Tim Griffin, former Karl Rove protege, former interim US Attorney from Arkansas and felonious vote cager, finally answered some charges in a speech yesterday in Arkansas. Apparently, he welled up with tears at various points in his presentation --- "crying as he said he had no plans to return to politics," reported AP --- to the point that the person who forwarded us the articles on the matter, said we should "call him a wahhhhmbulance."

We'd never be so cruel as to say or report any such thing, of course. That, despite the thousands of voters that Griffin sought to keep from exercising their franchise in America in 2004. During a time of war, no less. All to benefit his Republican paymasters.

AP reports that Timmy says that he plans to stay in Little Rock to "open a 'bipartisan' public affairs firm." We're sure he does.

Concerning the vote caging charges --- the ones based on the pre-2004 emails he sent, with the subject line "Re: caging," which included spreadsheet attachments with the names of thousands of minority (read: Democratic-leaning) voters he'd hoped the GOP would challenge at the polls, including folks in the military serving overseas, by the way --- Arkansas Business reports the former US Attorney is in denial:

Some evidence for the "made up of whole cloth" charges, including some of Griffin's email, is available in this earlier BRAD BLOG exclusive from Greg Palast, who tells us he may have some more comments for us tomorrow on all of this. (UPDATE: Palast's comments on "Tears of a Clone" now here...)

The audio of Griffin's full speech (bring kleenex) is below...

UPDATE: 6/15/07 ThinkProgress quotes more from Griffin's speech in which he refers to the "Internet stuff" about vote caging, and "made jokes comparing caging to tending zoo animals" [emphasis TP's]:

UPDATE: 6/26/07 Video of part of Griffin's speech is now available at BRAD BLOG.

Sarasota's Herald-Tribune highlights why it's imperative to get election results right on Election Night...

The Congressional challenge is due to problems with touch-screen DRE voting systems in the district which resulted in 18,000 lost votes, in a race certified as having been "won" by the Republican Vern Buchanan over the Democrat Christine Jennings by a 369 vote margin. Even the machine vendor (ES&S)'s own expert in court admitted that Jennings would have most likely won were it not for problems with their touch-screen DRE voting machines during the race.

A recent study of DRE voting systems found that two-thirds of voters didn't bother to check their review screens at the end of the voting process on such systems, and that even if they check them, they do not notice votes that have been flipped by the system. The study concludes that paper trail records, printed out after the review screen on DREs, would similarly not be noticed or checked for accuracy. Those findings confirm earlier results from an MIT/Caltech study which looked at similar issues.

The embarrassments caused by the District 13 race in Florida helped lead the Republican-controlled House and Senate in Florida to finally legislate a ban on DRE touch-screen voting machines altogether.

Supporters of Rush Holt's HR811 Election Reform bill in the U.S. House, however, have said that it's impossible to get a similar ban in the Democratically-controlled House and Senate, so they've refused to add such a ban to their sweeping bill. Those who have made the claim that a DRE ban could never win passage in the Democratically-controlled House and Senate have yet to offer any evidence for that claim, or even offer a single name of a supporter of the bill who would vote against it if it included such a ban.

The bill currently has 216 co-sponsors, although ComputerWorld today confirmed our report from earlier this week that Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) plans to withdraw his co-sponsorship of the bill.

The FL-13 election, meanwhile, was held back in November of 2006. The earliest timetable detailed in the Herald-Trib article, quoted above, would result in a decision on the matter by October of 2007. The Republican Vern Buchanan, who most likely lost the race by nearly everyone's (but his and Sean Hannity's) estimation, continues to vote with the GOP caucus in the House while the Democratic candidate, whom Sarasota voters had tried to send to the U.S. House, bides her time in Florida.

This is exactly why Mark F. "Thor" Hearne and his "voter fraud" scamming buddies need to be called in, under oath --- with subpoenas if necessary --- before a Congressional committee. And pronto. The garbage they've been circulating for years is still taken "as gospel" by the Bush Dead Enders.

Here's one of them. Peter Kirsanow, appointed by Bush in 2001 to the US Commission on Civil Rights. Laura McGann has more details on this clown. But at left is the video of this clown's Senate testimony from last Thursday --- even after all of this stuff has been completely discredited --- repeating the same garbage, known well enough for him to repeat it a mile-a-minute, in a hearing concerning intimidation at the polls.

And yes, you read that right. This guy is on the US Commission on Civil Rights. The entire system has been compromised. It's time to haul in the ACVR bunch and get them on the record, to find out exactly "whodunnit." For example, the ACVR had nearly a million dollars to operate their "non-partisan" tax-exempt outfit in order to generate propaganda for chumps like Kirsanow to puke up in official hearings. That was the plan --- even while they lied about it on their tax forms --- and it's still working like a charm.

