Our previous Toon of the Moment item, recalled a “conversation" we had in BRAD BLOG comments a week or two ago with Chuck Noles, owner of The Oviedo Voice, a small weekly paper in Tom Feeney's (R-FL) U.S. Congressional district down in Florida. The Voice had pretended they were going to investigate and give --- as they said --- "balanced coverage" to the Tom Feeney/Clint Curtis/Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) Vote-Rigging Scandal, but then went on for several weeks to give the Feeney/YEI side of the story almost exclusively.

His paper even went so far one week as to print YEI's official web statement in full in their paper --- without comment, weeks after it had been published and subsequently debunked --- even though we had been in touch with Noles long before and had given him our complete reply to that statement which had included a point-by-point rebuttal demonstrating that they were lying in several areas.

Nonetheless, Noles chose to run YEI's press release as is. Choosing to repeat rather than to report. (And, indeed, one of YEI's statements about convicted Chinese spy and illegal alien, Hai Lin "Henry" Nee, never having worked for them, has since been proven wrong yet again. This time, by Federal agents and the Florida's own Inspector General's office. We don't believe that The Voice has covered that recently published fact in their pages either. We don't suspect they will.)

The following week they ran the YEI statement yet again, but this time, with a comment by Curtis after each point. Fair enough? Apparently not. They followed each statement by Curtis with a closing rebuttal --- each time --- by YEI attorney (and longtime friend, law-partner and contributor to Feeney), Michael O'Quinn. We suppose that counts for the "balanced coverage" that they, in a previous front page item, had faulted cross-town rival The Seminole Chronicle for not offering. They insinuated the Chronicle (or we?) had featured "supermarket tabloid" journalism.

The next week we were out of town. But we were told that The Voice ran an interview exclusively with Curtis. However, as The Voice doesn't post their paper on their website, and Noles did not email the interview to us, as he had the previous articles, we have only his word to go on.

For a bit more background, Noles is in friendly close contact with Feeney himself and his nearby office in Florida. Despite his protestations in the following "conversation", Chuck answers all email sent to Editor@TheOviedoVoice.com. He also seemed like a nice enough fellow, despite his strong rightward political leanings, when we first got to know him prior to his string of hit pieces on Curtis. He even went so far as to call us at 11:15pm (ET) on New Year's Eve from his Yacht Club, apparently to wish us a Happy New Year...and to find out how we'd be spending it.

The paper was started by his father Randy who began it years ago and still apparently serves as Chief Editor. From our one phone conversation with Randy, we found him to be first-rate, a delight, and a long-time avowed Democrat. The apple, however, doesn't fall as close to the tree as the saying goes. At least when it comes to politics and intellectual honesty.

Since the "conversation" between Chuck and ourselves took place in the comments section of an item that ran a while ago, you may have missed it. The item upon which Chuck was commenting was on the The New Times Broward-Palm Beach's article on the Feeney/Curtis/Yang affair, in which Feeney had claimed that he hadn't been in contact with YEI and the Yangs since he ceased being their corporate counsel and registered lobbyist upon leaving his job as Florida Speaker of the House to go to the U.S. Congress in 2002. That, despite the fact that Feeney's own website --- to this day --- shows that his 2004 headquarters (for a campaign during which he ran unopposed, and received thousands of dollars from the Yangs and their attorney, O'Quinn) remains in the YEI Building in Oviedo. Our article showed photographs from the YEI and Feeney websites showing they both had the same address. As they still do today.

Chuck seemed concerned throughout the exchange that he would be banned for his comments or would have them deleted or, at best, that they would never be read by most of you. So, as it's our girlfriend's birthday, and it's our duty to spend most of the day and night with her, we thought today we'd do Chuck the courtesy of reposting that thread here in its entirety so that Chuck's insightful thoughts would not be overlooked by BRAD BLOG readers. He is, of course, more than welcome to comment again in this thread on any of the above...or anything else he wishes. Chuck's comments are always fun, most welcome and enlightening (especially, as we say, in light of our previous Toon of the Moment) as you'll soon read.

The “conservation" between us is reposted here, completely unedited, included typos and misspelings by both of us. Enjoy...

"Ohio's provisional balloting was not a model for the nation to follow," understated Michael Vu, the Democratic election head of Cuyahoga County, Ohio's biggest, to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in their first hearing since the brilliantly run 2004 election.

"I didn't think it should have been the forum for Mr. Vu to vent his frustration," snipped Keith Cunningham, the Republican election board head of Allen County, and also the head of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials.

