Siegelman: 'Electronically Stolen' 2002 Election

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5889

Former AL Gov. Don Siegelman Says Media Ignoring Details of His 'Electronically Stolen' 2002 Election
Has Given Story to 60 Minutes, Dan Abrams, LA Times, WaPo... All Have Failed to Report His Allegations While Covering Other Aspects of His Story...
Posted By Brad Friedman On 11th April 2008
Election Irregularities, Election Fraud, Alabama, Election 2002, Mainstream Media Failure, Don Siegelman 14 Comments

Still paging Dan Abrams...

The following email comes from Mark Crispin Miller, NYU media professor, and author of the landmark election integrity book, FOOLED AGAIN [1].

It includes an email exchange from yesterday with the finally-free-on-bond former Democratic Governor of Alabama Don Siegelman, concerning his allegations that his 2002 election was electronically flipped.


Yesterday I emailed Don Siegelman, as I had a few matters to discuss with him.

Here's the crucial part:

At 12:12 AM -0400 4/9/08, Mark Crispin Miller wrote:

The other, more important thing is this: As you may or may not know, the one aspect of your long ordeal that the press has stubbornly refused to mention -- or, I think, even to perceive -- is the theft of that election in 2002. Like you, I believe that that was crucial; but the press, quite typically, won't mention it. Frankly, I believe that they, and most leading Democrats, are in denial about it, as its implications are too frightening. Just as they've looked away from all the evidence of vast election fraud throughout Bush/Cheney's reign, therefore, they've also looked away from the subversion of that gubernatorial race in Alabama. And so that chapter of your story is unknown to most Americans, even those who've lately heard the rest of it.

Here is his reply:

Mark, I mention the vote stealing in every interview. 60 Minutes cut it out. Don Abrams didn't want to go there either. I have told the story to the Washington Post and LA Times.

The hook is Rove's fingerprints are found there too. First, in that Rove's friend Jack Abramoff hires Dan Gans,was in charge of " electronic ballot security" in Baldwin County, Alabama,where the votes were stolen. Gans, working for the Alexander Strategies Group, claims credit for the win on his website, which he then takes down when Abramoff gets arrested. The second is Rove's business partner, Kitty Mc Cullough (a/k/a Kelly Kimbrough) is given credit for the electronic vote switch by the state Republican Party.


I asked Don if I could send that out, and he said yes ("Have at it"). So now I offer it to you. If you're an election reform activist, please start your (search) engines. If you're a journalist, please do your job. And if you're just another patriotic citizen, please do whatever you can do to get the press, and/or the Democratic Party, to pay heed.

For starters, how about asking "60 Minutes" why they "cut it out," and asking Dan Abrams why he "didn't want to go there either"? And since Don also told the Washington Post and LA Times about the theft of that election, how about we ask them, too?

This stuff will just keep on happening, until we make it dangerous to do such things.

MCM


So, um, yeah...what's the holdup these media outlets have in reporting on this? This is a state Governor, for crying out loud, making these allegations, about his own 2002 election. Isn't that newsworthy enough? Particularly given all the evidence to suggest he was later seriously railroaded, framed and sent to prison in AL by his opponents?

Oh, and then there's the fact that the DoJ --- in an unprecedented move --- ordered control of Alabama's elections to move from the Democratic SoS over to the Republican Governor's office (the same Republican Gov. that Siegelman accuses of stealing the '02 election) in 2006, as we discussed in some detail [2] recently.

One would think Siegelman's allegations themselves --- just the fact that he's making them --- would be newsworthy. God forbid any of the corporate media folks he's spoken with go out and do any actual investigation on them.

Seriously.

URLs in this post:

[1] FOOLED AGAIN: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FFooled-Again-Real-Electoral-Reform%2Fdp%2F0465045804%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1207937569%26sr%3D8-1&tag=tbb-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325

[2] we discussed in some detail: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5878

60 Minutes broadcast on prosecution goes dark

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/60_Minutes_broadcast_on_prosecution_of_0225.html

60 Minutes broadcast on prosecution of Alabama governor goes dark in some Alabama cities
02/25/2008
Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna

CBS' 60 Minutes broadcast Sunday regarding the alleged political prosecution of Democratic Alabama governor Don Siegelman went dark in the northern third of Alabama last night. According to WHNT-TV, the local CBS affiliate, the issue was caused by a technical malfunction.

