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By Brad Friedman on 9/21/2012 3:11pm PT  

It seems it was a fitting end to a horrible week for the Romney/Ryan team. As MoveOn.org notes, the seniors at Paul Ryan's AARP speech today booed him "over and over again"...

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By Brad Friedman on 9/20/2012 10:46am PT  

Both The Daily Show and the Colbert Report have been absolutely en fuego this week in the wake of Romney's "47%" disaster.

But last night's "Chaos on Bulls#%t Mountain," on The Daily Show, documenting the crisis that has struck "Romney Election Headquarters (the Fox "News" Channel)" in the wake of the disaster, is almost certainly an instant classic. Part 2 (both are posted below) and its stinging final button, may be among the show's smartest moments of all time.

As The Daily Show's website summarizes Part 1: "In the 48 hours since the Romney video first gained wide exposure, turd containment crews at Fox News have been working overtime on Bullshit Mountain."

As Jon Stewart concludes at the end of Part 2: "The biggest problem with the denizens of Bullshit Mountain, is they act like their shit don't stink. If they have success, 'they built it'. If they failed, the government ruined it for them. If they get a break, they deserve it. If you get a break, it's a 'handout' and an 'entitlement'. It's a baffling, willfully blind, cognitive dissonance, best summed up by their head coach, in what is, perhaps, my favorite sound bite of all time..." (You'll have to watch to hear the sound bite)...

Part 1...

Part 2...

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The year of GOP election and voter fraud continues...
By Brad Friedman on 9/19/2012 7:51am PT  

No doubt Fox 'News' is going wall-to-wall with this today, so you've got no need for us to tell you about it, right? ... What? They're not? Huh. How strange.

Well, then, if you haven't heard, Lorianne O'Brady, a former staffer to Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) has pleaded "no contest" to five misdemeanor counts of election fraud yesterday, related to creating and submitting fraudulent signatures in a failed conspiracy to qualify McCotter for the ballot this year.

O'Brady is just one of four of top McCotter aides who were charged last month with a total of 36 federal felony and misdemeanor election fraud-related counts in the alleged ballot petition forgery scheme. McCotter abruptly resigned last July as the scandal began to emerge.

While U.S. House candidates in Michigan are required to submit just 1,000 valid voter signatures, McCotter's campaign turned in some 2,000. Investigators discovered, however, that just 244 of them were actually valid. The rest were forged or photo-copied from previous petitions.

Submitting false signatures is the same thing that Fox "News" has spent years falsely claiming the community group ACORN was engaged in. The difference, of course, is that ACORN was the one to have discovered and turned in the handful, among their tens of thousands of voter registration workers, found to have defrauded them in such schemes. ACORN itself was never found to be involved in such fraud, and in every case, it was ACORN themselves who discovered the fraud and sought prosecution for the workers.

McCotter's campaign was hardly the only Republican team involved in submitting fraudulent signatures in hopes of winning a place on the ballot this year. As The BRAD BLOG reported exclusively last January, the Presidential campaign of former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich was being investigated by the Virginia State Attorney General after the former GOP Presidential candidate's campaign was discovered to have turned in fraudulent signatures in their failed bid to qualify for the Republican Presidential Primary Election in VA, Gingrich's home state. Gingrich was caught on tape claiming to a supporter, after the forgeries were discovered by the state Board of Elections: "We turned in 11,100 --- we needed 10,000 --- 1,500 of them were by one guy who, frankly, committed fraud."

In May of this year, it was discovered that Momentum Political Services, a group hired by the Sacramento GOP and headed by a "professional con artist" to carry out their voter registration campaign for Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA), had turned in thousands of fraudulent voter registrations as part of a $50,000 bounty paid for Republican-only voter registrations. That is, of course, exactly what ACORN was falsely accused of, even though --- unlike in the Sacramento GOP case, and in a very similar scheme by a firm hired by the California Republican Party in 2008, where the head of the firm itself pleaded guilty to charges of voter registration fraud --- the former four-decade old community organization was never actually involved in.

