Guest blogged by Brad Jacobson of MediaBloodhound

If you're Chris Matthews and you're attempting to regain a reputation for being "fair and balanced" after famously exhibiting excitement about Barack Obama and his presidential campaign, what do you do? How about facilitating a discussion about Obama's proposed stimulus plan with two lawmakers from the same party, the Republican Party?

That's precisely what Matthews did during a segment on his January 27 edition of Hardball, inviting only Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada) and Representative Mike Pence, the House Republican Conference Chair, to discuss the plan.

Not enough?...

Last night, on Bill "Paul Revere" O'Reilly's show on Fox "News," Karl Rove said he planned to refuse to testify before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee next Monday, as required by the new Congressional subpoena he was served on Monday.

Mr. "Revere" noted, at the end of the interview, that he offered Rove the opportunity to not discuss the issue on the program. "I told Mr. Rove, 'Look, if you don't want to talk about this tonight, you don't have to,'" the hard-nosed, fair and objective, no-spin "newsman" said.

Offering further to further aide and abet Rove in dodging the rule of law and a Congressional subpoena, the courageous O'Reilly told Rove, "If you need a place to hide out, we have it here at the Factor." Impressive stuff. Video via RAW STORY...

UPDATE 1/30/09: House Judiciary's Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) says Rove will either testify or go to jail. (Also, hearing date postponed to Feb. 23rd) Video, details...

After all the stuff, nonsense, bullshit, lies, hoaxes, WSJ "editorials", Fox "News" Alerts, Presidential candidate lies, phony "conspiracy" claims, and-wall-to-wall cable and radio garbage that we had to endlessly suffer through, for months on end, leading up to last year's election, about supposed, massive "voter fraud" being committed --- by Democrats, naturally --- it turns out that in one of OH's largest counties, an exhaustive investigation by a Republican Special Prosecutor, appointed by his former GOP prosecutor partner (the Hamilton County Prosecutor who was also a state co-chair for the McCain/Palin campaign), looked into hundreds of "serious" allegations of such "fraud" and found exactly one such case.

One case.

No, it wasn't Ann Coulter. She commits her voter fraud in FL and in CT instead. But it was someone who had already turned himself in. His vote was never counted.

That's it. One case. Out of nearly half a million votes cast in Hamilton County, just one fraudulent vote was found. The Special Prosecutor's report is here [PDF].

After an entire season, using facts and reality-based information to fend off the insidious, America-hating forces of the evil Republican War on Democracy and their attempts to undermine the very core, the very heartbeat of our democracy, of our nation, for little more than attempted, pathetic --- and ultimately futile --- political gain, is anybody gonna apologize here? Anybody?

Rush? Sean? O'Reilly? John Fund? John McCain? John Danforth? Karl Rove? Tom Feeney? "Thor" Hearne? Todd Rokita? Jackasess at Powerline? Jackasses at Redstate? The entirety of the shameful, unpatriotic Fox "News" Channel? Anybody? Any of you liars and cowards and thieves and democracy-hating, facist-loving, Stalinesque, Saddamites have the guts, the courage, the sense of decency --- the love for your country --- to stand up and say you were wrong? That you are sorry?

Anyone? Anywhere?

Of course not. Especially not in Minnesota where not only have they found no such "voter fraud" epidemic --- as committed by Democrats or ACORN or anybody else --- but the Republicans are now trying to include actual fraudulent ballots in the results of the U.S. Senate race. Now that they need them in hopes of "winning".

No apologies, of course, because they'll all be back in two years and the same horseshit will be flowing loud and clear, once again from their democracy-hating souls, out to millions of Americans who are ready to believe --- listening over the corporately-run, though publicly-owned airwaves --- all over again and again and again. And again.

Not that they'll wait that long. Measures claimed to supposedly prevent (non-existent) "voter fraud" --- little more than measures meant to rob minorities, the elderly, students, and anyone else who tends to not vote Republican, of their Constitutional rights --- are moving forward, as John Gideon noted last night, and even as we speak, in TX, in UT, in MS and wherever else you can find depraved, soulless, Republican cretins who despise America, its history, and all that it pretends, and tries desperately, to stand for.

I am ashamed to call you people my fellow citizens.

While former radio talk show host and author Al Franken is consistently described in corporate media reports as "comedian Al Franken," it seems it's the legal team of former Senator Norm Coleman who are providing the laughs in the first days of the U.S. Senate election contest up in Minnesota.

When even the unapologetic, rightwing, "Franken is stealing the election!" nutcases and conspiracy theorists at Powerline describe Coleman's legal case as being of "Three Stooges quality," you know these guys must really be falling apart.

Such seems the case again on yesterday's Day 2 of the trial, following the disastrous Day 1 when the 3-judge panel tossed out doctored evidence, as submitted by Coleman's team. Today's Day 3 doesn't seem to be going much better for them, either.

Yesterday, two of the six voter/witnesses called by Coleman, to testify how they were disenfranchised when their absentee ballots were rejected, actually admitted that their ballots were properly tossed because they were, in some way, incorrectly --- or even fraudulently --- cast...

