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Latest Featured Reports | Monday, March 18, 2024
Corporations 'Taking a Bazooka' to NLRB, Hoping to Declare it 'Unconstitutional': 'BradCast' 3/18/24
Guest: Labor journo Steven Greenhouse; Also: Putin's 'election'; Trump can't find $450M...
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FEATURING: Moses Mike...Trump II Terror...TikTok Truth...and more in our latest collection of the week's most secular toons!...
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'Green News Report' 3/14/24
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FL bans heat protections for workers; Methane leaks continues; Repubs' Project 2025 would ban Paris Climate Agreement; PLUS: CA snowpack is back, but too late for the salmon...
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After Accountability for Fraud, What's Next for the Corrupt NRA and Gun Safety Reforms?: 'BradCast' 3/13/24
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Biden's Bold SOTU, Britt's SOTU Border Lies: 'BradCast' 3/11/24
Listeners ring in on that, Brad's hack of Daylight Saving Time and more...
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SCOTUS 14.3 Ruling a 'Sham' Says Group That First Raised Issue: 'BradCast' 3/7/24
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GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...

Criminal GOP Voter Registration Fraud Probe Expanding in VA
State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...

DOJ PROBE SOUGHT AFTER VA ARREST
Arrest of RNC/Sproul man caught destroying registration forms brings official calls for wider criminal probe from compromised VA AG Cuccinelli and U.S. AG Holder...

Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...

ALL TOGETHER: ROVE, SPROUL, KOCHS, RNC
His Super-PAC, his voter registration (fraud) firm & their 'Americans for Prosperity' are all based out of same top RNC legal office in Virginia...

LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
So much for the RNC's 'zero tolerance' policy, as discredited Republican registration fraud operative still hiring for dozens of GOP 'Get Out The Vote' campaigns...

'Fired' Sproul Group 'Cloned', Still Working for Republicans in At Least 10 States
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...

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Another visit on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture with new news on several developing Election Integrity stories...

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RICK SCOTT GETS ROLLED IN GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) sends blistering letter to Gov. Rick Scott (R) demanding bi-partisan reg fraud probe in FL; Slams 'shocking and hypocritical' silence, lack of action...

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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...

Demands Congress Hold Bush/Cheney Accountable, Stop Another Ill-Conceived War Before It Starts!
By Brad Friedman on 3/19/2006 11:35pm PT  

This morning (Sunday), lawmakers and members of the media in Washington D.C. opened the Op/Ed section of the Washington Post to find VelvetRevolution.us' latest ad waiting for them.

VR is calling on both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to perform their Constitutional Duty and hold the criminal Bush/Cheney Administration accountable for their actions. As well, they must stop the reckless drumbeat towards War in Iran before we find ourselves in yet another disastrous foreign policy debacle.

Bush and Cheney, through their incompetence and dishonesty have lost the right to be trusted for any foreign policy decisions, much less the decision to start yet another unnecessary, unprovoked war in yet another country. It's time for Congress to draw a line in the sand against the Bush/Cheney administration and for the people to stand up and make sure they hear us!

-- The full ad, in a size large enough to read the complete text, is here.
-- A resizable PDF version is here.
-- A petition to demand Congress peform their Constitutional Duty to hold the Bush/Cheney Administration accountable for their actions and stop the march towards yet another ill-conceived war is here.
-- Donations to VR, to help us continue our no-holds-barred ad campaign, can be made here.

Please spread the word! And thank you for the support!

(DISCLOSURE: The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution.us ... and couldn't be prouder.)




By John Gideon on 3/19/2006 4:18pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, of VotersUnite and VoteTrustUSA

The "DVN Top 5" is a feature in the weekly voting newsletter of VoteTrustUSA. The March 13 edition can be found here. The selection of what will be the "Top 5" for each week and where it goes on the list is all mine. The fact that you may disagree with my choices is great because it shows that you have been reading the DVN articles that I've posted throughout the week here on The BRAD BLOG!...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Brad Friedman on 3/19/2006 1:02pm PT  

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By John Gideon on 3/18/2006 5:10pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Today has been a slow day for voting issues news. Humboldt Co. has taken one step closer to getting Vote-PAD for their voters with disabilities. Mississippi SoS Clark is traveling the state touting his choice of Diebold TSx. Soon the counties will realize they were duped into buy a voting system that will end up costing them large amounts of money in technical and maintenance fees....

