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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
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The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...

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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
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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...

One-Time War Supporter, Vietnam Vet, Calls for 'Change in Direction'
Says 'American Public Ahead of Congress' on War Debate, Its 'A Flawed Policy, Wrapped in Illusion' Hurting Our Military Preparedness, Budget
By David Edwards on 11/17/2005 9:32am PT  

Guest blogged by David Edwards

Representative John Murtha (D-PA), a Vietnam veteran, is known for support of the Pentagon and the Iraq war. Today, he called for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Murtha is the top Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. He explained that the American people are ahead of congress on this issue. Murtha choked back tears as he explained the failures of the Iraq war that lead him to call for the immediate withdrawal of troops.

AP reports on Murtha's speech:

"This is the immediate redeployment of American forces because they have become the target," said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., one of Congress' most hawkish Democrats. At times during his remarks to reporters, the decorated Vietnam War veteran was choking back tears.

"It is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering, the future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region," Murtha said.

...
Murtha voted to give the president authority to use force against Saddam Hussein in 2002. In recent months, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee defense panel has grown increasingly troubled with the direction of the war and with the Bush administration's handling of it, particularly following reports of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe.

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion," Murtha said.

Video in Windows Media format...
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UPDATE: Stakeholder has the full text transcript of Murtha's speech, along with the text of his resolution. Right here...




... over and over and over and over ...
By Winter Patriot on 11/16/2005 7:52pm PT  

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

If it feels like 1984, that's because it is. We're 21 years late but we're there all the same. The Ministry of Information is busy changing our past. Fiction has become the news. And Truth has become an enemy of the state.

Whether you measure by severity or frequency, it's clear that the falsification of our national history has recently reached an all-time high. Bush's declaration that we don't torture was a clear sign that the truth is definitely behind us now, and his assertion that his opponents are rewriting history raises the level of absurdity to a level one would prefer to call unimaginable.

The propaganda that has been catapulted lately --- like all good propaganda --- contains almost enough truth to make it somewhat slightly plausible. For example, the CIA has from time to time acted as a rogue agency, Congress did vote to grant Bush the power to do something to Iraq; and Bush may have believed some of what he was saying about Iraq before he started the war. So the lies are not totally false, and we can't dismiss them entirely. We have to pick them apart very carefully, in order to show that, even though said claims do contain an occasional nugget of half-truth, the claims themselves are overwhelming false.

It's hard work! ;-)

And in the meantime, like all good propagandists, the White House Spin Machine has a vast assortment of Spinnerettes at its disposal. [And make no mistake, the Spinnerettes are definitely disposable!] The Spinnerettes keep repeating the lies, over and over and over, generating an ocean of falsehood that comes at us in wave after wave after wave, until most of us must struggle to discern what is true and what is false.

Of course the wise men among us have no such trouble. So it's always a good idea to read Robert Parry, and his newest column, in my opinion, is one of his best.

Here's a sample [with emphasis added]:

In essence, Bush's argument is that he didn't lie the nation into war; he and his top aides were just misled by the same faulty intelligence that Congress saw. Plus, they say independent commissions already have cleared Bush of hyping the evidence.

However, as a Washington Post analysis politely observed in response to those two arguments, “neither assertion is wholly accurate.”

The White House sees far more detailed intelligence than what is shared with Congress, which found itself depending on a CIA-compiled National Intelligence Estimate that downplayed or left out objections to key pro-war assertions, the Post wrote.

The Post article also noted that neither the Senate Intelligence Committee nor a Bush-appointed commission, headed by retired Judge Laurence Silberman and former Sen. Charles Robb, gave much attention to how the intelligence was used – or misused – addressing instead how it was produced. [Washington Post, Nov. 12, 2005]

Kaboom! Game, set and match!

What's that? You want another game?

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




By John Gideon on 11/16/2005 5:05pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

While Ohio SoS Ken Blackwell characterizes last weeks election as a success the dirty truth is just now coming out. In Lucas County, for instance, the election board's call logs for the Nov. 8 election, reviewed yesterday by The Toledo Blade, show that paid poll volunteers made more than 180 requests for help. Many of the calls involved broken machines. Does that sound like a success Mr. Blackwell? In Detroit, the city elections director suspects there are problems with their Nov. 2 vote count and she wants to do a 5% hand recount. The state is keeping her from doing that....

