St. Petersburg Times.

While Morgan was handed this rather hot and exclusive scoop over a month ago, just after Curtis took and passed the test on March 3rd, her investigative work since then on this admittedly complicated and very broad case --- stretching back through at least four years of public and private paper trails --- resulted in an astonishingly amateurish piece which serves as a fine piece of pro-Feeney propoganda, a smackdown of the courageous and so-far verified claims of Clint Curtis and --- finally, though less importantly --- a slap in the face to the hard work we've toiled at here for over five months.

Her article, inappropriately and condescendingly headlined "Blogs spin tale of computers, conspiracies" is loaded with countless points of misleading information, crucial omissions and out and out inaccuracies.

Given our (apparently overly generous) offer to fact-check and/or advise and/or supply Morgan with any and all of the copious documentation and public records and hard evidence we've amassed over our past six months of reporting on this matter coupled with Morgan's impressive credentials and experience, we were somewhat stunned to read the fruits of her efforts on Saturday when the story finally appeared in The SP Times.

As we are still somewhat at a disadvantage by being on the road for the moment (still in Nashville at the National Election Reform Conference), we'll have to do our best to speak to Morgan's many unfortunate errors and lack of apparent journalistic standards without access to our complete file of evidence. Nonetheless, we'll do our best to point out what we would have pointed out to Morgan had she bothered to run any of this by us before going to press.

Given also that she found it necessary to include us in the story for inexplicable reasons --- other than perhaps to try and discredit the entire affair as a "conspiracy theory" of some sort --- it seems as though it would have been appropriate to check many of these facts with us and/or at least give us the opportunity to comment on several of the unsupported charges she makes in her piece.

But alas, that seems to be the way of the Mainstream Media these days; Belittle and discredit the stories that they should have been reporting in the first place by suggesting that a story presented on a web log couldn't possibly hold the veracity of something reported by the MSM.

On that note, we'll simply mention that after over six months of investigating and reporting on the Clint Curtis story, we've not once had to issue a notable retraction or correction to any of our work. Whereas one single article from Morgan includes enough misinformation for an entire column's worth of retractions, corrections and clarifications.

We had hoped to extend the courtesy to Morgan that she didn't feel necessary to extend to either Curtis or us in order to give her the opportunity to explain herself and her many omissions, misleads and apparent lack of both "balance" and fact-checking in her story.

Morgan's response to our invitation to comment today: "I have no interest in commenting on your story, you can publish that I have two heads if you want."

We have no interest in publishing that Morgan has two heads, since that would be misleading and untruthful as far as we can tell. We do have an interest in publishing facts however, in a fair way, while correcting those who seem to display a problem in doing so themselves.

So to that end, let's take a look at a few of the most egregious distortions, errors, misleads and omissions in Morgan's unfortunate article...

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




Story Broken in Florida's St. Petersburg Times by Pulitzer Prize Winning Reporter!
Still Manages to Mangle, Misrepresent and Omit Several Key Elements of the Story!
By Brad Friedman on 4/8/2005 4:13pm PT  

(NOTE: Blogged by Brad on the road from the National Election Reform Conference in Nashville)

After many months and many requests and many challenges from both critics and Mainstream Media types, The St. Petersburg Times is reporting --- and The BRAD BLOG can confirm --- that Clint Curtis took a polygraph test on March 3rd...and passed!

The lie-detector test, administered to Curtis by Tim Robinson, the retired chief polygraph operator for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, found that the Florida whistleblowing software designer who has charged in a sworn affidavit that he was asked by U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) to create an electronic vote-rigging software prototype in 2000, was indeed found to be truthful in all of his responses!

Curtis' allegations in early December of 2004 when Curtis filed a sworn affidavit which was then followed up several weeks later with sworn testimony under oath to members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. (Video of that testimony is here.)

The article which breaks the news of Curtis' polygraph test was written by Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter and Times Tallahassee Bureau Chief, Lucy Morgan.