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Two 'Accu-Vote' 'OpTech' Machines Confiscated for Examination by Attorney General After Results Fail to Add Up
(Just Another 'Glitch')
By Brad Friedman on 3/18/2006 3:39pm PT  

ED NOTE: Diebold's Charles "Buck" Jones has sent us an email about the following story, with a scan of a correction published by the Union Tribune concerning the following story. The "Accu-Vote" machines referred to in their story, as originally reported below, are actually "Optech IIIp" optical-scan machines made by ES&S, not by Diebold. The complete correction, reportedly published by the Union Tribune, is posted at the bottom of this blog item. We appreciate the information from Mr. Jones, and only wish that Diebold was as responsive to answering questions and clarifying the mountain of problems and failures in their own machines as they are with ES&S's. We are also delighted to see that Diebold follows BRAD BLOG's reporting so closely. Even on a Saturday.

======

Diebold's hackable Accu-Vote (Hack-U-Vote?) machines fail again.

ES&S's "OpTech" (Op-Wreck?) machines fail again.

From New Hampshire's Union Leader on Thursday...

Grafton --- No matter how you do the math, 193 "yeas" plus 198 "nays" don't add up to 369 votes.

That faulty equation --- results of a warrant article vote from Tuesday's election ballot --- was the first clue for Grafton town officials that something was wrong.

As a result, two voting machines used to collect ballots in the annual town and school district meetings are now in the custody of the Attorney General's Office, removed from the town yesterday, said Grafton Selectman Jennie Joyce.
...
She said the voting machine showed no signs of malfunctions during two pre-election tests --- most recently one week prior to the election.

It's notable, by the way, that the Union Leader's story refers to the "Accu-Vote" machines being confiscated, but never mentions the maker of the machines --- in this case, Diebold. (Actually, ES&S, and the machines were "Optech" machines instead. See the clarification below.)

It's unclear from the story whether these were optical-scan or touch-screen machines, but apparently there is some paper that can be counted to get an accurate count of the election, instead of an "Accu-Vote" count of the election. According to the article, "Joyce said she is in favor of recounting ballots, both by hand and by machine." --- so it would seem there is something to actually go back and count.

And yes, the problem is referred to as a "glitch" at one point in the story. As it always is. This time in reference to a heretofore unknown issue (at least to us) concerning "dip switches" on these machines...

McDow, who is trained to operate the voting machine, said she learned more after placing a call yesterday to LHS Associates of Methuen, Mass., the company that services the town's Accu-Vote machine.

"They told me one of the dip switches let go, or the problem had to do with one of the dip switches not being set --- that's what LHS told me after I read them the information from the tally sheet," McDow said.

The toggle switch glitch likely caused some ballots to be counted twice, McDow said.

The "Glitch" that Would Destroy American Democracy. Cuz we let it.

UPDATE: According to a Diebold employee who notified The BRAD BLOG (see the Ed Note added to the top of this article) the Union Tribune posted the following correction to the story referenced above:

In a story about voting machines in Grafton that ran in yesterday's Union Leader, the machines were incorrectly identified as Accuvote machines. They should have been identified as Optech IIIp machines.

We have not been able to find the correction published on the Union Tribune website, but this New Hampshire state page seems to confirm that Grafton County uses the ES&S "Optech" machines instead of the Diebold "Accu-Vote" machines as most other counties in New Hampshire do.

We've also learned, since running this piece orginally, that New Hampshire does not allow for the use of touch-screen (DRE) machines. So the voting systems in question here, are all optical-scan machines, akin to the Diebold optical-scan machine used in Ion Sancho's recent "hack test" in Leon County, FL which demonstrated that such machines could be hacked to cause election results to be completely flipped without a trace being left behind.




