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-- Brad Friedman, The BRAD BLOG

Why corporate mainstream journalists have a need to identify everyone as either "liberal" or "conservative" is beyond me. But setting that aside, of far more import is the substantive information in Washington Independent journalist Jonathon E. Kaplan's report today featuring lead Obama attorney Bob Baeur's attempt to defend against my fervent critique of the campaign's woefully inadequate and dangerously misguided efforts in dealing with the massive voting machine problems occurring around the country since early voting began (and, of course, well before even that)...

[Note 11/3/08: An updated version of the article, now posted here, scales by on the "liberal" thing, after I sent a gentle complaint to Kaplan.]

The article does nothing to assuage my concerns about the Dems' self-proclaimed "behind the scenes" efforts on these matters. Bauer was still unable to offer a shred of evidence that the campaign or the DNC has taken such concerns about the use of wholly unverifiable voting systems --- and worse, allowing and actually encouraging election officials to access those machines during the election, at the time they are most vulnerable to tampering, for "recalibration" --- with the gravity the issue deserves.

Incredibly (though no longer surprisingly), the Democrats persist with their tortured logic that taking action on problems with voting machines will somehow depress the electorate, before quickly changing the subject to concerns about Republican chicanery on the front-end voter suppression stuff.

As an Election Integrity advocate recently noted rather eloquently, the front-end voter suppression issues and the back-end voting machine failures are two sides of the same coin. You can't worry about one without worrying about the other. The Dems, unfortunately, are still worried about only one side of the coin, as Kaplan's report demonstrates all too clearly (yet again) today...

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Guest Blogged by Steve Heller of VelvetRevolution.us

The Republican IT guru, recently described as a "high tech Forrest Gump" for his proclivity to be "at the scene" of so many troubling elections since 2000, and even at the heart of the "lost" White House email scandal, has been ordered by a federal judge to appear for an under-oath deposition next Monday in Ohio.

The BRAD BLOG has learned that Mike Connell, the Republican IT guru whose company, GovTech Solutions, created Ohio's 2004 election results computer network, appeared in federal court today, as compelled, and has been ordered to appear for his deposition on Monday, November 3, just 24 hours before Election Day 2008.

Today's court order came after a contentious hearing, at which Connell was present. The hearing was part of a long-standing voting rights violations lawsuit, King Lincoln v. Blackwell, as previously covered by The BRAD BLOG and by Velvet Revolution's Election Protection Strike Force here and here.

Though Connell's attorneys have fought to quash the subpoena, recently issued after the judge lifted a stay on the case several weeks ago, it looks like his options to avoid testimony, or at least jail for avoiding it, may have come to an end. The attorneys in the case have said that Connell's testimony may well lead to the subpoenaing and under-oath questioning of Karl Rove, who, they say, would be unable to use Executive Privilege as an excuse to avoid such a subpoena in a civil RICO case...

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Rady Ananda at OpEdNews opens her review of Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story by declaring it "the most explosive documentary produced in recent memory, involving murder, espionage, cover-up, electoral cyber fraud and a United States Member of Congress with ties to the Bush Administration."

See? Told ya so! You can check out the her full review here.

More details, pull-quotes from other reviews, and video preview here.

Haven't seen it yet? If you've got LinkTV, you can still check it out there. Otherwise, DVDs are available for prchase at the MSVL website, or better still, for a few dollars more, you can get one signed by both myself and the filmmaker Patty Sharaf with a $50 donation right here!

And for just $25 more (total of $75) we'll throw in a DVD of the award-winning Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections, signed by filmmaker David Earnhardt!

What more could you ask for? Collectors versions of great documentaries for you to watch and share, and all the while supporting the work we do here, so we can keep on doing it! And maybe by the time we're done, democracy gets saved somewhere in the bargain and everyone's a winner!

