The Hill has today's story. The BRAD BLOG reported on Ney up to his eyeballs in the Abramoff investigation recently, and last May when it was reported that he was under investigation by the DoJ.

But we found the following phrase, in today's report, had a somewhat familiar ring to it...

...Hmmm... Now where have we heard that same phrase recently? These guys are getting a lot of use out of those words lately!

On today's Democracy Now, Mark Crispin Miller, author of Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them), claimed that he was personally told by John Kerry last Friday that Kerry felt 2004 Presidential Election had been stolen.

RAW STORY reports on a denial by Team Kerry of Crispin's report...

Indeed, Miller carried the RAW STORY report on his blog today with the headline "Contemptible".

Miller had previously blogged about his meeting with Kerry last Friday:

That Kerry was unaware of the GAO report [PDF] is no great surprise. We first broke the news of the non-partisan GAO report and it's accompanying bi-partisan joint news release originally here at BRAD BLOG a full two weeks ago. Since then, we've opined about a complete failure to even mention the report at all, by any of the Mainstream Corporate Media (all wire services, all mainstream newspapers, all cable news channels failed to even mention it) both here at BRAD BLOG and late last night at HuffPo (where the item is currently a featured blog and has more comments than any other featured blog item listed on the front page!)

Miller gives more details, in his blog item, on his conversation with Kerry:

Now, however, Senator "Never Surrender" completely denies the conversation ever took place. You may remember that he also claimed he would ensure that "every vote was counted" last year. You decide.

Last June, 42% of Americans in a Zogby poll felt that Bush should be impeached if he lied about the War on Iraq while 50% opposed.

Earlier this month, in a new poll by Ipsos, a majority of 50% were in favor of impeachment, while just 44% were opposed.

And today, the latest poll from Zogby asking the same question, says 53% support impeachment of Bush while just 42% oppose.

In the meantime, even while the Mainstream Media were relentlessly discussing impeachment every day, wall-to-wall, about Bill Clinton back in September and August of 1998 (while hardly mentioning it today in relation to Bush) "only 36% supported hearings to consider impeachment, and only 26% supported actual impeachment and removal" according to a study of 16 major polls which asked the question back then (versus the 3 major polls now, 2 of them which had to be funded by American citizens donating to AfterDowningStreet.org.)

ImpeachPAC.org, a new organization from the AfterDowningStreet.org folks (of which The BRAD BLOG is an affiliate) have begun raising money for Congressional candidates who support impeachment of both Bush and Cheney. They have much more on all of the above.

UPDATE: Two commenters have taken us to task for what they consider to be a misleading headline on this item, noting that the 53% who "support Bush Impeachment," as the headline states were answering whether or not they would do so "if President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq."

Though we did make that point clear in the first sentence of the article, the commenters (one of them an habitual troll here at BRAD BLOG, but we do not discriminate) still had a problem with the headline.

When we posted this article, what we didn't delve into (mostly due to lack of time) was what the sponsors of the poll --- who similarly headlined their article announcing the results as "53% of Americans Support Impeachment," by the way --- also discussed how many Americans feel already that "Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq."

From their article:

Thus, 53% of Americans support impeachment "if Bush did not tell the truth" and anywhere from 52% to 57% believe he did not tell the truth.

Do the math. We stand by the original headline. (And still hope Bush gets a blowjob so impeachment proceedings may begin.)

From testimony by Republican fundraiser Michael Scanlon at Wednesday's Republican-run Senate hearings:

Do you people get it yet? You're the "wackos" according to your own people.

You've been played.

Incidentally, from the same poll (and especially for all those wingnut radio hosts who have told me that they don't talk TreasonGate because "Americans don't care about the issue"), here's the numbers of those who found the following scandals to be of either "Great Importance" or "Some Importance" and, parenthetically, the dates on which the polls were taken:

Watergate (5/73): 78%
Iran-Contra (2/87): 81%
Whitewater (3/94): 49%
Clinton-Lewinsky (1/98): 62%
CIA Leak (now): 86%

From Rolling Stone:

See the full story for several swell quotes from our friends John Byrne of RAW STORY and Arianna of HuffPo.

From Newsweek...

Guest blogged by David Edwards

Libby pleaded 'not guilty' at his arraignment earlier this morning. It looks like Cheney will have to testify. While he might be allowed to submit pre-recorded video testimony, Chris Matthews said "It looks like he's going to have to sit in the chair." This White House will strongly oppose the idea of Cheney testifying under oath in open court.

