{Blogged by Brad from Portland, OR}

Cramming all of this into a single item, since I'm way up against it here in Portland where I'm speaking tonight (and all weekend) at the National Summit to Save Our Elections. If you're in the 'hood! Please come on by and say hello!

UPDATE: Our erstwhile engineer from our BRAD SHOWS in Crawford, Otie Mclay is here, and informs me he's currently streaming as much of the conference as possible LIVE right now at KPFTX.org! Go listen in!

Doing tons of media up here, trying to get the word out about the Summit and the grave need for Election Reform in America. (You can listen to two hours with me battling it out with "Conservative" Lars Larson yesterday, in studio, by way of example. Thanks for posting it, David!)

Got a call from the Ron Isana radio show folks inviting me to debate with ANN COULTER tomorrow morning at 9am PT (12noon ET). That should be fun. On Delay and Frist, etc. Will try to find a minute or two to bone up on it all late night tonight I guess! --- Insana is nationally syndicated all over the place.

UPDATE:See this item for listening links to hear the tape-delay version as it streams live again Saturday @ 3pm ET (Noon PT), and then for the archive posted thereafter.

It was nice to be in-studio, as well, this morning with Thom Hartmann up here. He's agreed to appear on The BRAD SHOW tomorrow (LIVE Saturday, 7p-11p ET or 4p-8p PT, with reBRADCast on Sunday at Noon ET). We'll have tons of stuff from the conference, loads of guests, including, but not limited to David Cobb, Clint Curtis, Robert Koehler, Ellen Theisen, and many more Election Reform All-Stars! We won't have phone lines, however, so you'll need to play along here at The BRAD BLOG in our Open Thread during the show.

Finally, and speaking of Election Reform All-Stars, Debra LaGuercio of the Daily Republic --- who picked up last week on our initial DIEB-THROAT story --- follows up with more on it this week!

It's a great column, that deserves to be read in its entirety, headlined, "Sadly, Dieb-Throat doesn't disappoint". It starts this way...

LaGuercio did receive "a deluge of feedback," but it wasn't what she had expected. Read the entire thing to find out how it came out. Wish I had more time to cover it today! But suffice to say, a new Election Reform All-Star is born in the media and her article ends simply "America - 1776-2004. R.I.P."

I'm reminded of the old Native American (I think) saying, "A path is laid one stone at a time."

Laying stones from Portland, OR...one at a time...and with your help...Talk to ya on the air tomorrow night! Brad

U.S. House ethics rules require Delay to step down as Majority Leader...

MSNBC has details...

AP reports Hastert as pointing to Rep. David Drier (R-CA), reportedly gay congressman, to take his place. CNN is now reporting that Roy Blunt will be the temporary majority leader. David Dreier and Eric Cantor will also assist in DeLay's responsibilities.

AP has more...

DeLay Statement: "I will step aside."

The sliming/swiftboating of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has already begun...

Media Matters cuts the slime off at the pass:

McClellan: Bush considers Tom Delay "a good ally".

Pelosi: "Republicans plagues by culture of corruption at the expense of people of the USA."

Smoking Gun has the full indictment...

Videos in Windows Media format
White House defends DeLay...
DeLay denies charges, attacks District Attorney...
DA Ronnie Earle answers questions...
Behind the DeLay indictment...

...DEVELOPING...

As I'm currently on The Road to Portland (with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and the lovely Dorothy Lamour!) to speak at the "National Summit to Save Our Elections" my ability to post regularly here at BRAD BLOG will again be somewhat curtailed for the next couple of weeks.

However, there is more to come from excellent Guest Bloggers Katrina and Dan Wilcox from their experience over the weekend at the huge rallies in DC, along with the return of other fave Guest Bloggers including David Edwards, Winter Patriot and various other Special Guest Bloggers who may drop in from time to time in the upcoming weeks with some interesting reports!

Further good news is that we are hoping to broadcast a LIVE BRAD SHOW this weekend, on location from Portland during our usual Saturday Night 7p-11p ET timeslot. See http://www.BradShow.com for more and join us here at BRAD BLOG during the show for a Live Open Thread (presuming we are able to pull it all off...which is looking positive as of this morning!)

I had hoped to lay low concerning the weekend show for a bit, in preparation for a "step up" for The BRAD SHOW which, to nobody's surprise, is taking a bit longer to get nailed down than we'd like. So hopefully a fix this weekend will do everyone (both you and me!) a bit of good as we move forward! Feel free to help us out with a bit of gas and/or cell phone money (don't ask about my cell phone bill after Crawford!) to help defray all of the above, as we will likely be unable to get ads sold for this weekend's show as we move Northward!

And thanks, as always, for all of your various and generous support!

With Diebold, Inc.'s financial and ethical and political chickens perhaps finally coming home to roost, Andrew Gumbel, author of Steal This Vote: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America comes out with some more troubling information on the voting machines sold by America's largest Voting Machine Company.

As we write this morning, Diebold's trouble stock prices, which fell nearly 20% over two days last week alone, continue to tumble. DBD share prices are down 2.33% so far in early trading today closed down another 3.3% today!

The trouble reported by Gumbel today, comes out of Georgia, vis a vis the Democratic Secretary of State down there and what appears to be some less-than-above-board contractual shenanigans with Diebold and their hardware and software. The report also suggest that votes may have disappeared entirely from Diebold voting machines.

Gumbel reports, in a Huffington Post blog item today based on several original documents and contracts obtained via public records requests made by CountTheVote.org's Roxanne Jekot, that recent "elections were run on software that was not only untested but also uncertified, that key components broke down during live elections, that county officials were left clueless on how to operate the new machines because of a breakdown in the training schedule, and that the cost of installing the electronic touch-screen system jumped dramatically beyond the advertised $54 million, without proper legislative oversight or approval."

While Gumbel's concerns seem to be used to question Sec. of State Cathy Cox's fitness for office as she makes a 2006 gubernatorial bid, it's Diebold's complicity in keeping security issues with their machines quiet that caught our eye. Amongst the items reported by Gumbel based on records reviewed (more links available in his original article):

NOTE: The 2002 election questioned above, was when Senator, War Hero and 3-time amputee Max Cleland (D-GA) lost his seat in a surpise victory by Republican, Saxby Chambliss who had run advertisements questioning the patriotism of Cleland, and comparing the Vietnam War hero and 3-time amputee to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Gumbel continues...

In a story about Diebold, Inc. continuing trouble the Cleveland Plain Dealer's business section reports that the Ohio-based company "lost almost a fifth of its share value last week." (Trading of DBD continues flat again today with shares off some .50% on the day.)

As well as comparing the company's restructuring to the failed strategies at Enron, reporter Alison Grant picked up on BRAD BLOG's Exclusive story of the Insider we refer to as DIEB-THROAT:

Apparently, Diebold has no response to all sorts of "nonsense." Like a branch of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security sending out a Cyber Alert Bulletin prior to last year's November Election warning that Diebold's central vote tabulator was open to any malicious user who might wish to change the results of an election. Diebold failed, apparently, to offer a security upgrade even after that Alert was issued, and to this day acknowledges it as no more than an "unproven allegation."

Failure to respond to such "nonsense" seems to be costing the company dearly. And more trouble, our so-far very reliable inside sources tell The BRAD BLOG, is soon on its way...

Special BRAD BLOG / Velvet Revolution coverage
of the Sep 24-26 Rally in D.C.
Blogged by Brad

The Anti-U.S. Constitution, Pro-Corruption, Dead-Enders who still support the War in Iraq --despite the fact that it was founded on lies and deceitful misinformation given to the American People and Congress by its supporters in the Bush Administration --- are finding themselves in a quickly shrinking minority in America.

