DOWNLOADS: (117)

PLAYS: (501)

Embed

Ken Blackwell, the Republican former Ohio Secretary of State who presided over President George W. Bush's 2004 win, on Tuesday suggested that "groups that turn out high numbers of voters" -- instead of restrictions on early voting -- were to blame for long lines in African American precincts.

During an election night appearance on MSNBC, Blackwell explained that the county boards of elections had not deliberately placed too few voting machines in black precincts.

"They have to make practical decisions," he told host Chris Matthews. "They make decisions based on turnout patterns of elections, they put those voting machines and then what happens? There's tremendous organizational effort by Democrats and various groups, labor groups. And they get a great turnout. What does that cause? That causes long lines. Nobody is out there deliberately trying to suppress the vote."

"There are people deliberately trying to suppress the vote, let's get that straight," Matthews interrupted.

"I think there was a tremendous turnout in African Americans," Blackwell insisted. "Did they have to stand in line? Yes. Why? Because there was a tremendous organizational effort to turnout the vote."

MSNBC host Al Sharpton pointed out that Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted had worked to cut back early voting hours, including the Sunday before election day when many African Americans go to the polls.

"He did end up cutting early voting hours," host Rachel Maddow agreed. "In terms of the state of Ohio right now, part of the reason there's long lines is that early voting hours got cut after they tried to cut early voting days. So we don't need to put that on you, that wasn't your decision, but that is what happened in the state."

"I thought it was a bad move to try to take away -- to try to block the tradition of voting on the Sunday before elections," Blackwell agreed. "That was his call. But the reality is we've had long lines due to the success of groups that turn out high numbers of voters."

From Democracy Now, once again Amy Goodman's the only one out there reporting on Rove's stolen elections and the death of Mike Connell when he was about to testify against Rove about what they did on Ohio. Here's another reminder of how disgusting it is that Rove is out there gaining power again instead of sitting in a jail cell: Inside Karl Rove’s Secret Kingdom: Craig Unger on Stolen Votes, Political Attacks, Billionaire Ties:

In a new book, author Craig Unger examines the return of Karl Rove, the man who masterminded the rise of George W. Bush from governor of Texas to a two-term presidency, who advised Bush during two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who was at the center of two of the biggest scandals of the Bush administration: the Valerie Plame Wilson affair and the U.S. attorneys scandal. While Rove was almost indicted for the Plame affair, he has reinvented himself to become the most powerful political operative in America. Heading up the American Crossroads super PAC and the affiliated nonprofit, Crossroads GPS, Rove has built up a war chest that has given Mitt Romney a significant cash advantage in the fundraising race with President Obama. In "Boss Rove: Inside Karl Rove’s Secret Kingdom of Power," Unger writes that Rove’s ambitions are not simply about winning elections, but represent "a far more grandiose vision — the forging of a historic re-alignment of America’s political landscape, the transformation of America into effectively a one-party state.

Full transcript available at the link above.

DOWNLOADS: (177)

PLAYS: (1408)

Embed

This has to be one of the most pathetic things I've watched in a long time and given the crazy train that the Republican Party has become in recent years, that's saying a lot. Here's more from Ed Kilgore over at Washington Monthly: A Classic of Inversion:

If for some reason you can’t access this video, it’s an ad from famous African-American right-wingers Ken Blackwell and Herman Cain attacking Eric Holder for failing to protect the right to vote by refusing to pursue the hallucinatory New Black Panther Party voter intimidation “threat” and by persecuting poor Rick Scott, who’s just trying to protect the “integrity” of the ballot box. This rolls out after images from the civil rights movement and a pious statement from the duo about the hard-fought right to vote.

This ad is the most striking example yet of the peculiar psychological need of conservatives to convince themselves that when they are messing with minority folks they are actually warriors in the fight for civil rights, while the self-same minority folks are self-hating bigots and/or helpless pawns in the grip of white elites. I mean, really: they could just admit they want to discourage African-Americans from voting because they tend to vote for the wrong party, or that they’d oppose “welfare” whether or not a case could be made that it is victimizing its beneficiaries. All this bizarre self-righteousness and parading of minority spokespeople in communications clearly aimed at a virtually all-white audience is getting downright pathological.

Here's more from Wonkette: Herman Cain, Ken Blackwell Team Up For Most Ludicrous Video Ever:

Herman Cain and Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state who STOLE THE 2004 ELECTION WITH MACHINES, have teamed up to produce this video about the Right to Vote. They do so by criticizing the Justice Department’s attempts to ensure black people can vote in the face of new laws that are clearly trying to suppress black turnout. And how could DoJ also refuse to pursue the New Black Panther Party scandal? Herman Cain and Ken Blackwell would have pursued it, for civil rights.

DOWNLOADS: (241)

PLAYS: (1764)

Embed

Bob Schieffer sat down with a panel that could rightfully be called "Meet the Republicans" on this week's Face the Nation and asked his panel of Ken Blackwell, Ed Rollins, Liz Cheney and Ed Gillespie what they thought about Rick Perry's bizarre Cornerstone speech that left so many people wondering if he was drunk or on drugs after watching it.

Ken Blackwell, a Perry supporter, naturally tried to blame the response to the speech on the fact that it was edited down to seven to three minutes on You Tube depending on which version someone happened to watch. I hate to break it to Ken Blackwell, but watching the entire video really doesn't make it any better.

