(P.S. - Don't tell anyone this was in today's Sunday comics page.)

Picking up in the tradition of California's Sec. of State Bruce McPherson, who seems to have a fondness for Friday night releases of important information which he hopes nobody will notice, Florida's Division of Elections Director, Dawn K. Roberts, issued a "Technical Advisory" memorandum calling for "enhancements to voting system security procedures that each supervisor of elections must address immediately." The memo was issued late this evening at the end of the work week.

Roberts' memo (posted in full below) would be the first official acknowledgment, to our awareness, by the state of Florida of the security concerns raised by the recent Leon County, FL "hack test" conducted by Election Supervisor Ion Sancho. That now-infamous test --- in which computer security professional Harri Hursti had managed to access and change information on the Diebold optical-scan voting machine memory cards --- resulted in the results of the test election being completely flipped, without a trace being left behind.

In her "Technical Advisory", Roberts fails to mention that "hack test" or the equipment it occurred on --- or even Diebold themselves --- by name. Rather, the alert alludes to McPherson's recent --- and stunning --- "conditional re-certification" of Diebold voting equipment in the state, in light of confirmation of the newly discovered "interpreted code" used by the machines. That type of software source code is specifically banned by the federal Help America Vote Act guidelines. During his re-certification of Diebold --- after the company's equipment had previously been de-certified in the state for use of illegal software patches, and subsequently found to have failed atleast 20% of the time in a massive test held last summer --- McPherson mandated specific security procedures to be used with Diebold equipment in the state of California.

"This technical advisory therefore applies to all voting systems deployed in Florida," writes Roberts in the memo issued this evening...

She's fought her case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. It was the very same day that the facade cracked on the front of the building and a chunk of marble --- just above an allegorical statue representing "Order" and just below the words "Equal Justice" --- came crashing to the ground. The highest court in the land refused to hear her case.

Along the way, the Dept. of Justice has done everything in their power (and then some) to keep her quiet. They invoked the rarely used "State Secrets Privilege" to shut her up --- going so far as to use it, without explanation, to remove her and her own attorneys from the courtroom when arguing their case against her.

In at least two unclassified Senate briefings, FBI officials confirmed the validity of her reports, but the information from those briefings was then retroactively classified by the DoJ --- which served to gag the Congress from further investigation on the matter. The DoJ even retroactively classified a 60 Minutes profile on her --- after it had already aired!

All of that, even after the DoJ's own Inspector General's report found Sibel Edmonds' allegations to be "credible" and "serious" and "warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review by the FBI." The unclassified version of that report was only released by the DoJ after prodding from Congressional members and the 9/11 Commission.

Ranking Senate Judiciary Committee Members Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Pat Leahy (D-VT) both publicly support her case and would like to allow the Congress and the American public to hear more.

Want to know what it is that she knows? What it is that she feels we the people ought to know about? And what it is that has led her to form the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition to support other patriots like herself who are trying to expose crimes and corruption from within our own government? We do. And we hope you do too.

Therefore, The BRAD BLOG is pleased to support a new petition calling on Congress to hold a joint Senate and House Judiciary Committee investigation, with open hearings into all of these matters.

Government of the people, by the people, and for the people. You all remember that, right? Let's make this happen. Please sign her petition right now.

And please spread the word to other blogs and bloggers (and perhaps even the MSM may want to get in on the act --- it is their country too, after all), and ask them to do the same. This one's important.

We've reported over the last few months about various aspects of Edmonds' case. However, for those unfamiliar with the larger pictures of Edmonds' allegations and what she would like to testify about before the Congress and the American people --- all based on what she heard and saw first-hand while working as an FBI translator just after 9/11 --- please see the following bullet point summary of just a few of her explosive whistleblowing allegations...

Yesterday, Brit Hume and the "Fox All-Stars" were in denial about Bush's dreadful poll numbers from the CBS survey. Now that Fox is out with their own poll, what excuse will poor Brit have to dream up now? (Aside from not even posting a link to their own brand-new poll on the front of their own website?)

By the way, one good point that Chris Matthews made yesterday (yeah, it can happen) is that he likes to check the internals of such polls to see how the Independents are polling. Thus, avoiding the over-weighting of Dems vs Reps or vice versa in any particular poll (as the Bush dead-enders had been complaining about the CBS survey which was weighted heavier with Dems).

Well, a very quick look at the internals of the following three polls, revealed that Independents are now even less enamored with Bush than are Dems! Go figure...

Because of a grave lack of time, we post Think Progress' coverage of the three polls in its entirety here:

A few additional numbers of note (we suggest you click through each poll to get still more)...

From Quinnipiac's poll: Even the reddest of "red states" believe a warrant should be obtained before wiretapping, by a 51 to 46 margin. Overall, the numbers are 55 to 42 percent that the government should get court orders for this type of surveillance. And here the media has been repeating the BushCo line that the NSA eavesdropping is "a winning issue for the President". What a shock. They're both wrong again.

As to who should take Congress this November...

