-- Special to The BRAD BLOG by Steve Heller of Velvet Revolution

At a press conference this morning in Columbus, Ohio, Cliff Arnebeck, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case of King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell, announced that he is filing a motion to "lift the stay in the case [and] proceed with targeted discovery in order to help protect the integrity of the 2008 election."

Courtesy of our colleagues at Velvet Revolution, you can watch the entire press conference here, and an interview with Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis is here.

Arnebeck will also "be providing copies of document hold notices to the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform and the U.S. Justice Department for Karl Rove emails from the White House."

See PDFs of the hold letter to AG Mukasey here, the hold letter to the U.S. Chamber here, and the motion to lift the stay here.

This case has the potential to put some of the most powerful people in the country in jail, according to Arnebeck, as he was joined by a well-respected, life-long Republican computer security expert who charged that the red flags seen during Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election would have been cause for "a fraud investigation in a bank, but it doesn't when it comes to our vote."

"This entire system is being programmed in secret by programmers who have no oversight by anybody," the expert charged, as Arnebeck detailed allegations of complicity by a number of powerful GOP operatives and companies who had unique access both to the election results as reported in 2004, as well as to U.S. House and Senate computer networks even today.

The presser was attended by some of the corporate-controlled media, including the head of the Ohio AP bureau, the Columbus Dispatch, and IndyMedia. Listening in by phone were ABC News, our friends from RAW STORY, and I, your humble blogger. I recorded the presser, so I have no links for the quotes in this post, but I transcribed them word-for-word and can vouch for their accuracy.

One of the more delightful and interesting quotes comes from Arnebeck, concerning what he expects to discover as the stay is lifted: "[W]e anticipate Mr. Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio."

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Polling before Labor Day in the presidential race is all but useless, still -- this is amazing:

That last number, Obama's 46 point lead among independents, is significant. This is just a guess but much of the antipathy among independents toward McCain, the self-described "maverick," likely can be traced to his position in favor of drilling off the coast.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

As the campaign manager for the presidential bid of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), Kent Snyder received a lot of credit for raising $35 million from grassroots supporters, a phenomenal accomplishment for an insurgent campaign.

But, like 48 million other Americans, Snyder had no health insurance, and when he died from pneumonia on June 26 after a two-month hospital stay, he left medical bills totaling over $400,000.

It is emblematic of our age that Snyder's boss, Rep. Paul, is a physician.

The story comes from the Washington Blade:

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

It never came up in the GOP primaries. The mainstream media won't dare mention it. Even John McCain's most liberal opponents won't go there. But leave it to equal opportunity offenders brothers Evan and Gregg Spiridellis and their animation team at JibJab to introduce into the 2008 presidential campaign the allegations that John McCain cooperated with the enemy when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Not that most people will notice it. The reference comes about one minute into the group's latest campaign video, "Time for Some Campaignin'," when the McCain character sings that he "spent years in a rat hole in North Vietnam" over animated graphics showing him swinging in a bird cage --- a reference to the fact that McCain's accusers refer to him as "Songbird."

A charge as heinous as collaborating with the enemy may sound like liberal revenge for the Swiftboating of John Kerry by Republicans in 2004, but the allegations against McCain come from conservatives, notably including former Rep. Bob Dornan of California and former Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire, both of whom are Republicans.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

The McCain campaign's Alabama chairman, Attorney General Troy King, the virulent homophobe who is the subject of rumors that his wife discovered him having sex with another man, was a client of Strategum USA, the consulting firm of Ralph Gonzalez, a closeted gay GOP political operative who was killed last summer in a double murder-suicide in his home in Orlando.

Gonzalez was also the one-time campaign manager/consultant for Florida's hard-right, scandal-plagued 24th Congressional District U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney whose close ties to disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff and involvement in an alleged electronic vote-rigging conspiracy have been reported extensively for years by The BRAD BLOG.

Last Friday, the McCain campaign quickly scrubbed all references to King from its website without offering a public reason.

The August 27, 2007 Birmingham News report of the murder-suicide which took Gonzalez' life, discussed the consultant's work for King in Alabama...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Click graphic to see full screen capture

The John McCain campaign scrubbed its website today to remove all references to its Alabama campaign chairman, Attorney General Troy King.

King, who is known for extremist views on religion and who has frequently made homophobic statements, including calling gays the "downfall of society," is the subject of rumors that his wife recently discovered him having sex with another man.

The story about King had been published at Wonkette and on numerous gay news websites, but none of them had reported King's connection with the McCain campaign before we published the story, "McCain’s Alabama Chairman Reportedly Outed - Attorney General Troy King Has a Record of Homophobic Rhetoric," at Pensito Review on Friday.

We happened upon the scrubbing of the campaign website as we did fact-checking for the article. At about 2:30 p.m PDT, when we checked the McCain campaign website, we found a news release from January on this now-blank page announcing the Alabama politicians who had joined McCain's "leadership team." The list included King, who was indeed named state campaign chairman.

A few minutes after we published the article, a reader left a comment alerting us that the link to the McCain website led to the blank page that is there now.

A search on the campaign site for "Troy King" returned no results, however a Google search for "Troy King" and "John McCain" still produced a link to the now-blank McCain campaign webpage near the top of the results as of 4 p.m. Friday.

We happened to have the webpage open and so made the screen capture of it and grabbed the text:

Blogged by Brad from the road...

More at ars technica...

