Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.Org

Last night Lou Dobbs doubled the reporting on his semi-regular "Democracy At Risk" segment. Kitty Pilgrim reported on the recent breakdown of the system in Volusia County where but for the local newspaper and stalwart activists the county would have been able to bury discrepancies in their recording of votes in their primary election. Also Bill Schneider reported on how important the November general election is and that there are teams of lawyers ready to step in and take action.

-- Streaming Flash version...

The text-transcript of Tuesday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

You know what Fox "News" did last week. And of course, that they didn't think such an egregious "error" merited either an apology or on-air correction.

Here's what they're doing this week, as according to Sinfonian at dKos...

(Hat-tip to Des.)

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.Org

"In Friday's Democracy at Risk segment Lou and Kitty look into the story from New York state where counties are beginning to question whether their voters should be forced to vote on electronic voting machines. Why should they not be able to keep the machines that have served them well for decades?

The text-transcript of Friday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Editor & Publisher published a comment today from the Executive Producer of Fox "News'" O'Reilly Factor on their having run a title under video of Rep. Mark Foley --- three different times, in two different segments --- which labeled the now-disgraced, now-former Republican Congressman as a Democrat:

The BRAD BLOG orginally broke the story of Fox's egregious "error" last Tuesday.

We followed up with a report on AP having done a similar thing the next day, though they had the journalistic integrity (unlike Fox "News") to issue a correction statement when the problem was found.

Yesterday ran we ran another follow-up on O'Reilly and Fox's failure to publicly correct or even acknowledge the "error," indisputably closing any further debate on whether Fox is actually a news organization. It isn't. We included links to videos of both The Daily Show's and MSNBC Countdown's coverage of same in that last report.

UPDATE 10/10/06 4:52pm PT: Now NewsMax.com says Foley a "Democrat"!...

UPDATE 2/8/08: Fox now shows presumptive Republican Presidential candidate John McCain also as a Democrat! Screenshot...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

"A growing number of communities all across the country are now saying they simply want nothing to do with electronic voting machines. They've decided not to spend a dime of their taxpayers' money on those machines until they can guarantee that the votes of their citizens will count on Election Day and that those votes can actually be recounted with confidence." said Lou Dobbs at the top of Thursday's "Democracy At Risk" segment. The Lou finishes with this understatement, "Cook County [IL] saying it usually takes three or four elections to get it right. You are just writing off three or four elections? That's an insane statement."

The text-transcript of Thursday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

So Fox "News" labelled an apparent sexual predator as a "Democrat", despite the indisputable fact that the man, disgraced Congressman Mark Foley, is a Republican.

As THE BRAD BLOG originally reported the day before last, Fox did so three different times during Tuesday's O'Reilly Factor and have never admitted this outrageous misreporting. They simply disappeared the issue on the subsequent rebroadcasts of the program after they were caught having done it.

The next day the Associated Press --- who appear to be a real news organization --- did something similar. However, they did the right thing within hours, and admitted the error in subsequent corrected versions of their original article, which had labelled the REPUBLICAN Mark Foley as a Democrat.

Everyone in the world, it seems, has now picked up on the story of Fox's outrageous "error." (Including Comedy Central's The Daily Show and MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann --- both videos now linked below.) Everyone, it seems, except for Fox. To our knowledge, Fox has not taken responsibility or accountability in any way.

For now, we'll presume that's the end of this particular story, which sheds additional light (as if any further was needed) on the absurd claims that the Fox "News" Channel is actually a "news" organization. It is not. It is a Propoganda Ministry beyond the reach of the accountability and responsibility under which any self-respecting and true news organization would normally operate.

We can only imagine the uproar from the "conservative" community, and the heads which would have been forced to roll had the situation been reversed and CNN, or anybody else in the media, labelled a Democratic sexual predator as a Republican. Three times. Without apology or correction.

As mentioned, both Stewart and Olbermann ran with the story yesterday. Here are links to each clip, both courtesy of Crooks & Liars...

Countdown with Keith Olbermann video clip...

Daily Show with John Stewart video clip...

UPDATE 10/6/06 3:49pm PT: O'Reilly Executive Producer now says 'no on-air correction necessary.' Full details...

It looks like AP picked up on Fox's "error" yesterday in labelling Mark Foley as a Democrat!

From Josh Marshall today...

