tagged w/ Karl Rove
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A top Republican internet strategist who was set to testify in a case alleging election tampering in 2004 in Ohio has died in a plane crash. Michael Connell was the chief IT consultant to Karl Rove and created websites for the Bush and McCain electoral campaigns. Michael Connell was deposed one day before the election this year by attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis about his actions during the 2004 vote count in Ohio and his access to Karl Rove’s email files and how they went missing.
Follow link to complete transcript and video of Amy Goodman's interview with Mark Crispin Miller.A top Republican internet strategist who was set to testify in a case alleging... more
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jimmyp
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added this
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3 years ago
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The internet is a buzz with investigations into the death of Mike Connell, the GOP IT guy who looked after Karl Roves infamously disappearing emails. Some suggest that Karl Rove made threads to Michael Connell, who was very close to testifying about Ohio election rigging in 2004. One report (at the main link) suggested Connell was concerned before his flight that his plane might have been tampered with.
One article wrote, "Various threats have been repeatedly reported involving Connell and other IT experts close to the GOP. On July 24, 2008, Arnebeck emailed Attorney General Michael Mukasey, stating: "We have been confidentially informed by a source we believe to be credible that Karl Rove has threatened Michael Connell, a principal witness we have identified in our King-Lincoln case in federal court in Columbus, Ohio,...."
Another journalist, shocked that at the death of Connell, a key witness in a case he had been working on for more than a year, said, "When I met with Heather, his wife, I did so carefully because of the threats he was getting...I do think these were good people who got caught up in something bigger than themselves."
Check the two links below for further reading, I can't recommend the articles enough. Check the main link for the video and come back to tell us what you think.
http://www.atlargely.com/2008/12/one-of-my-sources-died-in-a-plane-crash-last-night.html
http://columbus.indymedia.org/node/14385The internet is a buzz with investigations into the death of Mike Connell, the GOP IT... more
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Law & order; the basis of our ability to live together.
Not so fast bucko !
”If the President Does It, That Means It’s Not Illegal” - Nixon
“What we have, in the last eight years, is not merely a case of individual and isolated law breaking. It's a declaration of war on the whole idea of a law itself, on the idea that our political leaders are constrained in any way by the limitations of the American people imposed through our Congress. The rule of law has essentially ceased to exist. And that I do think is quite new.” - GLENN GREENWALD
Bill Moyers should represent America’s common sense. The amicable, knowledgeable uncle that cuts trough non-sense to bring it down to verifiable facts and analyze them cold headed with the best of the nation at hearth.
This week’s program did just that, again, but the level of dismay with America’s political landscape seemed overwhelming. Words like, tragedy, were used as a matter of fact.
GLENN GREENWALD:
“We know that the president and his top aides have violated laws. The facts are indisputable that they've done so. And yet as a country, as a political class, we're deciding basically in unison that the president and our highest political officials are free to break the most serious laws that we have, that our citizens have enacted, with complete impunity, without consequences, without being held accountable under the law.”
“And when you juxtapose that with the fact that we are a country that has probably the most merciless criminal justice system on the planet when it comes to ordinary Americans. We imprison more of our population than any country in the world. We have less than five percent of the world's population. And yet 25 percent almost of prisoners worldwide are inside the United States.”
“What you have is a two-tiered system of justice where ordinary Americans are subjected to the most merciless criminal justice system in the world. They break the law. The full weight of the criminal justice system comes crashing down upon them. But our political class, the same elites who have imposed that incredibly harsh framework on ordinary Americans, have essentially exempted themselves and the leaders of that political class from the law.”
“They have license to break the law. That's what we're deciding now as we say George Bush and his top advisors shouldn't be investigated let alone prosecuted for the laws that we know that they've broken. And I can't think of anything more damaging to our country because the rule of law is the lynchpin of everything we have.”Law & order; the basis of our ability to live together.
