As reported yesterday, Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed last year in Iraq, continues to camp out outside Bush's ranch in Crawford. She is requesting a meeting with Bush who is apparently too busy enjoying his vacation to meet with an American who made the ultimate sacrifice for his War on Iraq.

Apparently a few folks in the Corporate Media are paying some attention. Go figure. The story even made its way onto Wolf Blitzer's normally completely useless radar.

Here's a video of his interview today with Sheehan (Windows Media Player version --- courtesy of David Edwards), along with Senators George Allen (R-VA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) echoing how outrageous (not to mention politically stupid) it is for Bush to refuse to meet with this courageous American hero.

Bush's hatred of the American people, disrespect for its public servants and his disinterest in our National Security continues. From NY Times:

Leon Smith, the editor of The Lone-Star Iconoclast in Bush's "home town" of Crawford, TX has contacted us to let us know that have a reporter on the ground covering Cindy Sheehan, the outspoken mother of Army Specialist Casey Sheehan who was killed in Iraq, who has travelled with a group to Crawford to seek a meeting with George W. Bush.

Sheehan testified at the recent "Downing Street Memo" hearings held by Congressional Democrats in the basement of the U.S. Capitol (after they were refused a hearing room by Republicans) on the loss of her son, and the difficulty she's had getting information from the Administration and the Defense Department on Casey's death.

According to the Iconoclast:

Their reporter Nathan Diebenow is now on the scene in Crawford and will be dispatching updated reports as events unfold throughout the day. You can follow the action as it happens on this web page.

Sheehan, a member of Gold Star Families for Peace, appeared on The BRAD SHOW the Saturday after she testified at the Democratic Congressional hearings. You can listen to her interview in The BRAD SHOW Archives' 6/18/05 section, HOUR 3.

Apparently there are some brave Republicans out there who are willing to display some intellectual honesty in regards to Election Fraud. It's only the root of democracy at stake after all.

The following is from the Rightwing "Red State" blog and surprisingly asks some real questions and expresses an honest concern about what the hell may have happened in Clermont County during last Tuesday's OH-2 U.S. House Special Election race between Democrat Paul Hackett and Republican Jean Schmidt [emphasis in the original]...

One item not mentioned by the blogger "bed4j" in the above, is the report filed by Larisa Alexandrovna last January about affidavits from several Election workers concerning unexplaned stickers placed on ballots during the gamed and illegally conducted Ohio recount.

We're glad to see however, that more and more people are beginning to ask questions.

In a RAW STORY Exclusive by Michael Smith of the London Sunday Times (the man who broke the original Downing Street Memo), it is now revealed via official documents that the previous excuses given by the Bush and Blair administrations for the "spikes" in air attacks against Iraq prior to the war was yet another lie...

...And the "spikes" in the U.S. led bombing campaign began "just weeks after Blair and Bush agreed to use military action to bring about regime change in Iraq" at their summit meeting in Crawford during April of 2002.

The blogosphere came to the rescue in an incredibly short time to raise a huge amount of money (some $500k of the campaign's $750k total) and on-the-ground support in droves for Democratic candidate Paul Hackett in the OH-2 special U.S. House election last Tuesday in Ohio. Those efforts either gave Hackett enough votes to win the race, or come damned close. The jury is still out on that, but either way, it showed that fighting to win works. Even in a supposedly 70-30 GOP district!

One of the key players in making all of that happen was Bob Brigham of the Swing State Project blog. He deserves a great amount of thanks and appreciation for his heroic efforts in front of, and behind, the scenes over the past week or more.

And now Bob has a few thoughts today for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) --- and all the rest of the Democratic leadership --- that are damned well very worth reading.

We weren't going to bother with the John Roberts nomination at all. After all, if the Dems had given a damn about it, they should have thought of that last November and December and January when their leadership didn't feel that the Presidential Election --- which they had most likely won --- was worth fighting for. They knew that anywhere from two to four seats on the Supreme Court would be opening up this Presidential term, but they and Senator No Surrender were apparently too chickenshit to fight for what was likely rightfully theirs.

So this Supreme Court nomination battle now was just a little too little, a little to late as far as we were concerned.

But now, it's being reported today that Roberts was a foe of the Voting Rights Act. Whoops, he's just ticked us off too, in that case!

