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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...
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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...
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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...

Palm Beach Paper Says FBI Agent Attempted to Clear GOP Pundit, BRAD BLOG Guest Blogger Said to be Reason for Fraudulent Info Given on FLVoter Registration Form, Driver's License!
Conservative Coulter Critic Borchers Responds; Says Her '98-'99 Boyfriend Has Been 'Her Personal FBI Resource for Her Own Purposes'...
By Brad Friedman on 5/11/2007 12:00pm PT  

The Ann Coulter Voter Fraud case, which we've been covering for more than a year (see our Special Coverage Page here, including her fraudulent Voter Registration Form, the complaint that started it all, and much more) has taken several bizarre twists this morning as Palm Beach Post columnist Jose Lambiet once again steps up with several fresh scoops in the matter, and The BRAD BLOG, who, as of today's article, has now become a corollary in the story, has an exclusive detail or two of our own to offer on the heels of this morning's Post report.

First, Lambiet reports that the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office, which had been investigating the matter, has closed the case after an FBI agent interceded on Coulter's behalf. The PBSO had been investigating Coulter's fraudulent, knowing use of the wrong address on her voter registration form, a third-degree felony, and the fact that she subsequently, knowingly voted at the wrong precinct.

Second, the reason offered by the FBI man for Coulter's use of a phony address on her form --- actually that of her Palm Beach County real estate agent --- was because of claims that she was being "stalked" by a conservative BRAD BLOG guest blogger!

After the FBI intercession, as Lambiet reports, the PBSO investigator shut down the probe "without interviewing Coulter; a Realtor, whose Indian Road address Coulter used [on her fraudulent voter registration form]; or neighbors of Coulter's Seabreeze homestead."

The BRAD BLOG has previously shown that, in fact, Coulter had knowingly lied on her voter registration form, signing next to an "oath" swearing that "All information on this form is true" and that she understood "if it is not true, I can be convicted of a felony of the third degree and fined up to $5,000 and/or imprisoned for up to five years."

Once the issue was reported originally by Lambiet, Coulter went about lying about it to the media and at public appearances, claiming she didn't even live in Florida, as Michelle Pilecki, who picked up on Lambiet's item today, had previously reported at Huffington Post. Nonetheless, property records and other evidence we've published at The BRAD BLOG, including an affidavit from Republican poll worker James Whited, show conclusively that Coulter lied on her voter registration form, and then knowingly committed voter fraud when she voted at the wrong precinct in 2006.

"We stand by our detective's work," a PBSO spokesman told Lambiet in today's report. "Based on the nature of the allegations, she did as much as she could."

But this gets a lot more bizarre, so keep reading...

* * *

The BRAD BLOG spoke this morning with the "stalker" in question, as named by Lambiet, longtime Coulter critic, and founder of Citizens for Principled Conservatism, Dan Borchers, who tells us that "Ann Coulter used a false allegation as a 'get out of jail free card'" on her voter fraud charges.

He also tells us something that Lambiet didn't mention in his report: The FBI man in question, Supervisory Special Agent Jim Fitzgerald, was Coulter's former boyfriend!

Lambiet, who spoke with Borchers for his piece, didn't report that allegation, but hinted that something wasn't adding up in Fitzgerald's intercession in the matter. He wonders why an FBI profiler from the FBI Academy's Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, VA, "who went after the Unabomber [would] take time from his busy day to even think about a municipal election snafu?"

Fitzgerald wouldn't reply to Lambiet, but he reports that after the Post contacted the bureau for comment on the matter, the FBI "immediately launched an internal review of the agent's involvement."

"We're looking into it," bureau spokeswoman Ann Todd said.

She declined to say whether Fitzgerald acted on his personal behalf or as an FBI agent or on someone else's orders.
...
County Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson, meanwhile, decried what he called "FBI intrusion."
...
"This doesn't bode well in terms of the public's impression that celebrities receive preferential treatment," Anderson said. "I'm curious about how anyone can justify the FBI's intrusion."

Anderson and Lambiet aren't the only ones dubious about the FBI's intervention on behalf of Coulter or the excuse that a "stalker" led her to use her realtor's address on her voter registration form....

