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Video: Tim Griffin Cryin’ and Denyin’ He ‘Caged’ Votes for Bush-Cheney ’04

Jon Ponder
Cryin’ Denyin’

And lyin’: Former White House communications deputy Tim Griffin was caught on tape earlier this month crying about the sudden collapse of his career and then, with all faux outrage he could muster, denying he suppressed votes in the 2004 presidential election of African-American troops serving overseas — despite hard-copy evidence to the contrary.

Corporate media is ignoring the scandal despite the fact that the BBC has emails from Griffin that contain caging lists in attachments.

Griffin’s remarks were made at the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas soon after he’d stepped down as U.S. Attorney (USA) in Little Rock. The tears came as he thanked everyone who’d ever been nice to him along his career route from RNC operative to White House Communications deputy to Republican operative posing as a federal prosecutor.

The denial came in an answer to a question from the audience about reports of his involvement in caging activities in 2004. Griffin rambled a bit as he responded to charges made by BBC investigator Greg Palast dating back to October 2004, just days before the presidential elections, that Griffin and others had used “caging” to suppress Democratic votes in Florida.


Despite the fact that Palast has possession of emails sent by Griffin for which the subject was “Re. caging,” and that have caging lists — names of voters targeted for suppression — attached to them, Griffin said:

First of all, the allegations that are on the Internet and have spread through the tabloids are completely and absolutely false, number one. And ridiculous. Caging, as you may know, I had it looked up, is a direct-mail term for basically organizing returned mail. … And I’ll just say that it’s so untrue. … This is all made up and faux pas. I didn’t cage votes, I didn’t cage mail, I didn’t cage animals, I’m not a zookeeper.

From the outset in 2004, corporate media has ignored Palast’s findings on the GOP’s voter suppression activities. In May, however, their studied ambivalence was challenged — but not broached, apparently — when another White House operative, Monica Goodling, mentioned Griffin’s involvement in the caging enterprise during sworn testimony before the House Justice committee:

Despite my and others’ best efforts, [Deputy Attorney General, Paul McNulty]’s public testimony was incomplete or inaccurate in a number of respects. … I believe that the Deputy was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in the replacement decision … and failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote “caging” during his work on the President’s 2004 campaign.

(During the 2000 election, Goodling and Griffin worked together as opposition researchers at the Republican National Committee.)

After Goodling’s testimony, big media’s efforts to avoid this story were challenged again when Palast granted House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers’ request to see Griffin’s emails about the caging lists. The meeting between Palast and Conyers on May 31 did not go unnoticed by Griffin, however — nor perhaps did Conyer’s statement, “We’re not through with Griffin by any means.” Within hours of the meeting, Griffin resigned as the Arkansas USA.

The particulars of Griffin’s appointment last December came to light during the investigation into the unprecedented firing of USAs by the Bush Dept. of Justice when it was revealed that his predecessor, Bud Cummins, had been fired in order to install Griffin in Little Rock, apparently as a plant to oversee voter suppression in Arkansas.

Compounding the scandal, it was also revealed that Griffin was put in place under a provision the Bushies slipped into the Patriot Act that allowed the president to appoint federal prosecutors with Senate approval. (The provision has since been over-ridden.)

January 29 — Another Reason I’m Glad I’m Not a Democrat

Buck Banks

The Democratic Party of Florida is trying its mightiest to put a positive spin on its reprieve from punishment by the Democratic National Committee and chair Howard Dean. Appears the Deanster won’t whup up on Florida for moving its primary to January 29 after all.

Here’s how Karen Thurman, the reality-challenged chair of the state Dems, spins it:

It’s not as if Floridians aren’t used to being regularly disenfranchised — only every time we have a presidential election.

As Chair of your Party, I am proud to officially announce that Florida’s Democratic Presidential Preference Primary will be held on January 29, 2008, in accordance with a new state law and the will of Florida’s Democratic voters.