By John Gideon on 3/17/2006 5:28pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

The Arizona state senate is pulling the wool over someone's eyes. They have put forth a bill to do a hand count audit of all ballots from 10 randomly selected precincts in the state's two largest counties. However, the bill also says that the audit results cannot be used in place of the machine count, even if there are problems found. Maryland Gov. Ehrlich is trying to find a way to pay for a change of voting systems but some in the state Senate are doing all they can to squelch that plan. And in New Jersey a lawsuit against the use of Sequoia machines in the state is progressing....

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




AP Joins 'Tallahassee Democrat' Alleging Violations of State Law When Meeting Between Sue Cobb and Ion Sancho Suddenly Closed, Police Ordered to Remove Reporters
Election Supervisor/E-Voting Hero Buoyed By Broad Support, But Controversy is 'Taking a Toll'
By Brad Friedman on 3/17/2006 4:49pm PT  

The Associated Press is now joining the Tallahassee Democrat in a complaint sent to the Florida Attorney General objecting to an open meeting in the state's capital last Monday which Florida Sec. of State Sue Cobb suddenly took it upon herself to close. She then called the capital police and ordered them to remove reporters from the area.

Earlier this week, The BRAD BLOG reported on the aborted "open meeting" as called by Cobb with Leon County Election Supervisor Ion Sancho and two other county commissioners. The meeting was called in order to discuss the situation in Leon County, where Sancho recently revealed that Diebold optical-scan voting machines could be hacked without a trace left behind.

Sancho told The BRAD BLOG last night he felt "there was no reason" to close the meeting.

"There was nothing we talked about in there that needed to be kept secret. They just don't like open meetings. They like doing their business in secret," Sancho said.

Cobb, on behalf of the state, has been putting pressure on Sancho to purchase new voting equipment, threatening him with removal from his elected position, and suggesting that U.S. Marshall's might come in to run the county's election. That, despite the fact that all three companies certified to do business in the state have now refused to work with Sancho.

Voting Machine Companies, it seems, don't like doing business in the open either.

The meeting last Monday --- held on the first day of "Sunshine Week" celebrating "open government" in Florida --- was suddenly closed by Cobb who then called the police to remove reporters.

"On the first day of 'Sunshine Week' it was a pretty stupid thing to do," Sancho said.

According to the Tallahassee Democrat, both they and the AP have now sent letters of complaint to Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist and State Attorney Willie Megs "expressing outrage" at being barred from the meeting in apparent violation of state law.

As reported by the Democrat...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Pima County Election Director Brad Nelson Is Sorry...
Local TV News Covers Tirade, New Diebold Touch-Screen Voting Machine Controversy in State
By Brad Friedman on 3/17/2006 3:54pm PT  

Tuscon Arizona's local NBC TV news affiliate ran a story Wednesday night on the raging controversy across the state concerning Sec. of State Jan Brewer's recent agreement to allow hackable Diebold touch-screen voting machines into the state.

Their report (linked below) included a snippet of the video that The BRAD BLOG ran as an Exclusive at the end of February featuring Pima County, AZ Election Director, Brad Nelson freaking out and verbally assaulting Election Integrity Advocate, John Brakey --- on video --- during a public local precinct council meeting.

Nelson, the station reports, has apparently apologized for his tirade. Brakey is also interviewed in the new report on Pima County being "pushed into a national controversy."

Their coverage of "both sides" of the story led last Wednesday's 6 O'Clock newscast in Tuscon.

MORAL: Always bring a video camera (or audio recording device) when meeting public Elections Officials. They often don't fare well under the harsh light of actual public scrutiny, and footage of such encounters may help your local TV affiliate suddenly become interested in reporting on the story.

Report on AZ's Diebold Touch-Screen Voting Machine Controversy:

-- Video in Streaming Flash format...
-- Windows Media Player Version...

-- Our original Video Exclusive story, featuring Nelson's full tirade is here.




By David Edwards on 3/17/2006 3:08pm PT  

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com


Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

CNN's Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider awards Senator Feingold the "Political Play of the Week" for his bold introduction of a resolution to censure President Bush.

Bill Schneider describes Feingold as "principled" while he suggests that other Democrats might need "Spines. Backbones. They help you stand up for what you believe."

Schneider says "Acting on principle need not be political suicide."