Quinnipiac: "By a 49 - 37 percent margin, voters want the Democrats to win control of Congress in this year's House and Senate elections."

CNN/USA Today/Gallup: "By 53% to 39%, registered voters say they lean toward supporting an unnamed Democratic candidate over an unnamed Republican in their district."

FOX: "by a 14-percentage point margin voters think it would be better for the country if Democrats win control of Congress in this year's election"

Oh, poor Brit...What will he do now?

I'm working on a number of important articles, of late, so have been a bit quieter here than usual. (Thanks to David E. and John G. for ably picking up the slack during my distraction!) Stay tuned for noise soon, of course.

In the meantime, please take a moment to fill out this BlogAds survey if you could. Should only take a few minutes, and it'll better help blogs like this one raise money and stay in business through the help of the folks at BlogAds.com.

The more of you who fill it out, the better! It takes just a few minutes.

Please enter "BradBlog.com" in the "Referring Blog" question on the last page so we can get some idea who the BRAD BLOG readers are...so I can spy on you for a change!

UPDATE: The poll is now completed. Thanks to those who were able to fill it out before it came down!

Yeah, we realize that new evidence showing Bush is a liar is not really a "News Flash" to anyone who hasn't been living in a cave (or listening to Rush, Sean and O'Reilly) for the past five years.

But this just in from Murray Waas of National Journal (who deserves a Pulitzer, in our opinion, for his tremendous investigative reporting in recent months!)...

And what did that one-page summary, which even George W. Bush could read, say? That the "aluminum tubes" he and Cheney (and Rice and others) touted as proof of Saddam's nuclear program were not actually to be used in a nuclear program. Oh, and also that Saddam would use WMD, and/or share them with terrorists, only if attacked first by the United States.

In other words, add this to the file of things they knew and later claimed to not know. Like terrorists interested in flying planes into buildings, and the possibility that the levees might be breached in New Orleans.

Read Waas' excellent and brilliantly documented report. In our opinion, it's the most damning and direct evidence to date that Bush out-and-out lied this country into war.

Is there anything these guys won't lie about? Good thing they didn't swear him in.

From today's WaPo...

Of course there are other programs they're not talking about. David Edwards has blogged about it repeatedly here on The BRAD BLOG. We reported (each time with video) on NSA whistleblower Russel Tice trying to sound the alarm that the warrantless surveillance programs were much bigger than the White House was admitting. One report is here from mid-January, then again here from mid-Februrary, and finally yet again last Monday.

Just one more wave yet to fully breach the Bush Administration's crumbling levee, we suppose.

Our good friend, the mysterious and legendary Freeway Blogger posted the above yesterday, one prophetic day before Bush's latest nonsense about "hunting down bin Laden." Bush was just kidding, of course. FB wasn't.

On that note, FB is now organizing nationwide. Won't you join him?

Received this note yesterday before heading off to Guest Host "The Young Turks". It's from Fred McChesney, co-host of the excellent "M&M Show", where I've appeared several times, on Air America Phoenix:

The KXXT website now has a thanks and farewell message from the now-former General Manager, who apparently had tried to save the station. It reads, in part:

I welcome commenters here who have any suggestions about what --- if anything --- can be done about it.

UPDATE: The links to the KXXT webpages have now been removed. Unfortunately, I failed to cache them when I visited them. If anyone happened to cache those pages, please let me know, and I'll link to them instead. The message from the now-former GM, Bob Christy, can now be read in full right here. (Hat-tip to Zelph at Desert Rat!)

UPDATE 3/7/06: A campaign has now been mounted to get Air America Phoenix back on the air! They could use your help!

His Salon piece, entitled "Impeach Bush", starts this way:

...and ends this way:

Sounds about right to me.

Or better yet, Mr. Bush, show some courage for the first time in your life. Step down now and save the country from even one more day of the agony, danger, shame, harm and destruction that you've already inflicted upon us.

I was just asked last minute to jump in and Guest Host The Young Turks radio program on Tuesday from 6p-9p ET (3p-6p PT). When an opportunity arises to "Be the Media", you know I'm always happy to answer the call. As best as I can. Even at last minute. Cuz somebody's got to.

I'm happy to say I'll be sitting in along with the good Michael Shure once again.

Please tune in via Sirius Satellite Channel 146 or watch/listen to the LIVE video webcast at www.TheYoungTurks.com. Call in to say hey, if you like, at 866-99SIRIUS!

Amongst Tonight's Special Guests (so far) ...

+ Ion Sancho, Supervisor of Elections, Leon County, FL
(he, of the now-infamous Diebold "hack test"!)

+ Lowell Finley, Attorney, Co-Director of VoterAction.org
(he, of the CA Diebold decertification lawsuit, and Sequoia temp restraining order in NM!)

+ Kay Brown, Comm. Director for DNC in Alaska
(they, of the Alaska/Diebold 2004 Election Data bait and switch!)

More to be announced tonight. Feel free to call in to the show tonight and help us stir up trouble and save democracy at the same time!

Who are the Bush dead-enders? Latest poll...

