Too funny...(and we could all use a laugh lately. Well me anyway.)

Please see the Amazon.com reviews for The Family Circus before someone takes them down. Here's one such sample amongst many brilliant reviews...

(Hat tip Corey K. for the link!)

Howard Dean announces his intention to run for head of the DNC, and The BRAD BLOG heartily and without hesitation endorses him for the job!

The reasons for our support are well described in these paragraphs from the announcement just posted to his Democracy for America website. (But we will have a bit more to on the matter say below it)...

We couldn't have put it any better than he just did.

But in order to cut off either the Democratic naysayers or the Wingnut trolls out there in Bradville, who may wish to pull the old "He's too far to the left...The Republicans will eat him up!" argument from the primaries out of mothballs, we would say what we said back then. Namely, that old "don't throw me in the briar patch" nonsense was bunk back then --- when the Dems foolishly chose Kerry --- and it's as much bunk now.

Don't play into that strawman scenario. It's a bought and paid for scheme straight out of the Republican playbook, and Dems who fell for it last time are now...well, out of a job.

If there is any question about that, we would point you to the statement of "President" Bush himself..."Fool me once, shame on you...Fool me twice... (pause) (pause)... You can't fool me again!"

Dean was the man then for the Democrats. Dean is the man now for the Democrats.

Anyone who says differently, does not have the best interests of either the DNC or America in mind.

UPDATE: It looks as if the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) also concur with our Dean endorsement, expressing their interests in helping "'the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party' to take a giant step forward by electing former Vermont Governor Howard Dean as the new Chair of the Democratic National Committee next month." Their complete essay gives more good reasons for their endorsement...which we endorse.

From AP:

We imagine they would.

(For this, and other such Election 2004 related headlines as they happen...be sure to check out VelvetRevolution.us for more of the latest, up-to-date headlines than I am usually able to offer here on The BRAD BLOG! Of course, I will always attempt to post the most notable here. More often when I may have additional specific analysis to offer to the raw news reports!)

UPDATE: A report via a Yahoo Newsgroup on this issue reports that Susan Truitt, one of the attorney plaintiffs who brought the case, has said the decision to drop the case was based on a number of issues (which the AP story interestingly failed to mention). Amongst them, the report says they plan instead to file a Federal civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court, alleging civil rights violations and election fraud. That, instead of the Ohio action, which, they plaintiffs had come to discover, was being heard by the Republican Ohio Supreme Court Justice who had shown a lack of impartiality in the case (e.g. He refused to recuse himself from it, despite being a a candidate on the ballot in question).

The point seems to have some merit, especially since the original hope they had of overturning the election in Ohio is essentially a Constitutional impossibility once the Electors have been ratified by Congress as they were on January 6th.

The post, from a usual reliable source, also says that Truitt "was concerned the biased, Republican-dominated Ohio Supreme Court would assess huge fines and penalties against the plaintiffs/attorneys filing the suit, in order to attempt to "deter" any further legal action." And concludes with, "Susan is working hard toward the federal civil action which will be filed very soon."

We'll be watching...

While I have been too busy since last Thursday getting the Velvet Revolution underway, I have been unable to adequately express my thanks to the members of Congress who didn't fail us last Thursday.

While Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Sen. Barbara Boxer received the lion's share of the notice and thanks last week, the Herculean efforts of Rep. John Conyers and his staff in ferreting out Election Irregularities and Malfeasance in Ohio and elsewhere cannot be understated.

They have been true to their promise --- made to me by a staffer back in November --- to "not let this one go".

To promise such a thing, and then actually do it seems to be a rare thing indeed in Washington these days. From Republicans and Democrats alike! Yet, Conyers and his staff have stayed true to their words. And for that, they have won our greatest respects and enternal thanks.

And this morning, in an open letter posted on John Conyers' website he continues that same promise; To stay on this until the job is done. There are very few politicians on either side of the aisle we can say this about, but we have come to believe that he means what he says.

Hoping to let us all know where he intends to go from here, Conyers' letter starts with a gracious thank you to all of us who helped make so much happen...

We do. And behalf of so many of us, you are tremendously welcome.

He then goes on to outline his intentions for today looking forward...

If there was any doubt before, there is certainly none left, that --- in a year marked by the heroic deeds of many great Americans (too numerous to list here) on behalf of our democracy --- John Conyers has truly, hands-down, deserved the high-honor of being our very first "BRAD BLOG Man of the Year".

As regular readers may have noticed by now, there are very few politicians these days that The BRAD BLOG is particularly fond of. So this is no small honor, as many of you would likely attest.