For more on the McCotter staffers charged with 36 election fraud-related counts, see our August coverage. As an added bonus, that article also includes a quick round-up of more than 10 recent cases of alleged and confirmed voter fraud and election fraud by a number of very high-profile Republicans, including Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Todd Akin, James O'Keefe, the Sec. of State of Indiana and, yes, the high priestess of GOP Voter Fraud, Ann Coulter.

Of course, none of the fraud detailed above would have been prevented by the disenfranchising polling place Photo ID restriction schemes Republicans are enacting around the country under the guise of deterring "voter fraud" --- not even Coulter's, since she also committed a felony to create a fraudulent drivers' license with the faked address she submitted to election officials when she committed fraud on her voter registration form, before later, knowingly, voting at a precinct in an area where she did not live in Florida. That, even though there are just 10 known cases of in-person voter impersonation --- the only type of voter fraud that can possibly be deterred by polling place Photo ID restrictions --- in the entire country, out of hundreds of millions of votes cast since 2000.

* * *
Please support The BRAD BLOG's fiercely independent, award-winning coverage of your electoral system, as available from no other media outlet in the nation, with a donation to help us keep going (Snail mail, more options here). If you like, we'll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details right here...

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At least by his own moveable standards...
By Ernest A. Canning on 9/17/2012 10:50am PT  

On Friday, ABC's George Stephanopoulos caught Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney speaking out of both sides of his mouth. (Not that it's all that hard to do.)

As TPM's Josh Marshall described the remarks --- tongue only somewhat in cheek --- "Romney Apologizes to Muslim Rioters".

Romney, over the course of his lengthy ABC interview, finally acknowledged that the statement issued by the Cairo Embassy condemning "the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims --- as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions" was made before the protests began.

However, the GOP candidate, who had shamelessly seized upon that statement to falsely accuse the Embassy and President Obama of having "sympathize[d] with those who waged the attacks," evaded a direct answer to Stephanopoulos' direct question: "Where do they show sympathy for those who waged the attacks?"

Instead, Romney insisted it was "inappropriate" for the Cairo Embassy to leave the statement up on its website after its wall was breached. "The statement was reiterated after they had breached the sovereignty of the embassy," Romney proclaimed.

After its wall was breached, the Cairo Embassy tweeted: "This morning's condemnation (issued before protest began) still stands. As does our condemnation of unjustified breach of the Embassy."

Without explaining why he felt it was inappropriate for the Embassy to retain its condemnation of the film's scurrilous slander of the prophet Muhammad while simultaneously condemning the "unjustified breach of the Embassy," Romney followed up with a criticism of the film that was virtually indistinguishable from that which had been initially issued by the Cairo Embassy...

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By Brad Friedman on 9/13/2012 3:45pm PT  

Today, in a courtroom in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held a hearing to determine whether Republican Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson was correct in his verdict [PDF] last month when he stunned plaintiffs by upholding the state GOP's polling place Photo ID restriction and refusing the ACLU/Advancement Project's motion for a temporary injunction before this November's Presidential Election.

The voting rights groups are challenging the law on behalf of eight, mostly elderly, plaintiffs plus the League of Women Voters of PA and the NAACP and other civil rights groups, as a violation of the state Constitution's guaranteed right to vote. Last week, The BRAD BLOG's Ernie Canning detailed their powerful appellant's brief, arguing that Simpson erred in his ruling.

The plaintiffs had originally predicted a "slam dunk" victory in the lower court case, given the remarkably poor presentation offered by the Commonwealth, and the myriad of evidence presented in their favor, showing that some 1.6 million otherwise eligible voters could be disenfranchised this November, in addition to the state's own admission before the trial began that the Commonwealth was unaware of any "investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania" and that no "in-person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absence of the Photo ID law."

So today's hearing was key and, according to The Nation's Ari Berman, was played out before "a packed, standing room only courtroom."

While the state Supreme Court currently consists of three Democrats and three Republicans (the fourth Republican judge on the bench is currently suspended, pending a corruption investigation), a split verdict would mean the lower court's decision to allow the GOP's restriction on voting would stand.