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




By Brad Friedman on 11/16/2005 2:15pm PT  

RAW STORY scoops Woodward on Woodward scoop by revealing what Woodward wouldn't.

The just posted story at RAW reports that "attorneys close to the investigation and intelligence officials" identified National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley as having revealed Valerie Plame/Wilson as a "CIA analyst" to WaPo's Bob Woodward.

Hadley's leak to the reporter who gained fame via his investigative work with Carl Bernstein on the Watergate scandal, would have occured prior to any other known leaks to journalists on the matter, and prior even to Joe Wilson's now-infamous NY Times Op/Ed which was critical of the Bush Administration's assertion that Saddam had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger.




Right-Leaning Blog Collective Launches Today
By Brad Friedman on 11/16/2005 12:45pm PT  

They've already come under some harsh criticism (also here and here) from the left for their far-right leaning Editorial Board and unbalanced collection of blogs, but the group previously known as Pajamas Media has opened for business-proper today under the name "Open Source Media". Discredited former NY Times "journalist" Judith Miller was the keynote speaker at their launch. (Both BuzzMachine and Kos have some worthy thoughts on that).

OSM was founded by rightwingers Roger Simon and Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs. The latter blogger, at least, being quite fond of disparaging his political opponents by labeling them as "moonbats".

Nonetheless, and despite their currently massive lack of editorial "balance", several of their staffers have claimed in various recent conversations I've had with them that they hope to change that hard right tilt in the near future. The proof, however, will remain in the blog pudding.

During their testing phase, I participated in a "BlogJam" with three other bloggers for them. That's their term for an online debate forum. The no-brainer topic about which we debated a week or two ago was "Are left-right politics becoming too polarized?"

That debate is now available online here as one of their first offerings.

I had fun doing it, as you may be able to tell. You'll let me know how I did...




As the Democracy Baby is Thrown Out With the Paper Ballot Bathwater...
By John Gideon on 11/16/2005 11:49am PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

"We fondly remember Mayberry; but it was a fictional town. We have to move on."

So said Catherine Carpenter, the Administrative Assistant and self-described "Queen of Town Hall" and "Jill of All Trades" in the once sleepy little southern town of Bluffton, South Carolina.

Last night was the last time that the citizens of Bluffton would vote using paper ballots after going to the only polling place they ever needed: Town Hall. It has been a long-standing tradition that at the end of the day, when the polls closed, the citizens of the town would gather in the hall and watch as the votes are counted.

Each vote is marked with a slash mark on a chalk board and audience members call out "tally " each time a group of five votes is recorded.

But now, according to Carpenter, the town has grown too large to do that anymore. Since 2000 this once little town has grown from 1278 citizens to over 4800. They are very quickly being swallowed up into the retirement community craze that has swept north from Florida. And that means Tuesday's gathering of citizens to watch the tally of the votes and to call out "tally" will move on too...

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




Letter Sent to Bush Today Requests 'No Pardons' Pledge, Suspension of Security Clearance for Officials Who Spoke to Reporters About Valerie Wilson's Identity
Asks Bush to 'Restore Honor' to White House
By Brad Friedman on 11/15/2005 10:42pm PT  

A group of 16 former intelligence officials sent a letter to George W. Bush earlier today expressing their outrage over "the breach of trust between this Administration and members of the intelligence community that has resulted from the Valerie Plame case."

The letter is described by former CIA analyst Larry C. Johnson as having been signed by a "bipartisan" group "representing a variety of political views."

"We are agreed on one thing," said Johnson in an Email receved by The BRAD BLOG this evening, "we are Americans and believe this country is worth defending."

Johnson had been a classmate of Valerie Plame/Wilson's during training at the CIA.

The missive, sent late this afternoon from a variety of former and retired officials, calls on George W. Bush to keep his "promise to restore honor to the White House," and demands accountability for any staff members "implicated in the leak of Valerie Wilson's classified identity." It goes on to decry the "bond of trust" that was "shattered with the exposure" of Wilson's identity.

