(Hat-tip David Swanson who has more thoughts at AfterDowningStreet.org)

Guest blogged by DES

We have a shorter rundown this week due to technology issues (yes, my computer died), but looking at the headlines below, two running themes are clear: rich and famous people really are different from you and me (especially when it comes to enforcement versus prosecution of voter fraud allegations), and no matter how much trouble you may be in, it's good to have friends in high places. And if you're really lucky, the press will help out, too!

Among the big stories this week --- besides the ongoing spectacle of Sad Conservative Clown and Vote-Fraudster Ann Coulter --- the deeply flawed House bill HR 811 sponsored by Rush Holt (D-NJ) passed out of committee minus a crucial amendment to ban the use of touch-screen DRE systems, and the election challenges of Clint Curtis and 3 other Democratic candidates were dismissed by the House Administration Committee (although we've heard it may be coming up for a full House vote later, btw), leaving only the challenge of Christine Jennings in FL-13. We also learned that no matter what else may be going on with those Krazy Kids in Kongress, Russ Feingold will find a way to punch through the fog with another way to keep the ante upped in hopes of ending the disastrous war in Iraq and bringing the troops home.

But things got still worse for the poor voters of San Diego, who have a brand spanking new Registrar of Voters freshly minted from the Diebold Sales Force! (Not kidding.)

Read on, dear reader, read on...

It looks like Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) is housing his own little Republican voter fraud factory at his NC crib.

Mike Rogers has several scoops, following up on this item from CBS News today:

Whoops. But Rogers's version of the story reports a number of additional questionably-registered folks who appear to be living in McHenry's house as well, along with a few additional juicy details (okay, rumors, but interesting ones) about the "unmarried" McHenry...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Bill Moyers opened his PBS show last night with a brief commentary (1:54) on the lessons the Bush administration and Congress could learn from Prince Harry and the soldiers that will be serving next to him when he joins a British cavalry regiment in Iraq. Instead of complaining about the increased danger that a high profile royal will bring to the troops in his regiment, British soldiers made T-shirts with "I'm Harry" printed across the front next to a bullseye. The point being, according to Moyers, that "the commoners and the Prince are in this together. One for all and all for one."

[Ed Note: Story updated with additional details. Brian Skoloff, of AP's Florida bureau was later revealed as the writer of the article in question. See end of this item for details.]

OATH: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that...All information on this form is true. I understand that if it is not true, I can be convicted of a felony of the third degree and fined up to $5,000 and/or imprisoned for up to five years.
-- Oath signed by Ann Coulter when she fraudulently lied about her address on her Florida Voter Registration Form

AP never fails to fail. Incredible.

Their unbylined report, out this afternoon, is surely good news for Ann Coulter! And we'll bet their headline is currently scrolling by on the Fox "News" and CNN crawls, it's certainly everywhere else. Here's the headline:

We guess the fact that an FBI agent --- who, as we reported earlier today, is apparently her former boyfriend --- interceded inappropriately in the case to claim she was being "stalked" (without evidence apparently) isn't noteworthy enough to include in AP's report.

Neither is the fact that the FBI has begun an internal investigation into the matter, according to the Palm Beach Post this morning.

No, instead, the AP reports --- in an unbylined article! --- Coulter's wet dream headline that she's been "cleared."

And despite the fact that her Loyal Bushie attorney didn't even bother to respond to AP's request for comment, AP passed on his wet dream by reporting completely unsubstantiated horseshit to the effect of: "Her attorney, Marcos Daniel Jimenez, told the detective Coulter may have not changed a previous address because of a stalking incident."

That's a bald-faced lie. Coulter didn't "not change" anything....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

It has just been announced by San Diego County that they have hired Deborah Seiler as their new permanent Registrar of Voters. Ms. Seiler joins the county elections office from her job as the Assistant Registrar in Solano County, California.

"Seiler brings unique elections experience from the state, local and private sector that adds valuable perspective at a crucial time," according to a press release (posted in full at the bottom of this article) as issued today by San Diego County.

All of which sounds great, until one does a moment or two of Googling --- particularly on that "private sector" point mentioned --- and Seiler's troubling past is quickly revealed to be yet more bad news for the voters of San Diego, who continue to get the worst of what American democracy is supposed to look like.

Look what we found out about Seiler...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Warren Buffett, one of the most successful and wealthiest investors ever, makes his 2008 presidential endorsement with Charlie Rose last night. In so doing the Oracle of Omaha stated:

The Ann Coulter Voter Fraud case, which we've been covering for more than a year (see our Special Coverage Page here, including her fraudulent Voter Registration Form, the complaint that started it all, and much more) has taken several bizarre twists this morning as Palm Beach Post columnist Jose Lambiet once again steps up with several fresh scoops in the matter, and The BRAD BLOG, who, as of today's article, has now become a corollary in the story, has an exclusive detail or two of our own to offer on the heels of this morning's Post report.

First, Lambiet reports that the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office, which had been investigating the matter, has closed the case after an FBI agent interceded on Coulter's behalf. The PBSO had been investigating Coulter's fraudulent, knowing use of the wrong address on her voter registration form, a third-degree felony, and the fact that she subsequently, knowingly voted at the wrong precinct.