1000 Cards Fail Tests in N. Carolina After Massive Failures Discovered in Ohio!
ALSO: Testing Reports Say Voting Machines One-Third as Reliable as Incandescent Light Bulb!
By John Gideon on 3/17/2006 12:46pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

As reported on March 9 and March 10 by The BRAD BLOG the folks in Summit Co. OH have discovered massive problems with memory cards on ES&S Electronic Voting Machines in recent tests. Some 30% of the cards completely failed.

ES&S, the largest voting machine provider in the country, attributed the problem to low or dead batteries on the PCMCIA memory cards. At the time, we inquired as to whether other states using ES&S equipment might be experiencing similar problems. The reporter covering the story for the Akron Beacon Journal told us she was able to get no response from ES&S --- but was then given an assurance that ES&S had contacted their customers to inform them about the concerns.

A week ago Tuesday, Texas experienced loads of problems (or "glitches" as Voting Machine Vendors and Election Officials enjoy minimizing them as) in their Primary Elections. Just a few of those reported in newspapers the day after are listed here.

Then yesterday the Akron Beacon Journal reported that, in fact, ES&S had contacted North Carolina. North Carolina, who lost some 4,500 votes completely via an electronic voting machine in Cartaret County during the 2004 Presidential Election, began checking their ES&S memory cards and have so far found more than 1,000 cards that to be bad!

Summit County, OH has also now confirmed that two-thirds of the cards failed due to "battery issues"; the rest failed due to "read-back errors".

ES&S officials contend that bad batteries were to blame for the problem memory cards, but Summit County officials now say that low batteries were the problem in only about one-third of the hundreds of faulty memory cards here.

``The majority of them were read-back errors, not a battery issue,'' Bryan Williams, director of the Summit County Board of Elections, said Wednesday.

``About one-third were battery errors. Two-thirds were read-back errors,'' Williams added.

He said after new batteries were installed in the memory cards, many still failed to work.

Marijean Donofrio, deputy director of the Summit elections board, said memory cards reading ``low battery'' began to work properly when new batteries were installed. But others that read ``dead battery'' still did not work when the batteries were changed.

She said the more common problem was the ``read-back error,'' which occurred when testers were attempting to run a mock election. The memory cards could not read the data programmed onto them.

It is important to point out that North Carolina state law requires any voting vendor to alert the state if there is a problem found on any voting system in another state that may be a problem in North Carolina. The law worked very well or the state may never have been warned except by the voting activist community who raised the 'red flag'.

Still unanswered is whether the recent myriad problems with ES&S systems in Texas had anything to do with the memory card failures. Also still unanswered is if there are any problems in other states like Indiana or West Virginia where primary elections are soon to be held and ES&S machines are in place.

ALSO: A newly released study of the reliability of voting systems shows that those voting systems studied and presently being sold across the country are one-third as reliable, at best, as an incandescent light bulb.




By David Edwards on 3/17/2006 7:59am PT  

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com


Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...
Audio in MP3 format...

Last night on MBNBC Scarborough Country, Joe Scarborough was surprisingly polite during his interview with peace activist Cindy Sheehan.

Cindy Sheehan is joining other peace activists today who are undertaking a 140 mile march to protest the Iraq war and demanding that Iraq war monies be diverted to Hurricane Katrina relief.

UPDATE: VIDEO - Peace Activists March to New Orleans


Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

CNN reports on the peace/anti-war activists who are marching 140 miles to New Orleans.

The video in this report is from yesterday's segment of the march.

One protester carried a sign saying "Make Levees Not War!"




(That Is, If It Ever Closes - Pentagon Says Reports of Abu Ghraib's Demise Greatly Exaggerated.)
By David Edwards on 3/17/2006 5:26am PT  

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com


Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

Last week the U.S. military announced plans to handover control of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison to Iraqi authorities.

Chris Floyd points out that the Pentagon quietly retracted the idea that Abu Ghraib would be closed in the near future. The following statement was released by the Pentagon:

"The United States always has planned to transfer authority for all detention facilities in Iraq to the Iraqis, but announcements regarding the imminent closure at the Abu Ghraib prison are premature, defense officials said today. News reports that the U.S. military intends to close Abu Ghraib within the next few months and to transfer its prisoners to other jails are inaccurate, officials said.

