Guest blogged by David Edwards

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

In an expected move today GA Gov. Perdue signed the repressive Voter ID bill completely ignoring real election fraud in favor of minor, and mostly unproven voter fraud. In AZ the ACLU has joined the fray asking for a voter verified paper trail and also asking the SoS for an investigation in the District 20 election mess. And from PA we hear that a Republican Congressman has announced he is filing a bill that will delay some parts of HAVA in order to assist states....

VelvetRevolution.us (an organization co-founded by The BRAD BLOG) has got a huge billboard truck that will begin driving around D.C. beginning next Tuesday.

This will be on one side...

This will be on the other side...

Feel free to leave your thoughts here in comments about any future signs you'd like to see VR make noise with around Capitol Hill.

While VR has the truck, the cost of getting the billboards made is not cheap. Thanks to the good folks at AfterDowningStreet.org/CensureBush.org for supporting the effort and helping VR raise the funds for the costs of the signage.

Your help is needed as well. Please contribute to the effort here. The Velvet Revolution thanks you...

UPDATE: JPentz of ReallyNews.com has made a printable WORD version of the first graphic available if you wish to make your own noise, in your own hometown!

Pam at The Democratic Daily has links to Kennedy's official statement confirming he supports a filibuster:

Previously, CNN reported John Kerry's support of same. Kerry had earlier posted a call for support asking that Americans support his effort to filibuster...

He then asks for folks to sign this letter in support.

AP has more on the GOP pushing back.

UPDATE: Kerry's office makes it official:

FURTHER UPDATE: Pam now has a Guest Blog from Kerry on the matter...

Robert Byrd falls for the old "Handwritten letter from a 'Democrat'" Ploy and announces he'll support Alito. Yes, Senator, we get many of those same "I'm a Democrat, but I can't abide what my party is doing" notes as well. Constantly. One of the most tired tricks in the Troll Playbook. Sorry to see you fall for it.

In the meantime, Pam from The Democratic Daily, is hearing from her inside sources that Kerry will lead a filibuster. We can't confirm anything of the sort, nor can we deny, but Pam seems to feel strongly about it, so we pass on this link to her report with that caveat. Don't know if Byrd's announcement, which we believe was released after her post, will have any effect on that or not.

UPDATE: Pam updates her item to include a link to CNN's report, posted just minutes ago, that Kerry "will attempt a filibuster".

Guest blogged by David Edwards

Prior to the Feb. 6th Senate Judiciary hearing on the NSA's Domestic Spying program, the Bush Administration is rushing to frame the debate. Most of the talk has amounted to little more than political spin.

Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, Gen. Michael Hayden lead the PR blitz by taking questions from reporters at The National Press Club on Monday. The General confirmed to NSA expert James Bamford and Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder that a feature of the NSA program was the lowering of the legal standard from 'probable cause' to 'reasonably believe' (a.k.a. 'reasonable suspicion') --- which would avoid the FISA Law requirements.

Besides showing that he had a limited understanding of the Fourth Amendment, Hayden's assertion of the Constitutionality of lowering the 'probable cause' standard has troubled many. This Kos diary calls the admission "explosive and damning" and goes on to say:

The following video is a compilation of clips from General Hayden's press conference and comments from James Bamford focusing on the 'probable cause' issue.

Democracy Now has a complete transcript of the exchange.

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CORRECTION: A previous update identified Hayden as NSA Deputy Director, instead of Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence. The BRAD BLOG regrets the error.

Whoops...Yesterday (Wednesday, January 24th) was The BRAD BLOG's 2nd Anniversary! And I was too busy to notice.

Oh, well. What a long, strange --- very strange --- trip it's been.

From our very first blog item...to...wherever the hell the world has turned now.

I'd wax more poetically, except that two years in and up since lord knows when this morning and I couldn't be more exhausted. Or could I? Ask me next year around this time if we're still at it.

In the meantime, feel free to leave a Happy Anniversary Gift in the Tip Jar, if you're so inclined. We could still, even after two years, use it! Otherwise, Open Thread here to your heart's content to celebrate! While I sleep.

Thank you all for helping to make this journey possible and so incredibly satisfying day after day, and now year after year. Peace. Soon.

Guest blogged by David Edwards

They're baaaack...

ABC News has obtained a video tape of "open air" jihad recruiting in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The tape claims that all government functions have been taken over by the Taliban. ABC News confirms that foreign aid workers have been forced evacuate the area.

In another part of the video, a top al-Qaeda leader gives a PowerPoint presentation explaining the details one of their attacks.