One White House official, so far, I. Scooter Libby, has been indicted on charges relating to an ongoing investigation into the matter by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

The former intelligence officials express that whether her exposure was "unwitting or intentional" the action's by Administration officials has destroyed both Wilson's career and her intelligence network "which was devoted to protecting this country from the threat of weapons of mass destruction."

They call on Bush to "immediately suspend the clearances of all White House personelle" who spoke to reporters about Wilson's CIA affiliation while taking the occassion to remind Bush about Dick Cheney's dismissal of the Air Force Chief of Staff who inadvertantly disclosed classified information to the press.

The letter, which was CC'd to several members of Congress, follows in its entirety...

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




By Brad Friedman on 11/15/2005 9:33pm PT  

This from a friend and emailer who attended today's protest over the recent dismisal of liberal columnist Robert Scheer at the LA Times. Scheer's apparent crime was being right on this administration and their trumped-up war from the get-go. That won't do as the LA Times works hard to both destroy itself and appease the Bill O'Reilly McCarthyites of the New American Right. You'll be delighted to know that while Scheer was removed, wingnut Jonah Goldberg has been added to the Opinion Page. Scheer's own website will continue to carry his columns, along with other papers around the country.

A lively protest today at noon in front of the LA Times building showed that people pay attention when their favorite columnist gets the boot. After a thirty year career at the paper, Robert Scheer was summarily dumped in a right-wing shuffle of the Opinion Page. Scheer's weekly commentary was depended on for digging out the truth. His voice was out front against the war in Iraq, and in pointing out the lies of the administration in the lead-up to war.

Protesters layed white bread on the sidewalk, amid shouts of "No more bland, we want Bob."

Meanwhile Scheer is launching an internet news service at the end of the month to be found at www.truthdig.com.

The LA Times can be reached at Letters@LATimes.com if you have any thoughts for them.

UPDATE: More details sent to me on how to contact the folks who need to be contacted:

Organizers of the protest will continue to press for a meeting with Jeff Johnson, the new publisher of the Op Ed page, and urge you to contact him:
Jeff.johnson@latimes.org (213-237-5000/fax: 213-237-4401) and CEO Tribune Company Dennis FitzSimons: dfitzsimons@tribune.com (312-222-9100/fax: 312-222-1573) to request Johnson's or FitzSimons' participation in a meeting with loyal Times' readers.

Several additional photos from today's protest follow...

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




By John Gideon on 11/15/2005 4:54pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The little town of Bluffton, SC will decide to cease hand tallying their paper ballots after an election today. They have always had a town meeting after the polls close in which the votes are read off and tallied on chalk boards with the audience yelling “tally” after each group of five slash marks is put on the board. Now some feel the town is getting too big and they will go to DREs in the future. ...

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




and other reflections on Habeas Corpus, the cornerstone of free society currently under attack
featuring P. Sabin Willett in the Washington Post and Handy Fuse at Simply Appalling
By Winter Patriot on 11/15/2005 2:51pm PT  

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Important words from P. Sabin Willett, from the Washington Post, Monday, November 14, 2005; A21. Emphasis added.

Detainees Deserve Court Trials

As the Senate prepared to vote Thursday to abolish the writ of habeas corpus, Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jon Kyl were railing about lawyers like me. Filing lawsuits on behalf of the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Terrorists! Kyl must have said the word 30 times.

As I listened, I wished the senators could meet my client Adel.

Adel is innocent. I don't mean he claims to be. I mean the military says so. It held a secret tribunal and ruled that he is not al Qaeda, not Taliban, not a terrorist. The whole thing was a mistake: The Pentagon paid $5,000 to a bounty hunter, and it got taken.

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




By Brad Friedman on 11/15/2005 11:48am PT  

Death of a thousand cuts...That's what seems to be in store either for American democracy, or what will be required to finally take bring down the entire anti-democratic Electronic Voting cabal in this country, as aided and abetted in their crimes against American Democratic Values by the Corporate Mainstream Media.

We take heart that there is more and more coverage of these matters these days, even if there are more and more unfortunate reasons to have such coverage in the first place. VotersUnite.org's "Daily Voting News", now posted each day on BRAD BLOG, gives one some sense of how much is going on --- both good and bad --- in regards to Election-related issues in this country, and just how much of it does make it into the news somewhere, if only (and too often) on just the local level.