(Snail-mail works for all of the above as well. Send to: Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594, Los Angeles, CA 90028)

[Ed Note: Cliff Arnebeck, the Ohio attorney representing the plaintiffs in the case discussed below, will be joining me Wednesday evening to talk about the case, when I sit in to Guest Host The Mike Malloy Show, which I'll be doing Wed-Fri this week, from 9p-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT) - BF]

A recent flurry of activity in the long-standing King Lincoln v. OH Sec. of State lawsuit concerning voting rights violations in the state during the 2004 election has resulted in the judge lifting the stay to allow depositions to be taken of key GOP tech-guru Mike Connell, and potentially others, such as Karl Rove.

A subpoena has now been served to Connell, who was recently described by the attorneys working on the case, as a 'high-IQ Forrest Gump...at the scene of every GOP crime.'

Federal District Court Judge Algenon Marbley's brief order [PDF], agreeing to lift the stay, was quietly issued on September 19th. It reads:

The BRAD BLOG had learned about the latest court action, which could soon entangle Rove as well, some time ago, but we were asked by parties involved in the case to embargo the information until such time as they were able to serve Connell with his subpoena...

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"After the Florida Election in 2000, one man found himself on the wrong end of a smoking gun." That's the tagline for Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story, the brand-new documentary film by Patty Sharaf which has now finally been released!

Kansas City Star is among the first out of the box to review the film, calling it a "Must See!" and declaring that it "plays like a high-tension political thriller."

The terrifying feature-length documentary, shot in high-definition video, details, for the first time, the complete Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney/Yang Enterprises vote-rigging scandal, in all of its, yes, sometimes very gory detail. It also tells a tale of the media, as it details my attempts to tell the story over the last four years, to a corrupt, detached, and too-often frightened corporate media. The BRAD BLOG broke the Curtis story originally in late 2004, and we've been investigating and reporting on it ever since.

The DVD of MSVL is finally available for purchase at VotingLies.com and will also be premiering beginning this weekend on LinkTV, for those of you lucky enough to get the satellite TV channel. See LinkTV's main Murder, Spies page for air dates and times, as well as an extended five-minute preview of the film. Sharaf has been kind enough to offer the DVD --- signed by herself and myself --- available as our newest, and perhaps most appropriate, BRAD BLOG premium ever! An online donation of $50 or more gets you your own copy! (And just in time for Halloween!) Snail mail works as well, if you prefer to send a check to: Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594, Los Angeles, CA 90028. The support is greatly appreciated and very much needed.

LinkTV narrates their own 60-second preview of MSVL below...

For those who aren't familiar with the remarkable Curtis/Feeney story of the Florida software programmer who says he was asked by a powerful Republican to create vote-rigging software, where have you been? See this summary version for the quick details.

For those who are familiar with the story, you will learn details in MSVL you never knew, along with new interviews on the case from Gore Vidal, reporter Bob Fitrakis, computer security expert Harri Hursti, whistleblower Steve Heller, Curtis co-worker Mavis Georgalis, and many more!

While the Curtis story has been told, often beautifully, in a number of other documentaries, such as Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections and Stealing America: Vote-by-Vote, this is the first to go all the way into all of the frightening details underscoring this case, including the mysterious death of Florida's Inspector General Raymond Lemme while investigating the allegations, and the bizarre case of the convicted Chinese spy, Hai Lin "Henry" Nee, who worked at the firm with Curtis.

A few quotes from some of the early reviews:

"Must see!...Plays like a high-tension political thriller...Amazingly elaborate and detailed...Want to get hoppin' mad? This'll do it...Let's hear it for paper ballots." - Bob Butler, Kansas City Star

"Alfred Hitchcock would have chosen this, if the fact that it's true didn't scare him too much...The crime that dare not speak its name: Election Fraud." - Mimi "Dharma & Greg" Kennedy, National Chair of PDA

"Well done, covers so much well, and airs unexplored aspects of our election nightmare. Definitely one of the best of the genre." - John Ennis, filmmaker Free For All

The film is also screening at a number of upcoming film-festivals around the country, including the New Jersey Film Festival this weekend. See the MSVL website for dates & times.