Schieffer asked Ed Rollins if he thought this would harm the Perry campaign in the same manner as the now infamous "Dean scream" harmed the Howard Dean campaign. Rollins didn't think it would but didn't think Perry was going to come out of this unscathed either. And Liz Cheney basically attacked him for even bringing it up at all.

Ed Gillespie tried to paint a happy face on whether this would harm Perry or not as well and said the difference between what happened to Howard Dean and this event with Perry is that people were watching Howard Dean live and unedited. How badly this does end up harming the Perry campaign, time will tell, but the talking heads and pundits as we saw here sure are going to do their best to make sure the media continues to ignore or gloss over the speech and just how truly bizarre his behavior was.

Full transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (1939)

PLAYS: (9307)

Embed

In the wake of the Mark Sanford revelations, Chris Matthews gets Ken Blackwell to concede that the Republican Party is not morally superior to the Democratic Party. It's nice to see the hypocrisy of the "family values" party being called out for once.

From Hardball April 8, 2009. Ken Blackwell tries to make up for being clueless by not shutting up when he has no idea what he's talking about. He's so outgunned by Hitchens that this is hardly a fair fight. I'm surprised Blackwell even agreed to this debate at all.

Blackwell said he'd gladly come back and debate Hitchens again with some facts to back up his talking points. Anyone want to take odds on whether that will ever happen?

Blackwell's tactics in this segment are typical for Republicans. When someone tries to stop you from lying, get snitty and accuse them of trying to "Bogart" your time if they interrupt you, as he did here. Then talk and talk to run out the clock in these ridiculous debate boxes the MSM thinks passes for some sort of "balance". Once you've run out as much of the time for the segment as you can get away with, the other person has thirty seconds to try to debunk the last few minutes of B.S. you just spewed. Which of course they can't do. And then...oh so sorry we're out of time from the host. Come back later and we'll do it again.

D.L. Hughley talks to Peter Beinart and Bay Buchanan about Bush's exit speech, the future of the Republican party and the spinelessness of Harry Reid. Bay Buchanan as usual has about as little introspection as George Bush. I commend Hughley for managing to get through a segment with her and not allowing her to talk over everyone the entire time. Hughley is spot on with what's wrong with Harry Reid and the Democratic establishment. I think Hughley is also right about Obama in the sense that he's already showing himself to be more of a leader than Bush ever was, but that's a pretty low bar to hurdle. It goes without saying that the higher bar will be whether he can clean up the mess he's inherited.

DOWNLOAD (80)

PLAY (231)

You Tube

From Grover Norquist's RNC Chairman debate. I swear watching this thing was like being able to watch a car wreck in slow motion. You know you shouldn't look but somehow you just can't take your eyes off of it. During one of Grover's "lightening rounds" the group of potential heads of the RNC are asked who their favorite and least favorite Republican Presidents are. They all of course pounce on Reagan as their favorite...lol. They'd have raised his dead corpse up this last election to run if they'd thought the voters would have gone for it. But when asked who was the worst Republican President most of them had a bit more trouble answering the question.

Hey here's one for you.....GEORGE BUSH. Blackwell actually gets some applause for this statement:

Hoover because he opened the door to big government and activism and I think that unfortunately President Bush in the last few months has opened up the door to Mr. Obama's big government...activism.

So what Hoover did wrong was to open the door for FDR to come in behind him and have the public support for the ability to try to clean up his mess? I see Hooverism is still alive and well in the Republican Party.

DOWNLOAD (47)

PLAY (250)

You Tube

In his opening statement at Grover Norquist's RNC Chairman debate, Ken Blackwell proclaims that he "knows how to win elections". I would digress Mr. Blackwell and say that you've instead shown a willingness to help steal them. And what is one of his solutions for future Republican victories? Redistricting. Good old Republicans. If you can't win fairly win by hook or by crook.

I've got to wonder how Blackwell and Steele felt sitting there with Chip Saltsman during this event especially given that Steele slammed Saltsman for his Barack the Magic Negro stunt.

DOWNLOAD (390)

PLAY (545)

(Warning, large files.)

From Democracy Now Dec. 22, 2008.

AMY GOODMAN: A top Republican internet strategist who was set to testify in a case alleging election tampering in 2004 in Ohio has died in a plane crash. Mike Connell was the chief IT consultant to Karl Rove and created websites for the Bush and McCain electoral campaigns. He also set up the official Ohio state election website reporting the 2004 presidential election returns.

Connell was reportedly an experienced pilot. He died instantly Friday night when his private plane crashed in a residential neighborhood near Akron, Ohio.

Michael Connell was deposed one day before the election this year by attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis about his actions during the 2004 vote count and his access to Karl Rove’s email files and how they went missing.

Velvet Revolution, a non-profit investigating Connell’s activities, revealed this weekend that Connell had recently said he was afraid George Bush and Dick Cheney would “throw [him] under the bus.” Cliff Arnebeck had also previously alerted Attorney General Michael Mukasey to alleged threats from Karl Rove to Connell if he refused to “take the fall.”

Well, Mark Crispin Miller joins us now, a professor of media culture and communication at New York University, the author of several books, including Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008 and Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too. Mark Crispin Miller joins us now in our firehouse studio.

Transcript to follow.

Continue reading »