Quickly after 9/11, the U.S. began its' War on Terror in this part of the world. They told us that the area presented the greatest danger to America at that time. The message to Americans was that al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, and the Taliban should be destroyed immediately for the sake of our National Security.

Why are Bin Laden and other key al-Qaeda leaders allowed to roam these tribal regions with impunity? Why has The Taliban been allowed to return and actively recruit for the jihad against America? Why is the a-Qaeda network growing in strength while the Bush Administration declares that they "are on the run"?

More from ABC News...

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In an editorial titled "Senators in Need of a Spine" in tomorrow's NY Times "the paper of record" gets it right for a change. (Truthout posts the editorial in full, for those note registered with NY Times.) Here are some of the money quotes...

The BRAD BLOG has been calling for such a spine from Democrats (on this matter at least) for the past week. We're glad to see the NY Times join the bandwagon.

The only question now is will the Dems find the courage to do the right thing as they have failed to, with very few exceptions, over the last five years? Or will they roll over yet again at the most decisive moment of the entire Bush "Presidency" and fail to fight for the future of this country, in hopes that all will be forgiven by the base when the 2006 mid-terms come around?

We hope they choose wisely.

According to an earlier report from RAW STORY, your phone calls providing "cover" for the Senators, or lack thereof, may make all the difference.

The Senate switchboard can be reached at 888-355-3588 or 888-818-6641. Democrats.com has many more contacts and details for you.

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

A majority of the news is still coming from three states. Vote-by-mail is being discussed in CA and counties are making announcements of their decisions for voting machines in NC and PA. In the meantime, GA's Senate passed the VoterID bill with a few differences from what they got from the House so the bill goes back. It's still regressive....

State and County Elections officials from coast to coast to coast are now in a mad, confused, frustrated scramble trying to figure out how the hell to comply with and make sense of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) legislation.

HAVA has proven to be an unmitigated disaster, gamed as it was from the start by Congressmen like Ohio's Bob Ney working in cahoots with voting machine companies. The effort has shamefully employed disabilities groups like the National Federation for the Blind (NFB) and American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), who received more than a million dollars from companies such as Diebold, Inc., to help trump up the sympathy factor in order to force jurisdictions to purchase unreliable electronic voting machines (read: junk), said to be needed by disabled voters who would be unable to vote in secret without assistance from others.

As of the 1/1/06 HAVA deadline, Boards of Elections are now officially plunged into complete and utter disarray as they attempt to comply with the reckless and cynical legislation's mandated requirement (dreamt up by the American Voting Machines Vendors who stand to make billions) for at least one disabled-accessible voting device in every precinct around the country --- even in small precincts without a single disabled voter!

Touch-screen (DRE) voting machines created by mega-corporations like Diebold, Inc. and ES&S have been proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to be unsecure, hackable, unreliable and finally, not fully accessible by many segments of the disabled community. Meanwhile, the one electronic-based device in which voters with disabilities have expressed the most interest, the AutoMARK system, has reportedly been kept largely out of the marketplace through a number of means. ES&S, the voting machine company who managed to secure exclusive rights to distribute the AutoMARK system, has reportedly been overpricing it in favor of their own DRE systems. As well, there have been a number of reports of ES&S sales reps being actively dissuaded from properly demonstrating that system in pitches to potential customers around the country.

As well, states such as Florida and many others have been incredibly slow at certifying the system --- which prints a readable, verifiable, recountable paper ballot with every vote cast --- even while they've already giving their blessings to DRE systems made by both Diebold and ES&S, despite the demonstrated inaccuracy, hackability and secret-software that employs "interpreted" source code, explicitly banned by HAVA guidelines.

With the rapid approach of the 2006 primary elections, the question is now: What the hell are these Boards of Election around the country going to do, to both meet HAVA requirements for voters with disabilities and provide all voters with some semblance of an accurate, reliable, recountable, democratic means of casting their vote in secret and with some certainty that it may be counted, and counted correctly?

Comes now, with not a moment to spare, an ingeniously simple, non-electronic device to allow voters with disabilities of all sorts to be able to cast their own vote, in secret, and with the knowledge that their paper ballot will accurately reflect their intent.

Say hello to the Vote-PAD, the little paper and plastic voting assistive device, that just may save American democracy...

In just one more story which illustrates the many undemocratic dangers of allowing private companies to "own" our public elections, Diebold, Inc., one of America's largest Voting Machine Companies is currently blocking citizens in Alaska from viewing election data from the 2004 general election!

"All Alaska races from 2004" are now being questioned, said a Democratic party official in a written letter to the state Elections Director.