The findings of the French study are hardly surprising to those of us who haven't been ignoring the exact same problems for years here in the U.S.. The difference, of course, will likely come in the way that France --- like other European countries, and decidedly unlike the U.S. --- responds to the findings...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

The Los Angeles Times published a story today --- on the front page above the fold --- about the adultery of a presidential candidate that, if it had been about the Democrat, would likely have changed the dynamics of the 2008 presidential campaign --- possibly even throwing the election to the other party.

Instead, the story is about John McCain, the Republican, and is therefore bound to be ignored by the rest of the mainstream press.

The only possible interest the story might generate in the corporate media --- and in conservative circles, where McCain is already not particularly well-liked --- stems from the fact that McCain's extramarital affair with his current wife, Cindy, permanently ended his friendship with Ronald Reagan and, especially, his wife, Nancy, around the same time Reagan was running for president 30 years ago.

The Times article opens with the strained moments around Nancy Reagan's tepid endorsement of McCain earlier this year:

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Operatives for the John McCain campaign expressed their displeasure at a protester who carried a sign that equated McCain with George Bush by behaving just like operatives for George Bush and having her forcibly removed and threatened with arrest.

The incident occurred outside a McCain townhall meeting in Denver on Monday when Carol Kreck was ticketed for trespassing and escorted off the sidewalk at the behest of the McCain campaign.

Her offense? She was carrying a sign that said, "McCain = Bush."

It is revelatory that McCain operatives see the sentiment expressed in Kreck's sign as an insult. If her sign had read, "McCain = Reagan," they probably would have given her a front-row seat...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Last week, on his campaign plane heading toward Colombia, John McCain all but blew his top when a reporter asked him how his status as a former POW qualified him to be president:

Less than a week later, McCain releases a campaign ad, titled "Love," that focuses on --- you guessed it --- his status as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Blogged by Brad from somewhere on Washington State's Olympic Peninsula...

Perhaps next year, for the first time in five years, we won't feel that we must post the following document on the Fourth of July. Perhaps.

But once again this year, it seems necessary to remind readers that this country's founders once described King George thusly: "A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

With a right to be free from tyranny and for a system of self-governance that derives its power from the consent of the governed, the founders declared: "Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its power in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes," they wrote. "And accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

We concur.

And thus, we recommend, once again this year, that you read the following document in full if you have not done so recently. We also challenge you to not notice the extraordinary irony. In the bargain, we wish you the best and most free holiday you are able to enjoy this year...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Last week we noted that John McCain had managed to complete a full 180-degree reversal on his position on offshore drilling in a mere 18-day period. Now he's topped that record by reversing a stated position within a single news cycle. Traveling in Colombia, he told reporters that he wouldn't criticize Obama while he was overseas, but on the plane a few hours earlier he had criticized Obama while speaking to these same reporters for, what else, changing his position on trade:

For his next trick, McCain will reverse himself before he even speaks.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Of all John McCain's reversals of longheld positions --- his 180s on taxes, offshore drilling, intolerant Christians and even torture, to name just a few --- nothing is sadder or more disgraceful than his flipflop on Swiftboating, a practice he decried when it was used in 2004 to attack at the Democratic presidential nominee, his former friend and fellow Vietnam veteran, Sen. John Kerry.

McCain's sudden embrace of Swiftboating --- which today is synonymous with a concerted effort to lie about an opponent's history --- is all the more deplorable because he has hired retired Col. George "Bud" Day, a proud member of the group that Swiftboated Kerry --- and someone McCain once described as having "tunnel vision" --- to lead what McCain is calling his "Truth Squad."

At Huffington Post, Sam Stein reports that "[during] the 2004 campaign, [Day] said of Kerry: 'My view is he basically will go down in history sometime as the Benedict Arnold of 1971.' And after appearing in a national advertisement for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign, Day formed the Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation, an extension of the Swift Boat effort."

During a McCain campaign conference call with reporters this week, Bud Day was asked how his work for McCain will be different from his efforts to Swiftboat Kerry four years ago.

"The Swift Boat attacks were simply a revelation of the truth," Day told reporters. "The similarity does not exist here. What the Swift Boat campaign was about was to lay out John Kerry's record. John Kerry has never produced any evidence to deny that. We are producing the evidence of these attacks right now to show that those remarks were completely inaccurate.

"One was about laying out the truth," Day said. "This one is about attempting to cast a new shadow on John McCain."

Just four years ago, John McCain had a very different view of Day's attacks on Kerry. According to Media Matters:

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Charlie Black, John McCain's senior adviser, made news earlier this week when Fortune Magazine editor David Whitford reported that Black told him "with startling candor" when asked how a terrorist attack inside the United States would affect the campaign, "Certainly it would be a big advantage to [McCain]."

Keith Olbermann has been reporting on this story all week on his MSNBC news hour, in part to make that point that if a Democrat had made a similar gaffe, the Beltway punditocracy would have been in high dudgeon, demanding the adviser's head on a pike and lambasting the candidate for associating himself with such scum.

Longtime political junkies know that Charlie Black was among a handful of angry young rightwingers who remade the Republican Party after the debacle of Richard Nixon's resignation. Along with Roger Stone, Terry Dolan, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove and George Bush Jr., he is one of the inventors of today's GOP attack machine, a style of media-driven slash and burn politics that can be traced to the establishment by Black, Stone and Dolan in 1975 of a political action committee that raised millions from conservatives using deceptive direct-mail advertising and spent the money on TV ads that slimed Democrats.

Black, one of the most successful lobbyists and political strategists of the Reagan and Bush eras, has backed his share of losers over the years, too. But even when he has bet on the wrong horse, he has always landed on his feet --- which may explain why John McCain needs Charlie Black this year much more than Black needs McCain.

Here are 10 things to know about Charlie Black: