• print
• share

06.16.09 -- 3:20PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)

Scrubber test

--Al Shaw

• print
• share

06.04.09 -- 4:47PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)

sdfadf

--Al Shaw

• print
• share

10.15.08 -- 12:22AM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (23)

Russians Invade Alaska

Gov. Palin has spent the last six weeks telling us she's out lookout if Russia tries to mount an invasion of the US through Alaska. But while she's down here in the Lower 48 trying to get her crowds to think that Barack Obama is in league with Muslim terrorists, the Russians themselves just landed in Anchorage. According to Bloomberg, more or less the entire senior management of the Russian oil and gas monopoly Gazprom just showed up in Alaska to meet with Palin's Department of Natural Resources and the CEO of ConocoPhillips to see if they can get in on that big pipeline projects she keeps bragging about that she says is going to lead us to energy independence.

--Josh Marshall

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 11:45PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (53)

The Purge Begins

You know that millions of new voters have registered to vote in this election. And they're disproportionately Democrats. So Republicans across the country are pulling out every stop to disqualify as many of those voters as possible or gum up the works with procedural delays they're not eligible to vote on election day.

They just had a big victory in Ohio.

The court ruling applies to more than 600,000 new registrations in Ohio. And there's some question whether the new ruling can even be put into effect in time for the November election.

This article from last week provides more detail on the lawsuit in question.

--Josh Marshall

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 8:31PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (44)

Webb Steps Up

The Virginia Senator cuts a strong ad for Obama.

--Greg Sargent

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 7:34PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (33)

The Tire Swing That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Roger Simon: It's honorable of John McCain to try to calm down some of the crowds his campaign has spent months inciting.

(ed.note: Simon's article actually hits McCain's campaign pretty hard -- that it's out of control, tanking, that his crowds bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the crowds that usually end up storming the castle at the end of each Frankenstein movie. But still, deep down, McCain's a very honorable man. I thought conservatism made a big play about personal responsibility. At a certain point, folks need to come to grips with the fact that this is John McCain. The race he chose to run. And stop making excuses for him.)

--Josh Marshall

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 7:05PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (30)

FOX Alert: Hans On the Loose

Since last Friday, Fox News has mentioned ACORN 342 times, according to Media Matters. It's all ACORN all the time over there (which by itself should tell you a little bit about the credibility of the allegations of widespread voter fraud).

But I wanted to draw your attention to one of the so-called voting experts Fox has been using lately. Everyone remembers Hans Von Spakovsky, right? He's the former official in the Bush Justice Department who got a recess appointment to the FEC but whose nomination failed to get through the Senate because he's made a career of finding ways to restrict access to the polls.

The politicization of DOJ was wide and deep, and the U.S. attorney firings was just a part. The civil rights division, particularly the voting rights section, was thoroughly politicized. Von Spakovsky was one of the key players in that effort, along with Bradley Schlozman. It was Schlozman who later replaced the ousted U.S. attorney in Kansas City and filed federal charges against ACORN workers there on the eve of the 2006 elections. And so we come full circle.

Last time we checked in with Von Spakovsky, he was being hired by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights where he was to help oversee a report the Commission will produce on the Justice Department's monitoring of this year's election. Here's Von Spakovsky this afternoon on Fox:

--David Kurtz

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 6:59PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (24)

Sad

Endangered Mississippi senator plays the Village People card against socially conservative Dem opponent.

--Josh Marshall

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 6:40PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (15)

TPMtv: myTPM: So New, So Cool

Many of you might not know that in addition to being a network of news blogs, TPM is a community with thousands of members. Anyone who wants to can sign in to have his or her own blog, comment on the posts of other readers or TPM staffers, or recommend favorite posts to others.

Today we're announcing myTPM, an upgrade to the current system and a new set of tools that allow you to customize your community experience and choose your favorite contributors to follow. I explain in today's TPMtv...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

PS: A written explanation of the new tools is here.

--Andrew Golis

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 6:20PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (14)

We Be Jammin'

The new indictment of Jim Tobin in the 6-year-old New Hampshire phone jamming case, which we first reported today at TPMmuckraker, requires some reconsideration of whether the Justice Department has been insufficiently aggressive in the case -- or perhaps whether new hands at DOJ are taking a more aggressive tack.

The big question in the case has always been how high up in the GOP political apparatus did knowledge of and involvement with the phone jamming scheme go?

At the time of the 2002 scheme, Tobin was the New England regional political director for the RNC and regional director for the NRSC. As the phone jamming case heated up, Tobin was forced to resign as New England campaign chairman for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.

On Election Day 2002, as the scheme was falling apart, Tobin made 12 calls between 11:20 a.m. and 11:42 p.m. EST to the White House political office, then run by Ken Mehlman, who later became RNC chairman. (Mehlman has denied that any of the calls that day had anything to do with the phone-jamming scheme.) The RNC has spent nearly $3 million defending Tobin against the criminal charges. (Two other GOP operatives did jail time over the incident.)

The case looked all but dead earlier this year. Tobin won his appeal of his conviction so convincingly that the trial judge felt he had no choice but to acquit him. The government's appeal of that decision is pending, but frankly looked like a long shot. If the feds were inclined to let this case die a natural death, you would have expected it to end with that appeal.