"There's no specific timetable for that transfer or for closure of the Baghdad prison, they said. Decisions regarding Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities in Iraq will be based largely on two factors: the readiness of Iraq's security forces to assume control of them and infrastructure improvements at the facilities…"

Regardless of when (or if) the U.S. closes Abu Ghraib, NGO's and Iraqi citizens agree that prisoners will continue to be abused in other facilities throughout Iraq. According to Khalid Rabia'a, spokesman for the Baghdad-based Prisoners' Association for Justice (PAJ):

Torture has been practiced by the US as well as by Iraqi military officials,

The handover of Abu Ghraib won't stop the suffering and human rights abuses.

The video in this post is a news report by the independent Arab News Network (ANN) broadcasting out of London, England. In the video, several Iraqis share their thoughts on the closing of Abu Ghraib and the continuing prisoner abuse in Iraq.




By John Gideon on 3/16/2006 5:08pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

In yesterday's DVN I included an article from Arizona regarding photo ID being required for mail-in ballots. The newspaper printed a correction to that story: "This story gave the wrong result for a state legislative proposal to require people who vote by mail to provide identification. The proposal was defeated." The ES&S memory card problems have spread with the report of 1000 bad cards in North Carolina. Also, there seems to be a growing list of candidates in Texas who are asking for recounts due to problems on election night. In New Hampshire two Diebold OS machines were confiscated by the police due to irregularities in the total vote count. In Maryland today the Gov. asked the state legislature for $21.8M to replace the states DREs but the Senate immediately voted to use it for a poll book to keep voters from voting twice....

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Can't Get Their Story Straight on 'Tehran IED's'
BRAD BLOG's White House Correspondent Holds McClellan's Feet to the Fire...
By Eric Brewer on 3/16/2006 4:01pm PT  

Special to BRAD BLOG by BTC News White House Correspondent Eric Brewer

Today I finally got another chance to get Scott McClellan riled up. Ever since the last time I did it, back in January, he's been lucky enough or tricky enough to avoid having to call on me, but today, the briefing room wasn't quite as crowded as it has been, and I got my chance to ask a question that has been puzzling me ever since the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, testified to the Senate on http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/1195\" target="_blank">February 2 that:

"Tehran has been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-coalition attacks by providing Shia militia with the capability to build improvised explosive devices with explosively formed projectiles similar to those developed by Iran and Lebanese Hizballah."

Among the many reasons (detailed by BTC News chief Weldon Berger in his article that I linked to above) that Negroponte's statement was odd are the following: 1) Iran-connected Shiites now dominate the U.S.-backed government in Iraq, 2) IED attacks have been coming primarily from the Sunni insurgency, and 3) Iran would have nothing to gain from helping its U.S.-supported allies in Iraq attack coalition forces with IEDs.

Then last Monday, President Bush repeated Negroponte's claim in a speech that appeared to be the opening round in a new "drumbeat to war" against Iran. But the administration is perhaps getting sloppier, for the next day it appeared that not everyone was on the same page. When Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace was asked about the claim with these words, "Do you have proof that they are, indeed, behind this, the government of Iran?", Gen. Pace replied, "I do not, sir." Immediately afterward, Secretary Rumsfeld also failed to endorse the accusation, saying:

"As to equipment, unless you physically see it coming in --- in a government-sponsored vehicle, or with government-sponsored troops, you can't know it. All you know is that you find equipment --- weapons, explosives, whatever --- in a country that came from the neighboring country. With respect to people, it's very difficult to tie a thread precisely to the government of Iran."

So today I asked Scott if he could clear up this slight inconsistency. Our exchange follows...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




WaPo Drives a Stake Through the Heart of Our Current Inexcusable State of Electronic Voting...
By Brad Friedman on 3/16/2006 3:03pm PT  
It's easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman...[who] has assembled comparisons that suggest Americans protect their vices more than they guard their rights.

Wow...today's Washington Post has a nifty illustrated chart today comparing the security and inspection of Las Vegas Slot Machines versus that for Electronic Voting Machines.

Click to see his comparisons...

(Hat tip to emailer Beth H.!)




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