Before he became a "non-partisan" "voting rights" advocate, Hearne was the national general counsel for Bush/Cheney '04, Inc. He was recognized --- by name --- by Karl Rove when he spoke at a Republic National Lawyers Association event in April of 2006, thanking them for their "work on clean elections" in 2000, 2002, and 2004.

So where did Thor get his million dollars for his now shut down and discredited organization? We still don't know, because nobody has ever asked them under oath.

Anybody in the House or Senate Judiciary Committees paying attention here and feel like finding out?

...CONTACT...
House Judiciary Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee

For more information on the "non-partisan" tax-exempt ACVR "Voter Fraud" 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.

Following up on Thor Hearne's apparent attempt to delete the taint of his American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) con-man past by scrubbing his Wikipedia entry as we discussed yesterday in some detail.

And since Thor wants to keep playing, we'll point out that, yes, it appears his GOP "voter fraud" front group lied on their tax forms. Thor's a lawyer. A rather "important" one in fact, so one would think he would know better than to risk further tarnishing his powerful MO lawfirm Lathrop & Gage's reputation. Details below.

But first...today, Loyola law professor Rick Hasen, who originally discovered the attempt to expunge reality from Thor's Wiki, finds that the battle continues...

To those BRAD BLOG readers who have restored info to Thor's page and to the ACVR page, we'd ask you to keep up the good work. I suspect they will tire before you do!

While you're at it, up the ante! Apparently there wasn't nearly enough detail on Thor's scam on those pages, so feel free to draw freely from our special coverage page right here: https://BradBlog.com/ACVR.

And just to add a bit of fresh material, given Thor's desperate attempt to hide his past (while successfully telegraphing that he clearly feels he has much to hide), we'd add this little chestnut of a lie from ACVR's 2005 990 [PDF] form...

Voter Fraud zealot Bradley Schlozman takes his do-over concerning testimony he gave last week to the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning his assertion (made 10 times in all), that it was Craig Donsanto of the Election Crimes division at the DoJ's Public Integrity unit who gave him the go ahead to bring voter fraud charges in Missouri days before last November's election. The indictments were in strict violation of the DoJ's written policies --- written by Donsanto, in fact --- that bar such indictments at times that they may have an impact on an election.

Says Schlozzie, in his freshly-filed and obviously-forced about face: "I want to be clear that, while I relied on the consultation with, and suggestions of, the Election Crimes Branch in bringing the indictments when I did, I take full responsibility for the decision to move forward with the prosecutions related to ACORN while I was the interim U.S. Attorney."

To which Sen. Leahy --- who pressed Schlozman hard on this precise point in a memorably heated exchange during the hearing (see angry video at left)-- says: "It is deeply troubling that after weeks of preparation Mr. Schlozman appears to have misled the Committee and the public about his decision to file an election eve lawsuit in direct conflict with longstanding Justice Department policy."

Also related...Hans von Spakovsky, Schlozman's GOP "voter fraud" partner at DoJ, comes before the Senate tomorrow for a hearing concerning his appointment as chair of the FEC. He had been previously recess-appointed to the position by Bush, but his Get Out of Jail Free Card is now up, and tomorrow he'll finally face questions on his role in gutting the Voting Rights Act at the DoJ against the advice of the decades-long experience of civil rights attorneys in the Voting Unit there. Five of those former DoJ staffers have written a letter to Congress urging them to reject von Spakovsky's nomination.

Paul Kiel at TPM Muck has many more details on both the Schlozman do-over and von Spakovsky's DoJ chicanery in advance of tomorrow's hearing.

Mark F. "Thor" Hearne must really want to hide something about his discredited past as the front man for the GOP front group calling themselves the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR).

In the latest chapter of a string of attempts by Hearne to cleanse his public record as lead snake-oil salesman for the mysteriously-funded "non-partisan" group that he founded to push propaganda about a massive (if non-existent) Democratic 'voter fraud' epidemic, it seems his Wikipedia page has been expurgated of all references to the ACVR.

Loyola election law professor Rick Hasen reports at his Election Law Blog today...

As BRAD BLOG readers know, Hearne was formerly the national general counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. and continues to be both a friend of Karl Rove and a big time GOP operative in Missouri via his big time GOP law firm of Lathrop & Gage.

Since the spotlight has shone on the "voter fraud" fraud at the heart of the DoJ Attorney Purge, Hearne has been running for cover. The ACVR site was shut down, references to them have been purged from Thor's resume as various exposés have been run on his scam, by Murray Waas at National Journal, Hasen at Slate, and even on the once-ACVR and Thor-friendly NPR.