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




By John Gideon on 5/10/2007 9:20pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

On the same day that a committee of the House of Representatives met to pass a marked-up HR-811 out to the floor for a full House vote, the voters in Indiana counties went to the polls. Today the reports of the failures began to come in from Allen, Hancock, Lake, Marion, and Morgan counties. Under votes in Hancock, failure of poll workers to show up at the polls in Marion, and other counties with similar problems have led to another failure and disenfranchised voters....

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




Asks 'Who Created Purge List and Why?'
Wexler NAILS the Issue During Gonzo Hearings Today in House Judiciary...
By Brad Friedman on 5/10/2007 6:19pm PT  

I spent most of the morning (and afternoon) watching the Gonzalez hearing in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. (The extra $5 per month to add C-SPAN3 to my cable tier has already been well worth it.)

All of those hours are perhaps best summed up by the nugget of today's hearing found in Rep. Robert Wexler's extremely to-the-point questions, along with a follow up by Rep. Stephen Cohen (some guy named Rep. Tom Feeney went between the two of them, but it was not particular interesting or newsworthy).

So to save you the time of having to watch all 9 hours, or however long it was, here are the 9 minutes or so of video from those two sections. First Wexler's must view clip, followed by Cohen:

http://www.youtube.com/v/wad4IWfhtWg\" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="240" height="198">

The crux of Wexler's very heated questions: If it wasn't anyone at DoJ, and it wasn't Bush or Cheney (as Gonzales said today) then who created the firing list?

Chairman Conyers is wondering exactly that, and his office sent us this statement, following today's hearing:

"After hours of testimony, the first and most basic question remains: who created the list of US Attorneys to be fired and why? As I said in the hearing, the bread crumbs are steadily leading toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

"We learned from the media today that Todd Graves was the ninth fired US Attorney, and Thomas Heffelfenger of Minnesota may have been the 10th. That begs the question that my colleague, Rep. Sánchez asked earlier, are there any others?

"My request for more information was met with an untenable response: 'I'll take that back.' To whom will Mr. Gonzales take that back to if he, in fact, is the Attorney General, the one in charge?"




Says Their Legal Firm, Lathrop & Gage, Not Consulted Before Running Altered McClatchy Piece Related to Several Clients, Employees of Firm
Star's Deputy National Editor Explains, Offers BRAD BLOG Contradicted Reason for Delayed Publication...
By Chris Tackett on 5/10/2007 5:39pm PT  

Guest Blogged by Chris Tackett

After reading Greg Gordon’s excellent piece for McClatchy discussing Missouri’s place as "ground zero" for the GOP "voter fraud" scam, we – along with others – were surprised to learn that of all of McClatchy’s papers, The Kansas City Star had failed to run the piece when others, in different states, had done so on the first day it was filed.

When the piece finally ran at KC Star, FiredUp! Missouri's Howard Beale pointed out, it was greatly altered and had become what one could argue was a much different story. Their edited version of the story greatly downplayed failed Republican attempts to prove claims of massive Democratic "voter fraud," and excised references to many GOP politicians, such as Karl Rove, and perhaps most notably, a number of powerful Missouri politicians.

We wanted to allow the paper an opportunity to respond to those criticisms. We were able to receive such a response from The Star's Deputy National Editor, Keith Chrostowski. But later yesterday, the reason he gave to The BRAD BLOG for the delayed publication was directly contradicted in a public post Chrostowski made on the KC Star's own blogsite.

While originally waiting for him to respond to our numerous calls, we spotted Beale’s follow-up post from Tuesday morning revealing that The Star happens to be a client of the powerful Missouri GOP law firm Lathrop & Gage.

As BRAD BLOG readers surely know by now, Lathrop & Gage is the law firm of Mark F. “Thor” Hearne, who has been a central figure involved in the ongoing "voter fraud" scam in his role as founder of the GOP front group known as "American Center for Voting Rights" (our ACVR Special Coverage Page is here).