But there were hints today that at least one Republican judge may be skeptical about the state's claims that nobody need be disenfranchised by the GOP-enacted law which would take effect, for the first time, in the November Presidential election, just 54 days from now...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 9/13/2012 3:38pm PT  


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'If it could happen to me, it could happen to anybody'...
By Brad Friedman on 9/12/2012 8:47pm PT  

Yesterday, Alabama's former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman returned to federal prison to complete his 6 and a half year sentence on a bribery conviction for a transaction which has never before been considered "bribery" in the history of this nation.

The prosecution was brought about during the Bush Administration by close friends of Karl Rove and presided over by a Judge who served as his client. Despite a plea from 133 former state Attorneys General, both Republican and Democratic, detailing the political nature of the prosecution and the dangerous precedent set by charging "bribery" against someone who never received a penny of person enrichment, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case earlier this year, and Siegelman was forced to return to prison yesterday, ironically enough, on September 11th.

I interviewed Siegelman just over one week ago, as he and his daughter Dana were about to head to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC to raise support for a petition campaign for a Presidential pardon. I aired the maddening interview today on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show.

Aside from the obvious horrific nature of this prosecution, it was instructive to hear, once again, about Siegelman's 2002 re-election which, he says, was stolen from him after he went to bed on Election Night having been named the winner, only to be awoken the next day and told that some 5,000 votes had been supposedly mis-allocated by the electronic tabulation system and re-allocated, in the middle of the night in one Republican county, without the public or media watching, from him to his opponent Bob Riley (whose campaign manager was both a close friend of Rove and the husband of the U.S. Attorney in Alabama.)

Siegelman was never allowed to count the paper ballots that were supposedly mistabulated by the electronic voting system. (Also, see my short video interview with Siegelman on this at the DNC in Denver in 2008, shortly after he was freed on bail during his appeal.)

After the interview with the former Governor, who was once believed to be Presidential timber before being taken down by Rove, I was joined live on the show by his daughter Dana. She updated us on her difficult day saying goodbye to her father yesterday when she and the rest of her family dropped him off at the federal facility in Oakdale, LA. She also discussed her pardon campaign at FreeDonSiegelman.org and her bizarre, chance meeting with Rove himself at last week's DNC, which she guest blogged about here at The BRAD BLOG earlier this week.

Today's BradCast also included coverage of the breaking events in the Middle East after attacks on two U.S. diplomatic missions and Mitt Romney's shameful missteps; the stunning new 9/11 revelations from Kurt Eichenwald on Monday night; and the latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen...

Download MP3 here or listen online below [appx 58 mins]...

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Questions raised about GOP nominee's fitness to serve
UPDATED: Obama says Romney 'shoots first, aims later'...
By Ernest A. Canning on 9/12/2012 1:05pm PT  

"It's disgraceful," Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney proclaimed, "that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks."

Except, none of what Romney said was actually true.

While factual misrepresentation has proved to be a hallmark of the Romney/Ryan campaign (e.g. the lie that Obama stole $716 billion from Medicare to fund "Obamacare" or the bogus claim that the President's Ohio lawsuit, which sought to open Early Voting for all, was actually an effort to suppress the military vote), the effort to exploit a tragic assault that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his aides was seen by Robert Dreyfuss of The Nation as so despicable as to "disqualify" Romney as a candidate for our nation's highest office.

The statement which Romney seized upon was not made by the President or anyone on its staff, but from the Cairo Embassy. More importantly, Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast observed, the Cairo Embassy statement was issued before either it or the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was attacked.

For the same reasons expressed by General David Petraeus two years ago when he warned that a plan to commemorate 9/11 by burning Qurans would endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo had sought to prevent a violent reaction by condemning "the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims --- as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions."

Nonetheless, TPM's Benjy Sarlin notes that Romney shamelessly refused to back off his inaccurate critique of the President --- in the midst of a very live, ongoing crisis during which the whereabouts of a U.S. Ambassador remained unknown --- even when confronted by reporters about the chronology of events, because the Cairo Embassy apparently was not as swift as Romney felt they should have been in taking down their tweets in the wake of a violent assault on their Embassy and the one in Libya. Romney insisted the President was responsible for the Embassy's statement, which statement, the GOP Presidential candidate claimed, was "akin to [an] apology."