Second, the reason offered by the FBI man for Coulter's use of a phony address on her form --- actually that of her Palm Beach County real estate agent --- was because of claims that she was being "stalked" by a conservative BRAD BLOG guest blogger!

After the FBI intercession, as Lambiet reports, the PBSO investigator shut down the probe "without interviewing Coulter; a Realtor, whose Indian Road address Coulter used [on her fraudulent voter registration form]; or neighbors of Coulter's Seabreeze homestead."

The BRAD BLOG has previously shown that, in fact, Coulter had knowingly lied on her voter registration form, signing next to an "oath" swearing that "All information on this form is true" and that she understood "if it is not true, I can be convicted of a felony of the third degree and fined up to $5,000 and/or imprisoned for up to five years."

Once the issue was reported originally by Lambiet, Coulter went about lying about it to the media and at public appearances, claiming she didn't even live in Florida, as Michelle Pilecki, who picked up on Lambiet's item today, had previously reported at Huffington Post. Nonetheless, property records and other evidence we've published at The BRAD BLOG, including an affidavit from Republican poll worker James Whited, show conclusively that Coulter lied on her voter registration form, and then knowingly committed voter fraud when she voted at the wrong precinct in 2006.

"We stand by our detective's work," a PBSO spokesman told Lambiet in today's report. "Based on the nature of the allegations, she did as much as she could."

But this gets a lot more bizarre, so keep reading...

The BRAD BLOG spoke this morning with the "stalker" in question, as named by Lambiet, longtime Coulter critic, and founder of Citizens for Principled Conservatism, Dan Borchers, who tells us that "Ann Coulter used a false allegation as a 'get out of jail free card'" on her voter fraud charges.

He also tells us something that Lambiet didn't mention in his report: The FBI man in question, Supervisory Special Agent Jim Fitzgerald, was Coulter's former boyfriend!

Lambiet, who spoke with Borchers for his piece, didn't report that allegation, but hinted that something wasn't adding up in Fitzgerald's intercession in the matter. He wonders why an FBI profiler from the FBI Academy's Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, VA, "who went after the Unabomber [would] take time from his busy day to even think about a municipal election snafu?"

Fitzgerald wouldn't reply to Lambiet, but he reports that after the Post contacted the bureau for comment on the matter, the FBI "immediately launched an internal review of the agent's involvement."

Anderson and Lambiet aren't the only ones dubious about the FBI's intervention on behalf of Coulter or the excuse that a "stalker" led her to use her realtor's address on her voter registration form....

I spent most of the morning (and afternoon) watching the Gonzalez hearing in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. (The extra $5 per month to add C-SPAN3 to my cable tier has already been well worth it.)

All of those hours are perhaps best summed up by the nugget of today's hearing found in Rep. Robert Wexler's extremely to-the-point questions, along with a follow up by Rep. Stephen Cohen (some guy named Rep. Tom Feeney went between the two of them, but it was not particular interesting or newsworthy).

So to save you the time of having to watch all 9 hours, or however long it was, here are the 9 minutes or so of video from those two sections. First Wexler's must view clip, followed by Cohen:

The crux of Wexler's very heated questions: If it wasn't anyone at DoJ, and it wasn't Bush or Cheney (as Gonzales said today) then who created the firing list?

Chairman Conyers is wondering exactly that, and his office sent us this statement, following today's hearing:

Guest Blogged by Chris Tackett

After reading Greg Gordon’s excellent piece for McClatchy discussing Missouri’s place as "ground zero" for the GOP "voter fraud" scam, we – along with others – were surprised to learn that of all of McClatchy’s papers, The Kansas City Star had failed to run the piece when others, in different states, had done so on the first day it was filed.

When the piece finally ran at KC Star, FiredUp! Missouri's Howard Beale pointed out, it was greatly altered and had become what one could argue was a much different story. Their edited version of the story greatly downplayed failed Republican attempts to prove claims of massive Democratic "voter fraud," and excised references to many GOP politicians, such as Karl Rove, and perhaps most notably, a number of powerful Missouri politicians.

We wanted to allow the paper an opportunity to respond to those criticisms. We were able to receive such a response from The Star's Deputy National Editor, Keith Chrostowski. But later yesterday, the reason he gave to The BRAD BLOG for the delayed publication was directly contradicted in a public post Chrostowski made on the KC Star's own blogsite.

While originally waiting for him to respond to our numerous calls, we spotted Beale’s follow-up post from Tuesday morning revealing that The Star happens to be a client of the powerful Missouri GOP law firm Lathrop & Gage.

As BRAD BLOG readers surely know by now, Lathrop & Gage is the law firm of Mark F. “Thor” Hearne, who has been a central figure involved in the ongoing "voter fraud" scam in his role as founder of the GOP front group known as "American Center for Voting Rights" (our ACVR Special Coverage Page is here).

Missouri's Governor Matt Blunt is also a client of L&G, and has been represented for years by Hearne. Blunt, Hearne, and the ACVR were all central to the McClatchy piece as originally filed by Gordon and the role of each of them in the Star's altered version of the story was subsequently removed or otherwise greatly watered down.

