Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Late Tuesday night, after the election returns from Florida showed a landslide win for Clint Curtis over Andy Michaud in the 24th congressional district's Democratic primary, I heard a fascinating story from Ace Reporter and Managing Editor Alex Babcock of Oviedo, Florida's Seminole Chronicle. The Chronicle is Feeney's "hometown paper" which both the corrupt Republican congressman, and Yang Enterprises Inc. (YEI) --- the company he used to lobby for, even while he was speaker of the Florida House! --- threatened with a lawsuit after the paper dared to report on Curtis' sworn, video-taped testimony to members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

Curtis had testified that Feeney asked him to create a prototype of electronic vote-rigging software when they were both employed by YEI as The BRAD BLOG originally broke back in December of 2004. Curtis, of course, is now the Democratic candidate challenging Feeney for the U.S. House seat in Florida's 24th congressional district.

Babcock's remarkable account of the "jubilant" Election Night conversation, witnessed by at least three other parties, went as follows...

Guest blogged by Chris Floyd | Originally posted at Empire Burlesque

Kos comes up with this nice catch:

Top Bush counterterrorism official bashes ABC's 9/11 mockumentary

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Well, here it is!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Late Tuesday night, after the numbers coming in from the Florida primaries had told their story, many BRAD BLOG readers were happily celebrating Clint Curtis' win in the 24th district, and we were blogging about it quite a bit. If you drew inspiration from the events of the evening; if you thought it was very important, and very encouraging: Congratulations! Your heart is still beating and your blood is still red --- and American!

In the barrage of Curtis-Feeney blogging, I neglected to mention another Democratic primary victory which in its own way was equally important and perhaps even more encouraging: Robert Bowman's victory in Florida's 15th district was a powerful shot in the arm for those of us who agree with what Bowman says about 9/11.

"And what does Bowman say about 9/11?" you ask.

Well done! Instead of jumping to conclusions immediately, you have asked the key question.

In a nutshell, Bob Bowman says:

A large and growing number of Americans share Bob Bowman's view, and clearly it hasn't hampered Bowman in his quest for the Democratic nomination in Florida's 15th congressional district.

Are you with me so far? Good!

More clips and links below the fold ...

Guest blogged by Emily Levy

Today on RawStory.com, Miriam Raftery interviews Paul Lehto: Court rules against voter-supervised elections, attorney tells Raw

Lehto ties together recent court cases in California and Nevada, and makes some hypotheses about the future.

First: Judge Yuri Hofmann in San Diego dismissed the CA-50 (Busby/Bilbray race) election challenge a week ago, after receiving a letter [PDF] from Paul Vinovich, counsel to the Committee on House Administration, claiming that only Congress had jurisdiction over California’s election. The letter cited Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution, “Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members….” Never mind that when Brian Bilbray became a “member,” the election wasn’t yet certified and thousands of votes remained uncounted.

Then: Three days after dismissal of the San Diego case, a judge in Nevada’s District 2 dismissed a challenge to the Republican primary there on the same constitutional grounds. John Gideon’s excellent piece, Opinion: Is The Constitution Going To Be Used Against Democrats In November?, which appeared on The BRAD BLOG over the weekend, ties the two cases together. If you haven’t read it, please do.

There’s more: As previously reported on these pages, Vinovich's letter came after Congress received by fax the preliminary results of the CA-50 race. That fax was sent by Susan Lapsley, Assistant California Secretary of State for Elections. She hasn’t worked for CA SoS Bruce McPherson for very long. What was her previous job? Assistant Secretary of State in Nevada, where her boss was Dean Heller. SoS Heller is running for Congress, and is the candidate who claims to have won the contested race in Nevada. More on Lapsley here.

Connect the Dots: Is Texas Next?

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

An "explosive" new press release from the office of Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) reveals "new information" regarding his November opponent, Clint Curtis, the "Craziest Man in America".

Wow! Craziest Man In America! That's quite a distinction. There are some pretty crazy men in America these days, as if you haven't already noticed. And it's odd that Tom Feeney should award this title to Clint Curtis, because ...

I never even knew Clint Curtis was a little bit crazy! Did you?

Well apparently he is, because Tom Feeney certainly wouldn't say so if he wasn't.

Right????