In truth, neither the President nor the Embassy "sympathized" with the attack or the attackers. To the contrary, the Cairo Embassy followed the attack with this tweet (emphasis added): "This morning's condemnation (issued before protest began) still stands. As does our condemnation of unjustified breach of the Embassy."

But the incident has turned out to be rather revealing about the GOP nominee's readiness to serve as President of the United States...

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With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 9/11/2012 2:58pm PT  


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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: A Tale of Two Conventions: wrapping up the DNC vs. RNC; It's official: 2012 shaping up to be hottest year on record; Shell begins Arctic drilling, but the Arctic has other plans; PLUS: 9/11, and the consequences of ignoring warnings ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Foul smell across Southern Cali; Caribbean coral reefs near collapse; BP unloads millions in Gulf of Mexico leases; Massive wildfires, evacuations in West; NYC unprepared for rising sea levels, storm surge; Looming national security issue at chemical plants; Climate change challenge for power plant operators; China orders renewable energy standard ... PLUS: GM calls report of money-losing Volt sales 'grossly wrong' ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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NYTimes reports Admin Neo-Cons chose to believe CIA 'fooled' by Bin Laden threats meant to distract from 'greater threat' of Saddam...
By Brad Friedman on 9/10/2012 3:47pm PT  

The New York Times posts an absolutely startling account by Kurt Eichenwald tonight, on the eve of the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, charging that the infamous August 6, 2001 Presidential briefing memo was just one --- and a very late one at that --- in a series of dire warnings given to George W. Bush by the CIA.

While the famous "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." briefing was released "in response to pressure from the 9/11 Commission, which was investigating the events leading to the attack," Eichenwald reports, and was publicly marginalized by the White House as "an assessment of Al Qaeda’s history, not a warning of the impending attack," read along with other similar, even more dire, if still-classified warnings, that claim by the Bush White House was absurd.

Eichenwald, who says he has "read excerpts from many" of the CIA briefs prepared for Bush which preceded the 8/6/01 warning, details a number of them, and reports that the Bush Administration, and "the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon", were determined to ignore them. They even went so far, he says, as to believe that "the C.I.A. had been fooled."

"According to this theory," Eichenwald writes, "Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat."

"In response," to the months of ignored reports --- including a May 1 briefing warning that "a group presently in the United States" was planning an attack and that, as a June 22 brief noted, an attack by al-Qaeda could be "imminent" --- on June 29, "the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real."

"The U.S. is not the target of a disinformation campaign by Usama Bin Laden," that briefing read. It warned that Bin Laden operatives were planning attacks very soon that would have "dramatic consequences" and major casualties.

Another brief from July 1, according to Eichenwald, warns that the operation was delayed, but "will occur soon." On July 9, according to "intelligence I reviewed", says Eichenwald, an extremist linked to al-Qaeda "told his followers that there would soon be very big news." But the report, even after all of the others, still failed launch the White House into action. There were more. All, it seems, were downplayed, marginalized or all but ignored, even leading "apoplectic" CIA Counterterrorism officials, at one point, to consider seeking "a transfer so that somebody else would be responsible when the attack took place."

The report is short and an actual news bombshell. Go read it. As a side note, it says quite a bit about today's New York Times that they decided to run this as an "Op-Ed". In any event, please read it, and keep it in mind when you hear the lie yet again, on this latest anniversary of the horrific 9/11 tragedy and beyond, that "Bush kept us safe."

He did anything but.

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By Dana Siegelman on 9/10/2012 9:39am PT  

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Our guest blogger Dana Siegelman is the daughter of Don Siegelman, the former Democratic Gov. of Alabama. He is scheduled to report to federal prison on September 11 to serve the remaining 6 years of a prison sentence after being prosecuted and found guilty in 2006 by friends and colleagues of Karl Rove, on charges of bribery. The former Governor received no money, or anything of tangential value in the transaction, and no explicit quid pro quo was found in his trial. The supposed "bribe" was by a local hospital executive, Richard Scrushy, who donated $500,000 to a fund favored by Siegelman, and meant to support a state lottery that would send underprivileged children to college. In return, prosecutors charged, Siegelman appointed Scrushy to a state hospital board, even though he had already been appointed to serve on the same board under three previous Governors (two Republicans and a Democrat). Such a transaction has never before been considered a crime in this country.]