Of course, there's no way of knowing if the editors at the Star were directly or indirectly influenced by this connection. But even if they are given the benefit of the doubt and the presumption that there was no influence on their delayed publication and editing of the McClatchy piece, the issue still remains that they failed to disclose the relationship to L&G to their readers. Such disclosure would seem to be a common sense journalistic principle.

On Tuesday afternoon, Chrostowski finally returned our call to provide a statement and an explanation. A transcript of the pertinent portion our conversation, along with his later posted contradiction, follows…

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Bill O'Reilly responded to a recent Indiana University Study comparing the Fox "News" mouthpiece unfavorably to the notorious propagandist of the 1930s, Father Charles Coughlin, with even more propaganda. While O'Reilly spent the bulk of his time defending himself by attacking Media Matters and George Soros, he does question and mock the most publicized part of the research that evidences O'Reilly using a derogatory name to describe his opponents every 6.8 seconds during the Factor's "Talking Points Memo" segments. This mashup shows O'Reilly's response to the study and then looks back at the six previous "Talking Points" to see whether O'Reilly or the Indiana University researchers are to be believed.

Finally, for those wondering what George Soros and Media Matters have to do with whether or not Bill O'Reilly is a propagandist, I will try to explain. For starters, George Soros - he who gives away billions of dollars trying to spread good governance, democracy, human rights and independent media around the world while combatting corruption and rights abuses - is the face of evil. As O'Reilly stated in last night's broadcast to former General Wesley Clark whose PAC received $75,000 from Soros, "There isn't a more radical person in the country than [Soros]". O'Reilly then asked Clark if he would also accept David Duke's money.

More from Greg Sergent at TPMCafe...

Doing twelve things at once today, so no time for analysis at this point. I'll just run CA Sec. of State Debra Bowen's just released statement on her promised, unprecedented, first-of-its-kind in the nation, "top to bottom review" of all of California's electronic voting systems.

The review will include "red team" hack testing for the first time ever. Done as standard operating procedure for similar security-sensitive, mission-critical commercial systems, this sort of penetration testing has never been performed on America's voting systems. Until now.

The one page summary [PDF] of the plan states:

• [University of California] will provide specialists from its campuses, as well as experts from public and private universities and private sector companies throughout the United States to create three teams of experts to conduct the reviews.
• Each system will undergo a thorough document and source code review, red team penetration testing, and a review to determine whether it’s accessible to all voters.
• The review teams will provide an independent technical evaluation of the voting systems that the Secretary of State will use to carry out her statutory duty with respect to voting systems in determining whether the systems comply with current state and federal law.

There are links within her statement below where you can find more details. For example, the State's review teams will include folks such as computer security expert "hacking" Harri Hursti, and blind technology expert Noel Runyan, who has been highly critical of unverifiable touch-screen DRE voting systems.

More on all of this, perhaps, later after I've had time to review the materials myself. But for now, see the statement below for some killer quotes from Bowen...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

The PBS Frontline special,When Teens Get Life, investigates the archaic and cruel dimmension of the American justice system that allows children to be sent to prison for life. Additionally, the documentary provides some insight into how we house the nation's "worst" criminal offenders.

Unfortunately, the limited information provided about the Super Max Colorado State Prison featured in this edited video (8:21) is not reassuring. In fact, there appears to be some startling similarities between the treatment of inmates in the Colorado Super Max and the US prison at Guantánamo Bay. For example, Frontline was not permitted to film inside or outside of the prison or interview any inmates. Video footage of the teen inmate featured in the segment was obtained in 2004 by Human Rights Watch. Inmates are also denied counsel and the right to review testimony used against them in prison proceedings. Evidentiary testimony is considered confidential and is never made available to prisoners. Without counsel, the ability to cross examine witnesses or even see the evidence used against them, it can hardly be said that prisoners have any due process rights. Finally, prisoners at the Colorado Super Max are not assigned release dates.

Why do we have a Constitution?

On the second day of a heat spell that's gripped Los Angeles, and The BRAD BLOG World News Headquarters, fire has once again erupted in the nearby bone dry Hollywood Hills. This one appears to be much bigger --- and the weather conditions much worse --- than the blaze we noticed out our window last month which threatened the Hollywood Sign.

That's a photo of the Griffith Observatory which is very near the current fire tonight. It has recently re-opened after a multi-million dollar renovation. You may recognize it as the location of Sal Mineo's death in Rebel Without a Cause. It's currently a mere quarter mile from the fire line.

The nearby threatened area also includes the Los Angeles Zoo, which was evacuated earlier of people, if not animals, Griffith Park's legendary Greek Theater, and yes, the Hollywood Sign. Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for nearby homes. As of 6:30pm PT the fire was growing, had covered 200 acres, was being battled by 500 fire fighters, and was just 25% contained. For a better idea of how large this fire is see another photo of the Observatory below.

Local TV affiliate coverage and video, etc. available here, here and here.

For those concerned, BRAD BLOG World News Headquarters is currently at a safe enough distance. We think. We'll let you know if that changes.