Indeed Josh would appear to be correct. As of a quick Google search moments ago, there were still several articles indexed as showing Foley as a "(D-Florida)":

The stories listed by Google above now seem to have corrected the text in their online versions. No clue how many actually made it into newsprint that way.

Several of the outlets who ran AP's original "Foley is a Dem" version now have this correction notice at the bottom of their articles:

To our knowledge, no such admission has been issued by either O'Reilly or Fox "News", despite having run the most egregious version of this "error" (three times in total) during the initial primetime broadcast of The O'Reilly Factor last night as we originally reported just after it aired. They simply scrubbed the "error" by removing that title card during the later re-broadcasts of the program (the ones with the smaller viewerships).

(Hat-tip Joseph Cannon)

UPDATE: Eagle-eyed BRAD BLOG commenter "Fred T" notes that Hastert is also labelled as a Democrat in the AP story listed in the Google search graphic above!

UPDATE 10/10/06 4:52pm PT: Now NewsMax.com says Foley a "Democrat"!...

Just amazing. Fox's O'Reilly Factor just covered the Mark Foley (R-FL) issue in two different segments, one of them with a page who says he received communications from Foley, and another with Ann Coulter.

Never mind the content of either segment for now. Incredibly, during a total of three different cutaways to video footage of Foley, he was labelled at the bottom of the screen eachtime as "(D-FL)" !

Three different times. In two different segements. Each cutaway about 15 seconds or more. Showing Foley as a DEMOCRAT. Amazing.

Just an accident? We report, you decide.

UPDATE: Here's quick video clips two of the three times that Foley became made an honorary Fox "Dem"...

-- CLIP 1: Windows Media Player version...
-- CLIP 2 (Coulter): Windows Media Player version...

UPDATE 11:30pm PT: Though we didn't see the first evening rerun, several folks have reported that Fox "News" scrubbed the "error" by running the video during the late-night rerun of O'Reilly with no text on the bottom of the screen during those sequences. Also, please note we originally had the date of 6/3/06 on the screenshot above, instead of the correct 10/3/06. Once we noticed, we had so many folks linking up to this item, we couldn't get back in to the site at all to make the correction until now!

UPDATE 10/4/06 2:04am PT: Confirmed! We just watched the second late-night rerun of O'Reilly, and indeed, the evidence goes down the memory hole as Fox removed the mis-labelled chiron entirely from their later broadcasts without explanation! BTW, we watched both full segments this time, including the one with Florida's own alleged Queen of Voter Fraud, Ann Coulter who swears up and down that Hastert just couldn't have known anything about Foley's problem, he just couldn't have!

Screenshot from the rebroadcast, where the "(D-FL)" has been excised from all three video cutaways, is below...

UPDATE 10/4/06 2:13am PT: Heheh...Bob Johnson over at dKos may have the explanation for what happened at Fox today...

UPDATE 10/4/06 1:46pm PT: Now AP also labels Foley a Democrat!...

UPDATE 10/4/06 3:03pm PT: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) asks a fair question about this today...

UPDATE 10/4/06 7:15pm PT: Looks like Olbermann covered the story tonight, natch. (No credit to yours truly, however...go figure...sigh) ... Also, John Stewart this this on The Daily Show as well. Both videos now linked here...

UPDATE 10/6/06 3:49pm PT: O'Reilly Executive Producer now says 'no on-air correction necessary.' Full details...

UPDATE 10/10/06 4:52pm PT: Now NewsMax.com says Foley a "Democrat"!...

UPDATE 2/8/08: Fox now shows presumptive Republican Presidential candidate John McCain also as a Democrat! Screenshot...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Yesterday Lou reported on the "We Count 2006" gathering in Cleveland, Ohio which featured Bev Harris, Bob Fitrakis and many others. Also reported is that the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has asked for oversight of the complete election process from the Center for Election Integrity at Cleveland State University.

UPDATE: Video now available below, hat-tip to the democracy-lovin' folks at Election Defense Alliance whose banner can be seen at the conference in the video!

-- Windows Media Player version...

The text-transcript of Monday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Bobby will be on Your World w/ Cavuto on Fox "News" momentarily. We'll UPDATE this item with a video and/or transcript later today if we can catch it.

We'll hope it's less of a hatchet job than Cavuto delivered the last time he interviewed Kennedy, after Kennedy's first Rolling Stone story on these matters.

Have things changed? We'll see. But we wouldn't bet any money on it. Especially after Cavuto's shameful performance last time.

