Our man in the White House, Eric Brewer (the only real blogger inside the press room) of BTC News stood tough in today's gaggle in the wake of Scottie's dodges and alongside the bulk of his paid brethren who largely took the Alito nomination bait so cleverly fed to them by the crooks who'd rather do anything than explain why they seem to have lied this country into an endless and pointless war.

Brewer's question:

See Eric's coverage to find out what --- and if --- Scottie answered...

A great story by Bob Geiger today on how Republicans will use any means necessary to see to it that votes are not counted as long as it means an electoral "victory" for them.

The depths to which they will sink, no matter how big or small the race, never fails to amaze. From the 2000 Presidential race in Florida to the race for Mayor of Irvington, NY decided just last week after a protracted 7-month legal battle.

Geiger reports the remarkable story of how members of the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) rode in to help disqualify an absentee ballot from a woman named Susan Brenner-Morton --- because she apparently had signed it "Susan B. Morton" --- in order to gain a tie in a one-vote margin race which then led to a random lottery to determine the "winner". Guess who didn't "win".

It's an incredible story revealing how far the anti-democratic forces of the Republican party will go, the way in which they happily abuse the courts and the legal system, and how winning a race at all costs justifies even the harassment of a single American citizen/voter.

And on the topic of the RNLA, we'll remind you of one of their star legal-eagle disenfranchisers, National General Counsel to Bush/Cheney '04 Inc., Mark F. "Thor" Hearne who was the keynote speaker at the Florida RNLA Chapter's "2005 Kickoff Reception" on April 15th of this year. That, several months after he founded the "non-partisan" American Center for Voting Rights scam organization.

Anyway, be sure to read Geiger's full amazing story on the latest "Republican Victory".

(Hat tip to BRAD BLOG not-so-secret-weapon, David Edwards for the link!)

For more information on the "non-partisan" tax-exempt ACVR scam and the snakeoil salesmen who invented it, Bush/Cheney '04 National General Counsel Mark F. "Thor" Hearne and RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke, please see BRAD BLOG's full Special Coverage of the "American Center for Voting Rights" at http://www.BradBlog.com/ACVR.

We've always been bothered by Dick Cheney's September 14, 2003 statement on Meet the Press when he claimed he didn't even know who Joe Wilson was. To wit:

RAW STORY seems to have been curious about the same thing, as they reported today that, according to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's 22-page indictment last week of Scooter Libby, Cheney was clearly lying when he made the above statement. The indictment shows that, in fact, Cheney had already attended meetings --- prior to his Meet the Press appearance --- where the question of what to do about Wilson's statements had already been discussed.

On the more direct point of whether Cheney actually knew who Joe Wilson was (whether or not he'd been discussed in recent White House meetings) The BRAD BLOG received a quick email response on Friday evening from Wilson in reply to our question on the matter. Wilson pointed out how Cheney's statement could only be perceived as true if one were to apply the strictest Clintonian-like interpretation of the English language to Cheney's statement.

Wilson explained that what Cheney said was "technically true," in that "we have
never met or laid eyes on each other."

However, the presumption that Cheney didn't know Joe Wilson would strains all credulity and common sense. As Wilson pointed out in his email, Cheney was Secretary of Defense during the first Gulf War when Wilson was Acting U.S. Ambassador in charge of the Embassy in Iraq where he sheltered 800 Americans who were held captive as "guests" of Saddam Hussein and not allowed to leave the country just prior to the war.

Wilson, indeed, was the last American to meet with Hussein before the war began. His courageous service for America in standing up to the tyrant (he actually wore a noose around his neck for one of the meetings with Saddam!) could hardly have gone unnoticed by Defense Secretary Cheney. Wilson's courageous service at that point in American history has been all but ignored, conveniently, by the wingnut apologists on the right who have taken the current White House's lead in hoping to destroy the distinguished reputation and career of Wilson along with his wife's in order to shore up their own trumped up case for war.

That fact alone demonstrates the lengths to which this White House and Cheney himself have gone --- and continue to go --- in order to obfuscate the truth to try and protect themselves. As RAW STORY's article points, "Wilson was the only line of communication between Washington and Saddam Hussein. The White House held daily briefings with Wilson, and Cheney sat in on a majority of those briefings."

And yet, Cheney was able to go on air and "mislead" with a straight face both Tim Russert and the American people by uttering the phrase, "I don't know Joe Wilson."

