Introduction {by Winter Patriot}:

I was honored to receive the following message from Brad's dad, Harvey Friedman, who not only voted today but also took an opportunity to interact with some election staff. It's a wonderful story! But I won't ruin it for you --- I'll let him tell it in his own words.

Reporting from St. Louis, not Brad but "Brad's Dad".

Since Brad could not stick around long enough to badger the local election staff, I tried to do my part. This morning there were no primaries of significant interest in my Chesterfield, MO precinct and thus the turnout was very sparse. With five election officials on hand to watch over three ES&S IVotronic machines, three voting booths for paper ballots to use with the ES&S Model 100 scanner [ED NOTE: It was Brad's dad who was reportedly responsible, in no small part, for St. Louis County having chosen to use ES&S voting systems at the last minute instead of their plan to contract with Diebold. See our report from last December on that here.] and three punch card machines which they said would no longer be available after today's election, and considering that at ten this morning I was the only voter on hand, I figured it would be okay if I spent some time pulling their chain. After all, wouldn't Brad have done it had he been here?

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

With more than 80% of the precincts reporting, and challenger Ned Lamont leading Senator Joe Lieberman by about four percent, Raw Story has called the race (the Democratic primary for a run at the Senate) in favor of Lamont.

The returns today have been been closer than we might have expected, given a poll last week that showed Lamont leading by 54% to 41%. But a more recent poll, showing Lamont's lead as 51%-45%, indicated that the race could be much closer than that.

Based on previous experience, I always get nervous when a last-minute poll shows a big lead evaporating. I don't want to cast aspersions, and I have no reason to disbelieve the poll, but I know that if I were trying to steal an election and my candidate was way behind in the polls, I would want a poll to come along just before the election saying that my candidate was gaining ground fast.

Having said all that, it will be interesting to see whether Raw Story got it right this time, or whether there will be any last-minute surprises.

Personally, I am not holding my breath. I've been to this party before.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Cindy Sheehan has once again established herself as an anti-war presence in Crawford, Texas. She has a new campsite near the palatial estate that "president" Bush calls his "ranch", and she is inviting people to join her.

Our friend Leon Smith of the The Lone Star Iconoclast has more. Here's a sample:

Camp Casey III: It’s All About Peace

Leon is promising more coverage and we will try to keep you posted.

All the plans have been changing so fast! This recently-published interview is already way out of date, but still worth a read:

Return to Camp Casey: An Interview with Cindy Sheehan

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

An early-morning report from the headquarters of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's campaign indicates that voting is not going smoothly in Georgia's 4th Congressional District. Congresswoman McKinney is involved in a runoff election against Hank Johnson, after "failing" to gain 50% of the votes in the first round of the primary three weeks ago.

According to the McKinney camp,

We've reported on McKinney's troubles in the first round of the primary (here and here) and we have also mentioned the smear campaign being waged against her --- and against opponents of electronic voting in general --- by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a so-called "newspaper" which is part of the so-called "Cox media empire". Judging from their coverage of the first round of the primary, we should not expect the AJC to pay any attention to the claims of irregularities in this election, regardless of how well documented they might be.

The BRAD BLOG, on the other hand, will continue to keep you posted.

We almost missed this report from Prensa Latina, exposing claims of yet another way to "game" an election:

What will they think of next?

And how long will it take before we start seeing this sort of thing here?

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

I'm working on a bunch of new things but most of them aren't ready yet. Oh well.

Your turn.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The Orlando Sentinel has posted a good article by Robert Perez called Opponent, where art thou? asks Democrat in which Perez does a very good job covering the lead-up to the Democratic Primary in the 24th District, between Clint Curtis and Andy Michaud. The winner will earn the right to run for Congress --- against Tom Feeney!

Many election integrity advocates have been hoping for a Feeny-Curtis race, which would certainly focus more light on some very key issues. But Curtis has to get by Andy Michaud first. And as Perez describes it, Michaud's strategy at the moment is very difficult to grasp.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

According to ABC News and AP: Bob Ney Won't Seek Re-Election

AP writer Joe Danborn has some other details, including:

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review has more, including some quotes from an exclusive interview with Ney: Ney drops out of fall race

Who went on that trip to Scotland? Let's see ...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Matthew Cardinale has the details:
BREAKING: Donzella James Contesting Primary in Georgia

A few choice excerpts:

And:

Please read the entire article.

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A few days ago, on a long and very interesting thread, texaslady wrote:

Thank you WP and Brad for sacrificing time and careers to keep those who want to learn informed.

This was a strange and difficult comment for me to read. I was reluctant to accept the obvious truth behind texaslady's kind words. Ever since I started working with Brad, I have known that he walked away from a successful career in order to do what he does now --- investigating, blogging, keeping VR running, and many other things that we don't usually notice.

So I didn't have any trouble with texaslady's comment as it applies to Brad. But I had a lot of trouble with it as it applies to me. Apparently I've been blocking out the fact that my career is gone, too.

We love what we do, we would do it for free, and we often do so. But that's not always enough.

Now Brad and I are both up against the wall, and that's why we are turning to you --- again --- and asking for help.

If you can make a contribution --- large or small --- please do so! Find the blue box near the top of the right sidebar and follow the instructions from there.

We will appreciate it immensely. And even more important, we will use the money to keep the blog running, to keep the truth flowing, and in my case at least, to keep my little guys eating.

We really couldn't do this without you. But that's ok. Because without you, it wouldn't be worth doing!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Lord, we don't need another mountain,
There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb
There are oceans and rivers enough to cross,
Enough to last till the end of time.

A hat tip to Burt Bacharach, and Hal David, and I hereby declare this thread OPEN!

[And a hat tip to "middleworld" for making us check. --99]

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

I've been reading the most incredible editorial, from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
THE LAME VOTE-RIGGING CRIES RETURN

It's also available here and probably elsewhere too.

Here's how it starts:

Well, I for one did see this coming, but I don't think this means we all should have.

You can see right away how "clever" Jay Bookman is! He admits that the result was "surprising" and that the explanation posed by her campaign was a "likely" one. It almost seems he's interested in telling the truth ... but not really.

Even on the cold hard web-page, Bookman's words are clearly dripping with sarcasm. And, in an era when unintended irony is all the rage for supporters of the current corrupt bunch of war-criminals posing as statesmen, I am not shocked to see a true statement such as this one, disguised as ... um ... listen: this is a family blog, for the most part, so let's just continue.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

USA Today has the "latest":
U.S. commander expresses fear about possible civil war in Iraq

Much as I hate to disagree with the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, I have to question this assertion. Waddaya mean: "move toward civil war"? How many civilians have to get blown to bloody smithereens every day to qualify this mess as a civil war? How many death squads have to roam the country simultaneously before we can all just can the sleazy rhetoric and admit that the Iraqi Civil War is here now?

And as the Washington Post reported recently, some of our guys are starting to get the impression that they are simply 'Waiting to Get Blown Up'.

Did you ever wonder why they can't live in unity now even though they could live in relative peace before the Americans came to destroy their country?

Did you ever wonder why American soldiers in Iraq are considering the possibility that maybe the country "needs" a civil war?...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Things have begun to stink so badly in Alabama that even the New York Times has noticed.

An unsigned editorial titled Strong-Arming The Vote ran on Thursday. And we have some excerpts from it here:

Seems to have been a driving force, indeed!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

From Larisa Alexandrovna of RAW STORY:

UN report a 'moral indictment' of US

Anybody surprised? I didn't think so.

I can't quote the whole article but I can encourage you to read it!