" It's Romney's Voter Fraud, Stupid "
Brad Blog (blog) - Jul 6, 2012
To date, there has been no legitimate explanation for Mitt Romney having cast a vote in the January 2010 Special Election for the U.S.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9397" Congress Cowers to Terrorist-Enabling NRA "
Brad Blog (blog) - Jul 22, 2012
Another NRA Big Lie campaign to fool more of their gullible, frightened funders into believing Obama has a secret plan to undermine the 2nd Amendment by tricking two-thirds of the U.S.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9426Front Page » Archives » July 2012 »
" It's Romney's Voter Fraud, Stupid "
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9397#archives By Brad Friedman on 7/27/2012 4:44pm PT PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK | 8 Comments so far...
Article Categories: Election Irregularities, Florida, Election 2000, Tom Feeney, Clint Curtis, Election Fraud, Accountability, Voter Registration, Vote Caging, Republicans, Bush Legacy, Election 2010, Rick Scott
Why They're Worried About Warren
Guest editorial by D.R. Tucker
If you want to see pure madness in action, ask a Republican friend about Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, the creator of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who will face US Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) in one of the most high-profile races of the year.
Chances are, your Fox "News"-watching friend will turn beet-red within a half-second, swearing and sputtering about her supposed socialism and attacking her as the mascot of the Occupy movement. There's just something about Warren that sends the right into 'roid rage. Is it something she said --- or just something she represents?...
By D.R. Tucker on 7/27/2012 6:35am PT PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK | 54 Comments so far...
Article Categories: Massachusetts, Environment, U.S. Senate, Economy, Election 2012, Elizabeth Warren
July 26th, 2012
Video Toon: How ALEC Subverts Democracy
Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning
Last April, in an article which covered an ethics complaint filed by the Center for Media and Democracy against 43 Republican state legislators, The BRAD BLOG went to great lengths to explain how the "legislative task force" system employed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) was not merely subverting but supplanting our representative form of democracy. It was an article that would later be reprinted by The American Trial Lawyer magazine.
But, leave it to a Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist, like Mark Fiore, to provide a more succinct explanation of the same phenomenon in this relatively short but powerful animated toon...
By Ernest A. Canning on 7/26/2012 4:53pm PT PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK | 4 Comments so far...
Article Categories: Toons, Rights And Freedoms, Accountability, ALEC
'Green News Report' - July 26, 2012
With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!
IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Drought expands in the US, and it's gonna cost ya; Obama Admin expands solar lands --- while Fox 'News' whines about it; US Navy's Great Green Fleet sails to success; Heat records shattered in St. Louis; PLUS: Shocking ice melt across Greenland ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.
IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): David Letterman On Fracking: 'We're Screwed; Rise in Weather Extremes Threatens Infrastructure; 70% of Arctic ice loss is due to climate change; Could Africa hold the answers to America's drought woes?; U.S. cities unprepared for future heat waves; Winning the carbon tax debate; Geo-engineering, storms may speed up ozone loss ... PLUS: The environment is trying to ruin the Olympics again ... and much, MUCH more! ...
By Desi Doyen on 7/26/2012 2:35pm PT PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK | 1 Comment so far...
Article Categories: Fox 'News', Mainstream Media Failure, Accountability, Environment, Stephen Colbert, Barack Obama, Dept. of Defense, Republicans, Green News, James Inhofe, BP Oil Disaster, Hydraulic fracturing, Natural gas, Coal, Oil, Solar, Climate change, Extreme weather
July 25th, 2012
'The BradCast' on KPFK: Targeting the Terrorist-Enabling NRA for Accountability
Ever wonder what one of my blog items sounds like inside my own brain when I write it? On today's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio (audio posted below), listeners got a bit of an idea, as the terrorist-enabling NRA, in the wake of their Aurora, CO Massacre, was squarely in my sites.
Sadly, they were too busy praying or lying or raising money off the tragedy or something, to show up and defend their deadly positions, so today's show was just me, and a bunch of great callers who, unlike the terrorist-enabling NRA, were not afraid to come on our public airwaves to offer their positions in the public square over our public airwaves.
For the record, here are the folks who declined to show up and support their deadly positions on the show today, or who simply didn't respond at all to our invitation to appear. Yes, we really believe in offering opportunities for all legitimate positions to be heard over our public airwaves...