Four years later, I'm happy to still be here to see the release of the film, quite frankly. There were some pretty scary days back there. It's regrettable that nobody's yet gone to jail, but maybe we're getting closer. For many of you who found this blog because of the Curtis story back in 2004, thank you for all of the support throughout the years! I hope you'll get the film, enjoy it, and continue to spread the word.

Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, 1949 - 2008

The Associated Press is reporting that Ohio Congresswoman Rep. Tubbs Jones died today at 6:12 p.m., in Cleveland.

She stood up for America in 2004, by courageously challenging the seating of Ohio's electors in the U.S. House of Representatives. She will be greatly missed.

UPDATE: Friend of The BRAD BLOG Matthew Segal of the Student Association of Voter Empowerment (SAVE) was among those students at Kenyon College in Knox County, OH, where the last vote was not cast in 2004 until well after 2am. He sent us a video of an Election Integrity event that both he and Tubbs Jones spoke at just weeks ago in Ohio, and noted, "Her discussion of the Ohio election (and electoral vote certification) was riveting." The clip is longer than the YouTube-allowed 10 mins, but we'll try to get it posted somewhere.

With the video, he emailed the following personal thoughts this afternoon while we were on the road, and as the Congresswoman was still clinging to life...

[UPDATE: Matthew now has more at HuffPo...]

She was a hero. Congress (and America) could use another 534 like her.

Congratulations to filmmaker David Earnhardt and crew! See below for the press release, just out today from Starz, announcing that his seminal election integrity documentary, Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections, will be premiering on several of the pay cable net's outlets beginning on August 28th.

"Think your vote counts? Think again," the announcement trumpets, before describing the film as "A searing indictment of the election process as it affected both the 2004 and 2006 Elections...And could affect the outcome of the 2008 Election."

The beautifully structured film will screen multiple times on both Starz Edge and Starz Cinema from August through early October (see currently scheduled showings here).

No Starz? No Problem!...

We, of course, have been singing Uncounted's praises for quite some time here at The BRAD BLOG --- even though we're prominently featured in it, we highly recommend it nonetheless --- and we'll take this opportunity to again remind readers that Earnhardt has been kind enough to offer hand-signed DVD versions of the film available as a premium here only for our readers.

So if you'd like your very own collectors' edition of Uncounted (and we think you'll want to share it with alot of folks once you see it!) we'll get one out to you right away in exchange for a contribution to The BRAD BLOG of $50 or more. You can check out a teaser, and clips from the film, at the official Uncounted website.

(Snail mail donations are also welcome; see the blue box on the right of every page here for our address. For other related premium offers, helpful in keeping our work going, please see this page. As always, your support is greatly appreciated and much needed! It will also help us with gas money to get out to the Democratic Convention next, where we're sure the Dems will just be delighted to see us, after having refused us press credentials. But, of course, we've got a Plan B. Wish us luck! And thanks in advance for any help you can offer!)

The complete news release, announcing Uncounted's premiere on the Starz network, follows below...

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So we learned last week that new information concerning Republican high-tech guru Mike Connell's alleged participation in computer-aided fraud from Florida to Ohio to the Swiftboaters to RNC headquarters to Congress has helped lead Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck to reignite a long-standing federal lawsuit concerning Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election.

We learned this week that Connell may have been threatened by Karl Rove should the GOP's "high IQ Forrest Gump" --- so described for his uncanny ability to be found "at the scene of every [GOP] crime" --- fail to "take the fall" for election fraud in Ohio, according to a letter sent by Arnebeck to AG Michael Mukasey asking for Connell's protection.

But who exactly is this exceptionally successful, yet largely-below-the-radar-until-now Republican operative?

The following clip (appx 6:45 mins) from the new documentary film, FREE FOR ALL! (downloadable in full, free for all, at www.freeforall.tv) by filmmaker John Ennis, gives us a small taste of who Connell is, and how he fits into the big picture.

BRAD BLOG readers will likely recognize a few faces here. Please enjoy...

