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Latest Featured Reports | Saturday, November 23, 2024
How (and Why!) to 'Extend an Olive Branch' to MAGA Family Members Over the Holidays: 'BradCast' 11/21/24
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Trump Already Violating Law (He Signed!) During Transition: 'BradCast' 11/18/24
Guest: Former Dep. Asst. A.G. Lisa Graves; Also: Flood of unqualified, corrupt Trump nominees for top cabinet posts continues...
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'Green News Report' 11/14/24
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Guest: Jean Su of Center for BioDiversity; Also: Senate results; Key posts for Trump lackeys...
'Green News Report' 11/12/24
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Callers ring in after Trump's re-election; Also: U.S. Senate result updates; Voting system concerns in several states; How nat'l media failed American democracy...
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THIS WEEK: The Cancer Returns ... The Glass Ceilings ... The Consequences ... And too much more, in our latest collection of the week's best, very much-needed, toons...
Not All Bad: Abortion Rights Won Big (Almost) Everywhere: 'BradCast' 11/7/24
Guest: Politico's Alice Ollstein; Also: L.A. wildfires; Newsom readies CA for Trump; Biden vows 'peaceful transition'; WA voters back climate law...
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GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
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Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...

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State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...

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Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
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LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
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CRIMINAL ELECTION FRAUD COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST GOP 'FRAUD' FIRM
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Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) sends blistering letter to Gov. Rick Scott (R) demanding bi-partisan reg fraud probe in FL; Slams 'shocking and hypocritical' silence, lack of action...

VIDEO: Brad Breaks GOP Reg Fraud Scandal on Hartmann TV
Breaking coverage as the RNC fires their Romney-tied voter registration firm, Strategic Allied Consulting...

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GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD FOUND IN FL
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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...


According to McCain's Website, He Believes Roe v. Wade 'Must Be Overturned'
By Jon Ponder on 8/26/2008 4:02pm PT  

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.


This sounds like a story you might read on the spoof site, womenforjohnmccain.com, which my colleague Trish at Pensito Review wrote about earlier today, but, sadly, this is no joke. Or at least it's not meant to be.

Yesterday, just in time for the start of the Democratic National Convention, the McCain campaign released a new ad that features Debra Bartoshevich, a nurse from Washington, who claims to be a "proud Hillary Clinton Democrat" who now plans to vote for McCain.

But at news conference in Denver arranged for the Republican National Committee, Bartoshevich revealed what appears to be a shaky grasp on her candidate's position on an issue that is fundamental to actual Hillary Clinton supporters:

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

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In Fact, He Criticized the Bill As 'Too Generous' To Troops - And Did Not Even Show Up for the Vote...
By Jon Ponder on 8/20/2008 5:50am PT  


Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Events in the campaign this week offer a case study in how Fox "News" assists the right wing --- in this case, the McCain campaign --- to disseminate disinformation:

Monday: Speaking before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, John McCain falsely claimed credit for supporting the 21st Century GI Bill, which was sponsored by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.):

As a political proposition, it would have much easier for me to have just signed on to what I considered flawed legislation. But the people of Arizona, and of all America, expect more from their representatives than that, and instead I sought a better bill. I'm proud to say that the result is a law that better serves our military, better serves military families, and better serves the interests of our country.

In reality, the bill McCain "sought" was not Webb-Hagel, which he opposed because its tuition benefits were "too generous" to the troops. The version he sought was a different bill that he co-sponsored, and which "in no way resembles" the bill which was ultimately passed, as noted by ThinkProgress...

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Slip of the Tongue Seems to Indicate He Knew About Supreme Court Question in Advance...
By Jon Ponder on 8/18/2008 10:13am PT  

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

MCCAIN: Could I --- are we going to get back to the importance of Supreme Court Justices or should I mention --

WARREN: We will get to that.

MCCAIN: OK. All right. OK.

WARREN: You're jumping ahead...


