This story is unfrickin'-believable. Or maybe it isn't. It took place in Thor Hearne country, after all. And though she didn't get arrested and thrown in jail, a similar incident happened to the Missouri Secretary of State during the 2006 election.

A voter in Kansas City on Tuesday --- one I happen to know, because he's an Election Integrity advocate in the Show Me State --- was arrested and sent to jail after he refused to show a driver's license at the polling place before attempting to vote during the state's Primary Election.

The voter is Phil Lindsey of ShowMeTheVote.org and he posted the details of his harrowing tale over at DemocraticUnderground.com, where he posts as "galloglas," after being released on Tuesday night.

He told me, via email late last night, that he's been in close touch with MO Secretary of State Robin Carnahan following the incident, and that both local media and folks such as nationally syndicated radio host Thom Hartmann have been in touch with him since the story broke last night. He was surprised, but pleased, that the incident has received so much coverage already. [UPDATE: Local Fox affiliate now covering here, for example.]

Never mind that requiring a voter to show a driver's license in MO before he or she can vote was found unconstitutional in 2006. Never mind that he showed the pollworkers a perfectly legal and proper precinct-issued voter ID card when he went to vote. Never mind that he had even called to check with the local Board of Elections before going to vote, to make sure that the ID would be acceptable. Never mind that he even brought a copy of the MO law to show the pollworkers who had demanded a driver's license (much as they had done, illegally, in a previous election he'd voted in).

The cops were called, and he ended up going to jail anyway. The charge on the citation: "Did knowingly cause a disturbance/disorderly conduct to wit: acts in a violent or tumultuous manner toward another, placing such person(s) in fear of safety by refusing to show proper I. D. when voting"...

As we broke earlier this week, after previous snubs and threats of subpoenas, Ohio's disgracefully-partisan former Sec. of State J. Kenneth Blackwell was finally set to testify to the House Judiciary Committee today (as well as another legendary GOP vote suppressor, former FEC chair and DoJ Voting Rights Division gamer, Hans von Spakovsky.)

After a late start, and a then a blackout of the Judiciary Committee's webcast feed just after Blackwell began his opening statement ("Thank you Mr. Chairman..." and then suddenly the feed went out), things picked up again during the opening statement of GOP propagandist/attorney Cleta Mitchell who went on and on about the same old nonsense concerning "voter fraud" via voter registration applications submitted by ACORN, the GOP's old "voter fraud" strawman...

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties will be holding a hearing this Thursday on "Lessons Learned from the 2004 Presidential Election."

Though no press release has yet been sent out by the Committee, and the link to the hearing's page at the Judiciary website is currently broken, The BRAD BLOG has both good news and bad news to report here.

The good news: Ohio's former Sec. of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has been invited to testify and has confirmed that he will actually show up this time, according to several Judiciary sources. Blackwell had previously snubbed the committee's earlier invitation to testify back in February about the myriad crimes that were committed on and by his watch in the 2004 Presidential Election.

Following his last refusal to appear --- when he responded to the committee claiming "my schedule will not permit me to attend the hearings" --- Judiciary Committee spokesperson Jonathon Godfrey hinted that a subpoena might be forthcoming if Blackwell continued to refuse to appear. This time, at least as of today, it looks like he's coming, according to confirmation by Godfrey this afternoon. Thus guaranteeing what should be a very lively hearing.

More good news: Shameless GOP "voter fraud" zealot and disgraced former FEC chair Hans Von Spakovsky will also be appearing. By invitation of the Republicans on the committee, amusingly enough. What were they thinking in inviting this embarrassment? Beats us, but we're happy to hear he'll be back on the Congressional hot seat. Thanks Repubs!

And then there's the bad news...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Looks like we're coming into rewards season at the White House for longtime Bush loyalists. Of course, we thought that's what the last seven year were about, but we digress.

Apparently, being named as a criminal co-conspirator in Articles of Impeachment is worthy of a prize from this particular White House, as Bush/Cheney '04 Inc.'s self-proclaimed "non-partisan" "longtime voting rights advocate" --- and not-self-proclaimed national champion GOP vote-suppressor Thor Hearne --- received yet another thank you gift from the White House today: A non-partisan appointment to a "non-partisan Commission" (according to the nationally renowned liar Thor) by George W. Bush.