Although Democratic National Committee (DNC) rules can penalize states (except for Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina) that hold 2008 primaries prior to February 5, the Florida Democratic Party’s leadership determined that holding a process outside the state-run January 29th election would be detrimental to the voters of this state.

Only problem with that is, it wasn’t the Democrats who made the decision and passed the state law to move the primary date, it was the Republican majority in the state legislature in collusion with our Republican governor, Charlie Crist. In response, Dean and the national party threatened to rob Florida of its delegates, render its primary meaningless and punish any candidates who campaigned in the state. By contrast, the Republican Party was willing to give Florida’s wingnuts a pass on breaking the same primary rules.

But that didn’t stop Thurman from trying to make it sound like it was a Democratic idea all along:

Florida Democrats made it clear that a date other than January 29th would potentially disenfranchise voters and inhibit preparations for a winning 2008 campaign — a campaign that will deliver the state’s 27 crucial electoral votes on November 4, 2008, to the Democratic Presidential nominee.

It’s not as if Floridians aren’t used to being regularly disenfranchised — only every time we have a presidential election.

The Florida Democratic Party missed an opportunity to point out on a national stage the Republican machinations that nearly resulted in the country’s fourth most populous state’s primary being rendered meaningless. The Republicans engineered it, Howard Dean very publicly condemned it and now the Florida Dems are trying to sugar-coat it.

I will go to polls on January 29, to vote for property tax reform and local politicians, but, as a registered independent, I won’t vote in the primary. So I won’t be a party to the next round of Republican electoral shenanigans and, thankfully, I won’t be a part of Karen Thurman’s sorry excuse for a political party.

Neuharth on Limbaugh: What a Comedian!

Buck Banks

From Al Neuharth, the guy who brought us USA Today (or the Newspaper for Dummies Without Comics) comes this little gem about right-wing blowhard Rush “I Know a Babe When I See One” Limbaugh:

Well, when I travel across the country, my amusement comes from Rush Limbaugh’s show. I find that that’s one of the funniest programs on the air. I don’t become offended by the idiotic things he says; I become amused by them. But I also think that from my perspective that it’s OK for idiots like him to voice their opinion because that’s what this country is about and that’s what the First Amendment is about. I might add that I have become convinced, although a little reluctantly, that all the bloggers on the Internet have a right to all of their stupidity, too. And there’s a lot of it.

But I really think we’re better off with those kinds of opinions and dissenting voices than we would be if we or the government tried to control them.

Pentagon Planned to Turn Enemy Troops Gay

Trish

The Pentagon’s 1994 plan to devise a “gay bomb” is making new headlines.

More significant than whether the Pentagon has really abandoned the plan is what their research proves: sexual orientation is biologically determined — not a lifestyle choice

The DOD requested $7.5 million over six years to develop the “weapon,” which they hoped would chemically alter straight enemy troops so they would become attracted to each other. Theoretically, the hostiles would become distracted by their new relationships and stop paying attention to blowing us up. Later, morale would suffer as Joe breaks up with Jim, and Jim’s friends all tell him he’s so much better off because everyone knows Joe is jerk. Then one of them starts going out with Joe. And so forth.

The official line is that almost as quickly as the idea was hatched, it was scuttled. But the Sunshine Project, which monitors such hair-brained Defense Department activity via the Freedom of Information Act, says that ain’t so.

[Sunshine Project Director Edward Hammond] went on to state that the Joint Non-lethal Weapons Directorate, based out of Quantico, actually used the “gay-bomb” idea as a marketing tool in a CD-ROM from 2001-2002 and that “the Pentagon… submitted it to the highest scientific review body in the country.”

More significant than whether the Pentagon has really abandoned the plan is what their research proves: sexual orientation is biologically determined — not a lifestyle choice. That fact could blow up more Republican and Christian right fund raising campaigns than the best placed bomb, gay or otherwise.