Despite her impressive credentials, the month-long exclusive access to Curtis' test-results that Morgan was given, and the full cooperation of The BRAD BLOG along with our months of reporting and materials acquired during our continuing investigation, she still managed to publish a number of errors and more than a few key omissions.

As well, in the name of "balance" (the phoney-baloney concept invented by charlatans to give themselves a chance they don't deserve), Morgan manages to use several derisive quotes from Feeney, but not a single quote from Curtis.

Granted, the story of this entire sordid affair is a broad one, stretching back at least 4 years with a miles-long paper trail to accompany it. Still, we'd expect a bit more responsibility from a Pulitzer Prize winner. Especially one who has had so much time to work on the story, gather information for it, and enjoy full and unfettered access for interviews with all of the key participants in the story.

We knew there was trouble afoot from the first beat as the story was headlined "Blogs Spin Tale of Conspiracy, Computers". Which prompts us to wonder what headline The Times might have used when covering Woodward and Bernstein's series of Watergate articles in 1972: "Washington Post Spins Tale of Conspiracy, Cover-up"?

We're currently at the National Election Reform Conference in Nashville (where folks have been incredibly supportive, including Election Reform All-Stars such as Green Party Candidate David Cobb and Free Press writer/editor and attorney Bob Fritrakis, and the delightful Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney! All have had nothing but tremendous things to say about BRAD BLOG and VELVET REVOLUTION --- and on video tape at that!)Though it makes it difficult for now to respond in full to the errors and omissions in Morgan's story. Or even to get her responses to them.

We will do so --- with an update --- at the first available opportunity. Given what's going on out here, it may be a day or so...we'll see...

...CONTACTS...(Please be clear, but always polite!)
Send">Timespresident@sptimes.c...adBlog@cville.com\">Send an Email to Lucy Morgan, Paul Tash (President/Editor of SP Times) and the Corrections Desk.
Send a Letter to the Editor.

UPDATE 4/11/05:Lucy Morgan responds, and so does BRAD BLOG, in detail, in a follow-up reponse to Morgan's unfortunate article.

For more info on The BRAD BLOG's continuing investigative series on
The Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney/Yang Enterprises Vote-Rigging Scandal series, please see:
- A Quick Summary of the story so far. -
- An Index of all the Key Articles & Evidence in the series so far.



By Brad Friedman on 4/8/2005 6:28am PT  

(NOTE: Blogged by Brad from Nashville...)

From a late-breaking AP item last night...

Pennsylvania officials Thursday barred three counties from using a touch-screen voting system that apparently contributed to an unusual number of uncounted votes in the November election.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortes said officials do not believe the undercount would have changed the outcome of any races in Mercer, Beaver and Greene counties.

Still, he said, "there are enough problems with this system that in our estimation it's in the best interests of the voters" to stop using them immediately.

The decertification of the UniLect Patriot voting machine came barely a month before this year's May 17 municipal primary election.

This announcement comes as the result of a probe of problems with Electronic Voting Machines in the Keystone State which began in early January (as reported here).

UniLect is the California company that manufactured the voting machines in Carteret County, N.C. that lost some 4,500 votes entirely last November 2nd resulting in the need for an unprecedented re-vote in the county. They are also one of the nine major American Voting Machine companies currently targeted by Velvet Revolution's "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign calling on the companies to voluntarily implement standards of transparency and accountability with their machines or face a massive and sustained divestiture/boycott by the American People.




And other important BRAD BLOG stuff that the American Media continues to yawn at...
(Though perhaps not for too much longer!)
By Brad Friedman on 4/7/2005 7:41pm PT  

(Blogged by Brad in Nashville...)

One week after the November 2004 election, we blogged an item we called "Why It Matters: The World is Watching". The piece covered the way in which Russia's Pravda wondered aloud, "Did Bush fix the election"?

Just over two weeks later, Ukraine's own fixed election, and the Bush administration's infuriatingly hypocritical outrage brought more condemnation from Pravda, this time as they chastised the American administration for having the gall to question anyone else's election after our own --- which was even more askew than Ukraine's. Our item headlined "Home to Roost - or, Democracies That Live in Glass Houses" covered the continuing degradation in esteem from our once-promising Russian ally.