As to whether or not the Wilsons will file some kind of Civil Suit against the players in the White House responsible for completely destroying Valerie's distinguished 20-year career in the Agency as an expert on Weapons of Mass Destruction, Wilson told The BRAD BLOG there have been "no decisions...yet" in that regard.

Finally, if you missed 60 Minutes' report last night examining the damage done by the unprecedented White House outing of a covert CIA asset, Crooks & Liars has the full video. We recommend it.

UPDATE: Jeralyn Merrit from Talk Left emails with a pointer to a report she filed in July on this with a lot of additional detail. In her report, she also reminds us of Cheney's claim, during the Vice-Presidential Debate, that he never met John Edwards --- along with a link to the photo that shows he lied about that as well. We suppose "restoring honor and integrity to the White House" must be a full time job for these folks.

{Thanks to BRAD BLOG contributor "Kira" for research on this story.}

Thanks to all those of you who answered last week's plea for support of The BRAD BLOG!

For those who have requested a "Monthly Subscription" option be made available, I have finally been able to set something up to make that possible! Please see the new blue form on the right side of every BRAD BLOG page for easy "One Time Donation" or "Recurring Monthly Donation". You get to set any amount you choose for either option. And thanks again for the tremendous support!

Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) wrote an Op/Ed this week in the Orlando Sentinel in hopes of fooling the American public into supporting his atrocious new "Election Reform" bill in the U.S. House. His Op/Ed which supports his bill's call for National Photo ID requirement at the polls, was published the same day that the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a previous decision by a Federal Court that Georgia's recent bill requiring Photo ID amounted to a new "poll tax" and was therefore unconstitutional.

Here's the Counter-Op/Ed I just sent to the Sentinel in reply to Feeney's. I've added links here to the items I mention in the letter and for easy access to just some of the criminal conspiracy allegations made against Feeney as reported since last December by The BRAD BLOG. Contact info for the Sentinel, if you should wish to conatct them or write a letter as well, is at the bottom of this item...

5 counts (2 Perjury, 2 False Statements, 1 Obstruction of Justice) against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. He resigns.

Here's the indictment. Here's Fitzgerald's website.

First time in 130 years that a White House official has been indicted says Crooks & Liars.

We recommend FireDogLake for coverage and analysis throughout the day.

What else ya got? Be the media. Discuss...

Full official statement from John Conyers calling for an investigation and the thoughts of many bloggers and others on the indictment --- and where it may lead --- are below...

As the New York Times is now reporting in tomorrow's edition that Libby will be indicted, the investigation of Rove will continue under an extended grand jury term, but that "people involved in the case did not rule out the disclosure of previously unknown aspects of the case"... A picture of an apparently obsessed Dick Cheney, aided by his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby seems to be emerging more and more clearly as investigations by both Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and the Senate Intelligence Committee move forward.

As well, evidence continues to come to light which further connects the once-disparate dots in the Adminstration's by-any-means-necessary march to war, their "fixing" of "facts and intelligence around the policy" of selling the war through "a conjunction of WMD and Terrorism" (as described in the Downing Street Documents), and the eventual desperate outing of covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame/Wilson in order to hold off the collapse of the trumped-up house of cards on which the entire boondoggled case for war was built.

Murray Waas has an excellent report in The National Journal today describing the pieces as they come together and the picture begins to get clearer and clearer.

In the report, Waas also breaks the news that Cheney and Libby overruled "advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers" in deciding to withhold crucial documents requested by the Senate Intelligence Committee for their 2004 investigation into pre-war intelligence.

You'll recall the report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee chaired by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) prior to the '04 Election which focused on the CIA's failure to get the intelligence on Iraq's WMD right. Roberts, at the time, had promised the second part of the report --- focusing on the Administration's misuse of intelligence in making their case for war --- would come only, and conveniently, after the Presidential Election.

That promised report is, so far, nowhere to be found. Though Waas reports the Committee is still at work on it. In light, however, of the information that Cheney and Libby withheld docs from the Committee, Waas reports:

Though that wouldn't do, of course. Not in an Election Year, as Waas continues:

Of course not. Then the American People might have had to make an informed judgement on whether George W. Bush should continue in his previously-unelected position as President of the United States.

Waas's full article is a must read, if only to begin to understand the depths to which Cheney and his office went to keep their genie in the bottle while their case for war was beginning to unravel and as the criminal investigations now begin to work their way into the heart of both Cheney and Bush's offices.