According to today's New York Times, Roberts was ardently against Congressional plans "to extend - and strengthen" the Voting Rights Act of 1965 back in the 80's when he worked for the Reagan Administration. That extension eventually passed in the House by a 389 to 24 margin in 1981.

We'd suggest folks listen to Lewis. He was there on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 and still has the dents in his skull to show for it. (And actually you can listen to both Lewis himself and Congressional Aide Burton Wides, who helped write much of the VRA legislation from 1970 on up through today --- on this Saturday's Special Edition of The BRAD SHOW to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the VRA on August 6th.)

The Times piece goes on to note:

In response, DNC Chair Howard Dean issued the following statement today:

So will the Dems really show up to fight this time? For some reason, we're not holding our breath.

As mentioned, this Saturday is the 40th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. Rainbow/PUSH is holding a huge march and rally in Atlanta. If you're anywhere near, please get there. We hope to have a live report from the rally on this Saturday's show from BRAD BLOG perennial, Kira! But we'd also love to hear from anybody else who attends!

If you haven't noticed yet, it should be a spectacular SPECIAL EDITION of The BRAD SHOW celebrating Saturday's 40th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act!

CURRENTLY SCHEDULED GUESTS TO INCLUDE...

PLUS! If the Radio & Democracy Gods are with us...

Also...

Give us a call Saturday Night at 323-650-1286! Listen in via www.BradShow.com and join along in the LIVE Open Thread here at BRAD BLOG during the show!

See ya then! And feel free to VOTE FOR US by leaving any of your extra change in the tip jar!

Is the pressure starting to get to Covert CIA Operative Outter Bob Novak?

For reasons we can't entirely explain, Novak just said "Bullshit" live on the air on CNN and then walked off the set.

The host for the segment said that Novak knew in advance he was going to be asked about the outing of covert CIA asset, Valerie Plame. Apparently, he never got the chance. Here's the video...

UPDATE: AP has just reported that CNN has suspended Novak "indefinitely" after today's bizarre episode!

ANOTHER UPDATE: In a newspaper column today, Sen. Arlen Specter accuses Novak of defamation in a completely different matter. It was not a good day for The Prince of Darkness...

How many of those media outlets which ran uncritically with the ACVR's phony election propaganda/press release do you suppose will also run this one?

Also, Digby has some appropriate words on the Republican "ratfuckers" of the American Center for Voting Rights UnAmerican Center Against Voting Rights.

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

The punks at ACVR and their useful idiots in the Wingnut Blogosphere and lazy Corporate Media have waylaid us from our hopes of looking into the latest GOP Election Miracle in Ohio last night.

Billmon, however, seems to have gotten off to a fine start. We recommend his analysis, even while we wonder at the amazing coincidences of computers breaking down in the final moments of vote tallying, and then returning with just enough "fresh" votes to flip the numbers prior to the breakdown and resulting in the desired GOP outcome.

As we say, we know it's merely a coincidence that this sort of thing happened again last night in Ohio almost exactly as it did last November. In Ohio. And we know that the resultant 2 to 4 percent margins of victory are coincidences as well. Coincidences that Democrats would be well advised to get used to as long as most of them are willing to do nothing about it.

Nonetheless, this might be a nice time to ask again: "Who is Clint Curtis?"

UPDATE: We're reminded by the good Joe Cannon, in regard to the late-night Clermont County, OH tallies which --- after a brief and unexplained "computer failure" --- ended up flipping the final results to Schmidt at the last moment that Larisa Alexandrovna filed a related report last January on whistleblowers who claimed that stickers were placed illegally on ballots during the Ohio Presidential Recount in Clermont. Our own interview with two of those whistleblowers, Stephen Spraley and Eric Gifford, on The BRAD SHOW several weeks ago is available for via the the Archives in the 5/14/05 section, HOUR 2.

Perhaps if Diebold spent more on engineering, and less on "bribing" Elections Officials and buying off Lobbying Groups for the Blind, they'd be in better shape.

Updating our previous report on the rejection of Diebold in the state of California by Republican Secretary of State Bruce McPhereson after some 10% of Diebold's touch-screen voting machines reportedly froze or jammed in a mock election recently, it now seems that the failure rate was actually twice as high.

As reported by the Tri-Valley Herald:

(Hat tip John Gideon of VotersUnite.org)

From Editor & Publisher...