Not so fast bucko !... more
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************ WARNING ************
"This is not about boob augmentation unless the boob in question is your run of the mill media induced ignorant citizen-zombie that is soooo crucial to keep uninformed & let the status quo operating like a charm."
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." - Noam Chomsky
****** The 2008 Falsies Awards ******
There's nothing quite like a hotly contested election. The candidates have their devoted supporters and angry detractors. Then there are vigorous debates over the issues, while some people question the integrity of the entire process.
We speak, of course, of the Falsies Awards.
Part of the coveted Awards
This year marks the Center for Media and Democracy's (CMD's) fifth annual Falsies Awards. The Falsies are our attempt to shine an unflattering light on those responsible for polluting the information environment over the past year. We're happy to report that more people -- nearly 1,450 -- voted in this year's Falsies survey than ever before! We're also bestowing special recognition on one of this year's "winners."
Falsies recipients can collect their prizes -- a pair of Groucho Marx glasses, our two cents and a chance to atone for their spinning ways by making a detailed public apology -- by visiting CMD's office in Madison, Wisconsin. This year's Gold and Silver Falsies go to masters of war deception, while the Bronze Falsie recognizes a massive greenwash campaign. The first-ever Lifetime Achievement Falsie goes to a serial corporate front man, while a determined (if at times laughable) attempt at nation re-branding wins dishonorable mention. Then there are the Readers' Choice Falsies and Win Against Spin Awards, nominated by our survey participants.
That's a lot to cover, so without further ado, the winners of the 2008 Falsies Awards are ...
Golden Falsie: The Propaganda Pundits
http://my.nowpublic.com/world/pentagon-pundit-scandal-broke-law
Silver Falsie: Disputing the Count of the Dead
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html
Bronze Falsie: Coal Is the New Green
Lifetime Achievement Falsie: The Center for Consumer Fiefdom
Dishonorable Mention: China Goes for the Gold Falsie (But Misses)
The whole thing is here : http://www.prwatch.org/falsies2008
More of the same ? You be the judge...
TOP 10 STORIES BIG MEDIA MISSED IN 2008
http://current.com/items/89359517/top_10_stories_big_media_missed_in_2008.htm
MY PERSONAL FAVORITE...
PENTAGON SCORES A BIGGER RIP-OFF THAN BAILOUT
http://current.com/items/89342370/pentagon_scores_a_bigger_rip_off_than_bailout.htm
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho Marx
Marxism we all can believe in ;)************ WARNING ************
"This is not about boob augmentation unless... more
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Obviously, conservative voters were disillusioned with Chambliss, and grassroots Georgians were reluctant to support a country-club Republican who votes for the interests of corporate moguls with an internationalist mindset.
Well, now conservatives are faced with a runoff between Country Club Chambliss and a liberal Democrat with all-out support of President-elect Barack Obama. Obama’s field staff remained in Georgia to turn out the vote for Martin in tomorrow’s runoff.
And what is Chambliss doing?Obviously, conservative voters were disillusioned with Chambliss, and grassroots... more
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Do you see the election results as a repudiation of your politics?
"Our new president-elect won one and a half points more than George W. Bush won in 2004, and he did so, in great respect, by adopting the methods of the Bush campaign and conducting a vast army of persuasion to identify and get out the vote."
But what about your great dream of creating a permanent Republican governing majority in Washington?
"I never said permanent. Durable."Do you see the election results as a repudiation of your politics?
"Our new... more
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The Bush presidency is in its waning days - an administration marked by scandals ranging from the firing of US attorneys for political reasons, the Plame fiasco that resulted in the conviction of Scooter Libby, to the Abramoff lobbying disaster that took down former GSA chief of staff Safavian among others.
Now that senator Ted Stevens (R, Alaska) has been convicted of seven felonies and is embroiled in a close race headed for a recount, the question arises - who will the president pardon?