"We've had tremendous success with provisional votes in Ohio and we did with this election," said J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's Sec. of State (and Co-Chair of the Committee to Re-Elect Bush) clearing up the confusion once and for all.

Wow, it seems there's some sort of disagreement. But we had read in all the papers that the 2004 elections went off with nary a hitch! How odd.

AP has the nearly useless coverage of the mostly useless spat at the hearings of the completely useless U.S. Elections Assistance Commission.

As mentioned in yesterday's only post, there are a number of items that are keeping me from blogging here as usual. The good news is, I'm making good progress, so hope to be back on the blog job soon. The bad news is, I'm still up against it for the moment, so blogging may continue to be slow-ish here for a bit longer.

So feel free to consider this another open thread...but I'll toss in a few of the latest notable Gannon/Guckert items:

Over. Out. And hopefully back soon...Oh, good luck to Dr. and Mrs. Yang who are being deposed today and tomorrow down in Florida! Anyone wanna go listen in and report back with notes? It's open to the public! Mrs. Yang is on at 9am tomorrow (Friday) morning!

Once again, I beg your indulgence as I find myself at the epicenter of a number of important actions and responsibilities which all seem to be coming due, to a certain extent, this week!

To give you a brief idea of just some of those items...

That's some explanation of all the balls I'm attempting to juggle at once. So while I'm doing that, please feel free to consider this an Open Thread with, as always, much more to come as soon as time allows...

We believe a BRAD BLOG commenter first brought it to our attention (apologies that we can't remember who), but DailyKos now has picked this up as well...

...It's an ad, reported to be from the Swiftees (experts that they are in all things political, not just John Kerry! Who knew?!) that was running on the wingnut American Spectator site and about which Kos said, "Funny thing is, you click on the ad, and it just goes to the USA Next homepage. No effort to even argue the case that the AARP is anti-troop and pro-gay marriage."

Are you offended by that sort of ad, Mr. Joseph Farah of the hate publication, World Net Daily? We await for your next indignant op/ed.

If this so-called "conservativism" gets any more so-called "compassionate" we may have to go into so-called hiding.

It looks like the Baltimore Chronicle also picked up our original CNN "Dupe Nuke 'em" story a few days ago and we just caught it.

Their piece on the matter was one item in an article from their "Media Criticism" section discussing a number of troubling concerns of-late at the once-great cable news channel.

Our original story on CNN's use of photos of the same purported nuclear site described as being both in Iran and North Korea is right here. With a follow-up on the U.S. government funded ?news? site who did the same thing, with the same nuke site a year ago, but used it for Iraq as well as the N. Korea and Iran, here, and finally a follow-up to that piece here.

For the record, it's officially been over week since the CNN press rep said she'd get back to us with an answer to our queries on the matter. We've made follow-up calls nearly every day since then. They've not been returned. If CNN is hoping to feed more speculation that they have something to cover up, they are doing a swell job of it.

Speaking of cover-ups, the Chronicle article mentioned above was written by Margie Burns, who also put together some Clint Curtis follow-up on her own blog in mid-January. We were out of town when we discovered her piece on that, so didn't get the opportunity to properly link up at the time. She discusses a few of the Raymond Lemme-related issues (on which we also hope to have more ourselves, as previously promised, in the coming week or two!)

We're happy to see there are still a few folks out there with access to good old fashioned print papers who are actually paying attention and getting some work done! Well, one anyway! Thanks, Margie!

...CONTACT...
Margie Burns

Dead-on op/ed about the Gannon story in The Oregonian once again debunking the myth of the "liberal" media...

Our only quibble, the unbylined author's line: "Bloggers on the left are no less bullies than those on the right." On that issue, the writer couldn't be more incorrect. Otherwise, a good, short, to-the-point read worthy of encouraging us all to make even more noise until those bastards pay attention.

Have we mentioned lately that we have an "Email it to someone!" button at the bottom of every article?

Documents from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at the Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT) recently obtained by The BRAD BLOG confirm yet another of Clint Curtis' stunning allegations against Oviedo software firm Yang Enteprises, Inc. and Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL).

The documents, released exclusively here, in full, by The BRAD BLOG, show that, according to Federal officials at the Homeland Security Department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, convicted spy and Chinese national, Hai Lin Nee (a/k/a Henry Nee) had been --- as Curtis alleged, first in 2001 and again in his sworn affidavit [PDF], --- an illegal alien during the period that Curtis worked with him at YEI.

According to the report --- published as part of a three-year investigation spurred by the charges of Curtis and another whistleblower at FDOT who first reported in 2001 on alleged wrong doing at YEI --- Nee's legal alien status in America had expired on December 31, 1999.