Of course, several of the scrubbed references and links on Thor's page were to our site, as we originally outed Hearne and his ACVR scam just days after he and fellow "non-partisan" "voting rights" activist Jim Dyke, Communications Director for the RNC, first started peddling their deceptive information. We first noticed them back in March of 2005 when Hearne testified before a Congressional hearing on the 2004 Election, claiming to be little more than a "long time voting rights advocate." Despite promises to the contrary, neither he nor Dyke have ever explained who was really behind the group, and who funded them to the tune of $1 million back when they set up shop out of a PO Box in a strip mall in Dallas, TX, where neither of them lived. The bogus information they peddled from coast to coast was --- and still is --- used by the folks throughout the DoJ and the Bush administration in hopes of affecting elections and seeing disenfranchising Photo ID restrictions legislated for polling places.

Hearne's powerful MO lawfirm, Lathrop & Gage, has also come into the spotlight of late in relation to a state fee office scandal said to have been under investigation by Arkansas US Attorney Bud Cummins at the time he was fired by the DoJ.

Recently, in one of the rare interviews he is now willing to grant to the media, Hearne blamed The BRAD BLOG specifically for many of his current woes.

You're welcome, Thor. Ready to come clean? Or will it take a subpoena for that? (We're guessing it'll take that subpoena.) Either way, unlike you, we've got nothing to hide, and we're not going anywhere...

UPDATE 6/13/07: Wiki info on ACVR restored, but Lathrop & Gage un-restores it. Twice. Plus, ACVR lied on their 990 public disclosure forms. Details on both matters now here...

For more information on the "non-partisan" tax-exempt ACVR "Voter Fraud" 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.

In today's "Daily Voting News" John Gideon mentions the "banter back and forth between members of the Election Integrity community" over Rush Holt's controversial HR 811 Election Reform bill. "Banter" is a very nice way, for the very polite Mr. Gideon, to describe it. I'd call it just short of a shooting war.

In any case, while debate over such sweeping attempts at reforming our entire electoral system are essential, the continuing efforts by the pro-Holt folks to lobby in favor of their bill by offering deceptive and misleading information about it are certainly not useful to anyone. The bill itself is misleading by describing paper trails created by touch-screen voting machines as "paper ballots." The fact is, such trails aren't ballots. They are simply records (perhaps accurate, perhaps not, there is no way for any voter to know for certain) of the voters' votes. They are not actually used in the tally of results on Election Night, and almost never thereafter either.

BRAD BLOG readers are likely well familiar by now with various, and, worse, misleading claims about the bill from Holt's office staffers themselves and People for the American Way (PFAW) in particular, the biggest lobbyist/proponent for the bill. Much of that is covered in articles on our Holt Bill Special Coverage page.

The latest entrant into the mislead sweepstakes is Pam Smith, President of Verified Voting. John points to her editorial today in the DVN, which begins this way...

Democratic Presidential Candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich announced plans to drop his support of Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ)'s controversial election reform bill, HR 811, during a telephone appearance at a New Hampshire activist event over the weekend. The Ohio congressman and outspoken critic of the Iraq War also announced that he plans to re-introduce "The Paper Ballot Act," (HR 6200) a bill he filed in the last Congress, requiring the hand counting of paper ballots in Presidential elections.

Kucinich "announced he will advise Rep. Holt that the he will not be supporting HR 811, a voter reform bill rapidly losing support," according to a press release issued today by his New Hampshire campaign spokesman....

(NOTE: Spoilers at all the linked URLs)

We agree with Frazier Moore of AP. We do not agree with Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood. We also agree with Charlie McCollum of Mercury News, who said:

What did you think?

Following up on last night's exclusive in which we reported that progressive Los Angeles talk radio host and former TV news anchor Bree Walker had purchased Cindy Sheehan's "Camp Casey" property in Crawford, TX.

As expected, AP, CNN, et al. picked up the story today after we reported it here. Also as expected, though we were the only outlet to have the story and neither Walker nor Sheehan issued press releases, none of the MSM outlets bothered to give us credit for having reported it here on The BRAD BLOG. So we won't bother to link to their reports either, but at least we told you they exist.

We reported last night that Sheehan was to appear live in studio this afternoon on Walker's radio show to hand her the deed to the property, and that we were also scheduled as a guest on the program as well.

The audio from our guest appearance today along with the two women follows below. The clip includes Sheehan's transfer of the deed for her land near George W. Bush's "ranch" to Walker, along with some thoughts on her plans for Camp Casey's future.

Walker told us yesterday that by purchasing the land, she was "cashing out [her] capitalist corporate stocks and buying into a legacy of peace." Today she expanded on her hopes to move forward within the anti-war movement. "I will be learning what my role is to be, in being the new caretaker and landowner of Camp Casey," she explained to listeners during her weekend broadcast on KTLK AM1150.

"Like Cindy says, this is not a movement of Right or Left, it's a movement of right or wrong. So my goal will try to be a unifying person there in Crawford, Texas. And if I'm not welcome in my anti-war activities? Well, too bad. Look out. You think Cindy Sheehan was tough? You just wait," Walker vowed.

