One person offered some fascinating guesses with Patrick answering nope.
I tweeted my guess.
Patterico soon came out and said one person had guessed correctly. I then tweeted him with my own puzzlefication in an attempt to prod from Mr. Frey if he meant moi. Unfortunately, his twitter schtick usually contains "can neither confirm nor deny" type responses. He is akin to a puzzle book with no answers in the back.
I must come clean. Myself and the Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney were involved in a conspiracy. Uhm, not a criminal one. Conspiracy is actually not the correct word. I was just playing around with prose. I'll explain in a bit.
Patrick tweeted a little while ago:
Well, I think he's saying that was when Mandy came out with her article, and that now we are looking at the bizarre aftermath.
Back to the uhm, er, conspiracy. Myself and Patrick were basically into figuring things out such as the Connell hoax, Larisa Alexandrovna's vouching for some double secret Speedway bombing exoneration, etc.. Since I'd gotten the headstart on him, I shared links and whatnot.
Now, I definitely know the difference between a scoop and discussing things available to anyone. There's also a third realm of blogging in which we can share things with the public that are not much visible. I'm not gonna get into parsing the differences in regards to what I wrote. I am an unpaid blogger. Everything I have ever written has been for free. I was not scooping the Connell Threatened by Karl Rove story as a hoax. Many people were quite aware that was 100% bunk. Where I differed was in how I cybersleuthed the various people and connections pertaining to the hoax and generated commentary based on such. One of them was Cliff Arnebeck. Another was Lori Grace.
I now believe Lori Grace was an innocent victim. She is the heiress to the Oliver Grace fortune who provided a lot of funding to Velvet Revolution. She meant well. She wanted clean elections and felt the easiest way to make this a better world was to open up her checkbook.
Brad Friedman had accumulated a lot of gravitas as an internet "citizen journalist" and activist. Unless one dug deep, it was difficult to see that had been built up on fiction. Cliff Arnebeck is a semi-famous attorney. And since Mark Singer's book came out well before the internet took off, there wasn't much available on the speedy truth.
I used to blog at BradBlog and liked him. I thought he was the bestus of the restofus. It is human nature to fall for manipulators who tell us what we want to hear. Unforunately for them, it takes lie upon lie and mucho card stacking to keep the facade alive. I eventually saw through Brad's bag of tricks and set out to expose him for yellow journalism leading to donation and ad revenue.
I don't have a psychology degree and am thus mostly incapable of deducing who is an outright fraud from someone who's been duped. That can take a lot of wash cycles. Now I can see that Lori was a complete victim. In early 2009, I found an intriguing article at her blog. Today I noticed it is no longer available
It's not even available through the Wayback Machine.
But here is what I have that was originally copied and pasted. Somewhere I probably have the complete page saved, but this should suffice.
...As many of you know, I have been involved in tracking the unpopular topic of election fraud since 2003. I have been particularly involved in the neglected area of tabulator fraud....
I played a major role in enabling Barbara Boxer (D-California) to feel comfortable on January 5th, 2005 standing up to protest the 2004 presidential election on the Senate Floor. I helped her feel comfortable by listening closely to her aides about what she would need to stand up, and then, by working on providing her with it during December 2004. Boxer wanted to be connected with a federal congressperson in Ohio. With the help of Susan Truitt of CASE Ohio, I connected Boxer with Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio). Boxer later wrote a letter stating that it was her connection with Tubbs Jones that was pivotal in her desire to stand up and speak her truth in the Senate on this particular issue. I also commissioned the Free Press to write a story about the elections, which I circulated on January 4th, 2005 in the U.S. Senate building when we were lobbying senators to stand up and protest how the 2004 elections had gone. That story became the basis for talks in Congress that both of these women made on January 5th.....