If Bush decides to roll out the pardons, possible candidates include Stevens, Scooter Libby (whose sentence he commuted but conviction and hefty fine left intact), Safavian, Claude Allen (of Target shoplifting fame), and others.
He might also preemptively pardon anyone involved in Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, and the DOJ scandal (Miers, Rove) who might be convicted in the future, as Ford did with Nixon.
Bush's actions will put a finishing touch on the legacy of his presidency, so it will be interesting to see if he goes out in an uproar of controversy like Clinton did, or chooses to maintain his relatively moderate line of pardons so far.The Bush presidency is in its waning days - an administration marked by scandals... more
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On my way toward the prodigious outdoor party that broke out shortly after 11 p.m. on the streets of Fort Greene, the multiracial Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood where I live -- a party to celebrate a moment of generational and political shift in America unlike anything I've ever experienced -- I spent a few hours with a somewhat different demographic. But I'm not here to kick sand in the face of the Fox News Channel. For the first time in its existence, Fox on Election Night 2008 seemed a weak and piteous thing, trying to cover its nakedness with shreds of dignity, and staring mortality right in the face.
And I'm just talking about the commercials. Before Brit Hume informed Fox viewers just past 11 p.m. Eastern, in the dispassionate tones of a physician delivering a grave prognosis, that Barack Obama had been elected president, we got several iterations of a 60-second ad for Plavix, a pharmaceutical "proven to help protect against future heart attack or stroke." This was followed, at least once, by a commercial for another drug (I didn't catch its name) that may relieve symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder. Along with heart failure and difficulty breathing, we also had some unintentional humor on the road to President-elect Obama's victory address. Much earlier in the evening we were told that Fox's Election Night coverage was brought to us by "Crest -- Whitening Expressions!"
Beyond the medicinal cornucopia, Fox was a pretty stolid, gloomy-Gus affair during the five hours I logged as a viewer Tuesday night, with little of the erratic behavior that accompanied the 2006 midterm elections. OK, there was bargaining and grumpiness and recrimination and reiteration of defunct McCain campaign themes and obsessive focus on tiny shreds of hope (Florida's still-red 13th Congressional District, a Fox fave) and massively boring conversations about the union election rule known as "card check," whatever that is. But sometimes they made Fred Barnes shut up.
From the beginning of the Fox election broadcast at 6 p.m., it was brutally clear that Hume and Shep Smith and Chris Wallace and all their guests and commentators had seen the exit-polling data and were not laboring under the delusion that those numbers reflected some 2004-style miscalculation. Sure, earlier in the day the network had ventilated a certain amount of unfounded racist paranoia, endlessly repeating some footage of a surly-looking fellow outside a polling place in Philadelphia who apparently represented the leading edge of a massive "Black Panther" conspiracy to intimidate white voters. (I guess it worked!)
But in general, the Fox team displayed an oddly jolly professionalism. They seemed determined to take their medicine, with the stick-to-itiveness of a losing football team dreaming of bright days far in the future or the past (and the near certainty that their core audience was going to bed, by the millions, in despair). Though it went briefly wobbly on Ohio, Fox didn't really show any particular reluctance to call states for Obama, and after New Hampshire (at 8:11) and Pennsylvania (at 8:30), its commentators quit pretending there was any serious doubt about the outcome and began arguing about what kind of president Obama would be -- and what kind of country he was inheriting from you-know-who.
(more at the link)On my way toward the prodigious outdoor party that broke out shortly after 11 p.m. on... more
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Well oh my god.
McCain is directly connected to William Ayers. As well as Rashid Khalidi.
And then theres the Keating five.
Oh dear Mr McCain, tell mister Rove to "F*ck off""Well oh my god.
McCain is directly connected to William Ayers. As well as Rashid... more
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The truth about the 2004 Ohio vote may finally be revealed in testimony today...this may be the most important deposition in US courts in decades regarding the election process.
PLEASE email the major networks and ask where the coverage is!