The McCain campaign is fighting hard against charges that McCain cheated on the rules of debate at a rightwing evangelical forum in a California megachurch over the weekend by cribbing the questions in advance. They are so desperate, apparently, that a McCain operative even played the POW card, citing McCain's imprisonment by the Vietnamese 40 years ago as evidence somehow that he did not cheat Saturday night.

Even "Pastor Rick" Warren, the multimillionaire evangelist who hosted the event --- and who clearly favored McCain in the questioning --- has admitted that despite his assertion to the audience that McCain was sequestered in a "cone of silence" during the live session with Obama, McCain was, in fact, in his car during much of Obama's session, where he certainly could have listened to the interview.

And this exchange from the forum appears to indicate that McCain knew that Warren was going to ask him a very specific question about the Supreme Court. Notice how McCain asks if he can go "back" to a question about the court:

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By Brad Friedman on 8/2/2008 11:23pm PT  


(Hat-tip RAW STORY)

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...But Will Either Pelosi or Reid do Anything About It?
UPDATE: Committee Document Details Resolution's Additional Call for 'Other Legal Remedies to Enforce Outstanding Subpoena'...
By Desi Doyen on 7/30/2008 11:24am PT  

Guest Blogged by DES...

From The Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House panel Wednesday voted to cite former top White House aide Karl Rove for contempt of Congress as its Senate counterpart publicly pursued possible punishments for an array of alleged past and present Bush administration misdeeds.

Voting along party lines, the House Judiciary Committee said that Rove had broke the law by failing to appear at a July 10 hearing on allegations of White House influence over the Justice Department, including whether Rove encouraged prosecutions against Democrats.

The committee decision is only a recommendation, and it was unclear whether Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., would allow a final vote. Rove has denied any involvement with Justice decisions, and the White House has said Congress has no authority to compel testimony from current and former advisers.

...Rove has denied any involvement with Justice decisions, and the White House has said Congress has no authority to compel testimony from current and former advisers.

The White House's opinion that advisers cannot be compelled to testify does not address whether or not the witness is nonetheless required to appear in response to a subpoena. From Congress.

It remains to be seen whether Congressional Democrats will actually assert authority and re-establish parity as a co-equal branch of the federal government under the Constitution, or if this is just more sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Last February the full House voted to hold White House officials Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress. They have failed to enforce that vote, which passed 223 to 32, and AG Mukasey has said he would not enforce the House's contempt finding.

Last December, the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended finding Rove in contempt in a bi-partisan 12 to 7 vote, during which Republican Arlen Specter noted "we have no alternative," given Rove's snub of the subpoenas issued by the panel.

Despite the endorsement from even two Republicans on the committee, Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid has failed to bring the recommendation to the full Senate for a vote. Will Pelosi hold the House committee's endorsement (and the will of the American people, and the Rule of Law) in similar contempt?

UPDATE FROM BRAD: In addition to the Committee's finding of contempt, the resolution passed today also recommends an interesting additional course of action recommended for the House, as noted in the Resolution's markup memo [WORD] that we received from the House Judiciary this morning...

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'Whether He's Pulling the Gun or Not...He's the Guy Who Made the Gun,' Allege Buckeye Lawyers About Man Said to Have Been Behind Florida 2000, Ohio 2004, RNC Emails, Congressional Computer Networks, & More...
By Brad Friedman on 7/22/2008 5:20am PT  

-- Brad Friedman

Last week Ohio Attorney Cliff Arnebeck held a press conference in Columbus to announce his motion to lift the stay on the long-running King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell lawsuit in which massive improprieties, irregularities, and violations of the Voting Rights Act are alleged to have taken place in the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio.

In the wake of the failure by the Buckeye State's Attorney General to properly investigate the allegations, and new evidence and testimony unearthed by Arnebeck and other private investigators, he is now asking that the stay on the lawsuit be lifted by the court in order to refocus the case and depose Karl Rove, and a number of other top GOP operatives believed to be involved in manipulating the results of the '04 election.

One of those operatives is Republican tech-guru Mike Connell.

