Brad,

Truthout is mistaken about these emails. They weren't just released even if Truthout only got them from the NOW program producers. They were part of the litigation to stop the GOP from challenging voters at the polls in Ohio in 2004 and have been in the public domain for over two years.

Assuming Lori is right, then this is yet another case of MSM burying anything that would show Bush to be a pretender to the thrown.

Thank God they are now getting much wider coverage.

Don't forgot, Karl had The Math. You know, the one where 2 + 2 = 0.

Karl, the Dems aren't the zero, YOU ARE!!!

When you're summering, falling, wintering and springing in the Iron Bar Hotel in The Gated Community, please feel free to add a tally mark to your cell wall each day. This will be your remedial course in The Math.

- Tom

I just emailed Leopold and he emailed me back. SOME of these emails and documents were previously released but the first 10 pages weren't so the above commented is wrong. The documents that say "voter registration fraud strategy" have never been released publicly

Leopold is wrong. The emails to which you refer, dated September 30, 2004, with the subject line, "Voter Reg Fraud Strategy conference calls," not, as the Truthout article states, "voter fraud strategy conference call," is marked Exhibit 7 of "Memorandum In Support of Intervenor's Motion for a Preliminary Injunction," filed 11/1/04 in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, Civil Action No.l 81-3876. This is the now well-known case, DNC vs. RNC, which produced the consent decrees that were supposed to monitor the GOP's racially-targeted ballot security programs. In October 2004, a voter in Ohio who found herself on a challenge list allegedly prepared in violation of the consent decrees petitioned the court to re-open the case. The documents linked to in the Truthout article and which appear to be the basis for the article, including the "43 pages of emails, provided to Truthout by the PBS news program 'NOW,'" are available to the public through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records, or PACER system, at 8 cents a page to view or download. The docket for the case indicates that these documents were last modified on 1/24/05, so they've been available for public viewing for over two years.

On the Colbert Report, Robert Shrum just said that Kerry would've been president if DIEBOLD e-vote machines weren't rigged.

So they've been available for two years. But guess what? Nobody has ever written about that particular set of emails before. Also, Pacer is not a what I would call a news site so just because it may be sitting there for two years doesn't mean it has been previously reported or disclosed. So you're wrong, Lori. I have checked the internet thoroughly and those emails about the conference call are nowhere. so it is "news" no matter how you cut it. There are plenty of people out here who have no idea about this and just because you know doesn't mean everyone does. Care to answer the question as to why this hasn't been out publicly?

Yes, a corrupt voter suppression scheme, but not the best quality corruption laundered money can buy.

That has the reds very, very upset. Upset to the point of making fun of bushies of all things:

Especially if he suddenly gets a hankering to serve his country once again. In which case, the legions upon legions of intelligent adults accompanying him in a supervisory capacity should move Heaven and Earth to convince Alberto Gonzales that "his country" is Kazakhstan.

(Red State, emphasis added).

This all gives new meaning to "better red than dead".

They think Gonzales should be persuaded to go fishing so damage to the reds will be minimized. However, he will get the point more clearly if the suggestion is made that he go hunting with tricky Dick "Hair Trigger" Cheney.

Dear Adam Hillstein,

I'll respond because you challenged me, but I've got other work to do so I can't take more time for this after my response. You misunderstand me. My only point was that the Truthout story misrepresents where the emails originated and exaggerates their revelatory character. Credibility in news reporting can be undermined when the details are wrong. The emails were not previously undisclosed --- they were made public through litigation and no doubt influenced the District Court judge to find that the RNC violated the consent decree because they demonstrate an RNC connection to the caging effort (that order was stayed on appeal and then the case was dismissed after the voter who brought the complaint was able to vote, making the case moot). That you find no reference to any news story about the specific emails you're focused on isn't relevant. The issue of voter caging in Ohio in the 2004 presidential election and the litigation to stop it was reported on at the time by the New York Times and other newspapers, picked up on blogs, described in the (1/05) Conyers Report and mentioned in Robert Kennedy's article, "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" in Rolling Stone magazine last year. While these stories may not have reproduced or mentioned the specific emails about setting up a conference call (did the call happen? what was said? who said what? what happened as a result? was Karl Rove involed? --- answers to these questions are important and unknown), they reported on the caging initiative and the litigation where the plaintiff's lawyers entered the emails into the public record. Leopold and Renner could have written a newsworthy story about the emails as "little noticed," or something to that effect but they don't seem to know where the emails they are "disclosing" originated.

Why quibble over whether the voter fraud went public or not----the important thing is that what happened was wrong, and how do we go about correcting it, and not burying it----again! And, incidentally, how do we go about prosecuting the propigators? This is NEWS---where is the news media to publicize it?

Lori is right about the provenance of the emails. The GOP attached the emails to a court pleading in DEFENSE of 2004 charges that it violated a 1987 consent decree. The consent decree required the RNC to get court approval before it engaged in so-called ballot security programs.

The GOP made the emails public record. But no one seems to have talked about them until Monica Goodling made "caging" a topic of interest...or was that Greg Palast in 2004?

I'm not defending Republican voter caging efforts. These guys are working under Jefferson's "white property owners only" theory of democracy. But, the truthout article errs if it is implying that the emails on 'voter fraud' alone reveal unlawful caging. The emails are just a piece of the puzzle.

There's nothing unlawful about scouring registration rolls for evidence of fraud. What is unlawful is selectively using the info to target minority voters (Voting Rights Act) and/or using it to interfere in select precincts by disruptive mass challenges that have little or no basis (First and Fourteenth Amendment). A piece of returned mail isn't evidence of a fraudulent registration.

Raise your hand if you think the fraud hounds who wrote these emails were not concerned about voter fraud in Republican districts.

The caging lists are used for suppressing opposition voters and as fodder for pre-election press conferences designed to portray minorities and the opposition as dishonest. But the emails in question don't come out and say that.

BTW, caging plans are still in the GOP playbook.