In light of mainstream newspapers beginning to collapse around the country --- yes, the rise of the Internet is a substantial reason for the troubles they face, but their own failures, for so many long years, to meet their Constitutionally protected role as Fourth Estate watchdogs for the American people is also key to their downfall --- we're faced with a dilemma.

While they are, in many ways, responsible for their own potential/pending demise --- evidence for that critique littered throughout thousands of our very own pages here --- we also recognize the critical importance of a robust, well-funded, mainstream free press.

So what to do? In an op-ed in today's New York Times, David Swensen and Michael Schmidt (both financial analysts) suggest the nation's mainstream newspapers should go non-profit and be turned into endowed institutions "like colleges and universities" to "enhance newspapers’ autonomy while shielding them from the economic forces that are now tearing them down."

We don't yet have an opinion on this new idea, so we share it here in hopes of your thoughts on it. One point, however, in Swensen and Schimdt's argument is particularly tantalizing: the "journalistic independence" they contend we might see in such an overhaul of our nation's old media...

Darn those Bush-hating liberals at that Bush-hating liberal New York Times, as John Byrne explains at RAW STORY...

And speaking of Rightwing rubes and hacks enjoying big salaries from seemingly-respectable mainstream corporate media outlets, Bernie Goldberg has released his silly new book, A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media, but the well-documented coverage of the book's arguments, so far, suggests it's a lollapalooza of inaccuracy, fudged facts, and mangled and out-and-out doctored "evidence". Color us stunned.

Media Matters has begun to fact-check the book, and has, for example, meticulously examined what Goldberg describes as "snippets" from an interview with NBC's Tom Brokaw, conducted by PBS' Charlie Rose, that purportedly reveals how Brokaw, and his Obama-loving big media brethren were in the tank for Obama from the git.

The only trouble? Goldberg has out-and-out doctored the transcript of the actual interview to make his case by completely re-arranging comments (often putting them entirely out of order), changing actual words to give them entirely different meanings than obviously intended when viewing the actual transcript, and leaving out huge chunks of the discussion which completely counter the argument being made by Goldberg --- who laughably considers himself both a journalist and a media crictic --- to try to sandbag the targets of his hit piece.

For example, at the end of one of the books many snarky grafs in which Goldberg argues that Brokaw waited until "just before Election Day to decide that he had no idea who Obama was," Goldberg sniffs "Ain't journalism wonderful?"

He then offers some of the "snippets" from that interview to help make his case, like this one:

Brokaw's busted, right?! Not so fast. Because now it gets high-larious. Or, at least it would be high-larious, were it not for the seemingly endless wingnut welfare available to the rube Goldberg and his ilk, from multi-million dollar propaganda houses like the rightwing whacko Regnery Publishing, who describe themselves, accidentally(?) ironically, as "a hit machine".

So, here's how MM dissects what was actually said, as documented by the actual, unedited transcript of the Brokaw/Rose interview, as compared to Goldberg's wholly mangled, out-of-context, out-of-order, "quoted" snippet above...

In what TPM's Eric Kleefeld describes as "a truly brutal moment, one that could undermine the credibility of Norm Coleman's whole case," the Republican fomer Senator's political director was called to testify about doctored evidence, as revealed by Al Franken's attorneys last week, which they'd submitted in their U.S. Senate election contest against the apparent-winner in Minnesota.

By the end of the day today, the first official day of the trial, the 3-judge panel threw out the tainted evidence --- photocopies of rejected absentee ballots where the Coleman camp had either removed written comments from election officials as to why they were rejected, or left in text added by the campaign itself --- and allowed Coleman's team to subpoena and then re-submit the actual ballot envelopes.

Pretty nice of them, considering they could have fined Coleman and/or struck the claim entirely, as Kleefeld notes in his coverage this afternoon.

Well, now, this could get interesting. Just in from Conyers' office...

Monday, January 26, 2009

Conyers Subpoenas Karl Rove: "It's Time to Talk"

(Washington, D.C.) --- Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. issued a subpoena to Karl Rove requiring him to testify regarding his role in the Bush Administration's politicization of the Department of Justice, including the US Attorney firings and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. The subpoena was issued pursuant to authority granted in H.R. 5 (111th Congress), and calls for Mr. Rove to appear at deposition on Monday, February 2, 2009. Mr. Rove has previously refused to appear in response to a Judiciary Committee subpoena, claiming that even former presidential advisers cannot be compelled to testify before Congress. That "absolute immunity" position was supported by then-President Bush, but it has been rejected by U.S. District Judge John Bates and President Obama has previously dismissed the claim as "completely misguided."

"I have said many times that I will carry this investigation forward to its conclusion, whether in Congress or in court, and today's action is an important step along the way," said Mr. Conyers. Noting that the change in administration may impact the legal arguments available to Mr. Rove in this long-running dispute, Mr. Conyers added "Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it. After two years of stonewalling, it's time for him to talk."

A copy of the subpoena is attached.

Here's the subpoena [PDF]...

UPDATE 1/27/09: Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, attempts to put the ball in Obama's court. As we noted originally, this is gonna get very interesting...