Columbus, Ohio: With only a couple more days until the nation votes, the news from yesterday's federal court hearing in Cleveland that Mike Connell, an IT expert who was working for then-Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in Ohio on election nights in 2004 and 2006, will come in to testify on what he knows about the computer architecture setup on those election nights and whethey Bush wrongfully won Ohio and a second term in the White House and whether such systems still exist, is as nail biting as any final episode of "24" when anti-terrorist maverick agent Jack Bauer saves the day by neutralizing a nuclear bomb from exploding.
Follow the link to read more. The story has also been covered by Amy Goodman on www.demcracynow.org (11/03/2008 braodcast). The truth about the 2004 Ohio vote may finally be revealed in testimony today...this... more
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jimmyp
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added this
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3 years ago
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ALWAYS REMEMBER...
“It’s enough that people know there has been a vote. Those who vote decide of nothing. Those who count the votes, decides of everything” - Joseph Stalin
Exactly what to look for and video on Election Night to protect the count. While most people are out watching the VOTING, not nearly enough people are watching the COUNTING. Your patriotic services are badly needed. This video shows what happens to the vote data on its journey before results are reported.
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
http://www.youtube.com/user/BlackBoxVoting
MEANWHILE… the GOP ain’t sleeping that's for sure ;)
(TN) 10/08 - Vote-flipping reported from Obama to McKinney Summary: This was the ES&S iVotronic, same voting machine caught flipping votes in two West Virginia counties. Votes peeled off to the other major par... http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?...
(US) 10/08 - National: Voting on a DRE For anyone who must vote on a touch screen, bring a new pencil with an unused eraser to the polling place. Tap the screen with the eraser, not your fi... http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?...
(WV) 10/08 - State: Now voters in SIX counties report vote flipping SUMMARY: Jackson, Putnam, Berkeley, Ohio, Monongalia and Greenbrier, all using ES&S iVotronic voting machines, now have voters reporting that when the... http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?...
(US) 10/08 - New middleman identified for results, voter dataThe following locations are using software and, in some cases, hosting voter registration data and results on the servers that belong to a Florida com... http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?...
(PA) 10/08 - Allegheny: Timely reminder - 27% rejection of provisional ballots due to pollworker error HEADS UP: More than one-fourth of all provisional ballots cast were deemed invalid because poll workers failed to fill out the envelope properly. (All... http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?...
(GA) 10/08 - State: Officials refuse to say how many purges(BBV note): It is inconceivable that the Georgia officials can't come up with not only the number purged, but evidence of who was sent what verificati... http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?...
(TN) 10/08 - Knox: Two candidates names written incorrectly on summary screen SUMMARY: The names John and Cynthia are correct, but the voting machine writes only "BAR" and "BOB" for Obama and Barr, respectively.
Voters confus... http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?...
LYNCHING BY LAPTOP 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCR6IdTQTeE
"He who allows oppression, shares the crime." : Erasmus Darwin
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not traitor, he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared." - Cicero, 42 B.C.
ALWAYS REMEMBER...
“It’s enough that people know there has been a... more
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Bill Maher conducted an interview with Republican operative and the author of "How to Rig an Election" Allen Raymond who divulges various tricks used by the Right to suppress votes and steal elections. This video explains some of these unscrupulous acts and steps you can take to combat such tactics.
Also in a related story please watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hNxBa6KENE ('Hacking Democracy' part 1 of 9)
' Hacking Democracy ' is a shocking documentary from HBO that exposes the vulnerability of E-voting machines which are used in tabulating approximately 80% of America's votes in county, state and federal elections. The link above for 'Hacking Democracy' is for part one of nine but it's imperative to watch the film in its entirety to fully understand the severity of the situation.
Researchers at the University of California found massive security flaws in most voting machines that could easily be broken into where vote counts can be exploited to any outcome the hacker so chooses. Among the most common weaknesses in nearly all of the systems is the ability to insert removable media - such as USB sticks or other cards used to initialize the systems - that could silently modify the systems at a fundamental level. By outfitting such a device with a Trojan horse program and dropping it into the pool of media used to start up the voting software, hackers could change vote totals or render the machines useless.