And today, it's The Moscow Times who joins the World's America Hating Party in a damning article suggesting the game is over and the forces of Democracy in the previously-Free World have lost.

UPDATE: Chris Floyd's column The Big Fix, which was published in The Moscow Times, is now available to subscribers only, but you can read it on Chris' blog. Click here.

Unlike their compatriots in the American Media, The Times covers the Clint Curtis story in their article by way of referencing much of what The BRAD BLOG has reported on that sorry affair. They've even beaten the American Media at reporting on the latest Baker Commission Blue-Ribbon "Election Reform" fix which America can now look forward to --- even if they're not paying attention --- unless something is done about it.

The rest of the world recognizes news, and what it may mean for this country and the world. Even if the American Media does not.

Though that may change a bit over the next few days as a major American Newspaper may indeed be jumping into the Clint Curtis fray. We'll do our best to keep you abreast of those developements even as we're otherwise occupado down here in Nashville...Stay Tuned...

For more info on The BRAD BLOG's continuing investigative series on
The Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney/Yang Enterprises Vote-Rigging Scandal series, please see:
- A Quick Summary of the story so far. -
- An Index of all the Key Articles & Evidence in the series so far.



Cracks Revealed in the Enormous and Sophisticated Republican Propoganda Media Machine
As Velvet Revolution Opens a New Front in the Battle for Truth, Justice & the American Way!
By Brad Friedman on 4/7/2005 8:33am PT  

(Brad here, catching some quick net time, and unable to avoid blogging this one! Even from the road!)

Yesterday in the phony Republican "news"paper The Washington Times:

Was the Schiavo memo a fake?

All 55 Republican senators say they have never seen the Terri Schiavo political talking-points memo that Democrats say was circulated among Republicans during the floor debate over whether the federal government should intervene to prolong her life.

A survey by The Washington Times found that every Republican said the memo was not crafted or distributed by him or her. Every one of them said he or she had not seen it until the memo was the subject of speculation in major news organs, particularly ABC News and The Washington Post.

The Times article disinformation even goes so far as to suggest that it was Senate minority leader, Harry Reid's office that was responsible for the now-infamous talking points memo!

And then this, today in the real newspaper, The Washington Post:

Counsel to GOP Senator Wrote Memo On Schiavo
Martinez Aide Who Cited Upside For Party Resigns

The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night.

Brian H. Darling, 39, a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group on gun rights and other issues, offered his resignation and it was immediately accepted, Martinez said.

Even the phony Republican media machine --- which is by now quite sophisticated, smart, insidious and powerful --- could not keep the truth from coming out about this one. Though we have a feeling that today's Post story may not receive quite as much coverage from Rush and friends as did yesterday's phony Times piece.

We wish we could reveal to you all that we know about how the phony Rightwing press actually works hand-in-hand with the high-level politicos it supports. We've learned quite a bit, for example, about last week's "story" attempting to shore up/legitimize the ACVR which made it's way into the GOP Propoganda via the phony Cybercast News Service last week. For various reasons, at this time, we are unable to report all we know about that here. Suffice to stay, the story that CNS ran was a setup which ran, the way that it eventually did, at the instructions of top RNC officials.

If you have any doubt about the sophisticated propoganda machine being run by the GOP, any question in your mind that perhaps it's all just some crazy "conspiracy theory" being floated by the Left, hopefully the illustrative comparison of stories on the Schiavo Memo will end any doubt that you may have. It's real. It's powerful. It's sophisticated. It's insidious. And it's all meant to decieve you, the good people of America, in a cynical and dangerous way. And it's been working for some time.

Thus, it's time for serious Media Reform. Recently, Velvet Revolution has opened up the issue of Media Reform as the second major problem in this country that VR will be taking head-on.

More to come on that...we've only just begun to fight back!