This weekend's Anti-War rally, which turned out at least 100,000 supporters by conservative estimates, and up to 600,000 by other estimates, dwarfed the Pro-War faction left to turn out for an embarrassingly sparsely attended Pro-War rally. The War Lovers sheduled their rally as a counter to counter those who support American Values and American Troops by calling for their proper protection in battle, their appropriately-funded medical care after they return, and for them to be returned home to America and their families as soon as possible.

AP's story on the Pro-Bush/Anti-Sheehan rally this morning revealed that the dwindling pro-war movement in America could barely muster up more than a few hundred folks to turn out in D.C. this weekend.

The story also points out that such folks are squarely in the American minority --- not that you'd know it from the way the Conservative Media, such as CNN, MSNBC and FOX "News" covered the events. "[O]nly 37 percent approved or leaned toward approval of how Bush has handled the situation in Iraq," the story points out. As well, those who "strongly disapprove" of the war, outweigh those who "strongly approve" by a vast 2 to 1 margin.

(None of which kept C-SPAN, of course, from giving the 400 Pro-War demonstrators the same amount of airtime they gave to the 100,000+ Anti-War demonstrators, further validating our oft-repeated journalistic critique that "Balance is Bullshit")

Here's what AP had to say...

Special BRAD BLOG / Velvet Revolution coverage
of the Sep 24-26 Rally in D.C.
Blogged by Brad

Earlier we demonstrated that there are no photos to prove that anything unusual happened at all today in our nation's capitol. Just as the Cable News Channels reported. Or didn't.

And here now is video evidence to also show that nothing occurred...Good thing CNN, MSNBC and FOX (despite Bill O'Reilly's promise to cover it) didn't waste any valuable time or resources to send out any news crews! Fortunately, unlike the major Cable News outlet, us bloggers have unlimited budgets so we can afford to cover such non-events!

Windows Media Player Version...
Quicktime Version...

(Video courtesy of Michael Blane who happens to give a damn! Thank you!)

UPDATE 9/26/05: Longer, more detailed Exclusive Video from in front of White House...including shots of Cindy Sheehan and Jesse Jackson in the march, right here...

Special BRAD BLOG / Velvet Revolution coverage
of the Sep 24-26 Rally in D.C.
Blogged by Brad

Hurricane Rita seems to be largely under control and the worst has past. Nonetheless, only one story in this country can be covered by Cable News Channels per day. Only bloggers like us have the massive resources to afford covering more than one story at a time. Which is a good thing, since there's nothing else going on anywhere in the country today. Nothing. Not even in the nation's capitol...Certainly not the most massive rallies this country has seen in 35 years...

AP's article just posted, headlined "100,000 Demonstrators Call for U.S. Troops To Leave Iraq" must be a mistake...Or at least, not newsworthy.

Please don't look at these photographs.

Debra LoGuercio, editor of the Winters Express in California, takes a look at our DIEB-THROAT stories in her latest column for McNaughton Newspapers. She closes with this graf:

We're glad LoGuercio has noticed, and that more and more such folks are beginning to take notice of what we've been yelling and screaming about since at least November 3, 2004 here at The BRAD BLOG

We also join her call for refutation of the points made by DIEB-THROAT in our stories covering just some of the information that the still-anonymous source has shared with us. Those stories, if you haven't caught them yet, are respectively here, here and here. You can reach LoGuercio at this email address, and you can reach us at this one should you have any information or evidence that in any way questions the validity of our reporting or the information we've presented so far from DIEB-THROAT.

So far, that hasn't been done. As well, we are told that more coverage of our reporting from other media outlets (larger ones) is likely on the way.

Today, Diebold Inc's stock price stayed largely flat (gaining about .61%), closing at $36.15.

Last February, when we launched our "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign at VelvetRevolution.us shares of Diebold, Inc. (DBD) stock were more than $53/share. The value of the company's stock has fallen more than 30% since we began our campaign, plunging some 20% in the last week alone since our first DIEB-THROAT story.