•National Rifle Association (NRA): "We believe that now is the time for families to grieve and for the community to heal. There will be an appropriate time down the road to engage in political and policy discussions."
NRA Official State Associations
•Colorado State Shooting Association: "While we appreciate your efforts to present the perspective of gun rights organizations such as CSSA on your program, we are unable to accommodate your request."
•Arizona State Rifle & Pistol Assocation: "I am sorry but all we are doing is concentrating on our total support and prayers for those families. I know many are jumping on the bandwagon to ban this or do away with the Constitutions guarantees and such but they are always ready to strike out at folks like us in the gun culture. ... Please forgive me for forgoing the interview. When emotions are more level, I would possibly do an interview. ... Thanks so much for your understanding."
•California Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc.: no response
•Arkansas Rifle & Pistol Association: no response
•Florida Sport Shooting Association, Inc.: no response
•Texas State Rifle Association: no response
Politicians with A+ or A grade from the NRA
•Rep. Paul C. Broun (R-GA): declined
•Former AZ State Senator Russell Pearce (R): declined
•Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA): no response
•Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA): no response
•Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MI): no response
•Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO): no response
•Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX): no response
Here's today's show, which also includes a few minutes on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's stunning admission that there is no known case of in-person voter fraud --- the only kind of voter fraud that might be deterred by the GOP's new polling place Photo ID restriction there --- in the history of the state, and a quick visit from Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report...
Download MP3 or listen online below [appx 58 mins]...
P.S. KPFK's BradCast is now available on your smart device via the Stitcher Radio app! Plug it in and listen every week automagically!
By Brad Friedman on 7/25/2012 11:05pm PT PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK | 3 Comments so far...
Article Categories: Election Reform, Colorado, Pennsylvania, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Election Fraud, Photo ID Laws, Accountability, KPFK, NRA
'The Debate is Over': FL's 'Non-Citizen' Voter Purge Has Been a Spectacular, Disenfranchising Failure
Yet mainstream media misreport easily verifiable facts, continue to fall for FL Governor, Secretary of State's deceptive spin...
A BRAD BLOG investigation by Ernest A. Canning & Brad Friedman
Florida Governor Rick Scott's attempted purge of "potential non-citizen" voters --- a purge which Scott's Republican predecessor Gov. Charlie Crist described last week as a "shameless," "mean-spirited," "insidious" and "sweeping" effort to gain partisan advantage "under the guise of removing non-U.S. citizens" --- has been an abject failure.
Scott's claims of success in unearthing "non-citizens" said to be registered to vote in the Sunshine State, repeated by his hand-picked Sec. of State Ken Detzner and uncritically echoed by a compliant mainstream corporate media, have amounted to less --- far less --- than meets the eye.
Over the course of our months-long investigation, which included public records requests and interviews with state and county officials, The BRAD BLOG has discovered that the Scott/Detzner claim of having captured some 107 "non-citizens" on the Sunshine State voter rolls as a result of their purge is, at best, a reckless overstatement. Yet, that number (107), which Scott described as "alarming," has been uncritically accepted as fact by corporate mainstream media.
Even if it had been accurate, 107 would amount to an infinitesimal percentage of the original 182,000 who had initially been identified as "potential non-citizens" by Florida officials --- 107 as against Florida's 11.2 million legally registered voters, with an untold number of perfectly legal voters threatened with losing their right to vote as collateral damage of the state's attempted purge.
But the 107 number isn't even close to being accurate. To the contrary, Florida election officials have been unable to confirm that more than ten percent of those whom Scott and Detzner claim their purge captured were in fact non-citizens.
For example, in the two counties, Lee and Collier, where 92 of Scott and Detzner's claimed 107 have been removed, just nine (9) of them have actually been verified, to date, as "non-citizens" named by Scott and Detzner on their list of "potential non-citizens" sent to county election officials for purging earlier this year. The rest have either been removed from the rolls without independent verification of whether or not they are lawfully registered U.S. citizens, or they were removed after their names surfaced on a separate list that had nothing to do with the list compiled by Scott and Detzner. That separate list, as gathered by a local news outlet, similarly, may or may not accurately identify the named registered voters as "non-citizens".
Despite the extraordinary failure to date, Scott and Detzner have repeatedly proclaimed "victory" in their voter purge scheme. Making matters worse for the general populace trying to make sense of what is actually going on, numerous corporate-owned media outlets have compliantly echoed their extraordinarily misleading and deceptive spin...