Jo Mannies of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, one of the few reporters Thor will answer the phone for (other than those at "liberal media" outlets such as NYTimes, NPR, USA Today and again at USA Today) writes today, while failing to note Hearne's infamous entry into the history books on the floor of the U.S. House this week...

What's a Grand Ol' Party to do when they wish to disenfranchise Democratic voters via the specious specter of "voter fraud" when they can't actually find any evidence to make their case? Why, call their media wing at Fox "News" of course!

Fox picks up today where the DoJ and Republican Party have had no luck so far, but not for lack of trying. Hey, if you can't beat 'em, publicize 'em, and make it sound like you're beating 'em, at least.

David Edwards and Muriel Kane report at RAW STORY today that Fox is running a "special investigation" into non-citizens throwing elections:

RAW has the amusing video from this morning as well.

Well, you heard 'em, kids. Fox is looking for voter fraud! Feel free to email them this link: https://bradblog.com/CoulterFraud documenting the no-uncertain-terms case of Ann Coulter having committed voter fraud in Palm Beach County, Florida!

Fox would love to hear from you at: voterfraud@foxnews.com. Feel free to let 'em know I sent you, in case they have any further questions. I'll be happy to speak to them, and help 'em root out those voter fraud criminals!

BTW, Fox & Friends, at least, already knows about Coulter's voter fraud, since they called me last year to ask me to appear on their morning show to talk about it after Liz Smith ran an item on the matter in Murdoch's NY Post pointing to BRAD BLOG's coverage...

Texas' Republican Attorney General has found that there's little or no "voter fraud" of note down there either, despite a promise two years ago, according to the Dallas Morning News, to "root out what he called an epidemic of voter fraud in Texas," and his creation of a special unit which "tapped a $1.4 million federal crime-fighting grant" to expose the election stealing rascals.

For all of his crime-fighting in those two years, across the big Lonestar State, TX AG Greg Abbott has prosecuted just 26 cases, "all against Democrats, and almost all involving blacks or Hispanics," according to the Morning News, most of which resulted in "small fines and little or no jail time."

Additionally, almost all of them (18 of 26) involved mail-in absentee ballots where elderly voters were "illegally" given assistance in mailing their ballots, versus in-person voter impersonation of the type that cynical GOP attempts to mandate draconian polling place Photo ID restrictions are purportedly meant to deter. (In reality, they are meant to deter Democrats from being able to cast their legal ballots, so Republicans can more easily "win" elections.)

Just eight of the 26 prosecuted cases, the Morning News found, out of Abbott's two-year effort, involved any kind of ineligible or manufactured votes --- only 2 actually involved individuals casting fraudulent ballots at the polls, the rest were registration fraud issues --- and none of them revealed any larger conspiratorial scheme meant to effect the results of an election.

In the meantime, critics charge Abbott has been ignoring complaints about Republican election skulduggery, and we'd be remiss if we didn't point out that nobody has bothered to prosecute Republicanist Ann Coulter, for her several demonstrable voter fraud-related felony crimes in Florida despite, dead-to-rights evidence as published by The BRAD BLOG since early 2006.

We'd also like to point out, that in addition to there not being "an epidemic of voter fraud in Texas," there is similarly no such epidemic among space aliens either. Though Ted Rall suggests we may wish to implement some new measures there too...just in case...

In case you missed it, tremendous news for democracy lovers everywhere late yesterday, as the week ended up being a very good one for the voters, for a change...

• In Missouri, GOP vote-suppressor Thor Hearne lost one, and the voters won one for a change, as the attempt by Republican legislators in the state house to pass a Constitutional amendment requiring Photo ID restrictions and proof of citizenship sure to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of legal, registered voters went down in flames on the last day of the legislative session.

• On the federal level, GOP voter-fraud zealot Hans von Spakovsky (cue evil music), finally withdrew his nomination to the FEC, which had been blocked by Sens. Obama and Feingold. The standoff had kept the FEC from have the required quorum of commissioners needed to do business in a crucial election year. With vS out of the way, perhaps a responsible, pro-voter set of commissioners can now take their place. But we'll see. Rick Hasen has the outlook. Either way, it's another very big victory.