Steve Heller covered last week's press conference for us, which featured comments from data security expert Stephen Spoonamore alleging fraud in the '04 election and Arnebeck's assertion that he believes "Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio."

The following day, RAW STORY's Larisa Alexandrovna detailed related concerns by Arnebeck and Spoonamore concerning Diebold's questionable involvement in the 2002 Senate race in Georgia.


After last week's presser, Velvet Revolution's Brett Kimberlin sat down to follow up with Arnebeck and attorney/investigative journalist Bob Fitrakis, who participated in both the original '04 election lawsuits and has reported in detail on the related matters continuously since then at the Columbus Free Press.

In the video-taped interview, posted at right (appx. 10 mins), the two attorneys focus specifically on their concerns about GOP operative/IT specialist Connell, who, they allege, has been found to have been "at the scene of the crime" for numerous questionable elections since 2000. Connell's firm was also responsible for creating the RNC email systems used by Karl Rove and others. He is also said to have installed the existing Congressional computer networks for high-security House and Senate committees such as Judiciary and Intelligence.

[DISCLOSURE: The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution.us.]

The complete text transcript of the interview follows below...

Transcript of the 7/17/2008 VelvetRevolution.us Interview
with Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis

VELVET REVOLUTION: Cliff and Bob you just had a press conference, talking about the next steps you are going to take in litigation. It looks like you're looking for discovery to understand the facts behind what happened in 2004 and make sure this doesn't happen in 2008. Can you give us an idea of the kinds of people or the names of people that you intend to target?

CLIFF ARNEBECK: At the very top of the list is probably Mike Connell. For the same reason that Spoonamore is so valuable to us as a witness, Connell has a breadth of perspective in this stuff and when Connell, with his politics and his position, identifies Triad and the Rapp family as an area, as a point of vulnerability - Well, we're saying, if Connell makes the same observation --which we think he will because if you look at this objectively, it makes no sense. Here's a guy, he's a mathematician or an engineer or whatever; we anticipate he is going to say "Yeah, that looks odd."

So Connell's an important witness and because we're talking about a conspiracy, one of the problems is you say 'where's the coordination, where's the communication?' --- Here's one individual who's been part of all the elements of the things that we think are problematic.

BOB FITRAKIS: He's a high IQ Forrest Gump. It's like everything important --- 2000 election Florida; 2004 Ohio; firewall in Congress --- he happens to show up and be the builder of these [im]penetrable forces and also may know who has the key to get in.

VR: So he's at the scene of the crime... whether he's pulling the gun or not.

FITRAKIS: Every single crime --- Well even more than that. He's the guy who made the gun.

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

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By Alan Breslauer on 7/14/2008 12:20am PT  

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer


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Gets Nowhere...
By Jon Ponder on 7/11/2008 1:52pm PT  

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.


Video: Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) gets nowhere as he attempts to grill Attorney General Michael Mukasey on the investigation into Karl Rove's influence in the federal prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.

Update (from Brad): Wow. Remarkable exchange. Made either more or less astounding by the reminder that it was Schumer himself who, with Diane Feinstein, sealed the confirmation of Mukasey. Regretting that one yet, Senator?

(P.S. Good catch, Jon! Don't let me stop you from posting an update that includes the answer to Sheldon Whitehouse's question at the end there! ;-) )

Got it! See below --- Jon

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

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This Will Make Your Head Spin...
By Jon Ponder on 7/3/2008 6:05am PT  

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:

"I believe that partisanship ends at the water’s edge," McCain said emphatically, when asked about Obama at a press conference at the Colombian Presidential retreat here.

But on the inaugural flight of the Straight Talk Express --- airborne edition -– McCain felt freer to let loose.

On the plane, he blasted Obama’s opposition to the proposed Colombia free trade deal.

"He’s a protectionist and anti-free trade," McCain said. "Now he has switched, I mean remarkably, from saying that he would unilaterally renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement in the strongest possible terms in Ohio – he went to North Carolina and said well, I’m for free trade.