Now, back on to the road to Nashville!




By Brad Friedman on 4/4/2005 4:53pm PT  

I will be working my way towards Nashville this week for the National Conference on Election Reform where I'll be speaking at several of the seminars on a number of topics, being trailed by documentarians, and (hopefully!) speaking with a lot of media in order to continue to get the word out on all of the below (meaning, the last 5 or 6 months or more of reporting/crime-fighting here on BRAD BLOG!)

Thanks, in no small part, to your generous donations to BRAD BLOG, I'm able to afford to make what I think will be a very important trip!

Of course, if you're in the vicinity, please come on by, say hello and join up for the 3-day conference! And, in case you need more of a reason than saying hello to me to show up, here's another 5 Great Reasons to Come on Down!

Don't know what kind of net access I'll have on the road throughout this week and over the weekend during the conference, so for the moment, please assume I'll be gone for the week, and therefore, I'm turning things over to Guest Bloggers Winter Patriot, Fin and Jaime to help keep things lively in my absense.

Be kind to them, and keeping making noise!

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Gandhi




Non-Partisan 'Open Voting Consortium' Becomes First E-Vote Software Developer to Call for 'Transparency' and 'Verifiability' in Election System!
By Brad Friedman on 4/4/2005 12:58pm PT  

The Open Voting Consortium (OVC), a non-partisan group with Republican, Democratic, Green Party and Libertarian Party support, has today become the first Election Software Developer to publicly endorse Velvet Revolution's "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign!

In an open letter sent today to VR by OVC President, Alan Dechert, the group announced their intentions of adopting the standards set forth in VR's February 21st letter to America's Voting Machine companies, calling on them to do the right thing for their country by --- amongst other things --- voluntarily opening hardware and software for inspection and certification to ensure transparency in our electoral system.

Dechert calls, in his letter, for the voting process to be "clear, transparent, fair, trustworthy, orderly, observable, and auditable." We couldn't agree more. Why so many seem to be frightened by such an idea, is beyond us. If you haven't already, please join the Revolution by sending an Email to America's Voting Machine companies stating your support! It'll take you 60 seconds!

OVC joins a growing list of supporters to the VR "DV4D" Campaign which, along with over 100 Voting Rights and Electoral Reform groups, also currently includes 23 U.S. House members, and 2004 Presidential Candidates David Cobb (Green) and Ralph Nader (Independent). All of these Americans are now calling for a trustworthy, auditable, transparent and verifiable voting system in the world's most important democracy!

The VR Press Release, with the full copy Dechert's letter of endorsement is available here.




By Brad Friedman on 4/3/2005 2:06pm PT  




Study of Exit Poll/Final Result disparity based on Exit Pollsters Own Data, Explanations, Allow One-in-959,000 Chance of Being Correct!
OH Secretary of State, Bush-Cheney Co-Chair Blackwell's Office Still Obnoxious, Unpatriotic.
By Brad Friedman on 4/2/2005 2:53pm PT  

On Thursday, USCountVotes.org, a Utah non-profit organization of statisticians and researchers, released a new scientific statistical analysis of the "2004 Presidential Exit Poll Discrepancies" [PDF]. Here is the executive summary of the report [PDF].

This study is a real one. A scientific one. Produced by a real group of non-partisan investigators, statisticians, university professors and mathmeticians --- unlike at least one phony GOP disinformation front group comprised of paid Bush/Cheney/RNC staff that we know of.

The USCountVotes.org report is in response to the one released by the Exit Pollsters, Edison/Mitofsky themselves who had tried, in their report, to explain away their own data as somehow being flawed. As explained in the USCountVote report's executive summary:

Our conclusion is that the data appear to be more consistent with the hypothesis of bias in the official count, rather than bias in the exit poll sampling. No data in the report supports the [Edison/Mitofsky] hypothesis that Kerry voters were more likely than Bush voters to cooperate with pollsters and, in fact, there is some indication that the opposite may have been the case.