By Ernest A. Canning on 7/25/2012 1:22pm PT PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK | 9 Comments so far...
Article Categories: Florida, AP, Rights And Freedoms, Mainstream Media Failure, Accountability, Dept. of Justice, Hans Von Spakovsky, Election 2012, DHS, Rick Scott
Ed Schultz' Wife Battling Ovarian Cancer
Our best to Ed Schultz whose wife, he has just announced, is now battling ovarian cancer.
In the past hour, I was a guest on his radio show which is being guest hosted this week by Mike Papantonio of Ring Of Fire. Afterwards, the MSNBC prime time TV and radio host called in to the show to make the teary announcement and offer an update on his wife Wendy, who, he says, is just out of surgery, and will soon be recovering at home, after learning just last Wednesday about her illness.
Schultz said her fight to recover would take a while, so his radio and TV shows were, understandably, not at the front of his mind right now. The fiery and feisty progressive thanked his staff at both shows for covering for him during what he expects to be a prolonged absence from each program.
We've been on Ed's radio show many times over the years, and appeared as well on his TV program late last year. Our thoughts and prayers go out to him, Wendy and their family during this difficult time.
* * *
UPDATE: Here is Ed's call into his own show (appx 6 mins), just after the top of the 1p ET hour, announcing his wife's battle with cancer. Thanks to the crews at Ring Of Fire and the Ed Schultz Show for sending over the audio...
By Brad Friedman on 7/25/2012 10:30am PT PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK | 51 Comments so far...
Article Categories: MSNBC, Ed Schultz
July 24th, 2012
Game Over: PA Admits There is No Known 'Voter Fraud' That Would Have Been Prevented by State GOP's New Polling Place Photo ID Restrictions
Last night we offered some very encouraging news about an apparent federal challenge, in the works by the U.S. Dept of Justice, against the state of Pennsylvania's disenfranchising, GOP-enacted, polling place Photo ID restriction law. Today's news is even more encouraging!
The Commonwealth of PA and the plaintiffs in the state challenge to the law have filed a remarkable one-page, 6-point stipulation [PDF] in advance of the trial in that case which is set to begin tomorrow.
The stipulation agrees, in plain language, that there has never been a known case of in-person voter fraud --- the only type of voter fraud that can even possibly be deterred by such restrictions --- in the history of the Keystone State, or even in other states, for that matter...
Petitioners and Respondents, by and through their undersigned counsel, hereby stipulate as follows:
1. There have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states;
2. The parties are not aware of any incidents of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania and do not have direct personal knowledge of in person voter fraud elsewhere;
3. Respondents will not offer any evidence in this action that in-person voter fraud has in fact occurred in Pennsylvania or elsewhere;
...
5. Respondents will not offer any evidence or argument that in person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absence of the Photo ID law.
I don't think it can be stated any plainer. The GOP's polling place Photo ID restriction, which they have passed under the guise that it is needed to prevent "voter fraud", is, itself, a fraud.
Of course, we've been arguing this point for some time (going on 10 years, in fact). In state after state where these laws have been passed by Republican legislatures and signed by Republican governors on the basis that they are needed to curb "voter fraud", the proponents of the laws in every state have been unable to offer even a single historical case of voter fraud in their state which would have been prevented by these measures.
In other words, these laws are not meant to curb "voter fraud", they are meant to curb voting --- specifically, by people who don't have the type of state-issued Photo ID required under these new laws. In the case of PA, that amounts to some 750,000 legally eligible voters, by the state's own numbers --- more voters than Obama won the state by in 2008. The voters most effected by these laws, as study after study have shown for years, are far and away more Democratic-leaning than Republican.
That's the entire story on these purposely disenfranchising voter suppression laws. Period. Always has been, always will be. That, despite the unforgivably poor reporting by many in the corporate mainstream media suggesting there is some legitimate reason to enact these laws. There isn't. There never has been. And it is that poor reporting which has allowed the GOP to keep this issue alive, as if it is anything but a blatant attempt to suppress the Democratic-leaning vote...
By Brad Friedman on 7/24/2012 3:47pm PT PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK | 47 Comments so far...
Article Categories: Election Reform, Pennsylvania, Election Fraud, Photo ID Laws, Republicans, Election 2012
'Green News Report' - July 24, 2012
With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!