{"id":14646,"date":"2023-04-26T18:33:18","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T01:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14646"},"modified":"2023-04-26T18:58:21","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T01:58:21","slug":"gop-vote-fraudsters-secretly-plot-with-donors-top-state-election-officials-to-suppress-voters-bradcast-4262023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/?p=14646","title":{"rendered":"GOP Vote Fraudsters Secretly Plot with Donors, Top State Election Officials to Suppress Voters: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 4\/26\/2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_Mitchell-VonSpakovsky-Adams-Blackwell_042623.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">Today on <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>The BradCast<\/i><\/a>: Their positions on actual issues are wildly unpopular. Their phony culture war issues are bombing. Is it any wonder the GOP&#8217;s best chance may now simply be to prevent their opponents from being able to cast a vote at all?<\/p>\n<p>On today&#8217;s program&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>MICKEY MOUSE GOVERNOR:<\/b> The Walt Disney Co. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/business\/business-news\/disney-sues-ron-desantis-over-reedy-creek-control-rcna81587\">sued<\/a> <b>Florida<\/b> Gov. <b>Ron DeSantis<\/b> today in response to &#8220;a relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint unpopular with certain State officials.&#8221; That, after the company dared oppose the official state position in favor of banning free speech in schools. <\/p>\n<p><b>COW GOES MOO<\/b>: A Donald Trump-appointed federal judge has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2023\/04\/25\/devin-nunes-libel-suit-esquire-hearst-00093844?utm_source=substack&#038;utm_medium=email\">tossed out<\/a> libel lawsuits filed by doofus Rep. <b>Devin Nunes<\/b> (R-CA) against an Esquire journalist and its publisher for reporting  that the wingnut former Congressman turned Trump social media CEO&#8217;s family farm &#8220;knowingly&#8221; employed hundreds of undocumented workers. The judge found the reporting to to be &#8220;substantially, objectively true.&#8221;  Almost all 10 of the similarly ill-considered suits Nunes filed against perceived opponents in 2019 have now been dismissed. Only two of them, against anonymous Twitter accounts named &#8220;Devin Nunes&#8217; Mom&#8221; and &#8220;Devin Nunes&#8217; Cow&#8221; remain. <\/p>\n<p><b>BOARD SILLY:<\/b> While progressives scored big in marquee contests during the April 4 elections &#8212; liberals won a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years, and former teacher and union member Brandon Johnson became Chicago&#8217;s mayor &#8212; far-right <b>MAGA school board candidates<\/b> running on phony culture war issues &#8220;flamed out&#8221;, according to Politico, in both <b>Illinois<\/b> and <b>Wisconsin<\/b>. They didn&#8217;t do much better last November, even in &#8220;red&#8221; states like <b>Missouri<\/b> and <b>Oklahoma<\/b>. But GOP operatives apparently plan to keep choking the same chicken in elections later this year and in 2024, even as voters appear to prefer funding schools and keeping kids safe at them, over banning books, stifling free speech, and cancelling LGBTQ kids.<\/p>\n<p><b>WOULDA WON BUT FOR THOSE MEDDLING (VOTING) KIDS!:<\/b> Last week, longtime GOP attorney and vote suppressor <b>Cleta Mitchell<\/b> was caught in an audio recording <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lawindsor\/status\/1649075730687352833\">obtained by Undercurrents&#8217; Lauren Windsor<\/a> at a GOP donor event in Nashville, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/the-reidout\/reidout-blog\/cleta-mitchell-recording-college-voting-rcna80918\">discussing plans to &#8220;combat&#8221; young voters<\/a> by preventing them from voting on campuses in Virginia, North Carolina and elsewhere. She even vowed that Republican lawmakers may be able to eliminate 45 days of early voting and same day voter registration if they played their cards right, and kept giving money to her insidiously named &#8220;Election Integrity Network&#8221;. If Mitchell&#8217;s name is familiar, it&#8217;s because she was on that infamous January 2021 phone call with <b>Donald Trump<\/b> hoping to strong-arm the <b>Georgia<\/b> Sec. of