"We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring a report titled, 'The Prosecution of Don Siegelman,'" a WHNT story said.

CBS News – which owns 60 Minutes – denied any problem on their end.

Scott Horton of Harper’s magazine reported late last night that CBS was directly pointing back at the local outlets as the cause of the problem.

“I contacted CBS News in New York and was told that “there is no delicate way to put this: the WHNT claim is not true. There were no transmission difficulties. The problems were peculiar to Channel 19, which had the signal and had functioning transmitters.” I was told that the decision to blacken screens across Northern Alabama “could only have been an editorial call.”

WHNT, Channel 19 of Huntsville, Alabama, issued a press release shortly after the broadcast.

"We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring "The Prosecution of Don Siegelman."

It was a techincal (sic) problem with CBS out of New York. We are working with them right now to see if we can re-broadcast the segment.

Please be patient with us during this time. We are doing our best to correct the problem.

After Horton's report, Channel 19 issued another account of the problem:

We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring a report titled, "The Prosecution of Don Siegelman."

NewsChannel 19 lost our program feed from CBS. Upon investigation, WHNT has learned that the CBS receiver that allows us to receive programming from CBS failed. WHNT engineers responded as quickly as possible to restore the feed at 6:12 p.m.

Our sincere apologies to our viewers across the Tennessee Valley.

The network said they would re-air the broadcast during the newscast at 10pm. Whether this occurred could not be confirmed.

The interview is available on the CBS website.

The White House has put pressure on CBS to kill the show, those close to the case say. Journalists covering the story have been attacked. The case's most prominent whistleblower, Dana Jill Simpson, recently testified, under oath, to Congress about Rove's involvement in politicizing the Bush Justice Department.

Her house mysteriously caught fire after she came forward.

WHNT in Huntsville Alabama was purchased by Oak Hill Capital Partners from the New York Times Company early last year. Oak Hill is owned by the Bass brothers, Bush fundraisers at the “Pioneer” level – raising over $100 thousand for the Bush-Cheney campaigns in 2000 and 2004. Lee Bass is perhaps the best known member of the Bass family for his role in George W. Bush’s failed energy venture called Spectrum 7 and later for his bailing out of Harken Energy.

The Oak Hill connection emerged last night on Democratic Underground.

RAW STORY has been at the front of the Siegelman story, and was the first to reveal detailed information about former Bush Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove's role in the scandal.

Rooney Off Base With 'Racist' Baseball Column?

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003631355

Andy Rooney Off Base With 'Racist' Baseball Column?
By E&P Staff
Published: August 27, 2007

NEW YORK Andy Rooney, the writer and "60 Minutes' humorist is known for being crotchety. But a Tribune Media Services column last week has drawn the ire of some who claim it crossed the line into racism.

In explaining why he didn't really like baseball, Rooney admitted, “I know all about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, but today’s baseball stars are all guys named Rodriguez to me....They’re apparently very good but they haven’t caught my interest.”

Latino players now make up a high proportion of big leaguers.

“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have said it,” Mr. Rooney, 88, tells The New York Times for a story today. “It’s a name that seems common in baseball now. I certainly didn’t think of it in any derogatory sense.”

He added, “That’s what I do for a living, I write columns and have opinions, and some of them are pretty stupid.”

The Times notes: "The column drew immediate criticism in the blogosphere. One sports blog, http://www.foulballs.net/, called Mr. Rooney a 'senile idiot,' while another, firejoemorgan.com, blasted both 'the racism' and 'the wrong-ness' of what he wrote. Mary Elson, managing editor for Tribune Media Services, said Mr. Rooney’s editor did not think the comment touched Imus territory. 'We try to give our columnists a great deal of latitude. This just wasn’t considered going over the line,' she said."