Thank you, Mr. Conyers. And we look forward to more historic and heroics efforts in the near future! (If you haven't sent him thanks yourself, feel free to do so via email here. For the other 31+1, BuzzFlash has put all of their names and addresses together here if you'd like to drop them a note as well.)

We will do whatever we can to support his efforts both here at The BRAD BLOG and over at Velvet Revolution where we exist to support such efforts and such great American heroes!

And onward we go...We'd hate to be nice for too long...gotta reputation to keep!

UPDATE 2/4/05: Looks like while I was gone The BRAD BLOG received another (our fourth) Koufax Award nomination. This time for Best Series (Clint Curtis: Whistleblower Affidavit). And I admit to being quite proud of that particular recognition! So we'll move this item back up to the top for a short while and again ask for your support by casting a vote for our "Clint Curtis" series by a leaving a comment in support of same at the aforementioned link. Looks like this nomination was announced well over a week ago while I was gone, so BRADBLOGGERS will have some voting/catching-up to do! Please drop by and give us a vote! For that one, and the others --- see below --- if you haven't already! (Yes, I'm finally back in town as of this morning, but have so much catch up work now to do, I probably won't be able to begin blogging again until Monday...unless I just can't help myself. Also...I'm not sure, but these votes may be just the semi-finalist voting, so I may have to debase myself yet again in the future to beg for your votes if we make it to the "finals". But we've long ago cast off all illusions of self-respect, so why worry about such things now?) - BF

UPDATE 1/12/05: Wow, embarrassment of riches. BRAD BLOG just nominated for yet another Koufax award category! This time, "Most Deserving of Wider Recognition". If you are inclined to vote for us (and thanks to those who already have in the other categories!) you may do so via the just added link to the third category in the list below. Bumping this item temporarily back up to the top, long enough to catch your attention! And thanks for all the exceedingly nice words in many of your votes! - BF

Looks like The BRAD BLOG has been nominated in (so far) two three different categories for The Koufax Awards!

Please feel free to put a vote for us by leaving a comment with "BRAD BLOG" in it, at the following nomination page links!:

• Best Overall Blog (by a non-professional)
• Best New Blog
• Most Deserving of Wider Recognition
• [JUST ADDED!] Best Series (Clint Curtis: Whistleblower Affidavit)

More nominations for other categories are still to come. Keep an eye out at the Wampum blog (Home of the Koufax Awards), and feel free to shout out if you notice that we have been nominated in any other categories as they continue to announce them!

It is, as they say, an honor just to be nominated!

We've been working hard to get things in order to help put much of your discussion here, into action over at Velvet Revolution!

We've still got much work to do over there, but now we need you on board to help!

Grab your pitchfork and light your torches! We are officially open for business!

Stop on by, sign-up as a founding Velvet Revolutionary, jump into the Discussion forums, and let's take all of the energy, patriotism, civic-mindedness and hope for a better America and turn it into action and mobilization for the cause!

It was Velvet Revolutions that so effectively overturned despotic regimes through peaceful civil disobedience in places like the former Soviet Union, East Germany, Czchekoslovakia, Poland, South Africa, and of course...most recently...Ukraine.

In all of those places, the citizenry rose up to take matters into their own hands to demand that their governments be held responsible. Now it is our turn to learn from those countries what it really means to have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people!

I've posted more information over there about why we feel that Velvet Revolution has become necessary in the United States. And there will be more information and mobilization of a hopefully great citizen's brigade in the days, weeks, months and even years ahead!

Join us! It's your Velvet Revolution! We've just made it possible for everyone to come together in one place! But without you...we're nothing! Please lend a hand, volunteer, organize, share your ideas and thoughts, and come on board in every way possible!

For a start, we need you to spread the word high and low about VR and take it upon yourself to make things happen there! We have several more affilliate groups coming on board shortly, and our hope is to bring all such groups together for our common goals.

Velvet Revolution is Issue Based not Party Based and we hope to focus like a laser on a few issues of great importance to our democracy while lending our support and strengths to smaller groups who are working on aspects of those same issues. See the "ABOUT" link at VR for more details...

And as an added plus...If you guys help take this ball and run with it, perhaps I'll soon be freed up a bit more here so that I'll have more time again on The BRAD BLOG to keep causing trouble for the bad guys...I can't do all the heavy-lifting you know!

I expect there to be many bumps in the road ahead. We'll do our best to smooth them out as we move forward. Revolutions can be messy.

