Crooks and Liars » 2006 » June » 23:By: John Amato @ 3:25 PM – PDT
Steve raises a good point:
‘Do you wonder like me why Santorum and Hoekstra chose this week to embarrass themselves, at a time when Santorum is heading for a huge drubbing in November? Guess who helped these two roll out this ridiculous claim this week? Our Director of National Intelligence.
So let me get this straight. Negroponte is now using his position to play a partisan role in the 2006 election? He is politicizing intelligence? Or does this go higher?…read on'”

Jon Stewart, Enemy of Democracy?

Crooks and Liars: “Those Dirty Republicans
By: Jamie Holly @ 10:43 AM – PST
Seems like the Republicans still love their dirty tricks. From Matt Stoller:
Terry Nelson, an unindicted co-conspirator in the TRMPAC Tom Delay scandal, and the boss of Jim Tobin, the convicted felon in the NH phone-jamming case, is the head of opposition research for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. So it’s not a surprise that these kinds of unethical dishonest tactics are being used.
Sources in Bergen County are reporting that an autodial robocall is being made that starts out sounding like a positive Bob Menendez message. If you hang up, it repeatedly calls you back. If you listen all the way to the end, it finishes by saying that Menendez is an embezzler and under criminal investigation.
This is a voter suppression tactic being used nationwide by the GOP. Initially callers will think they are hearing a call from the Menendez campaign asking for support. If they hang up, it will repeatedly call them back. The intention is to annoy the voter so much that they no longer support the candidate. For those who actually listen to the entire call, they are presented with a series of lies and smears against Menendez, also with the intention of suppressing turnout. It’s a win-win tactic for them.
The NRCC is doing the same exact thing in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and at least 53 other races across the country.
Terry Nelson is a key GOP operative, a senior advisor to John McCain and someone heavily involved with both Tom Delay and Karl Rove. This guy breaks the law and gets rewarded for it. Democrats should make election reform a very core part of their agenda for a lot of reasons, but the rampant criminal nature of the Republican operative class is a pretty good rationale…read on
Josh Marshall has also been on top of this story.”

Crooks and Liars: “OLBERMANN: “This country was founded to prevent anybody from making it up as they went along.”
By: Jamie Holly @ 6:29 PM – PST

Keith delivers another powerful special comment. This time it is about tomorrow’s elections.
Video – WMV Video – QT (Both should be working now)
‘And so we look at the verdict in the trial of Saddam Hussein yesterday, and, with the very phrase ‘October, or November, Surprise’ now a part of our vernacular, and the chest-thumping coming from so many of the Republican campaigners today, each of us must wonder about the convenience of the timing of his conviction and sentencing. ‘
Transcript below the fold

(Read the rest of this story…) “

AMERICAblog: A blog for a great nation that deserves the truth: “GOP ‘robo-call’ scandal grows, now hitting Washington state as well
by John in DC – 11/06/2006 05:20:00 PM

UPDATE: Add New Jersey to the growing list of states where the Republican party is trying to defraud voters with fake phone calls.

UPDATE: Fraudulent calls hitting Virginia voters too. In Virginia, Democratic voters are getting phone calls telling them they’ll be arrested (Markos has the audio via the link above).

The fraudulent GOP voter-intimidation scam has now hit Washington state. Other states being targeted by the GOP calls, that we know of so far, include Pennsylvania, Kansas, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New York.

We are the point of needing an FBI investigation because this is now clearly happening across the country in a clearly coordinated way (across interstate lines, mind you).

The Republican party is engaging in a campaign to defraud the voters and Democratic congressional campaigns by making phone calls to voters, often late at night and repeated, and making the voters think that the calls are coming from the Democratic campaigns when in fact they’re coming from the Republicans.

This is fraud. It an effort to steal the vote. It violates a number of consumer telemarketing laws, and more.

We already knew the GOP had decided to run racist and anti-semitic ads in the South a”

Gone to Croatan

Crooks and Liars: “CNN Gives Coverage To The Robocall Scam
By: Jamie Holly @ 3:13 PM – PST Submit or Digg this Post

cnnrobocall.jpg

The robocall scam is starting to get some national attention. CNN just reported about it on the Situation Room:

Video – WMV Video – QT

Talking Points Memo was highlighted in the segment, which Josh does deserve the credit on this, as he has been working none stop to bring this scandal to the natio”

Think Progress » The Dixie Chicks Ad NBC Doesn’t Want You To See: “The Dixie Chicks Ad NBC Doesn’t Want You To See
NBC is refusing to air an ad for the new Dixie Chicks documentary, “Shut Up & Sing.” Variety reports, “NBC’s commercial clearance department said in writing that it ‘cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush.’”
Harvey Weinstein, who is distributing the movie, issued the following statement:
It’s a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America. The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is profoundly un-American.
ThinkProgress has obtained the ad NBC doesn’t want you to see. Watch it:”

Social Investing and Consuming Cartoons: “‘There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know that we don’t know. But there are also unknowns unknowns. These are things we don’t know we don’t know.'”

Midterm elections: the blame game, George Allen, and more. – By Mark Halperin and John F. Harris – Slate Magazine: “Sexual Tension Unbearable Between 15-Year-Old, Rest Of World”