• In Tennessee, both houses have approved a bill to require a paper ballot for every vote cast! The bill has to go back to conference to work out one last point, but given its extraordinary success in both houses (it passed unanimously this week in the state Senate!) it's likely to be enacted quickly. This is a huge win for the tireless Election Integrity citizen heroes on the ground in TN, and a loss for the pro-machine, pro-invisible/unverifiable ballot crowd there, including Davidson County's Republican Election Commissioner Lynn Greer, who once told me, after I attended a meeting there, that "paper is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on this country." Apparently he was serious. The good news: the responsible folks in the state disagree with him. The bad news: the requirement for paper ballots won't take effect until 2010. But we'll take what we can get!

• Finally, in Arizona, as Steve Rosenfeld, as one of my guests yesterday while I was guest hosting The Peter B. Collins Show told us, the DoJ has finally settled a lawsuit against the state where Sec. of State Jan Brewer, who once called Election Integrity advocates "anarchists" and "conspiracy theorists" has been doing everything she could, for years, to keep legitimate voters from being able to properly cast their ballots and have them counted accurately. The state has now finally agreed to follow the law (National Voter Registration Act of 1993, known as the NVRA or the "Motor Voter Bill") by performing voter registration services at public assistance facilities such as welfare clinics.

We spoke about most of the breaking good news above last night on the PBC Show (audio archive here), and will try, for the next few hours at least, to enjoy some of the great news, for a change, on several fronts in the continuing Republican War on Voting.

By way of late update, MO sources tell The BRAD BLOG that the Republicans' state Constitutional Amendment to require draconian proof of citizenship and photo ID in order to cast a legal vote --- which the MO SoS reports could disenfranchise as many as 240,000 legal Show-Me State voters --- is still likely to come up for a vote today in the MO Senate, as this is the last day of the legislative session before recess.

All eyes were on developments on the floor until the early hours last night, when the Senate was still in session as of 2:30am, even as Columbia Tribune reports there may be attempts to amend the language to make the Constitutional revision more "palatable" by allowing for the disenfranchisement to not take place until 2010, instead of this November.

The Senate session is scheduled to end today at 6pm CT, and we're monitoring the situation. We hope to have an update tonight when we'll be guest hosting the Peter B. Collins Show at 5pm PT (7pm CT ).

Advocates for democracy (small "d") are still urging Missouri residents to call their Senators to ask them to vote NO on HJR48, which could be all the GOP needs to keep the important swing-state in the R column this fall! Here's the details you'll need...

Missourians for Fair Elections has much more, including breaking details, such as the late call just posted from the catholic Sisters of Mercy to oppose this legislation!

Recently related BRAD BLOG stories:

• TAKE ACTION NOW: Thor Hearne and MO GOP Attempt to Rewrite Constitution to Allow Voter Disenfranchisement
• GOP Vote-Suppressor-in-Chief Thor Hearne Deserves a Raise, Gets a Boost from the NYTimes, and Continues His Unapologetic Assault on Nuns, Vets, Students, Hurricane Victims, Married People, the Elderly, and Palsy Victims
• NYTimes Cleanses Thor Hearne's Record, Scrubs Front-Page Reference to the GOP Vote-Suppressor's 'American Center for Voting Rights'

UPDATE 5/16/08: The good guys win one for a change! Measure fails to be passed by the MO Senate before they completed this year's session! Details now here...

Jason Leopold over at The Public Record has more goods today on GOP Vote-Suppressor Extraordinaire Thor Hearne, including confirmation that he is working behind the scenes with the Missouri state Congressman (Rep. Stanley Cox) who drafted the Constitutional Amendment currently barreling through the state Senate to require proof of citizenship and Photo ID proof of residency before voting.

For the record, MO already has a Voter ID requirement, so this new restriction is meant to do nothing more than keep Democratic-leaning voters from being able to vote. Period.