"It wouldn’t surprise me to see him switch on this one," McCain said.

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

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Dem Leadership Tout Law's New 'Exclusivity' Provision, But None of Three Dems I Tried to Contact Can Adequately Explain Why They're Not Being Fooled Again...
By Steve Heller on 7/1/2008 11:54am PT  

Guest Blogged by Stephen Heller of VelvetRevolution.us

House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, (D-MD), one of the new FISA bill's strongest champions, spoke about the bill's new "exclusivity provision" on the floor of the House on March 14, 2008. He proclaimed that "It clarifies that FISA is the exclusive means of conducting surveillance in the United States for foreign intelligence purposes."

On June 20, Hoyer optimistically echoed his previous comment: "This legislation makes clear that FISA is the exclusive means by which the government may conduct surveillance."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-CA), in an email sent to some constituents, including myself, wrote that the new FISA bill: "Includes provisions I authored that make clear that FISA is the exclusive (or only) authority for conducting surveillance inside the United States...FISA would be the only legal authority for conducting surveillance on Americans for intelligence purposes..."

But the old FISA bill, which was the law when Bush began to spy on us without warrants, also had an "exclusivity" provision that stated:

[P]rocedures in this chapter or chapter 121 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance, as defined in section 101 of such Act, and the interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may be conducted.

Since the "President" ignored the old FISA law, despite its existing exclusivity provision, what makes Hoyer or Feinstein or any of the other Dems think he'll bother to obey the new version of the law?

The existing law didn't keep Bush from breaking it last time, so it's beyond me what makes law makers think he won't do the same this time around. I decided to contact three different Democratic officials, all in favor of the new law, to try and find out why they believe they won't be fooled again...

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

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A New Low in Republican Hypocrisy Has Been Reached...
By Jon Ponder on 6/30/2008 8:47am PT  

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

This is not a joke. Two Republican U.S. senators who disgraced themselves with extramarital affairs have signed on as sponsors of the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would prohibit same sex marriage anywhere in the United States.

The senators are David Vitter of Louisiana, who admitted he consorted with prostitutes over a long period of time, and Larry Craig of Idaho, who pleaded guilty to a charge of soliciting sex in a men's room.

The amendment states, "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman."

Both Vitter and Craig were 2007 nominees to Pensito Review's GOP Adulterers Hall of Fame.

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GOP Candidate Talks for 20 Minutes Into Dead Handpiece...
By Arlen Parsa on 6/28/2008 11:36am PT  

Guest Blogged by Arlen Parsa of TheDailyBackground.com
mccain-phone.jpg
This is pretty funny:

Although John McCain was stumping in Ohio on Friday, his campaign arranged for him to talk by phone to leaders of B'nai B'rith International, a major Jewish group, who were meeting in Ottawa. Reporters were invited to dial in to the conference call at 3 p.m. to listen.

McCain soon came on the line and launched into his spiel. "Thank you for all the good you do," he began.

Then silence.

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By Brad Friedman on 6/26/2008 9:05am PT  

Blogged by Brad from somewhere near Portland...

Here's a chuckler. From Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic...

John McCain's election strategists plan to tone down the Republicans' traditionally aggressive and public campaign against potential voter fraud, several Republicans familiar with the situation say.

The strategists and consultants all would speak only on the condition that their names and affiliations not be used because they were not permitted to divulge the information, they did not want to disclose internal deliberations, and because the issue is still being discussed within the party.

Sources with direct knowledge of the coordinated Republican effort this year say that high-ranking Republicans, including some within McCain's campaign, are convinced that GOP efforts in 2004 were damaging.

"Spreading 10,000 lawyers around the country and announcing a challenge to 40,000 new registrants in Ohio was counterproductive," a Republican familiar with the situation said.

And if you believe the GOP has any intention of scaling back any such thing in 2008, we've got a swell bridge, beautifully located near Manhattan, to sell ya.

But just to drive home the point that we're equal opportunity disbelievers, there's this old standby from the Obama camp, later in the article...