In describing the report, USCountVotes.org says that:

It has only recently been officially confirmed (by the exit pollsters themselves) that on election night the final set of exit polls showed John Kerry defeating George Bush by 3% of the popular vote and a clear majority of 316 electoral votes. Our statisticians analyzed Edison/Mitofsky's own explanation of their exit poll discrepancies, and found serious flaws in their argument. Exit polls have been used for years to detect corruption of official vote tallies - most recently in Ukraine.

Here is just one graph from the report, of particular note to BRAD BLOG readers Velvet Revolution supporters and true advocates of Election Reform and Voting Rights (unlike other phony advocates of voting rights that we know of.)

Stephen Dyer of the Akron Beacon Journal has done a fine job of summing up some of the report's key points. As we've been too busy to do a thorough job of it ourselves (and likely will continue to be for the next several days at least), we associate ourselves with Dyer's summary. As well, we share the contemptable reactions to the report which he received from the office of the man responsible for ensuring fair elections in Ohio, Sec. of State (and Co-Chair of the Bush/Cheney Re-Election Comm.) J. Kenneth Blackwell via his spokesman, Carlo LoParo --- both of whom seem to continue to display an utter contempt for their country, its founding principles and its constitution...

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




By Brad Friedman on 4/1/2005 6:15pm PT  

Off on fools errands all day. TV appearances. Trouble making. No time for fooling around. Sorry...But you can. Open thread...




(Perhaps all the acronyms will help ease the mind-numbing irony of it all)
Meanwhile, RNC operatives and snake-oil men behind the plan to scam America continue to expose themselves...and we're happy to lend a hand.
By Brad Friedman on 3/31/2005 1:32pm PT  

In an apparent attempt to shore up the discredited American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) (see BRAD BLOG's Special Coverage on ACVR for more info) --- the phony "Voting Rights" group set up by Bush/Cheney/RNC operatives to provide a smoke-screen from what really went wrong in the 2004 general election --- GOPUSA, the phony "news" service created by Republican operative and shadowy money-meister, Bobby Eberle, most famous for creating the phony Talon News group, headlined by professional hooker cum phony journalist James Guckert (better known for his phony White House Correspondent name Jeff Gannon) is re-running the story published yesterday by their sister-phony-"news" group, Cybercast News Service (CNS) on the phony ACVR operation.

Got all that?

And just to advance the story another peg on the desperate attempt apparently being made by the "patriotic" hucksters of the GOP Spin-Machine to pull the wool over American eyes in an effort to help save ACVR's wholly discredited reputation (as if they ever had one --- calling oneself a "non-partisan" organization when you're actually paid staff members of Bush/Cheney 04 Inc. and the Communications Director for the RNC certainly doesn't lend much credibility to the scammers who invented the ACVR with baseless self-proclamations of being simply "longtime voting rights advocates") there is the Scott Hogenson connection to both CNS and ACVR.

We did find it curious when the far-rightwing propoganda service CNS contacted us early on about doing a story on ACVR. The resulting biased, misleading and un-balanced article, written by Kathleen Rhodes, was little surprise. But the genesis of the article in the first place and its purpose was always of interest to us.

As it turns out, Hogenson --- the Founding and Executive Editor of CNS and also (no conflict at all here) the Radio Services Manager at the RNC Press Office! --- is the longtime compadre to one of the two known lead scheisters at ACVR, Jim Dyke.

Dyke, who has worked hand-in-hand for years in his position at the RNC with Hogenson, was the 2004 RNC Communications Director. (For example, here's a press release where Hogenson and Dyke are listed together just last year.)

Down the rabbit hole, into the Bizzarro GOP World of baseless Rightwing claims of "Liberal" bias in the media, we suppose it's only natural for no conflict or bias to exist when the Executive Editor of a "News" Service claiming to offer "unbiased news" happens to concurrently be the Republican National Committee's spokesman and talk radio coordinator. Saddam was also just 45 minutes from launching a nuclear attack on the United States when George W. Bush single-handled wrestled him to the ground and grappled the uranium right out of hands.