What real Voting Rights advocates look like:

What phony, cynical, loathesome, America and democracy-hating "Voting Rights advocates" look like:

Thanks, by the way, to NEWSWEEK for bothering to recognize that this month is the 40th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the Selma/Montgomery March...which led directly to the Voting Rights Act, signed into law 40 years ago this coming Saturday. The photo at the top of the real Voting Rights advocates was taken on Bloody Sunday in Selma, 1965. We wonder if the cretins from the "American Center for Voting Rights" even know what happened that day. Or if they give a shit.

(NOTE: We hope to present Special Coverage of the milestone on this Saturday's BRAD SHOW)

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

It's likely you'll be able to find more Rightwing nut jobs out there who couldn't wait to run the phony propaganda issued yesterday by the sham "American Center for Voting Rights" than we have. But as expected, the same knuckleheads who called for Dan Rather's head for shoddy reporting and who choke themselves every day claiming "Liberal Media Bias!" have been all to pleased to run with the garbage that the ACVR released yesterday.

The good Jesse Taylor at Pandagon points out just a few of the wingnut suckers who are apparently unable to type a single word into Google or find within themselves an ounce of critical thought before they must run to their keyboards and re-type horseshit simply because they found it on the Internets and it fits squarely with their uneducated hopes and dreams:

Captain Ed of the Wingnut Ship/Blog calling itself "Captain's Quarters" fell for it as well, though even after being told what a chump he's been played for, he still seems to have trouble admitting when he's wrong. Like "President" like Blogger, we guess.

The jackass Steve Bowers, "Senior Editor" at "Pardon My English," trips over himself to write a long item entitled "REPORT DOCUMENTS MASSIVE DEMOCRATIC VOTER FRAUD" in which he uncritically creams in his pants at everything he's read in ACVR's scam "368-page report". The masterful conclusion of what he describes as "Part one of a two part series":

We can't wait for "part two." Will it be titled "BLOG ITEM EXPOSES STEVE BOWERS AS A COMPLETE AND TOTAL HORSE'S ASS"?

The "Editor", Jason Saine, of "NCRumors" also fell happily for it. But at least that site has the decency to call itself for what it is, a site full of rumors. We'd expect nothing less from its "Editor".

Now citizen bloggers likely have an excuse for being non-journalistic dopes. Just because they call themselves "Senior Editor" doesn't mean they actually have a clue what journalism means. But what of the actual journalistic dopes that fell for it as well?

Arizona Republic was one of them, though to their credit they seem to have now removed the report they ran uncritically on their website yesterday. (Don't know if it ran in their carbon-based edition or not). Thanks to Steve M. of "No More Mister Nice Blog" for noticing and bothering to inform his readers rather than simply pass on unconfirmed garbage as is the wont on the Right.

News Channel 5 of Cleveland, OH, however, ran the story and it's still running! Apparently, they simply cut and pasted the ACVR nonsense about Cleveland being the "#5 Election Fraud 'Hot Spot'" onto their website and called it "reporting."

So what's their excuse?

Daniel Rubin of Philadelphia Inquirer's "Blinq" blog, fell similarly brain-dead in giving "ink" and free publicity to the ACVR this morning. Rubin, who describes himself as a "reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1988, except from 2000 to 2003, when I was Knight Ridder's European correspondent, based in Berlin," ought to know better, but apparently not. Rubin advises his readers to "Forget Ohio" as he takes the bait...or as he calls it "Election Cheese"

No, Dan. We won't. Neither will we forget you.

(UPDATE: Rubin writes to suggest that we're "nuts" because we failed to mention his link to our ACVR Special Coverage page which received a cursory mention in his blog item. He is correct in that we read his item too fast to notice the quick link, and we apologize for that. Nonetheless, we'll stand behind our criticism of his uncritical coverage/repetition of ACVR's charges and the tremendous publicity he has afforded to the snake-oiled sheisters who cynically created the hoax organization. We hope he'll soon give a similar amount of "ink" to the real evil operatives who need to be called out in this matter for the good of our democracy.)

Then there is the Cybercast News Service which, as expected, ran the ACVR crap virtually as is. CNS, of course, is a phony Rightwing extremist "News" organization who actually covered the ACVR scam after we broke the story here originally. But after the reporter who was assigned to write it filed a report which backed up the original BRAD BLOG reporting, her story was re-written so that she didn't even recognize it when it was posted online to CNS (and subsequently carried at phony GOP "News" sites like GOPUSA, Townhall.com, etc.)