The Senate session goes on hiatus as of this Friday, so the question is whether the Dem majority can hold off the effort to disenfranchise some 240,000 state voters, according to the MO SoS, who could be affected by this cynical attempt at stealing November. Failure to fight off the effort could result in the Show-Me state, a crucial swing state, in going to the Republicans this November simply by virtue of voters turned away for lack of specific types of Photo ID in the City of St. Louis alone.

An urgent call has been put out for MO residents to call their Senators immediately and urge them to vote against HJR 48, Thor's latest move, the Constitutional amendment to require incredibly draconian proof of citizenship and state residency with Photo ID before you're allowed to cast your legal ballot!

So for those in Missouri, please take action NOW to fight for your democracy and Constitutional rights! Call your Senators, and defeat this amendment! Here are some helpful tools for you, courtesy of PDA...

Recently related BRAD BLOG stories:

• GOP Vote-Suppressor-in-Chief Thor Hearne Deserves a Raise, Gets a Boost from the NYTimes, and Continues His Unapologetic Assault on Nuns, Vets, Students, Hurricane Victims, Married People, the Elderly, and Palsy Victims
• NYTimes Cleanses Thor Hearne's Record, Scrubs Front-Page Reference to the GOP Vote-Suppressor's 'American Center for Voting Rights'

LATE UPDATE 5/16/08: Details on HJR48 status, on the final day of Senate session!

LATER UPDATE 5/16/08: The good guys win one for a change! Measure fails to be passed by the MO Senate before they completed this year's session! Details 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.

The good news: The complaints about references made to GOP vote-suppressor Thor Hearne's now-defunct front group, American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), have resulted in the New York Times dropping the reference to ACVR from yesterday's front-page article, to which we referred yesterday, with no small amount of disgust.

The bad news: The Times didn't bother to note their error (at least not in this online version of the story) as one would expect, as per transparent, journalistic ethics. More disturbingly, nor did they bother to note Hearne's continuing paid-partisan position as the GOP's top "voter fraud" scammer-in-chief, pushing for disenfranchising Photo ID laws around the country, his role in writing the very laws he's quoted discussing, his discredited and debunked ACVR group or their participation revealed at the heart of the U.S. Attorney Purge which pushed out Republican attorneys for not pursuing non-existent cases of "voter fraud" with enough fervor, or even his post as the national general counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. who mislead Congressional members during hearings on these matters in 2005.

The story now refers to him only as "a lawyer from Missouri who has been a strong advocate for voter ID laws." Almost sounds like Honest Abe Lincoln, don't it?

In other words, the infamous GOP snake-oil salesman Hearne has been cleansed of his baggage by the New York Times themselves. So, apparently, he remains in good stead as a source when it comes to the Times, NPR, etc. Credibility, apparently, is not a necessary quality for sources quoted by such organizations. Nor, apparently, is transparency.

What's next for the Times? Quoting Ahmed Chalabi as an unimpeachable source claiming Sadam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction? Oh, wait, never mind...

...CONTACTS...
NYTimes Public Editor, Clark Hoyt: public@nytimes.com
NYTimes Letters to the Editor: letters@nytimes.com

The parade of disenfranchised and/or soon-to-be-disenfranchised elderly, nuns, U.S. veterans (even those disabled in Iraq and Afghanistan), hurricane victims, and other Democratic-leaning voters continues this week, following the recent Supreme Court decision to allow the disenfranchisement of thousands of such (previously) legal voters in Indiana.

While much of the coverage --- such as today's report by Art Levine at HuffPo --- has been intelligent and serious, the New York Times took the lazy way out in a front page story today, lending credence to the discredited GOP "voter fraud" huckster, Mark F. "Thor" Hearne, with quotes and reference to his defunct, sham organization, The American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR).

Writing about him and it, as if he were legit, and as if the ACVR were still in operation, the article's author, Ian Urbina --- who has written very good reports in the past --- didn't bother to mention the controversy surrounding Hearne and his group, that they had disappeared themselves under the glare of the U.S. Attorney Purge scandal, that they had lied on federal tax forms claiming that the group had not "attempted to influence national, state, or local legislation, including any attempt to influence public opinion on a legislative matter or referendum" (fraudulent tax form here), that Hearne himself has been behind every step of the systematic and dishonest scheme to get laws of this sort on the books across the country, and finally, Urbina didn't even bother to note that Hearne had been the national general counsel to Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. and remains the top election lawyer for the Republican National Lawyer's Association.