So the gears of the GOP braintrust must really be turning at this point for such a panicked and coordinated effort to be launched by the Rightwing Echo Chamber in order to find a way to give credibility to the Bush/Cheney/RNC hoaxsters behind this ill-conceived ACVR scam.

The fact that GOPUSA would re-run the silly and deceptive CNS story to try and shore up the group --- who appeared GOPUSA/Talon News-like out of nowhere on March 17th, only to be given a coveted slot testifying as a "witness" before a U.S. Congressional Committee claiming to be investigating Election Problems in Ohio just three days later --- is an irony so rich that you'd think even GOPUSA wouldn't want to call attention to it or themselves in the bargain.

Either they just don't get it (unlikely) or they strongly believe that nobody in the Mainstream Media or elsewhere will actually call them on the continuing scam they are perpetuating on the American people (very very likely).

Well, we've called them on it. For whatever that's worth. Now we continue to wait for the MSM'ers in the once-great 4th Estate to realize their responsibility to the American People to do the same. It's only democracy at stake after all. We fear, however, we may be waiting a while.

In the meantime, the ACVR/RNC/GOPUSA/CNS axis-of-evil-acronyms sends their undying gratitude to the MSM! Keep up the bad work, guys!

For more information on the "non-partisan" tax-exempt ACVR scam and the snakeoil salesmen who invented it, Bush/Cheney '04 National General Counsel Mark F. "Thor" Hearne and RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke, please see BRAD BLOG's full Special Coverage of the "American Center for Voting Rights" at https://BradBlog.com/ACVR.



Consumer Advocate and Corporate Crusader is Second 2004 Presidential Candidate to Join Effort!
Vows to Support Divestiture Against Voting Machine Companies!
By Brad Friedman on 3/31/2005 1:11am PT  

Decrying the "Millions of Americans [who have] lost faith in our elections" due to the secret counting of our public votes by the private companies who now peform the governmental function of counting America's votes --- in secret --- two-time Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader has joined Velvet Revolution's "Divesture for Democracy" campaign!

Nader joins Green Party Candidate David Cobb as the second 2004 Presidential Candidate to join the campaign! As well, 23 U.S. House Members have also endorsed by sending strongly worded letters to the nine major American Voting Machine Companies vowing to withhold all government funding from companies who do not voluntarily adapt the VR recommendations!

In his letters, Nader declares it "shameful" that "our country has lost its moral authority" in the process of the companies insistence upon keeping their software secret and adding to the collapse in confidence by American's in their electoral system.

As well, in a letter to Velvet Revolution Co-Founder, Brad Friedman (author and editor of The BRAD BLOG), Mr. Nader --- who has taken on Corporate America before, and won! --- vows to "support the next step of divestiture in the event these companies fail to do the right thing."

Read Nader's full letters to the companies and to VR here...

With two of the five major 2004 Presidential Candidates, we await word on who may be next. Paging Mr. Badnarik...Senator Kerry..."President" Bush?...




Report from 'American Center for Voting Rights' (ACVR) Used as Political Smokescreen to Deflect from Real 2004 Election Irregularities...
Cynical, Deceptive GOP anti-Election Reform Agenda gets Underway as Baker/Carter Commission Convenes...(And apparently ACVR Knew About it Before Anybody Else! Go Figure!)
By Brad Friedman on 3/30/2005 2:04pm PT  

It'll be little surprise to BRAD BLOG readers who are by now aware of the phony "non-partisan" "voting rights" group recently created by high-level Bush/Cheney/RNC officials, but the coordinated strategy for smoke-screening what really happened in Election 2004 now seems to be in full swing.

In an Email sent yesterday by the RNC Political Director, Mike DuHaime, members of the huge RNC Email list are pointed to the 31-page hoax report [PDF] created by the three day old Talon News-like, tax-exempt, self-proclaimed, "voting rights" group, American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR).