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Miriam Raftery:
Court rules against voter-supervised elections, attorney tells RawCourt rules against voter-supervised elections, attorney tells Raw

Run right over there and read it!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The Orlando Sentinel jumped all over the story of Clint Curtis, his apparent victory in last night's Democratic primary, and the epic battle "between Good and Evil" which it sets up in Florida's 24th Congressional disctict.

See? Here's their coverage!, and this is --- literally --- the bottom line:

Even lower down the page, it also says this:

Calling 6 or 7 green and yellow bloggers!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

In today's episode, Ruben Navarrette Jr brings a new depth of meaning to the "Op" part of his job as a writer of "Op/Ed" pieces.

Navarette writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune but he's also a syndicated Op/Ed writer and fortunately I found him in the Seattle Times, where he was saying:

Reason loses out in Mexico

Quite a headline, don't you think? That's the hook. Wonder what's inside? Come along with me!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

According to reliable sources, WESH-TV has called Clint Curtis the winner of the FL-24 Democratic primary by a landslide. Curtis had 12,652 votes, compared to 7,990 for Michaud: That's 61% for the vote-rigging whistleblower, with 208 out of 257 precincts reporting, or or 81%.

According to other reliable sources, a reporter from the Daytona Beach News-Journal called Clint and asked whether he wanted to make a statement. Clint said:

So ... shall we let the party begin? Well, really: there's no hurry!

If Clint can wait until all the votes are counted, then so can we!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Online News [Pakistan] September 6, 2006: NATO forces be deployed in Balochistan: BNP [emphasis added, here and below]

What? Did we miss something?

Apparently! Somewhere in between the hunt for the real reason why Rashid Rauf was arrested and the stunning interruption in the Pakistani cricket tour to Britain, we did miss something of importance. I've been meaning to blog about it, but in the midst of everything else it hasn't quite risen to the top of my To-Do List --- until now!

Quotes and links from relevant stories you may have missed, below the fold:

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

In a very interesting new document which you will find posted in full below, the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition weighs in on the state of our nation's knowledge of what happened to us on 9/11/2001.

With the help of attorney Bill Weaver, former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, though she is under a "state-secrets" gag order, still manages to call 'em as she sees 'em, and among the things she sees:

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

I've been finding most of my internet-related news stories through Google News lately, and for the past 19 hours I've been wondering what story would succeed the death of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin at the top of the charts... Now, suddenly, the wait is over.

From Will Weissert at ABC News: Calderon Named Mexico's Next President-Elect

And --- coincidentally? --- look at what else has floated to the top of the charts: a monstrous smear piece from our "old friends" at Cox News, in the person of Jeremy Schwartz this time.

From the Miami Herald: López Obrador's support dwindling : Mexico is starting to turn its back on Andrés Manuel López Obrador because of his refusal to concede defeat in the disputed presidential election.

We'll have to wait and see about that...

Guest blogged by Joseph Cannon

As you probably know, ABC plans to commemorate 9/11 with a lying "docudrama" designed to portray Bill Clinton as soft on terrorism. As a small counter to such assaults on history, AmericaBlog reminds us the the Republicans once had a very different attitude toward terrorism.

In July of 1996, Clinton asked Congress for increased wiretapping authority in order to catch terrorists --- unlike Bush, who simply assumed such powers, consulting his lawyers instead of the legislators. The Republicans smacked down the idea, citing the dangers of increased presidential powers.

They also fired up their base with dark tales of a Clinton power-grab, using terror as a excuse. You can relive this history as I did --- by firing up Google Groups in order to see what Clinton's conservative opponents were saying about terrorism ten years ago.

Below, you will find a hastily-compiled selection of excerpts. Some of these comments were written directly for usenet, others are quotes from web sites or printed sources. In order to convey an impressionistic sense of how conservatives thought at that time, I've decided to forego names and dates; if you want full context, fire up Google for yourself. All the quotes appeared somewhere on usenet during 1996.

Those of you old enough to recall those days will testify that these sentiments were widely shared in conservative circles. The change in attitude is almost as stunning as the attempt to change history itself. As you read, ask yourself if you can imagine any of our modern death-to-Islam types saying such things about Bush or the current world situation:

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Democrats in Florida's 24th Congressional District are used to being surprised by Tom Feeney (left), but he's been surprising them again during the past few days. They have reported receiving fliers in the mail --- and phone calls, too --- which appear to be serious, even respectful --- if brief --- comparisons of the policy positions taken by the Republican incumbent, Feeney, and his potential Democratic challenger, Clint Curtis.

What's wrong with this picture?