March 2007

Last week, two election workers in Ohio got sentenced to 18 months in prison for rigging a recount in the 2004 presidential election. Now our new Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner has asked the election board members to resign or be fired:

All four election board members for Cuyahoga County, troubled by recount rigging charges and voting machine problems, have been told to resign or face being fired, a state official said Monday.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said she called the four board members of Ohio's most populous count late Sunday, asking them to leave by the close of business Wednesday.

The county, which includes all of Cleveland, has had difficulty adjusting to electronic voting. Last May's primary, the first attempt at electronic voting in the county, was marred by absent or poorly trained poll workers, lost vote-holding computer cards and a polling place that opened hours late

If these convictions would have come down 6 months ago, nothing would have happened on the state level. This is what happens when you got a proactive Secretary of State, as compared to Ken Blackwell, who did nothing.

Gee ya think?

Fired San Diego U.S. attorney Carol Lam notified the Justice Department that she intended to execute search warrants on a high-ranking CIA official as part of a corruption probe the day before a Justice Department official sent an e-mail that said Lam needed to be fired, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday.

Feinstein, D-Calif., said the timing of the e-mail suggested that Lam's dismissal may have been connected to the corruption probe.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse denied in an e-mail that there was any link.

"We have stated numerous times that no U.S. attorney was removed to retaliate against or inappropriately interfere with any public corruption investigation or prosecution," he wrote. "This remains the case and there is no evidence that indicates otherwise."

Today will be very interesting. Another big document dump is coming and everyone is predicting some more damaging evidence.

I posted earlier this week about Cincinnati billionaire Carl Lindner and his deep pockets for the GOP. As you recall, Lindner was the CEO of Chiquita during the time they were supporting terrorist organizations in South America. In that post I directed the readers to Newsmeat to check out Carl's past donations. I also noted that his name was spelled as Linder and Lindner. I wasn't sure about the reason for this, and thought it may have just been a typo. Well thanks to a reader of IntoxiNation, we find out it may very well not be a typo, but rather an attempt to bypass the caps on donations. City Beat, a Cincinnati publication, has the details on their blog:

Lindner, his wife, sons and other family members are well known as big-money political campaign contributors, mostly to conservative Republican candidates and causes including President Bush. A review of documents filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), however, show that the family also gives money to candidates under the similar name of “Linder.”

The pattern of listing campaign contributions without the second “n” in the family’s name isn’t limited to one or two reports, and appears to be a pattern going back several years.

According to documents filed with the FEC, it’s not just one “Linder” error, and it’s not just Carl Jr.’s last name being misspelled repeatedly; the same error shows up with a variety of other Lindner family members, including his wife, Edyth, and his son, Carl III.

He was going to get right to the bottom of it! Sure he was:

Dr. James Knodell, director of the Office of Security at the White House, told a congressional committee today that he was aware of no internal investigation or report into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame.

The White House had first opposed Knodell testifying but after a threat of a subpoena from the committee yesterday he was allowed to appear today.
Knodell testified that those who had participated in the leaking of classified information were required to attest to this and he was not aware that anyone, including Karl Rove, had done that.

He said that he had started at the White House in August 2004, a year after the leak, but his records show no evidence of a probe or report there: "I have no knowledge of any investigation in my office," he said

Hell why should they investigate? Bush knew damn good and well who leaked it and who directed it. Instead he wanted to put on this show of outrage and spend millions for Fitzgerald to investigate. Sounds like Congress now needs to investigate Bush further.