Chris Matthews’ New Man Crush: Fred ‘K Street’ Thompson

Jon Ponder

Left: Bush with pilot on aircraft carrier in 2003. Right: Fred Thompson, the former K Street lobbyist

Chris Matthews, the host of “Hardball” on MSNBC, has a bad habit of developing man-crushes on tough-acting politicians. He’s just getting over one of these affairs of the heart, and is showing signs that him may be ready to get back on the pony of love and ride.

“Can you smell the English leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man‘s shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of — a little bit of cigar smoke?”
— Chris Matthews

Like his former crush, the new one is a macho-acting Republican. And like the ex, he’s an obvious phony to anyone not smitten with him. Poor Chris. Here’s how he gushed over his new bff, the erstwhile presidential candidate, Fred Thompson:

MATTHEWS: Can you smell the English leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man‘s shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of — a little bit of cigar smoke? You know, whatever.

He has also recently flirted with Sen. John McCain, whose “jib” he said he liked (whereas about the New England preppie, Mitt Romney, Matthews said, “He’s got a nice chin, which I noticed.”)

Matthews’ long, lamented ex, of course, is Pres. George W. Bush. Here’s a snippet of Matthews’ perving on the president during the coverage of Bush’s landing on an aircraft carrier in a fighter jet, on May 1, 2003:

Here’s a president who’s really nonverbal. He’s like Eisenhower. He looks great in a military uniform. He looks great in that cowboy costume he wears when he goes West. I remember him standing at that fence with Colin Powell. Was [that] the best picture in the 2000 campaign?

And:

MATTHEWS: The president there — look at this guy! We’re watching him. He looks like he flew the plane. He only flew it as a passenger, but he’s flown —

[A PRO-BUSH PUNDIT]: He looks like a fighter pilot.

MATTHEWS: He looks for real. What is it about the commander in chief role, the hat that he does wear, that makes him — I mean, he seems like — he didn’t fight in a war, but he looks like he does.

But he wasn’t for real, and Matthews had his hopes crushed, and now it appears he’s about to make the same mistake.

Unfortunately, Fred Thompson is not the down-to-earth, Reaganesque figure he appears to be. In reality, he was a professional lobbyist for 18 years — twice as long as he served in the Senate.

Florida to Determine ’08 Election — for the Republican Party

Buck Banks

Deja-screw all over again: The GOP is going to party like it’s 2000 next year when Florida, through vote-count fraud and the machinations of then-state attorney general Katherine Harris, stole the election from Al Gore and gave it to George W. Bush. This time, however, the Democratic Party is playing the role of Harris in giving the election to the GOP.

‘Anybody who campaigns in Florida is ineligible for delegates.’
— Howard Dean

That’s the takeaway from Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean’s comments to a bunch of worried rubes from New Hampshire the other day.

“Their primary essentially won’t count, ” Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean said of Florida. “Anybody who campaigns in Florida is ineligible for delegates.”

Why? Because Florida’s Republican legislature and its Republican governor decided to move the state’s presidential primary to Jan. 29 in clear violation of DNC rules that decreed that no primary was to be held before Feb. 5.

What’s at stake here are Florida’s 208 Democratic Party delegates and its 27 electoral votes. Florida is the nation’s fourth most populous state, which is why it can swing an election. Which is why the GOP engineered the primary move — to render the Democratic Party meaningless in Florida in the upcoming election.

Which is why the Republican candidates can ignore a major Hispanic political gathering, because they know they’ll have Florida and its large, politically active Hispanic populace to itself during the campaign.

So Howard Dean is taking his cue from George Bush and is sticking by his guns and refusing to waive the DNC’s rules, effectively punishing the Democratic Party because the Republicans screwed them over by moving the primary date. Yeeaaugh!