All of which is little surprise, of course, since as we noted in our original article on CNS:

We recommend you click on all of the articles and blogs linked in this item, and leave comments (at least on the sites that allow it) letting the bloggers know how you feel about their credibility. Feel free to point them to any of our ACVR reports, or our master index of Special Coverage on ACVR at https://BradBlog.com/ACVR. Yes, it's important to correct the record before their noise allows "conventional wisdom" to set incorrectly into place.

As to "News" Channel 5 of Cleveland, OH, their contact info is here:

Mailing Address: 3001 Euclid Avenue; Cleveland, Ohio 44115
Phone: (216) 431-5555

News Managers:newsmanagers@wews.com
Web News Staff:nn5news@newsnet5.com
Station Comments:feedback5@newsnet5.com

NewsNet5.com Staff
Colleen Seitz, Executive Producer: colleen@newsnet5.com
Darlene Dunn, Senior News Editor: darlene@newsnet5.com
Becky Sabo, News Editor: rsabo@newsnet5.com

Or, nn5news@newsnet5.com; feedback5@newsnet5.com; colleen@newsnet5.com; darlene@newsnet5.com; Email">rsabo@newsnet5.com?BCC=T...dBlog@cville.com\">Email them all at once here...

Go make noise.

UPDATE: Kudos to John Cole of the the right-leaning blog, "Balloon Juice" for calling the ACVR Report for what it is. In his words, it's "Bullshit". Thanks for being an intellectually honest conservative, Mr. Cole. There are far too few of you left in your once grand old party.

Also, kudos to Mark of "Relentlessly Optimistic" for pointing out that at least 26 "Conservative" blogs now have egg on their unabashed faces, and broken links to show for it after breathlessly linking to the now removed Arizona Republic coverage of the ACVR sham report:

FURTHER UPDATE: Another American democracy-hater who deserves particular notice is "Lee" of "Right Thinking from the Left Coast". He couldn't wait to make an utter asshole of himself after he read ACVR's garbage and ran to his keyboard to breathlessly advise his readers in an item titled "The Truth Comes Out":

Of course, his link was to the now disowned/removed "story" from Arizona Republic. You think "Lee" will feel like admitting what a pathetic, embarrased "maggot Republican" he is? Somehow, we doubt it. The "Truth" is very subjective and not to the taste of all readers in Wingnut Land apparently.

FURTHER UPDATE STILL: Steve M. points out that Washington Times (not a surprise) is also running the story. Not that we ever expected actual journalism from that particular White House Organ.

FURTHER FURTHER UPDATES STILL STILL: We neglected to mention Joe Gandelman's coverage of all of this at "The Moderate Voice" in my initial piece. Gandelman covered the initial ACVR report nonsense, but then quickly did some footwork upon realizing that he'd been had. He made a tremendous effort to cover for his initial lapse in judgement in running with the report, and apologized profusely and correctly for the error (even though you can tell he really wanted that report to be true! But we'll not quibble with a gentleman who has enough honor to cop to a mistake and understand what credible reporting actually means.) To that end, our apology for not mentioning Joe's work earlier in this matter. We should have. But as the shit was flying, his piece was mistakenly overlooked. And it should not have been.

On the other end of the spectrum, unfortunately, we still have the desperate Captain Ed of "Captain's Quarters" who just can't stand that he's been played for a sucker. The Cap'n is still doing everything he can to try and cover his ass. He's failing. We're sure that Iraq is going great too! The Captain, it seems, has finally noticed the ACVR's inclusion of "Democrat" Brian Lunde in yesterday's ACVR Press Releases.

NOTE TO THE CAPTAIN: Ahoy Matey! Perhaps you didn't notice, but the Press Releases for that ACVR report was the first time Lunde has ever showed his face as having anything to do with ACVR during their short, discredited history. The inclusion of a phony quote from Lunde in a Press Release (the same quote re-written for each of six different press releases), hardly makes this group "non-partisan". For details on his phony quote --- which we guess you couldn't find in all your hours of research --- can be found here, in our original report from yesterday. There, that wasn't so hard was it? You'll also find that Lunde has been working hard with both Karl Rove and as well the business interests Lunde represents which support Bush Administration policies. That said, I haven't gotten comment from Lunde yet on if he even realizes he's attached to this report, or if he's even aware of what the ACVR's short but sordid history is. Have you? OVER AND OUT, CAPTAIN!

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