From the report...

The report also shows that YEI --- who has on several occassions denied that Nee was ever an employee, or even a consultant at YEI --- petioned the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) on Nee's behalf to extend his visa sometime during 1999!

The report goes on to say, "That request was disapproved by INS based on a lack of information on the application for Nee submitted by YEI."

The BRAD BLOG has previously published records showing "Weekly Time Reports" from YEI which demonstrate that Nee did, in fact, work for YEI. The OIG's recent report, as well, further confirms that fact. (We will have more from the FDOT IG's recent report later this week as we finish studying the documents.)

During the period in which Nee was working for YEI, Feeney was their general counsel as well as their registered lobbyist. All that while he also served as the powerful Speaker of the Florida House at the same time. Feeney, who was a one-time running mate to Jeb Bush and currently sits on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee from Florida's 24th district, was charged, by Curtis, with having asked him to build a "vote-rigging software prototype" while Curtis was a YEI employee.

Previously, we had published a number of emails from several company employees, including Nee himself, indicating that Nee worked at the firm after 1999, when his legal alien status would have lapsed and when Feeney was working with YEI to help them procure large contracts with the state and others, including NASA.

One of those emails, from Mike Cohen, YEI CEO's executive secretary, indicates that he was aware that Nee was illegal (the misspellings are Cohen's):

And on April 15th, 2001, the day after the above email from Cohen, Nee himself wrote to Curtis indicating his work at YEI where Curtis had recently resigned due to the alleged shenanigans at the company:

Mike Cohen, discussed in a recent article here as having filed a potentially false police report against Curtis, was said to have been present along with YEI CEO, Mrs. Li-Woan Yang, during the October 2000 meeting at YEI when the vote-rigging software was alleged to have been discussed by Feeney.

It is not clear in the OIG's report why it took until August of 2004 to confirm Nee's illegal alien status since Curtis had reported him as illegal to several officials as long ago as early 2001.

There are indications in the report, however, that Federal Officials, for unexplained reasons, refused to supply information to the OIG on Nee's alien status until after Nee's federal indictment on three charges of espionage for having attempted to ship chips used in the Hellfilre anti-missile system to the People's Republic of China had been completed.

No explanation is given in the report for the delay from Federal Officials on releasing information about Nee's alien status, but it does go on to say that:

Nee's indictment was the result of a four-year federal sting operation by ICE who, in describing the arrest on their website (Ed Note: Page was archived off of the ICE site, here is a version of the page we saved before it was removed), had explained that each of the three charges was punishable by "up to 10 years in prison and $50,000 in fines."

The plea agreement eventually struck, in July of 2004 between Nee and the Feds on Count Three of the indictment, quotes him as having said, "that business has been slow in the last year and that he had only sent parts out of the country ten to twenty times..." [emphasis added]

It also specified that the one count on which Nee was pleading guilty "carrie[d] a maximum sentence of 5 years imprisonment, a fine of $250,000, a term of supervised release of not more than 3 years, and a special assessment of $100 per felony count thereafter."

However, as first reported exclusively by The BRAD BLOG last December, Nee was eventually sentenced in October of 2004 to a total of just three years probation and a $100 fine.

Nee still resides near YEI in Oviedo, FL.

Curtis' allegations about Nee were just one of many made by the software programmer about improprieties at YEI. The startling allegation that Feeney had asked Curtis to create the "vote-rigging software prototype" while at YEI continues to rock the vote from Tallahassee to Capitol Hill.

Both Feeney, Cohen and YEI's attorneys have denied those allegations, but then again they've denied a number of related allegations as well. Many of those denials, however, have already been proven false by continued reporting on this matter since December at The BRAD BLOG and elswhere.

To date, none of Curtis' allegations have been in any way proven to be untrue. And, in fact, many of them --- including this latest information showing that Nee was an illegal alien, as Curtis charged long ago --- have, in fact, proven to be completely accurate.

The BRAD BLOG will, of course, continue to report on this explosive developing scandal...

The rightwing extremist online "news" site, World Net Daily uses the word "homosexual" over ten times in today's man-handling attack against what they describe as "the nation's homosexual press" in apparent defense of alleged Republican Homosexual Prostitute and White House-friendly "Reporter", J.D. Guckert (a/k/a Jeff Gannon). Notably, the article was written by WND Editor & CEO, Joseph Farah.