When the results in any election can be manipulated and completely reversed without detection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WMG34cv0zM so the real victor will lose, our very democracy and the foundation of America itself is at risk.
Mainstream news has been inundated with stories and accusations of Senator Obama's supposed connections with ACORN but there has been no reporting or investigation into Walden Odell CEO of Diebold (one of the largest voting machine distributors in America) who in 2003 said, " I am a longtime supporter of President Bush and am committed to helping deliver electoral votes to the President next year. " (see part 3 of “Hacking Democracy”.)
The following is a video tutorial on some steps you can take while voting to help curb the possibility of at least some vote count inaccuracies and a article on the same subject.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3_xFb1sWKU&eurl=http://www.blackboxvoting.org/video.html
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/07/report_evoting_systems_hackabl.htmlBill Maher conducted an interview with Republican operative and the author of... more
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The national committee of the College Republicans went into damage control mode Friday afternoon after a college-aged McCain volunteer confessed to fabricating her claim that a black assailant had carved a "B" into her face after mugging her.
"When Ms. Todd initially contacted us claiming to have been attacked, our first reaction was obviously to be concerned for her safety," said College Republicans communications director Ashley Barbera. "We are as upset as anyone to learn of her deceit. Ashley must take full responsibility for her actions."
On Thursday, the conservative website Hot Air described discussions with both Charlie Smith and Ethan Eilon, the National Chair and Executive Director of the group, in which both attested to the validity of the widely distributed photo of an injured Todd, and affirmed that the image came from her.
Eilon had also told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Thursday that Todd "was one of our better recruiters this year."
Of course, there was no way for the College Republicans to know that the photo -- which was of Todd and apparently did come from her -- was at root a fraud. But the organization's quick distancing suggests they are eager to put their association with Todd quickly behind them.
The national committee of the College Republicans went into damage control mode Friday... more
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Wednesday night on "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart hit Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly with damning evidence of their hypocrisy regarding Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
While Rove recently praised Palin's experience as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Stewart showed video of Rove trashing Virginia Governor — and former Richmond Mayor — Tim Kaine's executive experience, listing all the cities that are bigger than Richmond and calling such a pick "political."
Then, after recent video of O'Reilly describing Bristol Palin's pregnancy as a family issue, Stewart showed a clip of the Fox News host blaming Jamie Lynn Spears' parents for her teenage pregnancy.
Finally, after showing video of Dick Morris complaining about the rampant sexism in the media coverage of Sarah Palin, Stewart unveiled a clip of Morris saying that Hillary hides behind the sexism defense, and that anytime "the big boys" pick on Hillary, "she retreats behind the apron strings."
"In Dick Morris' defense," Stewart said, "he is a lying sack of sh*t."
Wednesday night on "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart hit Karl Rove and Bill... more
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SAN FRANCISCO - An anti-war protester confronted former Bush administration aide Karl Rove while he spoke at a San Francisco mortgage bankers' meeting.
A statement by the group Code Pink identified the woman as 58-year-old Janine Boneparth, who tried to handcuff Rove in what she called a citizen's arrest for "treason."
Rove, who was speaking Tuesday at the Mortgage Bankers Association's annual convention, elbowed Boneparth away as she was escorted off the stage.
In total, five Code Pink members were removed from the hall during Rove's appearance. The organization says none of the five women were charged.SAN FRANCISCO - An anti-war protester confronted former Bush administration aide Karl... more
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There was major political theater involving President Bush's former chief of staff Karl Rove. A protestor tried to arrest Rove for treason Tuesday morning while he was speaking at the Mortgage Bankers Association Convention, continuing in San Francisco.
There were three protests during a very lively back and forth between former senate majority leader George Mitchell and Karl Rove. Rove blamed the Democrats for everything wrong with the economy.