At least the public's and the media's awareness continues to grow --- slowly, but surely --- even as the incidents of democracy in disrepair increase exponentially along with that awareness (and along with the obscene outpouring of virtually unchecked HAVA money to States and Counties in the bargain).

Nonetheless, we always look for reasons to be optimistic, and our usual coterie of Election Reform Media All-Stars continues to both grow and produce stellar work. In addition to the recent Free Press exposé by Fitrakis and Wasserman on the inexplicable in Ohio's election last week, which we mentioned previously here (as well as at HuffPo), there are a few other notable heroic voices of late that you should know about.

Debra LoGuercio, the editor of the Winters Express and syndicated columnist for a number of smaller West Coast papers, continues to take both her democracy and her role of media watchdog seriously. Her latest column this week, "Where in the World is Democracy?" [link fixed] picks up on my previous calls (both at BRAD BLOG and later at HuffPo) for Mainstream Corporate Media coverage --- hell, even a single sentence would do! --- of the recent landmark report from the non-partisan Governmental Accountability Office (GAO). That report, which confirms so many of the problems with Electronic Voting that we've been reporting on here for more than a year, is apparently less important to the corporate media braintrust, according to LoGuercio, than figuring out where in the world Matt Lauer is.

We're happy as well to welcome one Kathy Gill into the still-all-too-exclusive club of journalists who give a damn about democracy. She's posted an article on that GAO report yesterday at About.com. Welcome to the small, but still-growing club, Kathy! Glad you're on board and please keep up the good --- and important --- work!

And as Election Day unravelled last week, our friend Robert Koehler of Tribune Media Services once again opines on the MIA MSM in regard to Election Fraud in America's once-great democracy in his latest piece, "A Crime Without a Name - 'Concern' about election fraud is useless without guts and anger". He speaks, amongst other things, about John Kerry's failure to stand up for what is right here, and the unwillingness of the mainstream media to investigate and report without that kick in the pants.

The always sharp Dave Astor of Editor & Publisher has added some visibility by picking up on Bob's column in a quick article about it yesterday. For this, we are pleased, since so many of Bob's Tribune Media clients have shown neither the guts nor the anger required to save our democracy, and have chosen instead to avoid running many of his important articles on Election Reform issues altogether. It'll be interesting as usual, to see how many of them don't pick up Koehler's latest, despite --- once again --- the elegant way in which he is able to express the nightmare of our crumbling democracy.

To poorly paraphrase a famous movie tagline; In the corporate-conglomerated media world of the 21st century no one can hear you scream. But some have heard, and will continue to yell even louder...And we'll keep at the rest of them until they realize what's at stake...no matter how many cuts it takes.




By David Edwards on 11/15/2005 10:50am PT  

Guest blogged by David Edwards

The Daily Show's Rob Corddry reports on the President's Veterans Day speech. Bush attacked Democrats for "re-writing" history and sending "mixed messages" to the troops. The Democrats and others have been critical of the Administration for misusing intelligence and misleading the country into the Iraq war.

Corddry reports that "getting us out of Iraq is going to require tremendous misleadership..." He continues by saying:

"If we were wrong about why we went in; we have to be wrong about why we are leaving.

Otherwise, Jon, it sends the enemy the message that America lacks the will to remain incorrect."

Video in Windows Media format...
Video in QuickTime format...




By John Gideon on 11/14/2005 5:09pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It was a relatively slow news day today. There are a few races, across the nation, that have still not been decided and at least one may end up being re-voted. In Louisiana it has been recommended that any New Orleans election be delayed for awhile. ...

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




By Brad Friedman on 11/14/2005 1:43pm PT  

"Torture" is not really torture. It is now officially: "enhanced interrogation techniques".

That, according to National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley yesterday whose latest job, it seems, is to clarify that when Bush said last week "We do not torture," what he really meant to say was "We do torture, but we just refer to it as 'enhanced interrogation techniques' so we can trick ourselves into being able to sleep at night."