In some sort of sudden hop (or skip?) into the Defending-Guckert/Gannon hottub, the heterosexual publication, WND, lumps online news site, RAW STORY into what is variously described in a single article as:

"the nation's homosexual press"
"homosexual-friendly publications and blogs"
"the homosexual press"
"homosexual activists"
"homosexual publications"
"offline homosexual papers"

...Setting aside that we weren't aware that publications had the ability of fornicating with other publications of the same sex, we are left to wonder, does The BRAD BLOG, whose author is heterosexual, but who does cover issues of interest to the gay community (or "gay", as the theocratic publication, WND, quaintly uses the word) qualify as well as a "homosexual publication"? Or does our unfortunate straightness simply lump us in with the presumably less-light-in-the-loafers "homosexual-friendly publications and blogs" instead?

Either way, we couldn't be prouder and louder, and will be certain to play a few show tunes in the background for celebration as we prepare our next report...

...CONTACT...
Joseph Farah
Editor and CEO WorldNetDaily.com

Picking up on some of our shop talk from over the weekend...Radio Free Blogistan runs an interview today with Larisa Alexandrovna, associate editor and reporter for the excellent internet-only news site, RAW STORY.

Alexandrovna has been responsible for a number of RAW STORY's finest scoops of late, and is the organizer behind the recently announced effort to develop the Open Source Press Association (OSPA), an independent alternative to the Associated Press to be comprised of indy media groups and investigative bloggers. She's also one feisty and determined reporter as The BRAD BLOG can personally verify.

She gives The BRAD BLOG an appreciated plug in the interview, which runs a bit too long and is full of typos, accidentally pointing up yet another key element currently too-absent from the blogosphere (ours being no exception): Editing. Perhaps that alone is reason to hope the OSPA shapes up quickly to fullfill its mission as she envisions it.

Why did an illegal alien who was an admitted and convicted spy for China receive just three years probation and a $100 fine? Does everyone caught spying on America recieve such treatment? Or only those who are friendly with Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) and friends? ...DETAILS ON MONDAY...

It's all a bit too much "shop talk" even for me. But, in truth, the discussion of blogs, bloggers and blogging affects all of us here in one important way or another.

Either because one of us happens to be the author of this blog, a commenter on this blog (yes, you too could be held responsible one day for what you say, whether we like it or not!) or because we're just all citizens of this country and/or this world, and --- contrary to what happens in Vegas --- what happens in America doesn't necessarily stay in America. Unfortunately enough for those of you not here in America.

So there's a Blog versus MSM or MSM versus Blog or, more ominiously, The Law versus The Blogger and The MSM firestorm a-brewin', and you folks should well be paying attention to it. Inside baseball or otherwise.

Adam L. Penenberg, in this week's Wired News, shares a reminder, and a legal opinion or two, that, as the headline says, avers there is "No Protection for Bloggers".

In the bargain, he also reminds us that there is precious little protection for MSM reporters as well in this day and age. And as much as we might like to see Judith Miller of The NY Times spanked hard and/or possibly sent down for a week or two of "rehab" at Gitmo for her transgressions at the “Gray Lady” in the year prior to the War on Iraq in which she personally played no small part in helping us get there in the first place, we find it more than a bit appalling that she may be facing 18 months in jail for not disclosing a source for a story she never even reported.

In the meantime, Robert Novak, who did report the story on Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, being a covert CIA operative and has admitted to having at least "two senior administration officials" as sources for it, has somehow gotten off scot-free.

We guess it's not actually what you know, but who you know. Or so it would seem in the case of undercover-CIA-operative-outer Novak, of whom Poppy George HW's quote from 1999 would seem to more than aptly apply: "I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors." (Source: 4/26/99, Speech at "Dedication Ceremony for the George Bush Center for Intelligence", full speech at the CIA website...ed note: I do not believe I will make it through another four years of this kind of irony without my head actually exploding)

But back to Penenberg's piece, whose final grafs inspired this article. Here they are:

Yes, it is. (ed. Note: And yes, our head may indeed explode if this intolerably cruel irony keeps up.)

Inside baseball or not, the tide is turning. And quickly. The barbarian bloggers are at the gate, and the MSM, along with The Law is going to spend the next few months and years figuring out what to do about it.

One of Judge Sentelle's poor pajama'd bloggers may someday find themselves as the unfortunate test case in determining just who is a "journalist" and who isn't, while even the "journalists" find out they may have no more protection in this majesty's kingdom.

So, is it too early to turn our earlier shameless plea for donations into a necessary collection for the official BRAD BLOG Legal Defense Fund?

Let us hope so.

As the pointless dying continues unabated...