The following video clip has the statement of Libby's lawyer as they left court. Chris Matthews analyzes the risk for Cheney, Rove and The White House.

Video in Windows Media format...
Video in QuickTime format...

Newsweek and The Washington Post are reporting an uncertain future for Karl Rove. Jonathan Alter of Newsweek postulates that Rove could lose his security clearance:

The Washington Post has learned that some White House aids and top Republicans are expressing doubts about Karl Rove's future:

The Raw Story has obtained a letter from Democratic Senators calling for a "thorough housecleaning" in Cheney's office.

Once again, blogger/White House correspondent, Eric Brewer, holds feet to fire. Read the below, from his questions at today's WH Press Gaggle, and ask yourself if it sounds like McClellan is dodging anything. Anything at all...

Brewer has much more, including background on the forged Iraq/Niger documents hoax (which is quickly where this thing may well be going) and his questioning about it today as well to National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley.

Keep up the good work, Eric!

Guest blogged by David Edwards

President Jimmy Carter appeared on the NBC's Today Show this morning to promote his new book Our Endangered Values.

President Carter spoke about several of the many scandals that the Republicans and Bush White House are now facing. In particular, Carter holds strong views against torture, the outing of Valerie Plame and the misused intelligence and lies prior to the invasion of Iraq.

Video in Windows Media format...
Video QuickTime format...

UPDATE: Transcript added below...

While it may not be "breaking news" that Rush Limbaugh is a liar, it's important that somebody hold him accountable for it. Today it's our turn, we guess.

Rush spent virtually the entire first hour of his show today ranting and raving and spitting and spewing that Democrats have "lost touch with all reality."

His claim, it seems, is based on the Democrats' invoking of Rule 21, which shut down the Senate to a closed door session in which the Dems, in a rare moment of having discovered a spine, called upon Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KA) to complete his promised investigation into the Bush Administration use and/or misuse of pre-war intelligence. That would be the investigation that Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, decided (for some reason) to put off until after last year's Presidential Election, but has --- in the full year since --- all but succeeded in forgetting about.

Of course, Rush knows full well that it's not the Dems, in this case, who have "lost touch with all reality," but he's counting on his listeners to be so uninformed as to believe anything he says. He has good reason to count on that, since a) he's been misinforming them by creating his own fantastical version of "reality" for years and b) the Corporate Mainstream Media has completely abrogated their responsibility to report on these matters to the American People with anything that even resembles thoroughness or accuracy for the past five years.

So it's very easy, as we wrote about recently at HuffPo for Rush and his ilk to get away with spinning their "Dems-Out-Of-Touch-With-Reality" scam on the American People. And, for that, we can thank the Media for their delinquency, and the Democrats for their years-long failure to stand up to thugs and liars like Rush and Bush and make sure the truth (the real one, not the phony Rush/Bush version) is understood.

Case in point: On Monday morning, at the top of his first show since the indictment against Scooter Libby came down last Friday afternoon, Rush was able to come on the air and out and out lie to his audience about Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's indictment and press conference. Rush quoted Fitzgerald as having said at the press conference: "Despite all of our investigation, we did not find any evidence of the outing of a covert agent."

Since we don't need to lie or mislead, here is the precise audio clip [mp3] of Rush lying to America, and here's the text of what he said precisely...

Guest blogged by David Edwards

Thousands are attending Rosa Parks' funeral in Detroit. CNN has had great coverage. MSNBC has also aired a good deal of highlights. Fox News... not so much.

Not surprisingly, Bill Clinton gave a touching speech. There were so many other moving speeches. We found special meaning in the words of Rep. John Conyers, who gave a job to Rosa Parks. He also reminds us about the problems that Americans, black and otherwise, still have in ensuring that their votes are actually counted and their voices are, therefore, heard...

Video in Windows Media format...
Video in QuickTime format...
Audio in MP3 format...

The full transcript of Conyers' speech follows...

Click the graphic to see the video.

As a side note, an emailer sent the following text of a sign seen at the massive recent D.C. protests:

What do you know? When Democrats step up and fight for what is right, they actually accomplish something! Who knew?

Little time to go into detail today, so I'll simply link to the NY Times report here, quote a quick passage, and let you know that I'll have more to say on all of these things before too long. As always.

UPDATE: Great breaking video on all of the above at Crooks & Liars.