State into &#8220;finding&#8221; 11,000 votes to steal the state&#8217;s Presidential election from <b>Joe Biden<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p><b>SEND IN THE CLOWNS:<\/b> It&#8217;s bad enough to push secret vote suppression schemes to GOP donors. It&#8217;s <i>reprehensible<\/i> for top state <b>Republican election officials<\/b> to participate in such schemes. But that&#8217;s exactly what happened at a so-called &#8220;Secretaries of State Conference&#8221; sponsored by the far-right <b>Heritage Foundation<\/b> and other anti-democracy groups in February. Documented, a nonprofit watchdog organization, obtained <a href=\"https:\/\/documented.net\/media\/heritage-foundation-secretaries-of-state-conference-agenda\">the agenda for the secret conference<\/a> in which only <i>Republican<\/i> Secretaries of State were invited to participate. <\/p>\n<p>It was led by longtime, notorious GOP &#8220;Voter Fraud&#8221; fraudsters and liars like <b>Hans Von Spakovsky<\/b>, <b>J. Christian Adams<\/b>, <b>J. Kenneth Blackwell<\/b> and perhaps <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsfromthestates.com\/article\/us-elections-official-takes-part-secretive-gop-conference-sparking-backlash\">most shamefully<\/a>, current U.S. Election Assistance Commissioner <b>Donald Palmer<\/b> (appointed to the bipartisan federal agency by Trump). They all schemed with top election officials from 13 GOP-controlled states &#8212; including the chief election officials from <b>Indiana<\/b>, <b>Florida<\/b>, <b>Mississippi<\/b>, <b>Missouri<\/b>, <b>Montana<\/b>, <b>Tennessee<\/b>, <b>Virginia<\/b> and <b>West Virginia<\/b> &#8212; in a secret, off-the-record two-day confab. <\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re joined today to discuss this appalling revelation by <b>JAMIE COREY<\/b>, a <a href=\"https:\/\/documented.net\/author\/jamie-corey\">Senior Researcher at Documented<\/a> who, with <i>The Guardian&#8217;s<\/i> <b>Ed Pilkington<\/b>, <a href=\"https:\/\/documented.net\/reporting\/rightwing-groups-join-forces-to-woo-election-officials-in-republican-states\">exposed the entire pathetic affair<\/a>, which, as Von Spakovsky insisted in an email she obtained, was &#8220;not a public event. It is a private, confidential meeting of the secretaries.&#8221; &#8212; Well, the Republican ones anyway, the ones who are supposed to run both state and federal elections in a non-partisan way. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;According to the event invitation we obtained, this is actually the sixth year in a row that they&#8217;ve held this event,&#8221; says Corey. &#8220;And they have privately bragged &#8212; Hans has &#8212; to donors that they are excited that it&#8217;s just for conservative Secretaries of State. No Democrats allowed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Voters should be concerned when you have election officials participating in a private, confidential meeting with former Trump associates, top voter suppression proponents, and groups who have been actively pushing false claims around elections,&#8221; she explains. &#8220;As the agenda pointed out, there was a cocktail reception and dinner after the first day of substantive sessions wrapped up. So what you have there is top election officials, who are going to be overseeing the 2024 Presidential Election in their respective states, wining and dining with all these problematic people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>WHAT&#8217;S GOING ON?:<\/b> Finally, after a few breaking news headlines, we&#8217;re joined by Desi Doyen for <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14644\">our latest <i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a> as the Biden <b>EPA<\/b> launches a landmark effort to curb power plant carbon pollution; as Earth hits grim new records; as <b>President Biden<\/b> opens an office of environmental justice in the White House; and as the <b>U.S. Supreme Court<\/b> does something right for a rare change. Are they okay?<\/p>\n<p><b>SHOW NOTE!:<\/b> We&#8217;re off tomorrow for unavoidable reasons. As <b>Tucker Carlson<\/b> once said, see ya next week!&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\".\/Images\/Speaker_Icon_24.png\" style=\"width: 24px; float: none; vertical-align: middle;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;\"> <b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman-DisneyDeSantis-NunesSuitTossed-MAGASchoolBoardFlop_JamieCorey-GOPVoterFraudMeets_042623.