Good Thing for Angelina Jolie That Hypocrisy is Protected Speech

Buck Banks

Angelina Jolie, who stars in the new film, “A Mighty Heart,” about murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, is promoting the movie and its pro-press freedom message while tightly controlling her own interactions with the media. At a premiere event Wednesday to benefit Reporters Without Borders, Jolie insisted that journalists sign a contractual agreement before she would grant an interview, and, according to FoxNews, tried to have the right-wing mouthpiece banned from the event.

Reporters from most major media outlets balked Wednesday when they were presented with an agreement drawn up by Jolie’s Hollywood lawyer Robert Offer. The contract closely dictated the terms of all interviews.

Reporters were asked to agree to “not ask Ms. Jolie any questions regarding her personal relationships. In the event Interviewer does ask Ms. Jolie any questions regarding her personal relationships, Ms. Jolie will have the right to immediately terminate the interview and leave.”

The agreement also required that “the interview may only be used to promote the Picture. In no event may Interviewer or Media Outlet be entitled to run all or any portion of the interview in connection with any other story. … The interview will not be used in a manner that is disparaging, demeaning, or derogatory to Ms. Jolie.”

If that wasn’t enough, Jolie also requires that if any of these things happen, “the tape of the interview will not be released to Interviewer.” Such a violation, the signatory thus agrees, would “cause Jolie irreparable harm” and make it possible for her to sue the interviewer and seek a restraining order.

Not very press friendly, eh? Associated Press and USA Today reporters refused to sign the contract and canceled their interviews. When she saw the general reaction, Jolie canceled all print interviews. It was only through the intervention of Paramount staff that a FoxNews video crew was allowed to tape the actress on the red carpet.

Reporters without border indeed.

Military Seeking a Few Good Hackers

Buck Banks

Wanted — cyber soldiers: The U.S Army and Air Force have put the word out on the street with the nation’s IT community that they are looking for some new software weapons with which to extend America’s sphere of influence in cyberspace. The guys who invented the Internet — the military-industrial complex — have asked the civilian computer industry to provide technologies they can use to wage offensive cyber attacks against enemy computer systems.

While Korea is training a generation of computer-game wizards, we’re futzing around with Howie Mandell on ‘Deal or No Deal.’

Apparently, the Army has already launched some “offensive information operations,” or OIOs, against enemy networks and communications platforms, but would not say who won or if the attacks were even successful. One does wonders because if they had won, would they be asking for help? Hmmmm.

[The Army] wants to “leverage innovative technologies” to improve its cyberattacks “and prevent enemy forces from detecting and countering efforts directed against them,” according to the announcement. “Technologies designed to interrupt these modern networks must use subtle, less obvious methodology that disguises the technique used, protecting the ability whenever possible to permit future use.”

The Air Force is more specific about its goals for upgrading its offensive cyber warfare capabilities:

The technologies would be used to “disrupt, deny, degrade or deceive an adversary’s information system,” according to the request for information. The Air Force wants technology that will help it map data and voice networks, provide it with access to those networks, conduct denial-of-service attacks on current and future network operating systems and network devices and engage in data manipulation on enemy networks.

The offensive cyberattack capabilities that the Army and Air Force want to develop match what Marine Gen. James Cartwright, commander of the Strategic Command, called for during a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee in March. He told the panel that if “we apply the principle of warfare to the cyber domain, as we do to sea, air and land, we realize the defense of the nation is better served by capabilities enabling us to take the fight to our adversaries, when necessary, to deter actions detrimental to our interests.”

While Bruce Schneir, a security consultant with BT Counterpane, endorsed the Army and Air Force efforts, he noted:

Since cyber space, unlike the physical battlefield, has connections to global networks that support commerce and communications, any offensive operations conducted by the United States must be fine-tuned to avoid disrupting computer systems that are not part of any enemy system that the military would target. That would be the cyber equivalent to collateral damage inflicted in a bombing campaign.

I’m surprised that in the six weeks that I have been hearing excuses from Bellsouth about why I can’t get DSL service at my house even though I had it there for the past five years they haven’t used the “cyber collateral damage” excuse. Maybe they are saving it for next week.

