cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

via digby, yet another repubbblican hypocrite is being sent up the river for sex crimes…this time with underage boys.  oc weekly:

jeffrey ray nielsen-the well-connected orange county conservative activist who claimed the so-called liberal media, specifically the weekly, was out to get him by publishing a series of exposés on his pedophile activities-finally admitted on dec. 5 that he used two boys for sex since the early 1990s.

in open court, a somber nielsen, who has extensive personal ties to congressman dana rohrabacher and orange county republican party boss scott baugh, gave superior court judge david thompson signed guilty pleas acknowledging two felonies: committing lewd acts on a 12-year-old virginia boy and 14-year-old orange county boy.

in exchange, nielsen, 37, received a three-year prison sentence, which is relatively mild considering he faced more than a decade in state prison if convicted of the 16 charged crimes. on jan. 14, nielsen must enter del amo, a los angeles county sex-offender facility, for a maximum of 12 weeks. shortly after he completes that program, he will be transferred to an unknown state prison. state law requires that he complete at least 80 percent of his sentence before being released back into society. he must also register as a sex offender for life.

the oc weekly’s piece discusses the close ties this pervert nielsen had w/rep. dana rohrabacher, as well as efforts by the orange county’s newspaper of note, the register, to whitewash nielsen’s peccadillos and attempts to bolster nielsen’s image in the community.

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

we have noticed, as of late, a disheartening trend in various comments and blog posts around blogtopia*. several writers have seemingly fallen into the dumps because things are progressing as progressively as progressives would like. they cite the dems’ refusal to discuss impeachment, the iraq defunding which looks to be dead in the water, and the general tendency of those in charge to ignore the common citizens they are supposedly hired by to run things.

however, we here at skippy international are feeling pretty good about things, and we wish that the rest of you in blogtopia* would join us. after all, there are several major accomplishments that have come to fruition recently, all of which were done, if not completely, then certainly with major efforts, by the netroots.

to start with, blogs and bloggers really came into their own as true-to-life journalists with the libby trial. thanks to the kids at firedoglake, and to marcy wheeler (also known as “emptywheel “…and maybe some day she’ll explain what the hell that screen name means), as well as swopa of medianeedle, jerlayn merritt of talkleft and margie burns for bradblog (plus others we have surely missed, and our apologies if we have), the idea of blogs as actual journalism came into existence.

where before blogs were seen mainly as an outlet for cranky powerless people to whine, suddenly it was proven that they could be used as an outlet for cranky powerless people to disseminate information on a national level at a level far deeper and wider in scope than any electronic media, and most dead trees media.

– – more after the jump –

dan froomkin, and admitted fan of blogs, said on a washpost.com q&a:

i think what firedoglake.com did with this trial was not just impressive, it was transformative. by offering the public live-blogging of this very important trial, you not only put the msm to shame, but actually became a must-read for journalists who couldn’t attend the trial, but wanted to get a better and faster sense of what was going on than they could from their own colleagues.

i’m not saying that the msm should emulate everything bloggers do — far from it — but the blogosphere’s enthusiasm for this story was something to behold, and admire.

now, we here at skippy international had little to do with the libby coverage, short of a recurring photoshop, but just the very fact that several blogs made history by making journalism with this story should be an inspiration to everyone in blogtopia*.

and another recent event that bloggers can be proud of is the recent and effective backlash against annthrax coulter.

we will grant you that it wasn’t just the blogs that were responsible for the dissemination of annthrax’s f*ggot moment. for once, the mmm did its job and spread the word about her ill-conceived attempt at humor at the cpac convention.

but we would posit that the mmm, which took a few days before actually pouncing on the story, were spurred on by the relentless coverage annthrax got on the blogs, both the left and right.

it was, however, the lefty blogs that put together the action alerts, and the blog readers (you) were the ones that implemented them. media matters led the charge w/email addresses and other contact info of the papers that ran annthrax’s column. other blogs, like the daily background, put together email cc’s for quick use.

thanks to the work of those and other blogs, and of you, the people that wrote into these organs, at least 9 papers have dropped annthrax’s column, and others could follow.

lastly, but not leastly (in fact perhaps mostly), the reason we can cheer is the role which blogtopia* played in the nevada state democratic party’s decision to not allow fox news to broadcast the reno debate among presidential candidates.

moveon.org was forefront in the effort to convince the nevada state dem party, and other blogs contributed as well, but we must give mad props to matt stoller of mydd. we have not always agreed w/matt on several things, but for this we admire and salute matt’s work in rallying blogtopia* to write and email and call (and fax) sen. reid and the nevada dems.