Meanwhile, a former covert CIA operative and one-time classmate of Valerie Plame's at The Agency speaks very slowly to Wolf Blitzer in order to help him finally understand what's at stake in the matter of the unprecedent White House outing of Plame. Johnson has been valiantly attempting to fend off the tsunami of wingnut lies being floated in the media concerning the Plame case for some time. Today he got the chance to try and school Blitzer just a bit.

Crooks and Liars has the video, and maybe --- just maybe --- the facts in the case will begin to sink into Wolf's brain as the spin and smears from the GOP liars and apologists hopefully soon become the dog that just won't hunt anymore. Or am I still far too optimistic about these things? We shall see.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Election Fraud in Florida? Ohio? Chicago? Not this time�How about Maricopa County, Arizona, the fourth most populous county in the United States. Yes, sunny, laid back Arizona seems to be a hotbed of electoral intrigue, dispute and possible malfeasance.

It seems that the results of the September 7, 2004 Republican Primary now has Republicans turning on and challenging fellow Republicans in both the state legislature and in the media. Also emerging are stunning reports that county jail inmates --- some of whom have admitted to ballot tampering! --- were being used to handle ballots in the county in exchange for early release!

In an article in the Phoenix New Times out today --- headlined "Pandora's Box - Is Arizona's Speaker of the House afraid of what might happen if the truth is learned about a local election?" --- reporter John Dougherty tells a tale of apparent election fraud, a quid pro quo offer, new votes that appear like magic, failure by an assistant county attorney to serve a subpoena, political pressure, and one hell of a mess.

The story covers the strange tale of Maricopa County District 20 Republican Primary state Representative candidate, John McComish who went from four votes behind rival Anton Orlich, after the primary votes were counted, to 13 votes ahead after a recount held on September 21, 2004. In between those two counts 489 new votes mysteriously appeared in the totals.

The incident led to a date in court (that's what Republicans do when they don't like the results of elections�too bad more Democrats don't take the cue) for which the Assistant County Attorney neglected to serve a subpoena on the Election System and Software (ES&S) representative who has an office in the county elections offices. The lack of a witness from the major American Voting Machine company to answer questions about potential machine malfunctions that resulted in the unexplained new votes forced the judge to go ahead and certify results of the election according to the recount. The county Election Director could provide no explanation that made any sense as to where those 489 additional votes came from. Freedom of Information Act requests for records from the County Sheriff --- who was supposed to provide guards for the ballots --- have been ignored�

Just in from the Toledo-Blade. One of the top GOP moneymen for Bush/Cheney in Ohio, and for Republicans nationwide, Thomas Noe joins the ignominious ranks in the ever-swelling Republican "Culture of Corruption".

Apparently, Republicans are seemingly unable to "win" elections without cheating... Go figure. [emphasis added]

Keep your eyes on this one, since Noe had connections to all the major Republican players, from the indicted Ohio Governor Taft, to Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell, to Schwarzenegger in California to Bush/Cheney etc. Let's see if they all start singing soon...This is gonna get ugly.

We'd also suggest you keep your eyes on Noe's wife, Bernadette, who --- as BRAD BLOG reported previously --- appears to be tied into this scheme vis a vis her her dual role as chairman of the Lucas County, OH Republican Party and the Lucas County Board of Elections. It appears that Ms. Noe was one of the key players in the Ohio Republican Party's proven gaming and/or theft of the 2004 Presidential Election in the state via her Board of Election's "gross failures" to secure ballots, voting machines and the manipulation of the Green/Liberatarian-requested recount which followed the election.

UPDATE: The Blade updates its own story after the Press Conference...A three-count indictment for Noe...

FURTHER UPDATE: AP picks up the story (headline: "Major Republican Donor Indicted in Ohio"), and adds some background...

FURTHER FURTHER UPDATE: The DNC posts a helpful little rap-sheet on Noe and his dirty dealing with Bush and the RNC. Released along with this statement from Communications Director, Karen Finney:

Apparently the situation isn't dire enough. At least not enough to merit the coverage deserved by the media in the wake of Wilma's devastation in Florida. Either that, or there's not enough whipping wind and rain to rate full Multi-Colored-Slicker Team Coverage (read: pointlessly stupid photo ops) for the cable "news" nets to cover the story. Or maybe it's just that it's brother Jeb's state, and the Administration doesn't have a governor to conveniently blame for their own failure to do anything right.

Whatever...Our friend Larisa Alexandrovna of RAW STORY is caught in the mess. She lives in South Florida. She filed this report on the situation from a pay phone near her home...