I’m not so sure I like the idea of our nation’s military becoming the mad hackers of the world. It’s one thing to fend off attacks, but quite another to unleash ballistic spam bombs on our enemies’ networks. But what I’m really worried about is whether the military really knows what enemy it’s up against. A couple weeks ago I saw a few minutes of a Korean game show where these fashionably dressed Korean teenage boys sit at computers and play a networked war game while the audience screams and waves signs and three distinguished-looking experts provide what I assume was play-by-play and color commentary.

As a nation, we aren’t anywhere near that league. While Korea is training a generation of computer-game wizards, we’re futzing around with Howie Mandell on “Deal or No Deal.”

Unless the military contracts it out to The Google, I just don’t have a good feeling about the OIOs of the impending cyber war.

Official to Limbaugh: We Don’t Have to Do Business with You

Trish

Newsflash for Rush Limbaugh: When somebody says they don’t have to contract with a station that carries your show, that’s not a First Amendment issue for you.

A Broward (Ft. Lauderdale) commissioner suggested the county not renew its contract for emergency broadcasts on a station that transmits the wisdom of the fat one, since a lot of people (like me for instance) avoid such stations for that very reason. But Rush and his supporters are crying big, Viagra-enriched tears, saying it just ain’t fair.

WIOD Program Manager Ken Charles agreed. ”It’s a shame people would let politics get in the way of saving lives during a hurricane,” he said.

Under the partnership, the station agrees to broadcast county press conferences in their entirety; the county lists the station on all its preparedness information.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Commissioner John Rodstrom brought up First Amendment concerns. ”When we start censoring what people write on radio, TV or newspapers, that is a slippery slope,” he said.

I’m not sure when the last time a county press conference saved any lives but I’ll allow as to how that could happen. One thing’s for sure though, just not doing business with somebody is not a slippery slope. Nobody’s telling Rush what to say or trying to keep him from saying it.

”We don’t have to do business with them,” [Commissioner Stacy] Ritter declared…

Ritter said Wednesday that commissioners should have made partnership deals with three stations.

”To limit it to one probably was not the way we should have gone, especially one that some people won’t listen to,” she said.

That makes too much sense, Stacy, and it looks like the rabid Rush-ites, whipped into a frenzy by their leader, have won this round. The county will likely renew the contract with just the one, Limbaugh-infused station.

But wait. I saved the best for last. What do you suppose Rush — in between whining about how mean the commission was to consider taking its business elsewhere — concluded about the matter live on the air?

“It’s just amazing to watch liberals in action. They can’t stand competition.”

UPDATE FRIDAY, JUNE 15


Broward County Commissioner, District 3, Stacy Ritter

From today’s Miami Herald:

Rush Limbaugh declared Broward County Commissioner Stacy Ritter ”a babe” on his radio show Thursday, eyeing her photo in the newspaper.

”Liberal babes are rare,” he said. “That’s why they stand out. It’s in The Miami Herald. It’s not Photoshopped.”

We can forgive Rush, however, it’s just the Viagra talkin’. — Buck

Poll: GOP Support Continues to Keep Bush Approval Artificially High at 29%

Jon Ponder

In the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Pres. George Bush has received his lowest marks on job approval ever by this polling entity: 29 percent.

In the analysis that accompanies the polling data, the low numbers are attributed to his crumbling support from Republicans:

Back in April, 75 percent of Republicans approved of Bush’s job performance, compared with 21 percent who disapproved. Now, only 62 percent of Republican approve, versus 32 percent who disapprove.

Despite mountains of evidence the George W. Bush is the most incompetent president this country has had yet, 62 percent of the members of his party continue to support him.

Bush doesn’t care what normal Americans think, and as long as he has the support of a majority of Republicans, his destructive agenda will continue, at home and abroad. The only glimmer of good news is that when he’s done, he may have hobbled his party perhaps beyond repair.