* * *

There was rumor of Karl Rove's presence echoing in the halls of the Time Warner Cable Arena at the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina on September 5th, 2012. For some reason, since he dared show up to the DNC, I immediately felt it was meant to be that I meet him in person.

I mean, here I am petitioning for a Presidential pardon to lift my father's 78 month prison sentence that came at the hands of many GOP operatives set on taking my dad --- a Democrat, and the only man to have served in every statewide office in Alabama --- out of politics.

One of those operatives even swore under oath, in front of Congress, that Rove played a key role in making sure the U.S. Department of Justice was on board to see my dad's political prosecution --- as CBS' 60 Minutes reported back in early 2008 --- through to the end.

As you may imagine, my heart was beating at the prospect of confronting Rove in person, if the opportunity arrived. He had refused to testify when he was subpoenaed by Congress, and while several journalists have asked him about it, he has dodged the questions by saying he only learned of the case by reading it in the news, or that he only met some of the prosecutors involved, but not the woman who claimed she actually spied on my dad at the direction of Rove. As ABC's George Stephanopoulos told Mr. Rove after asking him about the Siegelman case, "But that's not a denial." I agree!

The main players in my father's prosecution, U.S. Attorney Leura Canary, her husband Bill Canary (who ran my father's opponent's campaign), former Alabama Attorney General now 11th Circuit Federal Judge Bill Pryor, and Federal Judge Mark Fuller have all been connected to Rove.

Political prosecutions were prevalent during the Bush years. The federal judges he appointed to the bench were vetted by Rove, and Bush loyalists were hand-selected to serve as U.S. Attorneys. Studies have shown that prosecutions were brought against Democrats at a rate of seven-to-one over Republicans during the Bush regime. Many of those prosecutions were completely political, amounting to hundreds of ruined political careers and the imprisonment of innocent people, such as my father.

I didn't know what I was going to say to Rove when and if I met him, but I felt I should say...something. Ironically enough, I was standing in the middle of the hall at the Charlotte Arena, waiting to meet a young man to introduce to my father for possible media coverage. That man was also named Karl. I didn't know what this Karl looked liked, so I was looking around to make eye contact with someone that I was supposed to meet.

Then, I saw Rove walking directly toward me with his security...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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By Ernest A. Canning on 9/10/2012 6:35am PT  

Chalk up another blow to transparency and an informed electorate, and another judicial victory for the democratic perversion known as corporate "free speech."

Last week, in Minnesota Citizens for Life, Inc. v Swanson, six of the eleven jurists serving on the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeal struck down the provisions of a Minnesota statute requiring corporations which create separate political funds in excess of $100 to file periodic financial disclosure reports with the state.

The case had been filed by three corporations, all of which contended that the reporting requirements were so onerous as to amount to a de facto ban on corporate free speech that violated Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission [PDF]. That argument had been rejected first by a U.S. District Court Judge and then by way of a 2-1 Eighth Circuit panel decision. The majority on that panel had noted that even Citizens United recognized the government's right to "regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements" so long as the government did "not suppress that speech altogether."

On rehearing before the full 8th Circuit, Chief Judge William C. Reilly, a George W. Bush appointee, writing for the six member majority, acknowledged that the Minnesota statute "does not prohibit corporate speech." The majority ruled, however, that that state statute entailed excessive regulation which included an "ongoing" reporting requirement on the part of the corporate political fund that continues unless or until the corporation dissolves the fund. Chief Judge Reilly described that burden as both "onerous" and "monstrous."

The five dissenting jurists, which also included George W. Bush appointees, vigorously disagreed...

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Republican Jon Husted rescinds Directive after being summoned to personally appear before judge...
By Brad Friedman on 9/7/2012 2:55pm PT  

Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) has apologized to a U.S. District Court judge who ruled against him last week, after the Secretary appeared to have tried to undermine the court's ruling, pending an appeal by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The apology came in a motion today, after Husted was ordered by the judge to personally appear for a hearing next week.

As we reported last Friday, U.S. District Judge Peter Economus ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party, finding that Ohio's restriction on Early Voting in the final three days before the election --- for all but active-duty military --- was a violation of the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause.