A protestor tried to smack handcuffs on Karl Rove, but Rove slapped back, and the woman was taken off stage.
There was major political theater involving President Bush's former chief of... more
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At a MBA gathering (Mortgage Bankers Association) a woman attempted to handcuff and arrest Karl Rove.At a MBA gathering (Mortgage Bankers Association) a woman attempted to handcuff and... more
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When Karl Rove's office requested special help for beleaguered Republican congressional candidates in the months before the 2006 elections, the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy jumped to the task. Director John Walters was called a "superstar" by a Rove aide after carrying half-million-dollar grants to news conferences with two congressmen and a senator.
Walters's visits to Utah, Missouri and Nevada were among at least 303 out-of-town trips by senior Bush appointees meant to lend prestige or bring federal grants to 99 politically endangered Republicans that year, in a White House campaign that House Democratic investigators yesterday called unprecedented in scope and scale.
Federal law prohibits the use of public funds or resources for partisan activities -- and specifically barred Walters's office from any involvement in a federal election campaign -- but the agencies involved said most of the trips were paid for by taxpayer funds, according to the draft report released by the Democratic majority of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The report said that since the Rove aide and many others involved in organizing the trips are no longer in office, "there is no effective remedy" for any related violations of the 1939 Hatch Act, which restricts the use of public funds for partisan gain.
The report said the trips were freely described as political in subpoenaed e-mails and interviews. A list prepared at the White House two weeks before the election gave the names and dates of appearances by Cabinet secretaries in 73 key congressional districts, all under the heading "Final Push Surrogate Matrix."
"This is," the report said, "a gross abuse of the public trust."
The existence of the White House effort to turn federal officials into instruments of the 2006 Republican campaign effort is already well known. But the House report, based on a review of more than 63,000 pages of internal documents, includes fresh details about which Cabinet members participated and who benefited.
The committee, chaired by Rep. Henry A. Waxman ( D-Calif. ), makes clear in the report that Bush is hardly the first president to squeeze reelection support from the federal bureaucracy. It notes that one of President Bill Clinton's White House aides met with Cabinet secretaries and other senior appointees to brief them on tough races before the 1994 election.
The House committee probed the Clinton effort in the 1990s at the behest of its then-Republican chairman, but it "received no evidence of practices . . . resembling the coordinated and comprehensive strategy the Bush White House employed to use taxpayer resources to support Republican candidates for office," the report states.
The committee's senior Republican, Rep. Tom Davis ( Va. ), disputed this statement, however. "The same kind of things [were] done by every administration since Eisenhower," he said, and he compared the Democrats' "angry swooning" to the scene in "Casablanca" when the police captain feigns shock at finding gambling in Humphrey Bogart's nightclub. Not since then, he said, has "righteous indignation seemed quite so contrived."
In a separate report four times longer than the Democrats', Davis and his Republican colleagues said that in a few cases, Democratic politicians appeared at events tallied by Waxman's staff as partisan. They also said some trips occurred at lawmakers' request, not merely at White House insistence.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said in a statement that the Democratic report was merely "an attempt to score political points."
The report details the activities of Sara Taylor, a Rove aide who ran the White House political office until last year and coordinated the effort. During the first 10 months of 2006, she sent periodic updates to the White House scheduling director, as well as White House liaisons at each agency, about which candidates deserved federal agency support.
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more@link
When Karl Rove's office requested special help for beleaguered Republican... more
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Here's the extended version of an interview I did with Stefan Forbes, director of the new documentary "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story."
If you don't know Atwater, he wrote the so-called Republican playbook, a tome of dirty tricks and smears. I think it's a metaphorical playbook. Atwater was also Karl Rove's mentor
Anyway, having studied Atwater, Forbes provides some fascinating insight on the way the 2008 election is devolving.
I've also posted the trailer. Here's the extended version of an interview I did with Stefan Forbes, director of... more
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