the impact of bloggers making the case of fox’s severe partisanship is of paramount importance in the landscape of national media. this is perhaps the first time that it has been spoken out loud on a national stage the fact that fox news is a definitive partisanship organ, and it certainly is the first time that consequences derived there from have occurred.

of course, several other factors influenced this decision. john edwards announced he wouldn’t attend the debate, and members of the nevada state dem executive board including michael zahara worked diligently from within the party to change the original decision.

but the netroots are not only a major factor in the change, but are getting all the blame now as well. this in and of itself is an interesting development. irrespective of whether or not it’s true, the conventional wisdom now holds that blogtopia* is a force to be reckoned with.

and we would agree. the cumulative effect of these three instances of success shows that, as a political force, we have now had major impact on the national political and journalistic scene. this is something we can be proud of; this is something to cheer about.

granted, there’s still plenty of work to to be done. the dems are turning out to only have very starchy shirts and no spines whatsoever when it comes to iraq. there is still talk of the congressional black caucus holding its debates on fox news. and, face it…there is still mountains of stupidity out there to contend with.

but there are definitely signs of progress. and we should all be incredibly proud of our work and give ourselves a collective pat on our backs. we have shown that democracy can work on a citizen level, and there is power in blogtopia*.

and *yes. we coined that phrase.

(Elections for sale! Elections for sale! Diebold’s offering them up at bargain basement prices! – promoted by SFBrianCL)

cross-posted at skippy as well as a literal cornucopia of other community blogs.
skippy the bush kangaroo attended the townhall meeting for voting accountability tonight in venice, calif, hosted by the lovely bradblog, and featuring a plethora of speakers who had a strange combination of both a lot of bad news and inspiration for the 100 or so citizens who showed up.

our report after the jump:

rob cohen, documentarian of the film votergate (name change imminent…tho we kind of like “de-voted,” the crowd went for “hacked”) showed a small clip of his movie, currently in production.

in the clip, bev harris of black box voting was seen visiting patty newton, a poll worker in san diego for the recent california 50 busby-bilbray election. patty told bev that after a brief afternoon of training, the poll workers were literally handed the voting machines and told to take them home and store them there until the election a few weeks later.

patty showed bev the garage where she stored her charges, and explained that all the poll workers had to do to receive the machines that would decide the fate of san diego county’s senatorial concerns was sign a piece of paper. but don’t worry, folks, there was an official seal over each of the voting machines: a xerox of the county registrar’s seal stuck on with sticky paper. talk about security!

the lovely bradblog gave some good news: that looney tinfoil hat wearing lefty communist lou dobbs has been reporting on the widespread problems with election machines, under the banner “democracy for sale.”

as an example of the problems inherent with electronic voting, bradblog told the story of harri hursti who proved the diebold machines were hackable with the mock election held in leon county, florida, in december of 2005. 6 mock voters voted “no” and 2 voted “yes” to the question “can diebold machines be hacked via their memory card?” the voters retained their paper ballots. but when the results were run thru the optical scanner, the machine tallied the votes as 1 “yes” and 7 “no’s.” no, there’s no problem with diebold!

more problems with the san diego elections: cal. sec. of state bruce macpherson re-certified diebold machines, even tho the software contains “interpretive code,” which is strictly forbidden by section 19250 of the fec guidelines. of course, skippy has reported on macpherson’s sneaky re-certification.

next, the wonderful actress and chair of the progressive democrats of america, mimi kennedy, took the microphone (you know her as dharma’s mom). mimi warned everyone that the propaganda will start coming hard and heavy against all our efforts, such as the la times completely unsourced and citeless sunday column “the gop knows you don’t like anchovies.” mimi pointed out how incredibly difficult it would be to have accomplished, over one weekend, the voter outreach and absentee ballot distribution that the column attributed to the gop, even with a data base and plane tickets.  she warned that the media will be doling out propaganda to make voting activists depressed, and feeling as if our efforts were not worth the trouble.

but, mimi mocked the very imagery that the paper ascribes to the gop’s efforts.  “the voter vault?” she asked.  “it sounds like a superman comic book.  with dick cheney in his fortress of solitude!”

