Tuesday, March 4, 2008

New Mexico GOP embroiled in vote-buying scandal

With scandals like the phone-jamming saga in New Hampshire, Republicans have proven themselves to be the champions of election fraud. Because the entire Republican Party today is a fraud, we shouldn't be surprised.

Now the Republicans in New Mexico have been caught in a vote-buying scandal at their own nominating conventions - and media giants have tried to silence any reporters who dared to report on it.

Laura MacCallum, a news anchor at powerful radio station KKOB-AM in Albuquerque, quit her job because the right-wing station management pulled her stories about the scandal. The station was caving to pressure from Heather Wilson's Senate campaign. A Wilson spokesperson called the station to complain about the stories, which reported that the campaigns of Wilson and other powerful right-wing big shots paid delegates to vote a certain way.

The vote-buying was an unethical effort to lock out challengers to Wilson and to Darren White's congressional campaign.

MacCallum, a respected longtime journalist, criticized KKOB's decision to bow to pressure by Wilson. "Should we just be doing the Heather Wilson news? And as soon as we make her angry she's going to call and start giving everybody trouble?" she said. Judging by Wilson's past tantrums, she probably will call and give everybody trouble. This is the same Heather Wilson who threw a shitfit because she wasn't placed at the front of the parade at the state fair.

A memo from a KKOB higher-up (in all lowercase) said the story wasn't valid because other news outlets hadn't picked it up yet. This is the station that bills itself as New Mexico's news leader? Imagine if every news outlet waited to report a story until after every other news outlet reports it. Then they'd have an awfully long wait to report anything! Naturally KKOB is also the local affiliate for Rush Limpballs, Sean Inanity, and Michael Sewage.

I don't believe for one minute that KKOB would have waited to report this story if it involved Democrats instead.

The Republican vote-buying - which was witnessed by several public officials who objected to it - is a fourth-degree felony in New Mexico.

(Source: http://f-brilliant.blogspot.com/2008/03/kkob-radio-news-anchor-laura-maccallum.html)

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