The DV4D Campaign put America's Voting Machine Companies on notice. We let them know we expected them to do the right thing for this country and introduce transparency, security and accountability into the electronic election systems which they were foisting on a misinformed electorate.

We hope that the other major American Voting Machine companies are taking note of what is happening right now at Diebold, and before they get too excited about trouble at their competition, we hope they all understand our promise (The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VR) to do anything and everything legally and within our power to hold the anti-American owners and management of all of those companies accountable for putting our democracy at grave risk through their careless and unpatriotic business practices.

Democracy is not for sale. At least it shouldn't be. And we intend to continue to do something about it. Wherever and whenever possible.

We didn't set out to write a fundraising article for VelvetRevolution, but now that we've written it, we realize, this is as good a time as any to ask for your support of VR, so that we can keep up such work to help take our great country back from the cretins and bad guys that have --- and continue to --- hijack it from the good citizens of this country.

You can make a donation to VR right here... Thank you in advance! We need it!

P.S. Today, VR placed a new ad in Washington DC's City Paper to coincide with this weekend's massive rallies there. More on the latest ad in our campaign here, but here's a preview for you...

P.P.S. Katrina Wilcox, our Information Manager extraordinaire from VR, will be Guest Blogging here all weekend from D.C. where she's covering the rally for us! Please come back soon for thoughts, pictures and even video if we're lucky from on the ground in D.C. all weekend!

(Hat tip BRAD BLOG commenter, DaveK!)

Finally admitting what honest Americans who give a damn (and who have paid attention!) already know, former President Jimmy Carter admitted on Monday that Al Gore won the 2000 Election.

"There's no doubt in my mind that Al Gore was elected president," Carter told an audience at American University last Monday. RAW STORY has the scoop and the audio of Carter at Monday's event.

We have plenty else to be irritated about of late concerning Jimmy Carter as BRAD BLOG readers know. Nonetheless, it's notable that a former President of the United States has finally come out and said publicly what so many of us --- including the major media who confirmed it in the wake of 9/11 while nobody was noticing --- have known for years!

Al Gore won. George W. Bush lost. Period.

Bush is an illegimate "President" of the United States. Accept it. Get over it.

He is an abrogation of American democracy. If one hates America and democracy, then we see no reason why one wouldn't support the "Presidency" of George W. Bush.

Turning off Comments on this item, just to let ya know I'm staying on with Jack Blood for another to take calls on Diebold, Election Reform, Blogging and anything else you like.

Listen to the show here. CALL-IN# 800-259-9231 if you've got any questions or comments for either me or Jack...

Our still-anonymous Diebold Insider --- who we call DIEB-THROAT --- has some thoughts on Wednesday's sudden and stunning 15.5% one-day plunge in Diebold, Inc. share prices as reported earlier today by The BRAD BLOG.

"What a difference a few months makes," DIEB-THROAT wrote after the market close on Wednesday. "Back in July, Diebold told investors during its conference call the election revenues were sound and expected to grow." Yes, DIEB-THROAT was on that conference call. "Now all of a sudden Diebold's [CEO Walden] O'Dell tells investors of $10 million in lower revenues from election systems alone. Perhaps what Diebold isn't talking about is the $500,000 a month in legal fees they were spending in California, or the current rash of problems with touch screen systems that freeze up when votes are cast. Using Hurricane Katrina is a poor excuse for bad products - the last time this kind of deception occurred it was called Enron."

The blistering comments about Hurricane Katrina were in regard to Diebold's press release early Wednesday morning attributing much of their lowered forecasts for 3rd quarter and full-year earnings to the hurricane. The "freeze up" on Diebold's touch-screen voting machines has long plagued the North Canton, Ohio-based company, and a recent massive test of the equipment by California's Republican Sec. of State Bruce McPhereson confirmed that a full 20% of Diebold's machines either froze up or had printer jams.