It's all easy to find, of course. We've even set up a Special Coverage page at https://BradBlog.com/ACVR so folks like Urbina --- and NPR who similarly quoted Hearne as if he were legit recently --- wouldn't have to look too far.

But darn that "liberal media" again. For the record, we sought comment from Urbina, who we've been a source for in the past, and who has done good work over the years, but he declined to comment on our criticism here.

In the days immediately following the horrible SCOTUS decision, we quickly turned to our old home state of Missouri, where the huckster Hearne has been basing his well-funded voter suppression operation on behalf of the White House and the RNC for years, going back at least as far as the moment we originally outed him in 2005 just after he had created the not "non-partisan," tax-exempt front group, ACVR, and testified just days later at a Congressional hearing, led by Ohio's felonious Rep. Bob Ney. Hearne told of fraud having been committed in Ohio in 2004, but by John Kerry's campaign, after Hearne described himself to legislatures only as a "longtime advocate of voter rights and an attorney experienced in election law."

We called on MO's Sec. of State Robin Carnahan for an exclusive interview, while we were hosting KPFK's "Special Election Year Coverage" last week (audio here), and took the opportunity to inform her, if she didn't already know, that Hearne's group lied on his federal tax form, and has, to this day, illegally failed to discose the source of his group's $1 million in start-up funding.

Our interview with Carnahan took place even as Missouri's Republican legislature was in mid-debate on the House floor about a new state Constitutional Amendment to require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote and for a similarly draconian Photo ID requirement as those approved by the SCOTUS for the polling places in the Hoosier State.

Kansas City Star reporter Dave Helling noticed our interview with Carnahan, and wrote a quick item about it, noting her characterization of these anti-voter efforts as "absurd," and alleging that she has not been quite as available to "reporters in the state"...

...But whether the MO SoS has been available to Helling or not, she has been making quite a bit of noise ever since, concerning what a study by her office has found to be some 240,000 largely Democrati-leaning voters in the Show-Me State who would be disenfranchised by the Republican law as she explained to us on air.

Meanwhile, over in Arizona, a law that has already made it on to the books will similarly be keeping legal Americans from casting their legal votes this year.

Thor Hearne deserves a raise...

Context, for those who still may need it...

[Updated post-show, with archive of show at bottom of article.]

Once again today, I'll be hosting an hour of "Special Election Year Coverage" for the good folks at L.A.'s Pacifica Radio affiliate, KPFK 90.7 FM, from 2p-3p PT this afternoon.

And, once again, we'll be looking less at the election "horse race" and much more at the "track conditions," with a special eye on the Supreme Court's unconstitutional support of polling place Photo ID restrictions such as the one that disenfranchised a bunch of 80 & 90 year-old nuns (along with many others) yesterday in Indiana.

My special guest will be MO Sec. of State ROBIN CARNAHAN, joining us to discuss the effect of the SCOTUS ruling in her state, which has been called "Ground Zero" for the phony GOP voter fraud scam. It's no coincidence that MO is the home of GOP Scammer-in-Chief Mark F. "Thor" Hearne, btw, as he's the democracy-hating front-man most single-handedly responsible for the Republican Photo ID/Voter Suppression effort.

We'll also be giving away some stuff to callers, such as a signed Duhmocracy CD and a signed Uncounted DVD. So join us, and call in with your questions at: 818-985-5735.

Tune in live from 2p-3p PT (4p-5p CT, 5p-6p ET) on air in Los Angeles at 90.7 FM, in Santa Barbara at 98.7 FM, or listen live online right here.

P.S. After the show, I'll be a guest on Voice of the Voters w/ Mary Ann Gould at 4pm PT, and then on People Speak Radio w/ David Swanson at 5pm PT. So it'll be a full day of BradCasting today! Hope you'll tune in...

Post-Show Update: We had another very lively show on KPFK with Sec. Carnahan, and loads of callers. Here's the full archive (appx 55 mins) for MP3 download, or you can listen online right here...