Missouri's Governor Matt Blunt is also a client of L&G, and has been represented for years by Hearne. Blunt, Hearne, and the ACVR were all central to the McClatchy piece as originally filed by Gordon and the role of each of them in the Star's altered version of the story was subsequently removed or otherwise greatly watered down.

Of course, there's no way of knowing if the editors at the Star were directly or indirectly influenced by this connection. But even if they are given the benefit of the doubt and the presumption that there was no influence on their delayed publication and editing of the McClatchy piece, the issue still remains that they failed to disclose the relationship to L&G to their readers. Such disclosure would seem to be a common sense journalistic principle.

On Tuesday afternoon, Chrostowski finally returned our call to provide a statement and an explanation. A transcript of the pertinent portion our conversation, along with his later posted contradiction, follows…

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




By Alan Breslauer on 5/10/2007 5:38pm PT  

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Bill O'Reilly responded to a recent Indiana University Study comparing the Fox "News" mouthpiece unfavorably to the notorious propagandist of the 1930s, Father Charles Coughlin, with even more propaganda. While O'Reilly spent the bulk of his time defending himself by attacking Media Matters and George Soros, he does question and mock the most publicized part of the research that evidences O'Reilly using a derogatory name to describe his opponents every 6.8 seconds during the Factor's "Talking Points Memo" segments. This mashup shows O'Reilly's response to the study and then looks back at the six previous "Talking Points" to see whether O'Reilly or the Indiana University researchers are to be believed.

Finally, for those wondering what George Soros and Media Matters have to do with whether or not Bill O'Reilly is a propagandist, I will try to explain. For starters, George Soros - he who gives away billions of dollars trying to spread good governance, democracy, human rights and independent media around the world while combatting corruption and rights abuses - is the face of evil. As O'Reilly stated in last night's broadcast to former General Wesley Clark whose PAC received $75,000 from Soros, "There isn't a more radical person in the country than [Soros]". O'Reilly then asked Clark if he would also accept David Duke's money.

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




By Brad Friedman on 5/9/2007 9:27pm PT  
Last night a bunch of longtime aides to Al Gore held a much-ballyhooed reunion dinner that had prompted speculation about a Gore run in 2008 --- but the gathering in fact turned out to be an at-times personal and emotional gathering suffused with an acceptance among many that Gore won't run for President, a person who was there tells me.

More from Greg Sergent at TPMCafe...




By John Gideon on 5/9/2007 8:05pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Brian Chess, chief scientist of Fortify Software [United Kingdom] has gone on record as saying:

"As with any computerised system, e-voting machines can be subject to programming errors and malicious tampering. With evidence in the States clearly showing that the voting machine certification process is flawed, how can any citizen be expected to trust this new system?"

California SOS Debra Bowen asks and answers [PDF]:

"Are our voting systems secure, accurate, reliable and accessible?"

"There’s good reason for asking the question. In December 2005, California discovered voting system programming code that escaped the review of federal testers. On May 2, 2007, a congressional task force voted to investigate anomalies in 2006 election results in Florida’s 13th Congressional District. These are just two examples that have fueled the debate about whether the systems voters are asked to cast their ballots on are trustworthy and whether the testing processes used to certify voting systems are adequate."

Those stories and more, all linked below...

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




CA SoS Debra Bowen Names Teams and Methods to be Used for 'First-of-its-Kind in the Nation' Certification, Decertification Process...
By Brad Friedman on 5/9/2007 12:28pm PT  

Doing twelve things at once today, so no time for analysis at this point. I'll just run CA Sec. of State Debra Bowen's just released statement on her promised, unprecedented, first-of-its-kind in the nation, "top to bottom review" of all of California's electronic voting systems.

The review will include "red team" hack testing for the first time ever. Done as standard operating procedure for similar security-sensitive, mission-critical commercial systems, this sort of penetration testing has never been performed on America's voting systems. Until now.

The one page summary [PDF] of the plan states:

  • [University of California] will provide specialists from its campuses, as well as experts from public and private universities and private sector companies throughout the United States to create three teams of experts to conduct the reviews.
  • Each system will undergo a thorough document and source code review, red team penetration testing, and a review to determine whether it’s accessible to all voters.
  • The review teams will provide an independent technical evaluation of the voting systems that the Secretary of State will use to carry out her statutory duty with respect to voting systems in determining whether the systems comply with current state and federal law.

