Exclusive: Former NM Gov. Says State Officials Investigation Republican Vote-Buying Charges

[BradBlog]

Source: BRAD BLOG

Exclusive: Former Republican Governor Says New Mexico State Officials Investigating Rep. Heather Wilson Vote-Buying Charges; Says Republican U.S. Congresswoman 'Shrugged' at Allegations When Confronted With Them
News Director of Albuquerque's KKOB Offers New Reason for Spiking Stories; Anchorwoman Who Resigned in Protest Dismisses New Excuse, Says Powerful Station Buckled Under Pressure from Wilson's Campaign
BRAD BLOG Obtains Scripts of Original Spiked Radio Reports...

32-year award-winning news veteran and New Mexico's ABC field producer, Laura MacCallum quit her job as afternoon anchor at Albuquerque's 50,000-watt blowtorch KKOB-AM 770, after she read an email from her News Director, Pat Allen, which said, among other things, "if there was anything to it the bloggers would have picked this up, let alone other news agencies."

Allen was referring to MacCallum's on-air, investigative reports covering allegations of a vote-buying scheme by New Mexico's U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, at a recent Republican Delegate Convention. The 1st Congressional District Congresswoman is vying for her party's nomination to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated this year by the outgoing Pete Domenici. MacCallum ran the stories about the charges on KKOB several times, in several different variations --- including several different interviews and sound bites from both the former Republican Governor of New Mexico, David Cargo, an eye-witness to the story --- and a current spokesman for the state GOP, Scott Darnell.

The BRAD BLOG has obtain the scripts of those original spiked reports (posted at the end of this article), though the complete audio is said to have been "dump...to make room for new stuff," according to Allen tonight.

The BRAD BLOG has now spoken at length to Allen, MacCallum, NM's former Gov. Cargo, as well as several others involved with the story and/or looking into it for further details. Suffice to say, contrary to Allen's memo, "the bloggers" have now picked this up, and, according to MacCallum and other sources, so have several of those "other news agencies" that Allen referenced in his email.

Moreover, Cargo tells us today that the charges of felony vote-buying are now under investigation by both the Secretary of State's office, as well as the state Attorney General. Further, he told us of his confrontation with Wilson about the allegations some weeks ago. Her response to the charges left the former Governor "stunned"...

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5768

Read more: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5768

[SpiralHawk]

1. Heatherrrrrr, you republicon homelander, you

You shrugged because you know the republicon cronies have packed the judicial system with other republicon cronies, didn't you?

Why are republicon cronies so amoral and corrupt?

[NM Independent]

2. YES!!! Investigation time

I hope she gets what's coming to her. Cuffs and jail time, or is that going to happen on a 4th degree phelony?

REC THIS PLEASE!!!

She is running for Senator Domenici's Senate seat which is being vacated early. Dems can take one back earlier than expected, so Rec and keep this one where everyone will know about it. If it spends enough time in the net news, eventually the MSM will pick it up.

Thanks Brad Blog!!!!

[Judi Lynn]

3. Really, REALLY hoping the Sec. of State & the Attorney General won't stop until the get to the truth

about this pathetic situation.

Thanks for the info. It concerns everyone.

[NM Independent]

6. I have faith in Gary King

He is our AG, and he is known for being very intolerant of political corruption no matter who it is. He almost didn't get elected because he went after a Dem pretty hard (well deserved I might add). I don't think he would even cave if Rove himself called his office and told him his career will be ruined (which is what I think Rove did to the station manager, and I KNOW Heather did to the station manager).

[Judi Lynn]

7. It would explain why Allen was so insanely determined to ditch the story if he's simply a weak,

ambitious idiot who wants to take the easy way out, and was actually being pressured by Washington.

Otto Reich, who used to run Ronald Reagan's "Office of Public Diplomacy" was known to threaten entire networks when they didn't run stories which contained the appropriate level of Reagan propaganda, and he conducted smear campaigns against individual reporters. Doesn't take long to recognize there was a lot of Rove in that guy!

Thanks for the observations on Gary King for those of us who don't know anything about him.

[Ian David]

4. Viva La Streisand Effect! n/t

[BradBlog]

5. Just out of curiosity...

What does that mean? "La Streisand Effect"?

[Ian David]

8. Streisand effect

Streisand effect
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The "Streisand effect" is a phenomenon on the Internet where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized. Examples are attempts to censor a photograph, a file, or even a whole website, especially by means of cease-and-desist letters. Instead of being suppressed, the information sometimes quickly receives extensive publicity, often being widely mirrored across the Internet, or distributed on file-sharing networks.<1><2> Mike Masnick said he jokingly coined the term in January 2005, “to describe increasingly common phenomenon.”<3> The effect is related to John Gilmore's observation that, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."<4>

Etymology

The term Streisand effect originally referred to a 2003 incident in which Barbra Streisand sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for US$50 million in an attempt to have the aerial photo of her house<5> removed from the publicly available collection of 12,000 California coastline photographs, citing privacy concerns.<6><7><1> Adelman claims he was photographing beachfront property to document coastal erosion as part of the California Coastal Records Project.<8> Paul Rogers of the San Jose Mercury News later noted that the picture of Streisand’s house was popular on the Internet.<9>

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

[BradBlog]

9. Thanks for the explanation, Ian! (NT)

[Ian David]

10. NP. On an unrelated note, did you have a chance to look into this?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2953256&mesg_id=2953256