The print ad that we (VelvetRevolution.us) are running in this week's Washington D.C. City Paper. [Click it to read full ad]...

The video ad that OpTruth.org (an organization of Iraq and Afghanistan War vets) is now running on Fox "News", CNN and elsewhere. Notable if only because I believe this is the first time this non-partisan group of vets has finally called for an Exit Strategy. [Click it to watch full ad]...

Our friend, Robert Koehler of Tribune Media Services latest column, "Impeachable Offense" begins thusly...

...and ends thusly...

Koehler's columns are run on an optional basis by TMS' media clients around the country who chose to do so. The latest column in full, quoted above, should be available at this link within the next 24 hours or so. Few TMS client papers picked up his terrific pieces questioning the validity of Election '04 and calling for an accountable and inclusive Electoral System/Democracy. It'll be interesting to see how many papers pick up the above column...And how many don't...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

45% of Iraqis believe that attacks on U.S. and British troops are justified, and 82% are "strongly opposed" to the continued presence of "coalition" troops, according to a "secret poll" conducted in August by an Iraqi university research team. Results of the poll have been leaked to Britain's Sunday Telegraph.

Astute readers may recognize some of these conclusions after seeing articles on the weekend from Reuters or Yahoo. But Saturday's report from Reuters barely scratched the surface, and Yahoo did only a bit better on Sunday.

For the full report, you have to go to the source: Secret MoD poll: Iraqis support attacks on British troops.

Among the survey's other conclusions:

But aside from all this "security" nonsense, things are going pretty well, right?

Um ... no!

Any wingnut will tell you that these very inconvenient facts don't matter much, because they are only temporary, and the situation will surely change because we have brought "democracy" to Iraq, complete with a historic new "constitution".

However ...

Blogged an item over at HuffPo over the weekend and they just got to posting it today.

It's called, "Pssst....Mainstream Media...The Government May Collapse at any Moment...Don't Tell Anybody!"

Enjoy!

Click the photo for more info, but as an aside, as we pass this horrible milestone, we were honored recently to witness the work of the brilliant and prolific Freeway Blogger firsthand along the 101 Freeway as we made our way back to Los Angeles from Portland, OR. We caught several of the above signs as well as "The War is a Lie".

Be an American Hero in your home town and join the good FB in his campaign to inform millions of citizens on the highways and byways of America! And have fun doing it!

I just finished a radio appearance a couple of hours ago with our friend Peter B. Collins on KXRA 540AM up in Monterey, CA. Peter was joined, in studio, by Tony Anchundo, the Registrar of Voters in Monterey County, CA for a demonstration of a brand-spankin' new Sequoia DRE (touch-screen) voting machine that Achundo was very proud to announce would be in use for the first time in the special State Election coming up out here on November 8th.

Achundo walked Peter through the use of the machine, which prints out a "paper record" (as Achundo referred to it) that voters are to "verify" before leaving the voting booth. That "paper record" is printed on a small thermal-ink roll of paper, akin to what you get with a credit card purchase, and stays behind plexiglass, never to be touched by the voter.

The votes, however, are counted on a "memory cartridge" in the machine, not on the "paper record." This raises the question (which I attempted to ask many times, in many different ways) as to what good that "paper record" actually is in the first place...beyond giving the voter a completely false sense of security and confidence.

I was able to get Anchundo to confirm that the entire technology used to count votes in Monterey County, California will have to be "faith-based". We'll just have to "trust" him, and his 30 years of experience as Registrar, that everything is fine and that votes will be counted accurately.

Peter has asked me to to join him by phone for the hour to help ask questions of Anchundo. I was happy and honored to do so. The results of the hour, I believe, are astounding.

The audio of the full hour is here in MP3 format. I think BRAD BLOG readers will find it as enlightening --- and troubling --- as I did.

[UPDATE] Here is a full transcript of the hour! It should be very useful to have a "paper record" of the conversation for the future. Perhaps for November 9th.

As the front page of Monterey County's website says, "The most serious threat to our democracy is the notion that it has already been achieved. The quality of our leaders and the direction of our Country depends on the participation of our people." I've therefore include Contact info for the Registrar's office at the end of this post, so you folks can participate as you see fit.

Amongst the many highlights (based on my short-term memory) of the hour just spent with Peter trying to get direct answers from Anchundo on a variety of related issues (and you'll likely come across many more yourself)...