There are links within her statement below where you can find more details. For example, the State's review teams will include folks such as computer security expert "hacking" Harri Hursti, and blind technology expert Noel Runyan, who has been highly critical of unverifiable touch-screen DRE voting systems.

More on all of this, perhaps, later after I've had time to review the materials myself. But for now, see the statement below for some killer quotes from Bowen...

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




By Alan Breslauer on 5/9/2007 10:50am PT  

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

The PBS Frontline special,When Teens Get Life, investigates the archaic and cruel dimmension of the American justice system that allows children to be sent to prison for life. Additionally, the documentary provides some insight into how we house the nation's "worst" criminal offenders.

Unfortunately, the limited information provided about the Super Max Colorado State Prison featured in this edited video (8:21) is not reassuring. In fact, there appears to be some startling similarities between the treatment of inmates in the Colorado Super Max and the US prison at Guantánamo Bay. For example, Frontline was not permitted to film inside or outside of the prison or interview any inmates. Video footage of the teen inmate featured in the segment was obtained in 2004 by Human Rights Watch. Inmates are also denied counsel and the right to review testimony used against them in prison proceedings. Evidentiary testimony is considered confidential and is never made available to prisoners. Without counsel, the ability to cross examine witnesses or even see the evidence used against them, it can hardly be said that prisoners have any due process rights. Finally, prisoners at the Colorado Super Max are not assigned release dates.

Why do we have a Constitution?




Griffith Observatory, LA Zoo (and BRAD BLOG World News Headquarters to Lesser Extent) Threatened as Massive Fire Rages Amid Second Day of Heat Spell...
By Brad Friedman on 5/8/2007 10:33pm PT  

On the second day of a heat spell that's gripped Los Angeles, and The BRAD BLOG World News Headquarters, fire has once again erupted in the nearby bone dry Hollywood Hills. This one appears to be much bigger --- and the weather conditions much worse --- than the blaze we noticed out our window last month which threatened the Hollywood Sign.

That's a photo of the Griffith Observatory which is very near the current fire tonight. It has recently re-opened after a multi-million dollar renovation. You may recognize it as the location of Sal Mineo's death in Rebel Without a Cause. It's currently a mere quarter mile from the fire line.

The nearby threatened area also includes the Los Angeles Zoo, which was evacuated earlier of people, if not animals, Griffith Park's legendary Greek Theater, and yes, the Hollywood Sign. Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for nearby homes. As of 6:30pm PT the fire was growing, had covered 200 acres, was being battled by 500 fire fighters, and was just 25% contained. For a better idea of how large this fire is see another photo of the Observatory below.

Local TV affiliate coverage and video, etc. available here, here and here.

For those concerned, BRAD BLOG World News Headquarters is currently at a safe enough distance. We think. We'll let you know if that changes.

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




By John Gideon on 5/8/2007 10:00pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today HR-811 was marked-up. We can only guess at what the bill looks like now and we should know before tomorrow’s DVN. From what I have heard the bill seems not to have suffered from the mark-up process and amendments. In fact, it may now be better than it was when it was filed. The bill was voted out of conference by a party-line vote of 6-3 and will go to the floor for a vote sometime within the next two weeks.

Links to many of today's notable voting news stories follow below...

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




Hundreds of Sworn Voter Affidavits Collected by Curtis Campaign, Suggesting Inaccurate Counts on Electronic Voting Machines in FL-24 Race Against Feeney, Disregarded as 'Not Enough Evidence'...
But Without Access to the Machines or Source Code What Other Evidence Could There Be?
By Brad Friedman on 5/8/2007 7:47pm PT  

In addition to voting Rep. Rush Holt's dangerous Election Reform bill out of committee today (see this late Tuesday story for details), the U.S. House Administration Committee on Tuesday also unanimously voted to dismiss four of the five U.S. House races from last November which had been challenged in Congress under the Federal Contested Elections Act.