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

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By Brad Friedman on 6/20/2008 2:39pm PT  

We're fairly certain the following video, shown at the recent TX GOP convention (where they were selling racist Obama buttons, incidentally), isn't meant as a joke. It just plays that way, for those of us who happen to live on Planet Earth...

Between this and some of McCain's ads, and the lack of actual issues for Republicans to run on this year, perhaps the plan this year is to out macho the Democrats. It's all they've got, perhaps. Even if it comes across kinda gay. But maybe that's just us...

(Hat-tip Mark Crispin Miller)

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Turns Out He's a Flip-flopper, Not a Maverick, And Was a Bad Fighter Pilot
What's Left?
By Jon Ponder on 6/18/2008 1:05pm PT  

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

In its May 29 edition, the New York Times contributed another meme to the myth of John McCain. The Times' front-page profile led with this:

At a meeting in his Pentagon office in early 1981, Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman told Capt. John S. McCain III that he was about to attain his life ambition: becoming an admiral.

But Mr. McCain, the son and grandson of revered Navy admirals, was having second thoughts about following his family’s vocation. He had spent the previous four years as the Navy’s liaison to the Senate, sampling life in the world’s most exclusive club ...

He had found a sense of purpose in an apprenticeship to some of the Senate’s fiercest cold warriors. And in Senator John G. Tower, a hawkish Texas Republican, he had found a new mentor, beginning a relationship that many compared to the bond between a father and son.

With Mr. Tower’s encouragement, Mr. McCain declined the prospect of his first admiral’s star to make a run for Congress, saying that he could “do more good there,” Mr. Lehman recalled. But Mr. Lehman knew duty was only part of the reason.

“He just loved it up there,” Mr. Lehman recalled. “Like very few military people, John heard the music up there, and he really wanted to do it.”

Got that? McCain gave up the opportunity to become the first third-generation admiral in order to become a lowly congressman. Sounds plausible but, writing in Huffington Post, Jeffrey Klein calls this story "highly improbable." Reasons for doubt include the fact that in his memoir, Worth Fighting For, McCain did not mention that he had nobly turned down a promotion to admiral, with all its dynastic implications, to pursue a career in public service. In fact, McCain's own assessment was he was very likely unqualified to be an admiral. Klein also cites the fact that, over the years, none of McCain's close friends has ever mentioned his turning down the promotion --- and the fact that a promotion for McCain at that juncture would have gone against the Navy's strict pecking order, leapfrogging him to the top of the ranks past others who had waited their turns. And, Klein says, John Lehman a) had only been on duty as secretary of the Navy for two months at that point and b), as secretary, he was not in charge of who got promoted to admiral.

Finally, Klein notes that the Times article failed to point out that Lehman is now a McCain adviser.

Myths about John McCain die hard, and you can bet that this shiny new bullet-point is now a fact in his resume, even if it is not true.

And yet there has been considerable chipping away at the McCain mythologies lately, much of which has been coming from an unexpected source: the candidate himself. In fact, John McCain has done more to expose the reality behind the fabulations that he is a straight-talking maverick than his political enemies ever could.

The prime instance of this is the fantasy that he is a straight talker. In this month alone, McCain has contradicted himself in public statements no less than 10 times. The list of McCain's flipflops as of June 16, which was compiled by by Jon Perr, writing at Crooks and Liars, ranges from the media's treatment of Hillary Clinton to privatization of Social Security, to the estate tax, domestic spying, restoring the Everglades, opposing investigations into Hurricane Katrina and more.

And then there is the myth that McCain is a maverick --- you know, the sort of maverick who voted with his Dear Leader 95 percent of the time last year.

Underpinning the McCain mythos is his service in the military. But in his Huffington Post article, Jeffrey Klein found that a close examination of McCain's time in the service reveals faint echoes of George W. Bush's approach. Like Bush, McCain was admittedly more focused on partying than on duty, God and country, and, like Bush, he used highly placed connections to receive plum assignments that should have gone to more qualified men. Klein writes:

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