UPDATE 1/28/09: The 'liberal' New York Times hate Bush and Rove so much they found this item notable enough to...bury on page 23. Details...

UPDATE 1/29/09: Rove tells Bill O'Reilly he won't answer the subpoena. Video, details...

UPDATE 1/30/09: House Judiciary's Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) says Rove will either testify or go to jail. (Also, hearing date postponed to Feb. 23rd) Video, details...

Looks like it'll be back to Wingnut Welfare and Fox "News" (same thing) for the constantly-wrong "mainstream" propagandist Bill Kristol, whose column in the New York Times today, ends with a singular ed note: "This is William Kristol’s last column."

Well, what took ya so long NYTimes?! Kristol's laughable presence ends just over a year after it ignominiously began, and not a moment too soon.

As coincidence would have it, I had 90% of a column written on Kristol's penultimate column last week (when we didn't know it was his penultimate), which I eventually abandoned, for no particularly good reason, after getting distracted by some other story at the time.

So, for history's sake --- and a farewell gift --- my previously unpublished smack-down of the Times' now-formerly embarrassing nattering nabob follows...

Perhaps it's always been like this. Perhaps the misapprehension has been mine that op-ed writers offered opinion and editorial, as opposed to out-and-out propaganda. But just in case I'm right, and op-eds ought to represent independent, if often strongly opinionated position which may be more aligned with one party or political ideology than another, I'll just have to ask again: why the hell is disgraced Bush-administration mouthpiece, hack, apologist, Bill Kristol still allowed a weekly slot to sully the already-far-too-sullied pages of "the paper of record"?...

From Scott Horton at Harper's...

In related news, top Congressional Democrats, including Senators Reid, Levin and Whitehouse, as well as Representatives Pelosi, Hoyer and Conyers have all indicated recently, in various forms, interest in investigations and/or accountability for various Bush crimes, which, reports Jason Leopold at Public Record, amounts to a growing consensus among Dems to approve a probe into torture allegations, and perhaps more.

UPDATE 1/26/09: In an interview with CNN, Nowak said he believes there is already enough evidence to prosecute fomer SecDef Don Rumsfeld:

RAW STORY has the video of the CNN interview with Nowak...

Now that the recent general election is completed some counties are now in the process of determining how much that election cost the taxpayers. One Colorado county reports a cost of $36.57 per vote cast. That is an amazing amount especially when much of that cost can be directly attributed to the type of voting system a county is using and the amount of “assistance” the county buys from the vendors....

Today (Saturday 1/24/09) is The BRAD BLOG's 5th anniversary! Five years?! Until last Tuesday, I might have said, "feels more like 50!" But with a certain lead-like weight beginning to lift, for some strange reason, as the past week wore on, I'll just say: "Wow! Has it been five years already?!"

My thanks to so many of you who have supported this site and the work we've done, in so many different ways, over these many years. I'd say it's been "my pleasure," but that may be overstating just how grueling these last many years have been.

So I'll leave it to you old timers (and new timers, alike) to let us know in comments either a) what brought you here originally, b) why you kept coming back for more, c) what your favorite/least favorite story/article was/is (feel free to share links if you like) or d) all of the above as you see fit.

Seeing as how the appropriate fifth anniversary gift is supposed to be wood, and how cash money is made from paper, which is made from wood, we would be more than delighted if you felt like leaving an anniversary gift after a particularly difficult year here. If you're really in the mood to be generous, we still have signed DVD copies of the award-winning documentaries Murder, Spies & Voting Lies and Uncounted (both featuring yours truly), which will be happy to send ya in return for donations of $50 or above (details here).

But don't let the lack of a wooden gift in these troubled times keep you from commenting and sharing your thoughts, as that is always (well, mostly) gift enough. Thank you all for everything. Here's to 5 more! (If I can make it!)

Tea leaves?...

From TPM:

We are without words. Coleman's attorney "speculated that there may have been a photocopying problem." Sparse details in the rest of the TPM piece on this, but we'll see if we can learn anything further.

TPM's Eric Kleefeld also reports, in related articles, that former Sen. Norm Coleman's attorney was "openly heckled" by one of the judges on the three-judge panel --- this one, a Republican appointee.

And, in other news from Minnesota's U.S. Senate race election contest, apparent-winner Al Franken's bid to have the entire case dismissed was denied yesterday, while Coleman's hopes of receiving permission from the three-judge panel to inspect all ballots and voter rolls (in their search for votes, and hopes of delaying the formal beginning of the trial next Monday) was similarly denied.

Also, Coleman may be getting used to the fact that it looks like he's not going back to D.C.. He's accepted a "temporary" job as "a strategic adviser to the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC)."

By the way, Franken seems constantly referred to as "comedian Al Franken" in mainstream news reports. Setting aside that he was most-frequently a radio talk show host for years, in addition to the author of several books, we can't recall any other candidate for office so consistently being referred to by their former occupation. Not that there's a bias in the corporate media in this matter or anything, just ask strategic adviser Norm Coleman.

UPDATE 1/26/09: The court tosses Coleman's "doctored evidence" on the first official day of the trial. Details now here...