This article, originally titled "More On The Maine Republican Party's Stolen 2012 GOP Caucuses - And How It Appears They Did it...", was written by Brad Friedman and originally published at BradBlog.com
It figures. The one time we're on the road and unable to keep up with things on a minute-by-minute basis, a major election would be stolen outright. And there's not a disenfranchising polling place Photo ID restriction in the world that could have done a thing to stop the thieves.
Despite the reputation The BRAD BLOG has gained in some quarters over the years, I don't believe we have ever outright declared an election as "stolen." That has now changed as the Republican Party of Maine has blatantly stolen the 2012 GOP Caucuses in their state for Mitt Romney, as we detailed yesterday.
That fact is just the latest data point in a remarkable and rapidly expanding spate of GOP election fraud by very high profile Republicans across the nation, as we also detailed in yesterday's report.
The question now: Can it be "stolen back"?
Happily, even though we're on the road, the issue is being covered very well this time around by Rachel Maddow at MSNBC. Her coverage last night honed in on a few additional points in this remarkable story, underscoring the blatant theft and breathtaking hypocrisy in the entire embarrassing, if enlightening, affair.
Among the points she expanded on last night (several of which we'd flagged in our coverage yesterday): the call by a Maine county Republican committee for the immediate removal of the shameless and breathtakingly dishonest state GOP Chair Charlie Webster and how the state party leadership not only seems to have lied to voters about results from postponed caucuses to be held this Saturday in Washington County, but how new evidence from Waldo County suggests the party may have simply just made up "results" out of whole cloth --- and then tried to keep those fake numbers a secret from the public in order to award the race to Mitt Romney by 194 votes over Ron Paul.
All of that, remember, before an entire county --- Washington County, one of just 16 in the entire state --- has even managed to hold their caucuses and vote at all in the statewide contest.
This is remarkable stuff and perhaps made more remarkable by the fact that this isn't currently at the top of every news outlet in the nation...
Here's Maddow's full report from last night...
Of particular note in her coverage last night:
• It has never happened before this cycle that a winner has been announced in a Presidential primary or caucus only to see that result later overturned with a different winner announced instead. That happened earlier this year after the Iowa Caucuses --- when that state's GOP chair similarly announced Romney as the winner, even before all vote counts had been reported accurately --- and it may well happen a second time in Maine if the people stand up and fight for the "winner" of the election to be the one who actually received the most, ya know, votes.
• There has been a call for Maine GOP chair Charlie Webster to be fired. The Waldo County Republican Party voted to ask the state GOP committee to formerly "censure" him, after they were unable to get consensus on the call to fire him outright. Remember, Webster, in addition to prematurely announcing Romney the "winner" last Saturday night, before all of Maine's voters had even had a chance to cast their vote, is the hapless clown who, last year, went on a shameless and embarrassing bender in hopes of trying to keep thousands of legal student voters from being able to vote in Maine at all in this year's Presidential elections.
• Washington County was allegedly told the results of their postponed caucuses would be counted in the final results, originally, only to learn last Saturday night, when the state party issued its statement declaring Mitt Romney "the winner" of the 2012 Republican Caucuses in Maine, that the county's "results WILL NOT be factored into" the final certified results of the contest. When the state committee meets on March 10 (several days after Super Tuesday on March 6), in addition to voting to censure Webster as requested by the Waldo County GOP, the committee could also do the right thing and decide to factor in Washington County's results after all.
• The GOP reported zero votes in a number of towns that, in fact, had reported their votes correctly. Is this what the party did across the state? Never mind Washington County, which is set to vote this Saturday, but did Paul already beat Romney even before Washington votes?
A closer look at this last point is in order, as it demonstrates potential malfeasance beyond simply ignoring voters who have yet to cast their votes. It suggests the Maine GOP deliberately falsified the numbers they reported last Saturday.
In our coverage yesterday, we reported on comments posted to a Ron Paul supporter website from Matt McDonald, the chair of the caucus in Waldo County's town of Belfast. He had claimed that when he called the GOP to give the numbers from his caucus (where Paul had won), they told him that their numbers showed Romney winning there instead.
more
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/577-neocons-caught-red-handed-st...