Only the contested Jennings/Buchanan race in Florida's 13th district --- which has gotten a great deal of mainstream media coverage for the 18,000 undervotes recorded by Sarasota's touch-screen voting systems in the election decided by a 369 vote margin --- will move forward. Late last week, the committee voted on party lines to send that contest to the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) for investigation.

Included in the four dismissals on Tuesday was the contest filed by vote-rigging whistleblower Clint Curtis (D) in his race against (allged vote-rigger) Tom Feeney (R) in Florida's 24th district. Late Monday night we reported that was likely occur.

Tonight, we received some comments from Capitol Hill staffers on the committee's reasons for the dismissals...

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




Advocacy Group's Press Release Disingenuously Continues to Forward Unsupportable Notion that Bill Would Have Prevented Sarasota's FL-13 Election Meltdown
Legislation Still to Allow for Uncounted and Uncountable Electronic Ballots on Touch-Screen Voting Systems...
By Brad Friedman on 5/8/2007 5:32pm PT  

Rush Holt's Election Reform Bill (HR811) was successfully voted out of the U.S. House Administration Committee today after a four hour mark-up session. We'll have analysis of the bill in the coming days as we are able to review a copy of the final version which is now headed to the House floor. We have been told that electronic balloting on Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen systems will continue to be allowed in the bill.

Apparently, a paper ballot --- one that is actually counted --- for every vote cast in America is of little interest to either the Democratic and Republican members of the committee.

See our Holt Bill Special Coverage Page at https://BradBlog.com/Holt for much more information and action points concerning the bill.

First out of the box to trumpet today's "triumph", naturally, was the bill's top supporter, the public advocacy group, People for the American Way (PFAW). They had a press release good to go before the ink even dried on the dangerous new version of the bill (which, we should add, does include both some improvements to the initial version, along with several watered down provisions as we've been told...but we'll wait until we actually read it before commenting further on any of that.)

For now, however, we have little choice but to characterize the tactics used by PFAW in their press release as despicable, while they continue to knowingly mislead the American people about what the Holt bill will and won't do. (Their press release is posted in full at the end of this article.) This group knows better, and yet, they are doing it anyway.

PFAW can be reached at:
pfaw@pfaw.org
202-467-4999 or 800-326-7329
2000 M Street, NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036

We can do little else at this point other than to recommend any donors to their organization cease supporting them immediately, and otherwise let them know exactly why. Their dangerous, disingenuous support for this dangerous and disingenuous bill is counter to the best interests of Election Reform and Integrity in America. Worse still, PFAW --- who has openly lobbied in favor of the use of dangerous, disenfranchising, hackable touch-screen DRE systems, claiming they are preferable to paper-based optical-scan systems --- is willing to lie about facts in order to see the bill move forward...

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




Bill Supported by Majority Leader Reid, 8 Other Senate Co-Sponsors, to be Offered as Amendment to New Iraq War Supplemental
Exceptions for Funds Cutoff to Be Made for Fighting Terrorists, Security for U.S. Troops and Infrastructure, Training of Iraqi Security Services...
By Brad Friedman on 5/8/2007 3:08pm PT  

In a statement just sent to The BRAD BLOG, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) says he is prepared to up the ante in the fight with the White House in light of Bush's spending bill veto, and will be proposing that war funding be cut off by a date certain as part of the next spending bill sent to the White House.

Feingold adds that his previously proposed legislation, known as the Feingold-Reid Bill (S. 1077), had a number of co-sponsors already on board in the Senate, and that the same language would be used for his proposed amendment to the Senate's new supplemental spending bill.

His statement just in to The BRAD BLOG:

“With brave Americans fighting and dying for a failed policy in Iraq, members of Congress shouldn’t delay action to end this misguided war for weeks or even months just for the sake of political comfort. That is why, when the Senate takes up the Iraq supplemental, I plan to offer the Feingold-Reid bill as an amendment to force the President to safely redeploy our troops by March 31, 2008 at which point funding for the war would be cut off.”

