I meet Brian Dunkiel , a dem lawyer from Burlington, VT. He is on the observer team. He is about 30, sharp, witty and "gets it". In wrap around shades he informs me in a whisper that he is also doing an NPR audio report about the election down here. I tell him I am writing for this blog. I take some photos of the crowd. He freaks."Don't let the republican poll watchers see you. They've been getting the Sheriff's men on any photog they see. We saw one guy arrested moments ago."

No one knows if this is legal or not. But it is clearly intimidating. The Repubs do not want these long lines to be seen. However, the oddity is that tons of news crews are video taping with impunity. I resort to my Motorola V-300. I took a shot of two poll observers inside. These democratic lawyers were about to get involved in my case, but pulled back when they realized I had it under control.

MSNBC: Los Alamos whistle blower silenced by beating?

Tommy Hook has a pending lawsuit against the University of California alleging whistle-blower retaliation. He had been scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee later this month about alleged financial irregularities at the nuclear weapons lab.

"They left him in the parking lot for dead," Hook's lawyer, Robert Rothstein, said Monday at a news conference.

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I think this answers Buchanan and Liddy's question.

MSNBC: Tom DeLay fuming at Law & Order Season Finale

Here's the video clip from L&O "Criminal Intent" that has Tom hopping mad.

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Andrew Tobias

Frank: “After listening to this audio clip, I feel so sad for our country’s morality and my children’s future. Our country has become a curse for the world’s underclass.”

Ours is the greatest country that ever was. We are rightly proud of so many things. But anyone who has studied history knows we have never been perfect and often, far, far from it. It is not anti-American to try to see ourselves accurately and hold ourselves to a high standard. In fact, nothing could be more American.

In that spirit, you may find the above-linked audio worth your time. You knew about slavery and about our treatment of the American Indian; you have your opinions about how grateful to us the Vietnamese should or should not be.But in this interview, John Perkins gives us even more to ponder.  Could some of this be true?
",0]);D(["ce"]);D(["ms","4869"]);//--> But in this interview, John Perkins gives us even more to ponder. Could some of this be true?

Nightline: Janice Karpinski says Rumsfeld knew about Abu Ghraib

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Download | play -WMP this is from ABC World News Tonight

She's mad as hell and is not going to take it anymore.

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Here's the audio form today's conference call with Speaker Pelosi about the release of the House bill.. Sorry, I'm a bit under the weather so I don't have the blow by blow, but I was able to get on the call and record it for you. She didn't know if she would allow amendments to the bill, but was against the idea. There were a few questions from bloggers that followed.

(I edited out just a few minutes because there was a technical problem when the conference service tried to connect bloggers to ask their questions.)

UPDATE I: To members of the media, please credit Crooksandliars.com if you use any portion of this audio. Thank you in advance.

UPDATE II:

mcjoan has a great write up of the conference call: Pelosi: House Bill is a "Manifestation of Rejecting Business as Usual"

Because there has been conflicting information this morning on whether amendments would be allowed for the bill, I asked Speaker Pelosi if that decision had been made. As of yet, she says she's been too busy getting the bill melded to focus on that, but that she "would have to be talked into it," but isn't closed. The fly in the ointment on amendments is Rep. Bart Stupak and threat to team up with Republicans "unless Democratic leaders allow a floor vote on an amendment that would add new restrictions on the use of federal funding for health plans that cover abortion with private dollars."

This complicates the issue of the single payer amendment that Rep. Anthony Weiner was promised he would be able to offer. When Chris Bowers asked about it, Pelosi said that she would be meeting with Weiner and Rep. Kucinich today or tomorrow. Additionally, Rep. Grijalva is continuing to push for the robust public option.

"I am not rolling over. I will insist on a Medicare-plus-five amendment on the Floor so that the full Caucus can vote on it. We are hopeful that the Rules Committee will allow this amendment, which has tremendous public support, to be voted on for the record."

Leadership, including Rules Committee chair Louise Slaughter, are going to have some interesting needle-threading to do on the rule for floor action and the amendment process on this one. The schedule has not yet been determined completely. It will be available for the next 72 hours for all members to access, then will be submitted as the manager's amendment Monday morning. Floor action could begin as soon as next Thursday. She said that it's possible to have a vote before Veterans Day, Nov. 11, but as of yet that's not decided.

We just had some audio problems on the Bill Maher clips. Hopefully they will be back up soon!

Media Matters:

Following the publication of the April 20 New York Times front-page article on the hidden ties between media military analysts and the Pentagon, the Department of Defense has released to the public numerous documents regarding the analyst program. One of the documents released is an audio recording of an April 18, 2006, meeting that several military analysts attended with then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. During the meeting, one of the attendees tells Rumsfeld, "[W]e get beat up on television sometimes when we go on and we are debating" and says that he would "personally love" for Rumsfeld "to take the offensive, to just go out there and just crush these people so that when we go on, we're -- forgive me -- we're parroting, but it's what has to be said. It's what we believe in, or we would not be saying it." The individual adds: "And we'd love to be following our leader, as indeed you are. You are the leader. You are our guy." The transcript released by the Pentagon does not identify the person who made this comment; the Pentagon has provided this list of "confirmed" "[p]articipants." Media Matters for America has documented the consistent unwillingness of most of the outlets mentioned in the Times article to discuss the military analyst story.

Will media outlets try to determine if they have hosted the person who asserted that Rumsfeld was "our guy" and suggested that he would "parrot[]" Rumsfeld's statements?

Media Matters provides a list of all those attending the meeting that day. The Times article quotes one ABC analyst, Gen. William Nash, as being "repulsed" by the meeting and most of its attendees, but clearly there are others only too happy to play this psyops game on the American people.

On a quick note, I really appreciate all the dynamite tips C&Lers send me throughout the day. I couldn't do this without you, but I also get a lot of emails that instruct me to go here and or look this up with no explanation or context. I receive 500-700 emails a day and I always just delete those emails. I don't have time to track down the meaning of them all. I haven't said this before and I should have already.

If you have a tip or an article that you want me, Nicole or anyone from C&L to read, please include the url and the body of the article with a good title in the subject line so I don't miss it and can take a look at it while I'm going through my inbox. I don't want you to waste your time and effort...And I'm sorry I haven't had the time to respond to as many as I used to.

Also, feel free to send me any video or audio clips with a short write up that you find too. I'm always open to a little help from my friends. Just let me know how you'd like to be identified for the hat tip...

Download (2190) | Play (4261) Download (1104) | Play (2395) (h/t billw audio amplified)

OK, this response by MSNBC's VP for Communications Jeremy Gaines does nothing to clear this up and actually raises more doubts about that ghostly whisper.

"We had some audio issues and Gov. Romney's mike wasn't working momentarily. Simple as that," MSNBC VP for Communications Jeremy Gaines said in a one-line e-mail response to questions about overheard whisper.

So how did a malfunctioning mic whisper a little help to Romney? Wonkette has a theory...

What exactly was that weird, whispery voice we heard between last night’s question to Mitt about Reagan and Social Security and Romney’s answer? Either Ronald Reagan is giving help from beyond the grave or Mitt was wearing a wire.

AmericaBlog: Romney's creepy earpiece

During Gov. Romney's speech, one of his handlers mentioned to one of our staff people that any time Gov. Romney needed to wrap things up, he would be happy to let Gov. Romney know through the ear-piece that he wore.