In his ruling [PDF], Economus ordered the Secretary of State to restore Early Voting "on the three days immediately preceding Election Day for all eligible voters," just as it had been successfully implemented during the 2008 election, as the previous Sec. of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, described to us during a recent interview. At the same time, the judge had also instructed the Buckeye State's current Secretary to "direct all Ohio elections boards to maintain a specific, consistent schedule on those three days, in keeping with [Husted's] earlier directive that only by doing so can he ensure that Ohio's election process is 'uniform, accessible for all, fair, and secure.'"

In response, rather than issuing a directive with uniform hours for voting in those three days before the November Presidential election, Husted issued a Directive on Tuesday notifying the state's 88 county Boards of Election that they should not establish hours for voting in those days, as the state was filing an appeal in the case.

"Announcing new hours before the court case reaches final resolution will only serve to confuse voters and conflict with the standard of uniformity," Husted wrote in the Directive, adding, "I am confident there will be sufficient time after the conclusion of the appeal process to set uniform hours across the state."

This afternoon, after being summoned to court in response to that Directive, Husted rescinded it and the state filed a motion [PDF] apologizing for what was interpreted as him having attempted to place his own personal stay on Economus' order. "The Secretary apologizes to the federal district court for creating that misimpression and has rescinded [the] Directive," the state writes in the motion, which seeks an official stay on the ruling, pending the Sixth Circuit's expedited appeal...

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By Brad Friedman on 9/7/2012 12:40pm PT  

On Thursday, Florida's fairly progressive former Republican Governor Charlie Crist spoke in support of President Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. Crist became an independent during his failed 2010 run for the U.S. Senate, after it became clear that his party was likely to nominate Marco Rubio for the seat instead. All of that had come about after Crist had demonstrated the temerity to famously embrace the President when he came to pitch the stimulus bill in the Sunshine State, which ended up saving tens of thousands of Florida jobs after the 2008 global economic meltdown threatened to plunge the country into another Great Depression.

Echoing Ronald Reagan's famously-cited reasons for the former President's own switch from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, Crist explained during his speech last night: "I can certainly relate. I didn't leave the Republican Party; it left me."

"Then again," he added, "as my friend Jeb Bush recently noted, Reagan himself would have been too moderate and too reasonable for today's GOP."

With all of that, here is how CNN described Crist during his speech yesterday...

For the record, American Heritage Dictionary defines defines the word "turncoat" as "One who traitorously switches allegiance."

West's Encyclopedia of American Law redirects web-queries for the word "turncoat" to its page on "treason", which is defined there as "The betrayal of one's own country by waging war against it or by consciously or purposely acting to aid its enemies."

Perhaps we missed it, but we don't remember the "liberal" CNN similarly labeling Democrat-turned-Republican Artur Davis a "turncoat" when he spoke at the RNC last week in favor of Mitt Romney. Or did they just reserve that distinguished label only for Republican-turned-independent Charlie Crist when he spoke on behalf of Barack Obama?

In any event, CNN is in terrific company with their slur. They weren't the only one to compare Crist to a traitor by describing him as a "turncoat". Rightwing extremist Glenn Beck's pretend "news" site The Blaze did so as well:

Unlike CNN, however, Beck's site appears to have done the right thing and removed that descriptor from its headline (though it's still in the page name) after initially using it.

To our knowledge, CNN has issued no apology for likening the former Governor of Florida to a traitor, which, by the way, is still punishable by death in the United States.

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With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 9/6/2012 3:15pm PT  


TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
FACEBOOK: Green News Report
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Bill Clinton makes the green case for Barack Obama at the DNC; PLUS: DOJ excoriates BP for "willful misconduct" and "gross negligence"... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Listen online here, or Download MP3 (6 mins)...

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Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): US taxpayers scammed by cheap coal auctions; Keystone XL Update: new route proposed, TX blockade shuts down worksite, Transcanada seizes US property through eminient domain; Organics vs. chemical farming; Patagonia's glacier melt accelerating; Video: How climate change will change your weather; Australia's carbon tax enriching polluters? ... PLUS: Special Report: "The Worst Environment Money Can Buy" ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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