The ACVR is anything but "non-partisan" and their so-far known ringleaders are actually Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, the National Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. and his partner-in-crime Jim Dyke, the RNC's Communications Director. (Click here for our Special Coverage page on the ACVR for more details.)

The ACVR report was presented by the GOP front group to Congress in a U.S. House Adminstrative Committee hearing on the Election Mess in Ohio. The then-three-day old group, masquerading as a "voting rights" organization, was the only such group called as witnesses in the hearings convened by the committee's Chairman, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH).

As well, the creation of the ACVR seems to be smartly-timed with the creation of a supposedly "bi-partisan" blue-ribbon commission convened to study and recommend solutions for Electoral Problems in 2004. The Commission was seated in secret, announced on Thursday at 2pm, and lauded in a Press Release published by ACVR just 24 minutes later!

The commission, as announced, is set to be co-chaired by James A. Baker, III, the mastermind and architect of the 2000 Bush/Cheney strategy to ensure that votes were not counted in the state of Florida. The other co-chair is former-President Jimmy Carter who led a similar commission with respected elder statesman, former-President Gerald Ford after the 2000 Election debacle led by Baker on behalf of the Bush Family.

The RNC email, sent to believers on Tuesday, described the ACVR report as "document[ing] massive amounts of voter intimidation by Democrats and their third-party allies".

Of course, the report doesn't. Neither does it document the thousands of verified instances of real election fraud, irregularities, intimidation, disenfranchisment, miscounted and uncounted votes that occurred in Ohio and elsewhere in the last general election. Many of the real documented reports of evidence of went actually went wrong last November are contained in a 102-page report submitted to Congress after months of investigation by the minority staff of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

But in GOP Land, where black is white, wrong is right and where Republicans seem to have divorced themselves from reality...simply saying something makes it so. The Email and the link to the report is even now being circulated widely on Rightwing blogs and "centrist" newspapers and news services.

Here is a copy of the disingenous and misleading email sent yesterday by the RNC Political Director about the "non-partisan" report created by the RNC Communications Director and Bush/Cheney '04 Inc.'s lead attorney...

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




CNS Performs RNC Grunt Work by Attempting to Minimize Active Partisan Connections of Self-Declared
...And they take a few 'liberal' pot-shots at BRAD BLOG and Velvet Revolution in the bargain...
By Brad Friedman on 3/30/2005 12:37pm PT  

Our hope when speaking to Cybercast "News" Services' Kathleen Rhodes about the recent BRAD BLOG special coverage exposing the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) as little more than a bogus front group created by desperate high-level GOP operatives to create a smoke-screen for the real problems in the 2004 general election, was that the clear evidence for the sleaziness of this obvious and cynical bunch would be impossible for even a Rightwing "news" service to cover for.

Apparently we were wrong. Is there any GOP turd that can't be polished by their friends in the "Conservative" media?

The CNS article out this morning is exactly what we've come to expect from the hard-right groups who deceptively label themselves as "news" services in hopes of swindling a gullible American populace and inculcating them with "conservative" propaganda.

On that level, Ms. Rhodes and CNS have succeeded spectacularly!

Displaying an apparent contempt for the sacred privilege of casting a vote in the world's greatest democracy, she succeeds in minimizing and apologizing for the known ACVR ring-leaders' active ties to the RNC and Bush/Cheney '00/'04 Inc., attempts to legitimize the tax-payer subsidized status of the ACVR as a "non-partisan" 501(c)3 corporation, recharacterize them as a "Voting Fraud Watchdog Group" and attempt to villify those who would criticize them for their cynical and brazen attempts to undermine democracy in America.

We have sent the following letter to the Editors and Ms. Rhodes at CNS...

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




By Brad Friedman on 3/29/2005 7:05pm PT  

Bush Family friend, loyalist, operative and architect of the 2000 Bush/Cheney strategy to keep American's votes from being counted has no place as Co-Chair of bi-partisan commission with esteemed former-President Jimmy Carter!

Velvet Revolution calls for Baker's immediate removal from the Commission! VR's Full Statement...




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