When The BRAD BLOG spoke last week with Diebold spokesperson, David Bear about the California tests, Bear repeated several times times that "there were a total of 10 printer-jams after 11,000 votes were cast." When asked several times about similar statistics concerning the number of screen freeze-ups, Bear was unable to give us any information or numbers whatsoever.

The Tri-Valley Herald, however, had some numbers in their report on the massive California tests:

Those tests, the largest of their kind, led to Sec. McPhereson's banning of the Diebold TSx touch-screen voting machines in the State of California, the largest voting "market" in the country.

Amongst other problems the company blamed on the hurricane in this morning's release, they claimed, "the impact of Hurricane Katrina is negatively affecting scheduled election systems deliveries in the Gulf region, resulting in approximately $10 million in lower elections systems revenue during the quarter."

As well, O'Dell himself is quoted in the release as suggesting "operational inefficiencies" as one of the factors contributing to lowered earnings expectations:

However, O'Dell --- who took over today as President and Chief Operational Officer for Eric C. Evans who announced his resignation this morning --- didn't mention if correcting "operational inefficiencies" would include any changes to the $3,058,650 paycheck that O'Dell himself took from the company in 2004.

As well, DIEB-THROAT believes there's more bad news ahead for Diebold stockholders, pointing to the failure of stock prices to bounce back quickly today after the early morning plummet. "Typically the stock would bounce back after such a dip. This is a sure sign of a troubled company," says the source who continues to request anonymity based on a continuing sensitive relationship with the company.

More trouble in the days and weeks ahead was also predicted by DIEB-THROAT, who feels the trouble isn't as much the weather, as it is a poorly run company.

"If Hurricane Katrina was at fault this stock should go through the floor when Hurricane Rita hits. The fact of the matter is Diebold is mismanaged and unethical. The revolving door in top management we've seen in the last few months is perhaps the sprint for cover. After all who wants to be around when the feds pull back the curtain on the Homeland Security issue," said DIEB-THROAT in regard to the Cyber Alert issued last year, prior to November's election, by the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) --- an arm of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security --- as reported in a BRAD BLOG Exclusive late last week.

That "Cyber Security Bulletin", little-noticed by the media, and apparently wholly ignored by Diebold when it was originally posted in late August of 2004 is still available on the US-CERT website. It warns of an "undocumented backdoor" in Diebold's GEM Central Tabulator software used with its electronic voting machine systems. The security vulnerability could allow a local or remote user to modify vote tallies stored in the system according to the warning and corroborated by several different sources.

"This backdoor means that one malicious person can change the outcome of any Diebold election," DIEB-THROAT said in our previous article. "Diebold's election system," the source added, "is one of the greatest threats our democracy has ever known."

Share prices of Diebold, Inc. (DBD) continued to fall sharply in early trading today, dipping 7% right off the bat as reported by AP. Minor recovery has begun to occur over the last few hours in continued heavy trading. Hit REFRESH for the latest prices in the chart below which shows today's trading only...

See yesterday's report on Diebold's 15.5% plunge here, and DIEB-THROAT (the Diebold insider) comments on the company's woes after the plummet, comparing them to Enron, here.

Shares of Diebold, Inc. (DBD) continued to fall in heavy trading today after hitting a 52-week low at Tuesday's close as reported here last night.

As of today's, shares had dropped 15.5% in very heavy trading, along with news that their President and Chief Operating Officer, Eric C. Evans has resigned effective today. Diebold, Inc. CEO Walden O'Dell has announced he will take over for the moment...O'Dell is well known for his Republican fundraising letter of 2003 announcing that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President."...Diebold Elections Systems, Inc. and competitor ES&S count more than 80% of America's votes each election and have come underfire for inadequate security on their voting machines, as well as a lack of transparency for their proprietary source code, and a lack of accountability and verifiability in their election results.

Real-Time Chart, Slight Delay, Hit Refresh for Updates...

UPDATE: Diebold insider, "DIEB-THROAT" weighs in on today's stock plunge! Compares company to Enron! Points to CEO O'Dell's $3m Salary and more! Read it here...