UPDATE: Good thing we didn't bet money. Cavuto actually let him get out a complete sentence or two without cutting him off! What in the world has gotten into Fox?

Kennedy discussed the Emergency Paper Ballot initiative proposed last week by House and Senate Dems (for which not a single Republican would sign on, reportedly amid threats to add disenfranchising Photo ID requirement laws as retaliation for the bill - more on all of that soon), the ease of hacking these systems by both parties, and some news: He said he'd now be interested in running for the U.S. Senate seat from NY should it open up! The seat was once his father's, and to our knowledge it's the first time he's publicly stated he'd be interested in running!

FURTHER UPDATE: Video now available below, with a huge hat-tip to the democracy-lovin' folks at Solar Bus!

-- Windows Media Player version...

Holy shit...They may even be losing Fox "News"!...

Welcome back to Planet Earth, Shep!

(Hat-tip Joy Williams!)

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

"Congress today heard alarming testimony on the threat of electronic voting machines and experts at the hearing testified that e-voting machines are vulnerable to tampering, outright fraud, and political manipulation. They also testified it's uncertain whether the votes of millions of Americans will count on election day," said Lou Dobbs at the top of yesterday's report.

Thursday's Lou Dobb's Tonight Democracy at Risk segment centered on a hearing before the House Administration Committee yesterday where experts told the committee about the possibility of tampering, fraud, or political manipulation.

Dobbs closed with: "I think, we're at the point...that this country [has] got to start thinking about going to paper ballots because these machines --- it's obvious. The training is not there. The backup, the lack of a paper trail. If there is a close election anywhere in this country, we're in deep, deep trouble."

Princeton University's Ed Felten was on hand among those testifying to demonstrate his Diebold Virus Hack originally reported by Brad the week before last. Here's a taste:

The text-transcript of Thursday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon (Augmented by Brad Friedman)

Wednesday's Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN picks up on the Emergency Paper Ballot legislation now filed in both the U.S. House and Senate.

Additionally, the story was also covered on MSNBC's Hardball yesterday (video with RFK Jr. here) and the NY Times picked it up the day before.

The Media is beginning to get it, the Democrats in Congress (those who have sponsored it, anyway) are beginning to get it. So where are the Congressional Republicans? Do they not want American citizens to be able to vote this November? We're just asking.

Said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), one of the original sponsors of the Senate legislation to Kitty Pilgrim on CNN last night: "I really have lost a lot of faith in these machines and it's expensive. Why not just go back to the simple paper ballot, at least until we're really sure that we've resolved all the problems?"

Dodd, Feingold and Kerry have now joined here on the Senate bill (S. 3943) and Holt's bill has several Democratic co-sponsors in the House (HR 6187).

The BRAD BLOG proposed the idea of Emergency Paper Ballots early last week, but the legislative session will likely adjourn this week for the Election Recess. Action is needed now in order to mitigate the possiblity of millions of Americans being disenfranchised this November. Please call and/or write your Congress Members of both parties now.

UPDATE: Video Now Available here... (Hat-tip BRAD BLOG commenter "Stop_George")

The complete text-transcript of Wednesday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

In Monday's "Democracy at Risk" segment Kitty discusses the ruling from the judge in Colorado (as broken originally by The BRAD BLOG last Friday) against the state's "abysmal" voting machine certification process. Of course, the Secretary of State is trying to make it a partisan political issue.

Says Dobbs in yesterday's report: "[M]any state governments across the country are finally awakening to the threat that electronic voting machines pose to our upcoming midterm elections --- and our democracy."

Says Pilgrim: "[A] judge found the secretary of state's office had violated the law, saying there were no minimum standards. It failed to meet its statutory requirements for testing. It failed to adopt rules and failed to adequately test the machines...In many cases, the state simply allowed the manufacturers to vouch for the safety of the machines."

Says the plaintiff's attorney in CO: "The deficiencies in the testing was an utter lack of competence, and an utter lack any scientific method, and utter lack of any recordkeeping."

Says the Secretary of State: "Colorado voters should not be concerned about the security of the November election...I ask voters to ignore the political rhetoric by a few seeking to destroy that confidence in the election."

The text-transcript of tonight's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

On last night's Lou Dobbs Kitty Pilgrim reported on what the media is just awakening to, problems with e-voting machines are nationwide and a threat to our democracy. Some of us have been telling all who would listen that this was the fact for years now. Finally some state's are listening and acting.

The text-transcript of tonight's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...