Let the Velvet Revolution begin...

More dirt from Florida Elections...This from AP (includes an alleged Democrat wrongdoer as well, so little wonder it makes it to the wires):

How filthy is the "Sunshine State", anyway?! Doesn't anybody down there just run for office and when/if more voters vote for them than the other guy/gal they can be the winner?

Or is my naiveté showing again?

And of course...we wonder if Mr. Thomas may have also worked with any other less-than-forthright, less-than-upstanding Republican Florida Politicians who we've been keeping our eye on of late...

Too tired, too busy...too exhausted for proper analysis. So I point you to someone with a better brain than I for the moment.

From The Editors at The Poor Man...a few days ago...when there were a dozen or so more living U.S. Troops in Iraq.

The entire article seems particularly germaine given some of the appalling discussion I've seen from the wingnuts in BRAD BLOG comments of late...The insurgency continues to grow in Iraq...

In other related news that you probably haven't heard much about...

Which brings us nicely back once again to the final graf from The Poor Man article...With apologies to anyone who may have been offended by the language around here of late, the final graf hits the nail on it's head...

(Hat tip BRAD BLOG buddy Maz for the tip on The Poor Man piece!)

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports...

A pencil and a piece of paper hardly ever malfunction.

Not to be a luddite or anything.

UPDATE 1/9/05: From an emailer...for whatever you may decide it's worth...

What is it about "The Rule of Law" that these Republicans just can't seem to keep straight?

The letter which Ohio's Secretary of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell (supervisor of fair and free elections in Ohio, as well as Ohio Co-Chair of the Bush/Cheney Re-Elect Committee) apparently asked supporters for illegal corporate donations, according to AP:

As we reported earlier in the week, the letter in which Blackwell takes credit for "helping deliver the great Buckeye State for George W. Bush" along with hitting every Christopublican Hotbutton Phrase in the Karl Rove "How to Win Elections and Influence Gullible Americans" handbook, was created to raise funds for Blackwell's gubernatorial bid even while recounts in Ohio were still ongoing. (We have recently updated that original report to include the text of the entire letter, by the way).

Then there is the matter of the official-looking letterhead used in the fundraising letter (the outside envelope refers to him, apparently without irony, as "The Honorable Ken Blackwell"):

While we're fairly certain that the use of official letterhead to raise funds for an upcoming campaign would be a no-no, we're not certain about the use of this official-ish letterhead, and the official-ish looking version of the Great Seal of the United States along with it.

We had hoped to look into the requirements for the legal use of the Great Seal this week until several items distracted us. Amongst them, live coverage of only the second time in well over one-hundred years that an arcane Constitutional provisional had to be invoked in Congress, thanks to Mr. Honorable's Ohio Election calamity, and, of course, the business of final preparations for America's Velvet Revolution which we hope to officially get underway on Monday.

In the meantime, we welcome any thoughts, research or other contributions via comments here on the letterhead matter from any of you crime-hating freedom-lovers out there on the Internets. Crime-justifying, GOP-apologists need not apply.

UPDATE: It should be noted that the letter reported on by AP, included in the Democratic House Judiciary Committee's 102-Page report of evidence suggesting fraud and/or malfeasance in Ohio's election, and blown up for use behind Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) during his speech last Thursday in the historic Congressional debate on the Ohio Electoral challenge was originally discovered and reported by RAW STORY.

AP chose not to give the Internet-only News Source the proper credit for their excellent original reporting. The reasons for that we will leave to the reader to discern. We don't wish to make the same mistake ourselves, however. We linked to them in our original story on the matter several times, but should have credited their hard work in this report as well!

UPDATE: 1/12/05 "Blackwell Ignores Rule of Law! Twice in Same Letter!"

Travel took longer than expected. Much. (Who said it never rains in Southern California?!)

So...much catchup to do over the weekend, I guess. Along with preparations for the revolution. (Anyone have a pitchfork or torch I can borrow? I wanna look my best for the opening!)

So to that end, apologies for a quiet day today (not that you guys were quiet! Which is just fine by me!), and a potentially quiet-ish weekend while we take care of various pieces of related business. We'll see how it goes.

But this is mostly just a quick note to say that I had the 11pm PT repeat of Hannity & Colmes on just now in the background when Republican Ed Rollins, apologizing for Americans committing torture or something says, "It's all bullshit."

Yes..."Bullshit"! On the Fox "News" Channel!

I, for one, am outraged and offended! Has Fox no moral or family values?! I could have been watching that at 6pm PT with my young daughter! If I had one!