Ohio Attorney Cliff Arnebeck, who notified Attorney General Mukasey yesterday about threats made by Karl Rove against the GOP's high-tech guru, Mike Connell, as we reported last night, will join Peter B. Collins and me during my weekly Friday 5pm PT appearance on PBC's syndicated radio show.

You'll be able to listen online at www.PeterBCollins.com if his show is not aired in your town. And you may call in with questions and comments for Arnebeck or myself at 888-5-PeterB (or post them here, and I'll try to ask them). Hope you'll tune in!

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POST-SHOW UPDATE: Arnebeck joined us for the first half-hour of the show and dropped a few interesting details during our discussion. Among them: 1) Bush can't pardon someone convicted under a civil RICO case, which is what Arnebeck is compiling. (Also, can't remember if it came up during the interview, but as some have suggested that Rove simply invoke Executive Privilege to avoid being deposed in this case, Exec Privilege does not come into play in such a case. It only refers to Congressional testimony.) 2) Connell had agreed to meet with the House Judiciary Comm. several months ago, but so far Judiciary hasn't followed up. 3) Arnebeck makes a tantalizing reference to the finding in the Paula Jones case that sitting Presidents may be deposed in civil cases. More detail on those points and others in the audio interview.
Download MP3 or listen online here...

As we broke earlier this week, after previous snubs and threats of subpoenas, Ohio's disgracefully-partisan former Sec. of State J. Kenneth Blackwell was finally set to testify to the House Judiciary Committee today (as well as another legendary GOP vote suppressor, former FEC chair and DoJ Voting Rights Division gamer, Hans von Spakovsky.)

After a late start, and a then a blackout of the Judiciary Committee's webcast feed just after Blackwell began his opening statement ("Thank you Mr. Chairman..." and then suddenly the feed went out), things picked up again during the opening statement of GOP propagandist/attorney Cleta Mitchell who went on and on about the same old nonsense concerning "voter fraud" via voter registration applications submitted by ACORN, the GOP's old "voter fraud" strawman...

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The U.S. House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties will be holding a hearing this Thursday on "Lessons Learned from the 2004 Presidential Election."

Though no press release has yet been sent out by the Committee, and the link to the hearing's page at the Judiciary website is currently broken, The BRAD BLOG has both good news and bad news to report here.

The good news: Ohio's former Sec. of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has been invited to testify and has confirmed that he will actually show up this time, according to several Judiciary sources. Blackwell had previously snubbed the committee's earlier invitation to testify back in February about the myriad crimes that were committed on and by his watch in the 2004 Presidential Election.

Following his last refusal to appear --- when he responded to the committee claiming "my schedule will not permit me to attend the hearings" --- Judiciary Committee spokesperson Jonathon Godfrey hinted that a subpoena might be forthcoming if Blackwell continued to refuse to appear. This time, at least as of today, it looks like he's coming, according to confirmation by Godfrey this afternoon. Thus guaranteeing what should be a very lively hearing.

More good news: Shameless GOP "voter fraud" zealot and disgraced former FEC chair Hans Von Spakovsky will also be appearing. By invitation of the Republicans on the committee, amusingly enough. What were they thinking in inviting this embarrassment? Beats us, but we're happy to hear he'll be back on the Congressional hot seat. Thanks Repubs!

And then there's the bad news...

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-- Brad Friedman

Last week Ohio Attorney Cliff Arnebeck held a press conference in Columbus to announce his motion to lift the stay on the long-running King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell lawsuit in which massive improprieties, irregularities, and violations of the Voting Rights Act are alleged to have taken place in the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio.

In the wake of the failure by the Buckeye State's Attorney General to properly investigate the allegations, and new evidence and testimony unearthed by Arnebeck and other private investigators, he is now asking that the stay on the lawsuit be lifted by the court in order to refocus the case and depose Karl Rove, and a number of other top GOP operatives believed to be involved in manipulating the results of the '04 election.

One of those operatives is Republican tech-guru Mike Connell.

Steve Heller covered last week's press conference for us, which featured comments from data security expert Stephen Spoonamore alleging fraud in the '04 election and Arnebeck's assertion that he believes "Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio."