Bush Approval Rating: 34%
Cheney Approval Rating: 18%

Approval of Bush's Handling of War: 30%
Approval of Bush's Handling of Katrina: 32%
Approval of Bush's "War on Terror": 43%

The battle between Election Officials and Election Integrity Advocates has been simmering and intensifying for some time. Last week, in Arizona, one such confrontation boiled over briefly into an outburst at a public meeting which was documented on video tape. In what could be a preview for the Electoral Integrity fight still to come, Pima County, Arizona's Election Director Brad Nelson went into a short tirade last Tuesday as the video camera rolled during a local Democratic precinct council meeting in the state's 26th Legislative District.

The BRAD BLOG has obtained the exclusive video of the event which reveals the Republican Nelson flying off the handle and shouting as he confronts Election Integrity Advocate, John Brakey, "nose to nose" during a question about Diebold's DRE (touch-screen) voting machines. Before Brakey was able to get to his main question concerning Nelson's plans for Logic and Accuracy testing on the machines, he was interupted by Nelson's outburst over whether or not he had, in fact, signed a contract for use of the new voting machines in the county.

Diebold's hackable touch-screen machines have been recently approved for first-time use in the state by Arizona's Secretary of State Jan Brewer.

Ironically enough --- especially in light of this new video --- Brewer herself recently referred to election integrity advocates as "anarchists" in an interview with the Arizona Star after demonstrators concerned about Diebold interrupted her re-election campaign announcement just after the first of this year.

While Nelson's confrontational rant was just short of anarchic, it certainly sent a shockwave of concern throughout the room of stunned onlookers.

One of the witnesses present, Rev. Gerry Straatemeier, described the "intimidating behavior" displayed in the incident as "completely out of line for a public official". Straatemeier was so troubled by the display that she sent an open letter to the Pima County Board of Supervisors calling for Nelson to be censured for the behavior. In the letter (posted in full at the end of this item, along with a text transcript of the event) Straatemeier says, "I really thought he was going to land a blow on Mr. Brakey and I was scared to death."

In the video, Nelson charges towards the camera at one point --- which Brakey was standing near --- coming so close that it's impossible to see anything but his chest in full camera's full frame.

Straatemeier, in her letter, suggests the tirade was an attempt to intimidate Brakey --- and other election integrity advocates --- from further inquiry into the controversial Diebold touch-screen voting equipment now coming into Arizona despite a Dept. of Homeland Security warning that their tabulator software is hackable, a non-partisan GAO report confirming the failures and loss of ballots via electronic voting, and a recent independent analysis [PDF] commissioned by the Sec. of State of California which warns about the hackable "interpreted code" used in Diebold voting machines despite a ban on such code by the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) guidelines.

As we reported in May of last year, Brakey has for some time been closely investigating a number of troubling anomalies in recent Arizona elections. His intensive work auditing his own precinct in Pima County, where he says evidence suggest fraud occurred in the 2004 election, was covered in detail last year by The Tuscon Weekly. That work has brought him in contact many times in the past with Nelson --- without incident apparently, until last week.

Last Tuesday, as the following video shows, the simmering frustration and growing anger roiling up between many Election Officials and Election Reformers, has finally begun to make its way to the surface and into the public eye...

Additional versions of the video...
-- Video in Streaming Flash format...
-- Video in Windows Media format...

===
UPDATE 3/17/06: Tuscon's local NBC affiliate runs a report including this video, Nelson says he is sorry for the outburts. Full report here...
===

A complete text transcript of the incident, and a copy of Straatemeier's open letter to the Pima County Board of Supervisors calling for censure of Nelson follows...

Last week we briefly discussed Stephen Heller who, out here in Los Angeles, is now facing three felony charges for exposing the illegal scheme by Diebold to use uncertified software on their voting machines in the state several years ago. The LA Times coverage is here.

Heller blew the whistle on the company's plan to defraud California voters when he exposed documents he saw while working as a temp worker at Diebold's California law firm, Jones Day. The courageous act, from which Heller stood to gain nothing (he, in fact, was fired for it) led to the decertification of Diebold in the state by former Sec. of State Kevin Shelley, and then to the eventual settlement between the company and the state of California for $2.6 million in 2004.

Today, several Huffington Post blogger take up on Heller's behalf, along with issuing some calls to action to contact the LA District Attorney's office to encourage tell them to drop this appalling case of punishing the patriot, Heller at the behest of the the bullies at Diebold.

Peter Soby Jr.'s coverage is the most complete. Here's a snippet:

Soby goes on to offer some talking points and helpful contact information for the LA District attorney. Please check them out and take action.

As well, Lyn Davis Lear (Norman's wife), speaks up in support as well.

...CONTACT...
District Attorney's Office
County of Los Angeles
210 West Temple Street, Suite 18000
Los Angeles, CA 90012-3210

Email: lada@co.la.ca.us

Telephone: (213) 974-3512
Fax: (213) 974-1484
TTY: (800) 457-7778 (8:30am - 5:00pm M-F)

Don Knotts 1924-2006