In 2007 and 2008, through my work with Velvet Revolution, I became aware that plans were afoot to once again steal a third Presidential election. Two people from the McCain campaign, one who went public, Steven Spoonamore, and another, who decided to remain within the McCain campaign, both complained to Bret Kimberlin about the tabulator fraud that was being set up to steal the election. In fact, the computer genius who had worked for Rove and the Bush family was also working as the chief technical officer for John McCain and political strategist, Karl Rove. Bret Kimberlin and I worked for many months to try to stop the rigging from occurring. One of the actions I took, at the advice of a lobbyist, was to connect a lawyer, Cliff Arnebeck, who I had worked with peripherally on election issues in 2004, with Bret Kimberlin. Mike Connell was eventually included in a lawsuit that had been started in 2005, and then stopped in 2006, charging Rove, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, Bush and Cheney with the stealing of 2004. With the advent of new information, the 2006 stay on the case was lifted and Mike Connell was added to the lawsuit. The judge who had lifted the stay did not let us include Rove before Election Day; hopefully, Rove will be prosecuted in the lawsuit during the next few months. Mike Connell avoided the subpoenas for a week and then, finally, cooperated when the court compelled him to appear at a hearing the Friday before Election Day. On Monday, the day before Election Day, he was compelled to give his deposition. He appeared on Monday and was considered "obstructionist" in his responses and protective of Rove.
You might ask, "How did all of this affect what happened on Election Day?" Here is how: First, in late June, McCain announced that he would win in the last 48 hours. We started to be concerned then, because that is often the time when tabulator fraud starts to take place. Additionally, on the Monday one week before Election Day, he said that he would win after midnight, a clear sign of tabulator fraud by our standards. I became really concerned then. We had also been told by the whistleblower Spoonamore, in September, that McCain was set to win by approximately 51.5% to 48.8%. On Tuesday, the day after McCain made that announcement, the courts ordered Mike Connell to appear that Friday. On Thursday evening, we learned that he would be at the hearing. We rejoiced. He did appear at the hearing and listened to another man being given a lighter sentence in a fraud case by cooperating with the government. Connell was ordered to appear on Monday. On Saturday, three days before Election Day, I heard about another tip from an informant within the McCain campaign who said that the rigging would not take place if the polls were showing more than 3% difference between McCain and Obama in key swing states. On Monday, Rove announced that it was going to be an Obama landslide — the first time he had said anything of the sort. Mike Connell gave his deposition on Monday, where he resisted giving any information which implicated Rove.
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT ROVE APPEARS TO HAVE BASICALLY CHANGED HIS MIND OVER THE WEEKEND. BETWEEN THE HEARING AND THE DEPOSITION AND THE RISING POLL NUMBERS FOR OBAMA, HE DECIDED TO CALL IT OFF. In other previous elections, such as the election in Georgia of Max Cleland in 2002, Kerry in 2004, and Governor Seligman in 2006, differences were slightly over 3% or higher and the rigging still took place. We know that Rove and Connell were nervous about the lawsuit because we were able to track them reading our website http://www.rovecybergate.com. They were studying the website for close to a year. Additionally, Steven Spoonamore had left the McCain campaign and had submitted two affidavits to the courts, the second one after Mike Connell had been avoiding the subpoenas. There was a lot against them. And there still is. It is important to know that the vulnerabilities of our election system are still in place for another year. According to cyberexpert Steven Spoonamore, the system is vulnerable not only to Republicans, but also to Democrats, and to people outside the country, due to how easy it is to break into our tabulator systems.
So, in summary, my friends, what I did that I am so proud of is the following: I assembled about three-quarters of the main team. I brought together activist Bret Kimberlin with whistleblower Steve Spoonamore. And then I brought together activist Bret Kimberlin with Cliff Arnebeck, the lawyer with a background in election law; he had the ongoing lawsuit in Ohio with a favorable judge and district attorney on the stealing of 2004. I can only call this DIVINE NETWORKING.
After bringing everyone together, I could not help but continuing as an activist and important funder and fundraiser for the whole effort. I am very proud of myself for what I have done. I have helped create a country I am much more comfortable living in.....
Bring a snack or dessert to share and a towel if you wish to use the hot tub (swimsuit optional) after the evening is officially over.
My love to you all,
Lori