...As Half of Ohio's Counties Fire Up Blackwell's New Diebold Electronic Diebold Voting Machines
Is this the Election that will finally break the camel's back?
By Brad Friedman on 11/14/2005 11:36am PT  

With so much going on, we haven't had much time to report here on the extraordinary outcome of last Tuesday's election in Ohio where the crooked state that brung you --- by hook and by crook --- a second term for George W. Bush may have turned in results so staggeringly impossible, that perhaps even the Ohio Mainstream Corporate Media will have no choice but to look into it. And that's a good thing.

As usual, the Free Press' heroic Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are on the case. Their article on what happened on ballot issues 1 through 5 last week is A MUST READ for anybody who still gives the slightest damn about whatever democracy might be left in America.

We'll try to summarize here briefly. There were five initiatives on the ballot last week. Issue 1 was a controversial proposition for $2 billion in new state spending. The Christian Right was opposed (because some of the new funds might go to stem cell research), but otherwise, the Republican Governor Taft's Administration (he recently pleaded guilty to several counts of corruption) was pushing it hard alongside progressives in the state.

The Columbus Dispatch's pre-election polling, which Fritrakis and Wasserman describe as "uncannily accurate for decades", called the race correctly within 1% of the final result. The margin of error for the poll was +/- 2.5% with a 95% confidence interval. On Issue 1, the Dispatch poll was right on the money. They predicted 53% in favor, the final result was 54% in favor.

But then came Issues 2 through 5 put forward by ReformOhioNow.org --- a bi-partisan coalition pushing these four initiatives for Electoral Reform in the Buckeye State largely in response to their shameful '04 Election performance led by the extremely partisan Secretary of State (and Bush/Cheney '04 Co-Chair) J. Kenneth Blackwell.

On those four issues, which Blackwell and the Christian Right were against, the final results were impossibly different --- and we mean impossibly! --- from both the Dispatch's final polling before the election and all reasoned common-sense. Take a look:

ISSUE 1 ($2 Billion State Bond initiative)
PRE-POLLING: 53% Yes, 27% No, 20% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 54% Yes, 45% No

ISSUE 2 (Allow easier absentee balloting)
PRE-POLLING: 59% Yes, 33% No, 9% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 36% Yes, 63% No

ISSUE 3 (Revise campaign contribution limits)
PRE-POLLING: 61% Yes, 25% No, 14% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 33% Yes, 66% No

ISSUE 4 (Ind. Comm. to draw Congressional Districts)
PRE-POLLING: 31% Yes, 45% No, 25% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 30% Yes, 69% No

ISSUE 5 (Ind. Board instead of Sec. of State to oversee elections)
PRE-POLLING: 41% Yes, 43% No, 16% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 29% Yes, 70% No

Now, you tell us...What could possibly explain such unheard of differences between the Dispatch's poll and the final results?

Now, we'll tell you...This was the year that Ohio, under the encouragement and mandates of Blackwell, rolled out new Electronic Touch-Screen Voting Machines in 44 of its 88 counties...41 of them employing the same Diebold Touch-Screen Machines that California's Republican Sec. of State decertified in this state when 20% of them failed this summer in the largest test of its kind ever held.

Those would be the very same Electronic Voting Machines which a recent GAO Report (still unmentioned by a single wire-service or mainstream American newspaper) confirmed to be easily hackable.

Will the absurdly skewed results from last Tuesday's Ohio Election finally light a fire under the media --- either nationally or just in Ohio alone --- to look into what the hell is going on here?! We remain hopeful...if not optimistic.

The Free Press article is a must read, as mentioned, but we'll share their closing thoughts here on the possible reasons for the wildly unexplained discrepancy between the final polling and the final results which, as they posit, are due to either a completely inexplicable breakdown of the Dispatch's historically accurate polling methods wildly beyond the margin-of-error for all initiatives except Issue 1...or...somebody hacked that vote count:

If the latter is true, it can and will be done again, and we can forget forever about the state that has been essential to the election of every Republican presidential candidate since Lincoln.

And we can also, for all intents and purposes, forget about the future of American democracy.

Anybody in the Mainstream Media ready to give a damn yet?

Cross-Posted at Huffington Post.

UPDATE: Further information, updated news, etc. on this issue now available in this new post.




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