“but,” mimi concluded, “they are not invincible.  the rule of law is their kryptonite.”  she received a standing ovation.

next marci winograd, who gave jane harman a run for her money, let everyone know the “help america vote act,” the registrars of every county is obligated to hold quarterly meetings with any citizens who want to attend and ask questions (skippy plans on being at the next one for los anageles).

marci also warned against the concept of “voting early,” which is being offered in some parts of the country (for instance, here in los angeles).  tho voters are asked to believe that coming into the polling place and voting a few days early is more convenient, what they aren’t told is that the diebld tsx machines being used have a 30% failure rate.

this issue affects everyone.  during the course of the evening, bradblog played a clip of the roger hedgecock radio show he appeared on, during which ultra-conservative roger (who subs for rush) agreed 100% with bradblog, “that if we have any bedrock notion in this country, it ought to be that the votes be fully and fairly counted.”

other speakers were jeeni criscenzo, darryl issa’s upcoming opponent, who said that when someone steals a vote, they steal the essence of democracy; they’re not a thief, they are a traitor, and judy alter who told of the various lawsuits being brought against the various registrars who violate election laws.

this townhall “train,” as they so metapoorically put it, will be chugging down to san diego on wednesday, to convene at the oceanside civic center on 330 n. coast highway at 7 pm (with a rally at 6pm).  we urge anyone and everyone in so socal to go there and hear these speakers.  it will make you angry.

when all is said and done, this issue could be primarily the most important that we are facing today (even more than net neutrality).  all the blogging in the world about all the political machinations is not going to do any good for anyone if our votes are not accurately counted.  skippy international is proud and happy to stand with the blogs who insist on talking about this elephant in the room.

(at this point we must also give bradblog a big thanks for using his podium on the townhall stage to single out skippy in the crowd and plugging our humble blog as one of those working on this issue.  we are happy to do our part.  but don’t worry, skippy reciprocated by giving bradblog and bradblog’s girlfriend each a complimentary skippy tee shirt!)

we must have accountable elections, we must have methods that are auditable, we must have a process in which the entire country can trust, and most of all, we must make sure democracy is safe for future generations.

(A diary Chevy would be proud of… – promoted by SFBrianCL)

jane harman, who is facing a challenge from newcomer marcy winograd in her home district of venice california, is also facing a challenge from the democratic leadership (yes, we know it’s an oxymoron) to rotate ms. harman off of her seat on the house intelligence (another oxymoron) committee. the latimes:

the dispute pits the venice lawmaker against house democratic leader nancy pelosi of san francisco. its outcome could determine what role harman, who once ran for california governor and is one of the most quoted democrats on intelligence matters, will play in the next congress — if she is reelected.

pelosi has informed colleagues that she intends to force harman to step down, replacing her with rep. alcee l. hastings of florida, the second most senior democrat on the intelligence panel.

if democrats take control of the house in the november midterm elections, which some polls indicate is possible, they will name the next chairperson of the intelligence committee, which became one of the most important congressional panels after sept. 11.

we take interest in this because skippy international headquarters lies within jane’s district…tho to be honest, we are supporting her challenger, marcy winograd.

jane is running some highly visible ads here in los angeles of herself sitting at a desk taking aWol to task for warrantless wire-tapping (she’s the one taking aWol to task, not the desk). she doesn’t care if it’s “inconvenient for the president,” she tells us, it’s illegal and she intends to do something about it.

sure, now that marcy is actually gaining traction in her bid to upset jane in next month’s primary, jane is all hot and bothered about aWol and his friends at at&t. a report from impeachpac tells us:

in a startling upset, winograd supporters blocked california democratic party endorsement of harman, a six-term incumbent, at a pre-primary endorsement meeting. winograd got 35 percent of the delegates’ votes, enough to prevent harman from gaining the 70 percent needed for an automatic party endorsement. a floor fight is anticipated at the state convention april 28, where either candidate could win the state party endorsement by capturing a 60 percent margin.

jane managed to get the endorsement on april 30, but apparently not without breaking a sweat. so it’s no wonder that jane is talking tough against the “leaker-in-chief,” as she calls him. but as tom hayden over at the huffpo points out, this is a new stance for jane:

it’s no secret that harman is the center of democratic friction. she was one of a handful of congressmembers invited into the secret white house briefings on what has mushroomed into a major scandal: the launch of domestic spying by intelligence agencies without warrants. the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee, harman promised the white house to keep secret what she heard at the meetings.

she could have been a whistleblower, but chose not to be.

she could have refused the unconditional promise of secrecy, but chose not to.

she could have resigned the secret committee without comment, letting her silence do the talking, but chose not to.

left to harman, the spy scandal would still be a secret today. it was the new york times, not democratic leaders, who first broke the silence and secrecy.

harman actually approved the spy program in her initial comments, then sought a legal opinion before commenting further.

with the nedmentum running high on the right coast, we here on the left coast are feeling pretty optimistic about marcy’s chances (even gore “f*ck norman mailer” vidal publically supported marcy at the latimes festival of books last month).

we’ll see what happens. even if jane keeps her seat, at least the heat is making her start to act like a democrat.