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><center><b>* * *<\/b><\/center><i>While we post <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><\/i>The BradCast<i><\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they&#8217;re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/id803467610\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pandora.com\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/PC:1000025838\">Pandora<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9icmFkYmxvZy5jb20vcG9kY2FzdGdlbi9icmFkY2FzdC9mZWVkLnhtbA\">Google<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-BradCast-w-Brad-Friedman\/dp\/B08JJRN86R\/ref=sr_1_1\">Amazon<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/podcastgen\/bradcast\/feed.xml\">our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><center><i><b>* * *<\/b><\/i><\/center><center><\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\">\n<tr style=\"background: blue; color:white;\">\n<td width=\"50%\"><center><span class=\"footnote\"><b>MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION<\/b><\/span><\/td>\n<td width=\"50%\"><center><span class=\"footnote\"><b>ONE-TIME DONATION<\/b><\/span><\/center><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border: 1px solid blue;\"><center><\/p>\n<form action=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/cgi-bin\/webscr\" method=\"post\" target=\"_top\" style=\"margin-top:-3em; margin-bottom:2em;text-align:center;\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"cmd\" value=\"_s-xclick\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"hosted_button_id\" value=\"9PMSTMCJK9B3E\"><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"on0\" value=\"Choose monthly amount...\">Choose monthly amount&#8230;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><select name=\"os0\"><option value=\"$10\">$10 : $10.00 USD &#8211; monthly<\/option><option value=\"$20\">$20 : $20.00 USD &#8211; monthly<\/option><option value=\"$50\">$50 : $50.00 USD &#8211; monthly<\/option><option value=\"$100\">$100 : $100.00 USD &#8211; monthly<\/option><\/select> <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"currency_code\" value=\"USD\"><input type=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.paypalobjects.com\/en_US\/i\/btn\/btn_subscribe_LG.gif\" border=\"0\" name=\"submit\" alt=\"PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.paypalobjects.com\/en_US\/i\/scr\/pixel.gif\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"><\/form>\n<p><\/center><\/td>\n<td style=\"border: 1px solid blue;\"><center><\/p>\n<form action=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/cgi-bin\/webscr\" method=\"post\" target=\"_top\" style=\"margin-top:0em; margin-bottom:2em;text-align:center;\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"cmd\" value=\"_s-xclick\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"hosted_button_id\" value=\"K5A5LX7J6WTHQ\"><input type=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.paypalobjects.com\/en_US\/i\/btn\/btn_donateCC_LG.gif\" border=\"0\" name=\"submit\" alt=\"PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.paypalobjects.com\/en_US\/i\/scr\/pixel.gif\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"footnote\">(Snail mail support to <b>&#8220;Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028<\/b>&#8221; always welcome too!)<\/div>\n<p><\/center><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today on The BradCast: Their positions on actual issues are wildly unpopular. Their phony culture war issues are bombing. Is it any wonder the GOP&#8217;s best chance may now simply be to prevent their opponents from being able to cast a vote at all? On today&#8217;s program&#8230; MICKEY MOUSE GOVERNOR: The Walt Disney Co. sued [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[675,1829,948,1082,1630,1845,1611,392,1851,680,477,1365,1238],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bradcast","category-cleta-mitchell","category-devin-nunes","category-disney","category-election-2022","category-election-2023","category-election-2024","category-hans-von-spakovsky","category-heritage-foundation","category-j-christian-adams","category-kpfk","category-pollution","category-ron-desantis"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}