The following day, RAW STORY's Larisa Alexandrovna detailed related concerns by Arnebeck and Spoonamore concerning Diebold's questionable involvement in the 2002 Senate race in Georgia.

After last week's presser, Velvet Revolution's Brett Kimberlin sat down to follow up with Arnebeck and attorney/investigative journalist Bob Fitrakis, who participated in both the original '04 election lawsuits and has reported in detail on the related matters continuously since then at the Columbus Free Press.

In the video-taped interview, posted at right (appx. 10 mins), the two attorneys focus specifically on their concerns about GOP operative/IT specialist Connell, who, they allege, has been found to have been "at the scene of the crime" for numerous questionable elections since 2000. Connell's firm was also responsible for creating the RNC email systems used by Karl Rove and others. He is also said to have installed the existing Congressional computer networks for high-security House and Senate committees such as Judiciary and Intelligence.

[DISCLOSURE: The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution.us.]

The complete text transcript of the interview follows below...

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-- Special to The BRAD BLOG by Steve Heller of Velvet Revolution

At a press conference this morning in Columbus, Ohio, Cliff Arnebeck, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case of King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell, announced that he is filing a motion to "lift the stay in the case [and] proceed with targeted discovery in order to help protect the integrity of the 2008 election."

Courtesy of our colleagues at Velvet Revolution, you can watch the entire press conference here, and an interview with Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis is here.

Arnebeck will also "be providing copies of document hold notices to the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform and the U.S. Justice Department for Karl Rove emails from the White House."

See PDFs of the hold letter to AG Mukasey here, the hold letter to the U.S. Chamber here, and the motion to lift the stay here.

This case has the potential to put some of the most powerful people in the country in jail, according to Arnebeck, as he was joined by a well-respected, life-long Republican computer security expert who charged that the red flags seen during Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election would have been cause for "a fraud investigation in a bank, but it doesn't when it comes to our vote."

"This entire system is being programmed in secret by programmers who have no oversight by anybody," the expert charged, as Arnebeck detailed allegations of complicity by a number of powerful GOP operatives and companies who had unique access both to the election results as reported in 2004, as well as to U.S. House and Senate computer networks even today.

The presser was attended by some of the corporate-controlled media, including the head of the Ohio AP bureau, the Columbus Dispatch, and IndyMedia. Listening in by phone were ABC News, our friends from RAW STORY, and I, your humble blogger. I recorded the presser, so I have no links for the quotes in this post, but I transcribed them word-for-word and can vouch for their accuracy.

One of the more delightful and interesting quotes comes from Arnebeck, concerning what he expects to discover as the stay is lifted: "[W]e anticipate Mr. Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio."

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Well, at least Democrats --- in Ohio anyway --- prove they know how impeachment is supposed to work. When it comes to impeaching one of their own anyway. In this case, OH's Democratic AG Marc Dann.

Lessons here:

• Democrats still know what the word "impeachment" means.
• They are willing to use it, at least when it involves going after one of their own.
• Holding one's own party accountable is something Republicans might learn from (but won't).
• Democrats at the national level would be well-served to remind themselves of their Constitutional responsibility to do the same at the federal level when High Crimes and Misdemeanors have occurred (but won't).
• Sex scandals are the Highest Crime and Misdemeanor of them all.

For the record, when Dann was running for Attorney General in '06, he campaigned to Election Integrity folks such as Bob Fitrakis, Cliff Arnebeck, Paddy Shaffer, and others in the Buckeye State that he intended to bring accountability to folks like former SoS J. Kenneth Blackwell and others, for the crimes committed to deliver OH for Bush in '04.
He promised, at the time, "to put whoever were to mess with Ohio elections in jail."

"If necessary," he said, "I could even convene a grand jury to take a look at the 2004 election. And I think that may be something that we may want to look at...to get to the truth about what happened in 2004."

The short video of those promises is at left. Apparently, he was just kidding.

UPDATE: Dann resigns. So, additional lesson here: When impeached for crimes actually committed, the accused tends to resign, rather than fight.