For the government now to come back with a new indictment based on new facts completely unrelated to the initial phone jamming incident, but instead focused on Tobin's alleged false statements to FBI agents investigating the case (presumably to avoid the double jeopardy trap), is definitely an aggressive move, especially less than a month before the next election.

Are the feds taking another look at the RNC and the White House, too?

--David Kurtz

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 4:54PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (29)

Another Day, Another Palin Rally

At today's Palin rally in Pennsylvania a supporter yelled "Kill him!" when Sarah Palin a speaker mentioned Barack Obama. Yesterday, at a joint McCain-Palin rally in Virginia, another supporter was moved to shout "Obama bin Laden" as Palin spoke.

--David Kurtz

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 3:58PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (52)

More on the Scam

If you have any question what this ACORN/vote fraud con-job is about. Here's an episode of TPMtv from April 2007. It includes video from a speech Karl Rove gave in April 2006 about claims of election fraud. Rove reels off what he calls the "hot spots". And surprise, surprise: half of them are cases where the US Attorneys ended up getting fired, or were slated to be fired. It's all a scam. Take a look.

--Josh Marshall

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 3:52PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (44)

Queen of the Liars

Sarah Palin denounces the "unconscionable voter fraud" going on in Pennsylvania ...

Needless to say Palin's record leaves little doubt that she'd be canning the next round of US Attorneys who confirmed that the charges of voter fraud were bogus.

--Josh Marshall

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 3:39PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (23)

Pretty Please?

Is John Danforth really saying that the Obama campaign should team up with McCain's and RNC's voter suppression efforts? Aren't they usually able to handle that stuff on their own? It just seems like it's asking a bit much.

--Josh Marshall

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 3:10PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (51)

Excellent News for McCain

John McCain's transition chief helped lobby for Saddam Hussein back in the 1990s.

--Josh Marshall

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 2:57PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (49)

Character Assassination is Hard Work!

Jonah Goldberg: Obama's being black is making it even harder for Republicans to smear him.

--Josh Marshall

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 1:52PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (93)

Remember the US Attorneys

It's time again to remember the backstory of the US Attorney Firing scandal. The firings were one thing. But the story behind the firings, what led to them, is key to understanding the current 'vote fraud' scam being played by the Republicans and the media outlets that are going along with the scam.

Remember, the US Attorneys in question were all either Republicans or Republican-leaning independents. In every case, they were appointed by George W. Bush. In most of the cases their firing was tied to 'vote fraud' claims stemming from the 2004 election.

The pattern was very consistent. During the final weeks of the 2004 campaign Republican partisans started pressing claims of widespread voter fraud. In many, though not all cases, the examples they pointed to were not even allegations of voter fraud, but allegations of voter registration fraud: examples of people being registered more than once, non-existent people being registered, etc.

The Republicans making these claims argued that these problems with registration cards were opening the coming election up to widespread vote fraud. Logically, this makes no sense. And, more importantly, all evidence shows this has never happened, certainly not in any widespread sense. Every person who claims otherwise is either ignorant or speaking in bad faith.

Nonetheless, CNN and other national news outlets and especially local media outlets, either out of ignorance or bad faith, ran hard with these stories -- just as CNN is doing now.

After the election, there was a lot of pressure from Republicans in states like Nevada, Washington, New Mexico, etc. (not surprisingly, all key swing states) to have local US Attorneys prosecute these cases. The word came down from Washington, DC, particularly the political office at the White House that this was a top priority. And the local US Attorneys launched into it.

But there was a problem. Most of these were ethical prosecutors. And when they looked into it there just wasn't anything there. Most of the stories weren't even true. And those that were, were obviously isolated and in most cases not done with malice. The number of people who could actually be prosecuted could be counted on one hand. Local Republicans got angry; Karl Rove got angry. And the US Attorneys got fired.

That's the real story of the US Attorney firing scandal. And what we're seeing today is textbook -- exactly the same as what we saw in 2004 and 2006. It's a scam. And the very recent history should be enough for news networks like CNN and others not to let themselves become complicit in this disgrace.

--Josh Marshall

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 1:25PM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (96)

Disgrace

I always used to think former Sen. John Danforth (R-MO) was a respectable guy. So why is he prostituting himself for the McCain campaign phony 'vote fraud' scam. Just disgraceful.

Let's be clear about what this is. These are random stories about fake vote registrations. The Drudges and Fox scoundrels of the world seem to think that if someone fills out a voter registration card for Mickey Mouse, that Mickey Mouse might show up and cast a vote they're not entitled to cast. It doesn't and there is zero evidence of any voter fraud or anything that would make voter fraud more likely. The level of lying, bad faith or at best ignorance of the people making these claims is really beyond imagining. This isn't vote fraud. There's no evidence of vote fraud. Nothing. This is an effort of a losing political party to a) lay the groundwork for challenging their defeat at the polls b) lay the groundwork to pass laws to make it harder for poor people and minorities to vote.

For more on this scam, see this earlier post.

--Josh Marshall

• print
• share

10.14.08 -- 11:45AM // RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (137)

Virtual Ads for Your Virtual World

Look closely. That's not a picture of an Obama billboard ad in front of a few cool cars. That's a screen capture from the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise. Advertisers can buy space on the billboards in the game. And the game publisher has confirmed to GigaOm.com that that's an official Obama ad, placed by the campaign.

--Josh Marshall