She reiterated, during her comments about Camp Casey, that she hoped to continue its historic legacy. "That hallowed ground," Walker promised, "will remain a place for protest against war, and a place for peace and freedom."

-- Click below for selected clips from Walker's show this afternoon, with Brad Friedman on the phone and Sheehan in studio to present the deed to her land in Crawford, TX. [Appx 18 minutes]

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD!...

A former Los Angles newscaster turned progressive talk radio host, Bree Walker, will be purchasing Cindy Sheehan's 5-acre property near the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, The BRAD BLOG has learned.

Walker, currently a resident of San Diego, was previously a television news anchor in Los Angles and New York. She confirmed the news to us moments ago, in an exclusive interview, that she intends to keep the property "as a ground for freedom and peace" and is considering erecting a memorial there for troops killed in Iraq. She hopes to create a meditation garden on the grounds and to keep it open to the public.

"I'm cashing out my capitalist corporate stocks and buying into a legacy of peace," she told The BRAD BLOG moments ago. Sheehan will be selling the property for the same price she purchased it for so as not to be seen as profiting from the sale, Walker explained.

Walker is the host of the The Bree Walker Show on the Los Angeles Air America affiliate station KTLK AM1150 on Saturdays from 2-4pm PT.

Sheehan will appear in studio with Walker for the entirety of tomorrow's broadcast where, Walker says, she'll "give Cindy the check, and Cindy will give me the deed to the property."

She tells us that she'll be taking calls from listeners during tomorrow's show as she wants "listener input on what should be done with the land."

The BRAD BLOG's creator and publisher, Brad Friedman, is scheduled to appear on Walker's show Saturday as well, at 3:00pm PT, by phone.

(On the imaginary premise that Paris doesn't matter...)

Schlozman may be revising his Senate testimony in which he blamed Craig Donsanto, of DoJ's Public Integrity Unit (responsible for Election Crimes), for giving him the "all clear" to bring indictments for "voter fraud" in Missouri just days before the '06 election. The move was in violation of written DoJ policy which specifies that such cases that may have a political effect on elections are not to be filed until after such elections. In his testimony, Schlozman admitted (great video here) that he could have waited, but didn't.

Background and video on his previous testimony here, with a follow-up including details from a BRAD BLOG DoJ source here.

In not necessarily unrelated news, Bush lawyers up with nine additional attorneys today. Must be gettin' hot in there.

(Hat-tip to TPM for both items!)

Here endeth the news for this week...

There is no reason to scroll down below this item. Nothing else, other than this, that actually happened today (or this week) either happened or matters...

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace --- who recently revealed he hadn't a clue about how many of his own U.S. troops were killed in Iraq or how many had died on 9/11 --- is being replaced by order of Sec. of Defense Robert Gates, according to news reports this morning.

Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson speculates the final straw was Pace's letter of support sent to the Judge in the Scooter Libby case:

Pace's letter, sent to Judge Reggie Walton on Libby's behalf, notes that "He impressed me as a team player." The letter is posted in full here by The Smoking Gun.

Jon Soltz, an Iraq war vet and Chairman of VoteVets.org, the largest political group of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, concurs with Johnson's assessment. "General Pace grossly overstepped his bounds and poorly represented the military with his political actions and misguided statements," according to a Soltz in a statement sent to The BRAD BLOG. "The straw that broke the camel's back, for us, was his defense of a convicted felon, Scooter Libby, when it was entirely improper for him to do so, as a top leader in the military, who must remain non-partisan."

Johnson concludes: "I believe that Perfect Peter has dishonored himself and dishonored the Marine Corps by his conduct--his weak, vacillating leadership and his craven pandering to political masters....Peter has been more willing than others to sell his soul for political expediency. He leaves in September. Good riddance."

And speaking of credit where it's due, the New York Times and several other outlets today confirm the story of secret US prisons in Poland and Romania which our friend and courageous investigative journalist, Larisa Alexandrovna, reported exclusively long ago with former Polish intelligence officer David Dastych over at the news site RAW STORY.

As usual, the Times, Washington Post, AP, and the Guardian all failed to acknowledge or recognize RAW in any way, despite that the fact that RAW "provided each of the four news organizations with the" report that they are today reporting on.

It's a continuing pattern, for which those outlets always have some form of excuse ("we verified it independently, we didn't know about the 'Internet reporting' on it previously, we don't credit 'blogs'," etc.) Meanwhile, RAW, ourselves, and virtually every other Internet reporting outlet routinely credit such MSM sources when we follow up on their reporting.

Anyway, none of them credited RAW, so we won't bother linking to any of them. Here's RAW STORY's coverage --- the ones who had the story and had it right in the first place --- instead.