In addition to Reid's support of the original bill, the co-sponsors already on board as listed at Feingold's website include Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chris Dodd (D-CT), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), John Kerry (D-MA), Pat Leahy (D-VT), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

It's not yet known if the same Senators will support the bill as an amendment to the next supplemental spending bill or not, according to a Feingold spokesman tonight.

The legislation includes a few caveats sure to be ignored by the wingnuts when they begin to attack it, so we'll point them out here. Namely, that Feingold's bill will not cut off funding for the purpose of:

  • "conduct[ing] targeted operations...against members of al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations";
  • "security for United States infrastructure and personnel"; or
  • "to train and equip Iraqi security services"

CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story was unclear about the differences between the two versions of Feingold's legislation. Feingold's original legislation, supported by 10 Senators in all, and quoted in full below, will be used as the basis --- "likely with identical language," according to a Feingold spokesperson --- as an amendment to the new supplemental spending bill in the Senate. At the moment, it's unclear what that new supplemental will look like. We thank the Feingold staffer who contacted us late tonight with the clarification.

The full text of Feingold's straight forward proposed legislation follows below...

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




KC Star's Corporate Attorney is Lathrop & Gage of Thor Hearne/ACVR (and Much More) Fame
Failed to Make Disclosure When Re-Writing About Corrupt Firm's Corrupt Clients...
By Brad Friedman on 5/8/2007 1:23pm PT  

If you've yet to notice, the latest daily must-read covering the very heart and soul of the U.S. Attorney Purge scandal is Fired Up ! Missouri.

They have been reporting on the nub of the issue --- the resounding corruption and/or cover-ups emanating out of Thor Hearne's MO law firm Lathrop & Gage --- in a way that even the good folks at TPMMuckracker have yet to fully comprehend and/or adequately cover.

Anyway, Howard Beale at FU!MO (an interesting acronym, now that we write it) has a notable follow-up today to his Friday story on the KC Star having re-written the excellent McClatchy story on Missouri as "Ground Zero" for the GOP "Voter Fraud" fraud.

The KC Star, ironically enough, owned by McClatchy's parent company, had rewritten the piece to make it far more GOP/Missouri Politico-friendly as we subsequently covered here.

Beale today, has a suggestion as to why the Star may have gone out of their way to whitewash a previously brilliant piece of investigative reporting by McClatchy's Greg Gordon when they reran it (a day after McClatchy's other papers had done so): KC Star's corporate attorney is none other than Hearne's Lathrop & Gage, the very firm that is at the absolutely epi-center of this entire matter in many more ways than one, including representing a number of the subjects of Gordon's story, such as Hearne, Gov. Matt Blunt, etc.

All of which begs another important question which Beale forgot to ask in his coverage: Why did the Star fail to make that disclosure for readers when they reran even the whitewashed version of the McClatchy piece?

After bullet-pointing several of the L&G connections to all of these coming out of the U.S. Attorney Purge scandal, Beale concludes:

It has, in some ways, always been puzzling that the Star has been so far behind other news outlets in reporting on the DOJ/U.S. Attorney scheme despite its connection to the Kansas City area and the region's own U.S. Attorney. Makes you wonder about just what sort of counsel the paper's been keeping.

Indeed. But readers shouldn't have to "wonder". The paper ought to be disclosing it in every article --- if they still have any journalistic ethics left at the joint, in any case.

Go figure...

UPDATE: What is disclosed by the Star at the end of their re-written McClatchy hatchett job, btw, is this: "McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Margaret Talev, and The Star’s Steve Kraske and Mark Morris contributed to this report." McClatchy's Talev was listed as a contributor on the original version of the piece. As to the others, we don't yet know much about Morris personally, but Kraske's GOP leanings and Fox "News"-style tactics of "journalism" are well-dissected in this Sunday piece from Beale, covering Kraske's own whitewashing of the duplicitous, anti-democratic, politicization of the DoJ under the guise of the GOP's "Voter Fraud" canard as run at the Star over the weekend.

Why even one reporter would be needed to rewrite such a story is already worth questioning. Putting two on the case, especially in light of the grotesque rewrites, is certainly notable. Especially when one of them is Kraske.




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