Questions have begun to arise about results from that election, including the reported revelation that "district-by-district vote totals add up to 292,267 votes for President Bush, but his official total was only 190,889."

The BRAD BLOG has obtained a copy of the letter sent yesterday by Jake Metcalfe, chair of the Alaska Democratic Party to Whitney Brewster of the Alaska Division of Elections. The letter responds to Brewster's refusal to supply the party with the requested data files and outlines a number of additional concerns about the reported 2004 election results.

The complete letter is available for download here [PDF].

Anchorage Daily News covers the emerging controversy today. Some highlights here [emphasis ours]:

Never mind, of course, that Diebold's "company secret" has been available for download from the Internet for years, since the company --- who claims to specialize in security solutions --- left the information sitting unprotected on a public download site.

The full story is here...

(Hat tip to our friend Peter B. Collins of KRXA 540-am in Monterey, CA for the lead!)

UPDATE 2/7/06: Alaska capitulates...sort of. Details now here...

The Palm Beach Post covers Clint Curtis in an article yesterday, headlined "Paper-trail advocate to air rigging concerns". The detailed article is occassioned by Curtis' "official audience this week with the committee advising Palm Beach County on voting technology."

Those not familiar with the extraordinary tale which we broke exclusively back in December of 2004, can read a short summary of the remarkable story here. It essentially concerns Curtis' sworn allegations that former Florida House Speaker, now U.S. Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL), asked him to create vote-rigging software back when Curtis worked as a programmer for the Oveido, FL software firm Yang Enterprises Inc. (YEI). At the time, Feeney, in addition to leading the FL statehouse, was also the general counsel and a registered lobbyist for YEI.

The story also concerns Curtis' long-standing and now-verified claims that YEI was employing a now-convicted Chinese spy and was also engaged in massively overcharging on contracts such as the one it had with the Florida Department of Transporation. As well, there is the startling tale of the untimely, and unexplained demise of the Florida Inspector General, Raymond Lemme, who had been investigating Curtis' charges against YEI and Feeney. Curtis has since passed a polygraph test concerning these charges.

The Post piece covers much of the territory, of course, that BRAD BLOG readers familiar with our year-long plus Clint Curtis coverage will know well by now. Apparently, reporter George Bennett has spent quite a bit of time reading our work here, which we are happy to see.

The downside of the Post article, is the usual misrepresentation of information disquised as "balance" that we see so often these days, not just in coverage of Curtis, but in the MSM in general. Eg., Bennett feels it important, and properly so, to give YEI's attorney's rebuttal to Curtis' charges. But, of course, Bennett then fails to point out that YEI's attorney is also Feeney's old law partner dating back to just prior to his joining the U.S. Congress. Bennett also fails to point out that both YEI and their attorney continue to be large donors to Feeney and that Feeney has continued to lie about his ongoing relationship with the company.

That's just one example of the downsides. The upside, however, is hopefully the additional attention to Curtis' story at a time when a host of new questions are arising concerning Tom Feeney's corruption (he was, you know, on one of those now-infamous trips to St. Andrews to play golf, like Tom DeLay and Bob Ney, for example!)

In addition to this latest article, we have reason to believe there will be still more information and coverage elsewhere of the continuing Clint Curtis saga soon...

UPDATE 1/31/05: We were contacted today by George Bennett, author of the recent Curtis piece in the Palm Beach Post. He had the following reply to this blog item:

The BRAD BLOG appreciates Bennett's clarification, and we're happy to post it here for the record.

Saddam Hussein's intolerable use of weapons of mass destruction against enemies; unprecedented aggression against and occupation of a country which posed no threat to his own; routine kidnapping, torture, murder and secret prison system; wholesale slaughter of citizens from other countries; imprisonment of political rivals held for years without charges; and secret spying on his very own countrymen without court order or legislative approval, demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that this so-called "President" was a dangerous rogue, a tyrant, and a grave threat --- of the highest order --- to worldwide peace, stability and democracy.

His immediate removal from unelected power was...and is...a completely justified imperative.

Guest blogged by David Edwards

A Swiss Senator, Dick Marty, is heading up a European investigation into secret CIA flights that 'rendered' detainees to countries where they could be tortured. An interim report released today found that the allegations of CIA torture flights are true. More than 100 people are suspected to have been abducted by the CIA and flown to countries where torture took place.

Presenting the report to the Council of Europe, Senator Marty said "There is a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the existence of a system of relocation or outsourcing of torture."

While no irrefutable evidence of secret CIA prisons was presented in the interim report, Marty said that it is highly likely that the "black prisons" did exist. After the report was released, the EU's top justice official called on authorities in all European countries to cooperate with the investigation.

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