And while such a thing can happen on live TV (though we'd expect it would get snuffed out in the delay), this was the 11pm PT repeat! And it wasn't even bleeped out before the second airing!

Hannity didn't even say a word about it. Just went on with his harranguing of the Democratic guest as usual!

It's almost like these guys say one thing, and then do another or something!

Jesus Fucking Christ! How fucked up is that fucking bullshit, anyway?

...CONTACT...
Fox News Channel
Phone: 1-888-369-4762
Email: Viewerservices@foxnews.c...m?CC=Hannity@foxnews.com, Colmes@foxnews.com&...om&Subject=Bullshit on Hannity and Colmes!">Several Potty Mouths at Once!

Will be on the road for a few hours today, so won't be able to post much until a bit later today/tonight...

Have a number of things in the works. Amongst them, a Velvet Revolution - Dedicated to all the BRAD BLOG readers of the world, and the like-minded individuals who have taken the cause of preserving democracy into their own hands. Count on nobody but yourself.

I've gotten much email over the last 24 hours or so (not to mention the last month or two!), so I beg your patience while waiting on replies, and forgiveness for those which I have just been unable to reply to for any number of reasons. I do my best to always reply, but recognize that I don't always suceed in that effort. (I also do my best to read all comments, even if I'm sometimes slow to get to them all, and can't always answer them.)

So...More ahead on yesterday's historic events, Clint Curtis,and the upcoming Velvet Revolution later today and/or this weekend.

Get some rest. We're all gonna need it.

Or use this as an Open Thread to chat your hearts out. But seriously...get some rest and find some peace. There is much muckraking to come in the days, weeks, months and years ahead...And we're gonna need a bigger rake.

Electoral Votes Awarded to George W. Bush: 286
Electoral Votes Awarded to John Kerry: 251
Electoral Votes Awarded to John Edwards: 1

Pages of Evidence Documenting Election Irregularities in Ohio: 102
Counties in Ohio Whose Recount was Illegally Conducted (out of 88): 86
Congressional Republicans Who Voted To Uphold Ohio Election Laws: 0

Number of American Cable "News" Networks Who Carried Today's Historic Proceedings: 0

U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq During Today's Joint Session of Congress: 7
U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq During George W. Bush's "Presidency": (*) 1,349
Iraqi Civilians Killed by U.S. Forces During George W. Bush's "Presidency": 100,000+
WMD's Found So Far in Iraq: 0

...Missions Accomplished...

(*) Includes only those troops who died while still within Iraq's airspace.

Moments ago, in the joint session of Congress, the Electors from the state of Ohio were formally challenged by Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of Ohio and Senator Barbara Boxer of California...

Dick Cheney, presiding over joint session: "The two houses will withdraw from the chamber and will deliberate separately and report back after Debate."

All cable "news" nets...Even Fox...now covering... (Though Fox's Major Garrett incorrectly informs us that "all 88 counties were fully recounted" and adds other apologies on behalf of the Republican Party.)

...MORE...

Most "news" nets back to commercials and occassional coverage. C-SPAN carries full coverage. Tubbs-Jones speaking now...

...CONTINUING...LIVE BLOGGING IN LIEU OF COVERAGE BY "NEWS" NETWORKS...

Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH) quotes Kerry's concession speech. Says, "Their challenges is no more than an excercise to obstruct, destroy and divide..." FIRST MENTION of "Conspiracy Theories"! And "Michael Moore" as a bonus!

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) asks and receives unaminous consent request to include the full 102-page report, "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio?" into the record. Is speaking now..."Not a single official in Ohio has given us an explanation for the many irregularities in Ohio...Read the full report on our website..."

Flipping back and forth between House Hearings (on C-SPAN) and Senate Hearings (on C-SPAN2)...Both live streaming at C-SPAN.org...

..."Attny Jimmo" --- a BRAD BLOG commenter/troll --- is thoroughly discredited today and any credibility (if any existed in the first place) for the Freeper is lost....His Tuesday comment, "What are you going to drum up on Friday, the day after ZERO Senators and ONE nutty Representative challenge the electoral votes?" and Wednesday's comment, "After you get cold shouldered tomorrow by the Democrats; you are welcome to join us in the light of the GOP"...demonstrate "Jimmo's" lack of knowledge on, well...anything...that dispute, if there was one, is now over...

In Senate...Durbin and Kennedy speak in support of Tubbs-Jones/Boxer challenge...

...MORE LIVE BLOGGING CONTINUES...