Election Reform advocates have been turning out in droves at several recent public hearings in State Senates around the country. This week, official hearings were held in both California and Arizona concerning the unparralleled mess in which each state now finds itself in regards to Elections and Electronic Voting.

We'll cover the hearings in California shortly, where, as in Arizona, Election Reform advocates (read: citizens who have little to gain other than hope for the ultimate restoration of integrity to this nation's democracy) filled the galleries to capacity in order to witness the astonishing spectacle of public election officials sputtering, spewing and admitting to all in attendance that they haven't a clue how to manage the mess that is referred to as "democracy" in America.

On a side note: One can't help but wonder if we'd even be in the predicament today were it not for the complete abdication of duty by the mainstream media, who has ignored every facet of this issue beyond cursory and insulting smears dismissing such fundamental questions as little more than "conspiracy theory". There is no longer any doubt that those of us who understood the issues at stake here, long ago, were 100% right about it. As well, those who marginalized and dismissed us and the matter were 100% wrong. In the bargain, their delinquency in reporting on these matters in any substantial way has resulted in an unprecedented crisis of confidence in our democracy by the electorate. Such a crisis threatens our way of governance in ways that Osama bin Laden could never have conceived, much less found a way to cause himself.

Anyway, on to the most recent revealing and remarkable chapter in Arizona's Shameful Republican vs. Republican Primary Electoral Fraud Circus, in Maricopa County's Legislative District 20...

The Democratic led hearings on the illegal, warrantless spying of Americans on U.S. soil by the Bush Administration's NSA is currently being aired LIVE on C-SPAN 1!

Despite the House of Representatives being currently in recess, once again the Republicans have refused to give Chairman John Conyers, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and his distinguished panel, a formal hearing room. So, as with their hearings on the "Downing Street Documents" last year, they're back in the basement this morning.

RAW STORY has Conyers' opening statement.

C-SPAN's online streaming seems to be down, however, the live audio of the hearings is available via Pacifica radio.

(We'll try to update this item if possible, despite a very busy schedule this morning! Those who are listening/watching, feel free to "Live Blog" anything you like in Comments!)

Republican and true Conservative (as opposed to today's majority of phony "conservatives"), Paul Craig Roberts, formerly of the Wall Street Journal and National Review, as well Ronald Reagan's one-time Assistant Sec. of the U.S. Treasury, discusses "Evidence of a Stolen Election" in his latest column out today.

Unlike the bulk of his media and political brethren, clearly Roberts "gets it" as he writes, in review of Mark Crispin Miller's landmark election theft tome, FOOLED AGAIN, "now that Republicans have learned that they can use the electronic machines to control election outcomes, the disenfranchisement of Democrats is likely to be a permanent feature of American 'democracy.'"

Along with an appropriate indictment of the media's overall failure to adequately investigate and report on the crumbling of the most essential, very core of our democracy, ("a free press has proven to be inconsistent with the recently permitted highly concentrated corporate ownership of the US media," says Roberts) he pens the obvious point which the rest of the media, and America along with them, just can't bring themselves to admit outloud:

It does, indeed.

And, in closing, he hits the ball way over the fence:

Homerun, Mr. Roberts.

Arianna is right. If the Dems tap someone like Virginia's newly elected Gov. Kaine to respond to Bush's State of the Union Address --- simply because he was able to win in a supposed "Red State" and sounds a helluva like Bush on the Iraq War --- instead of someone who represents the mainstream views of America like Rep. John Murtha, then they deserve every just dessert that will come to them.

The same is true in regard to any Senate Dem who refuses to filibuster Alito. They will have lost his/her right to be supported by anybody in this country. An illegitmate Presidency only lasts eight years (maximum). The Supreme Court is for a life time.

If Alito is worth voting against for confirmation (and he is), then he is worth doing everything in ones power to keep off of the Supreme Court. To that end, anything short of a filibuster to keep someone like Alito, nominated by a criminal like Bush --- who has lost all credibility, every "benefit of the doubt", along with a supposed "right" to appoint anybody to the Highest Court in our land --- is spineless, pathetic, fruitlessly pandering, and ultimately providing of a perfectly justifiable reason for any voter to refuse to support any such Dem ever again.

If Dems would begin Impeachment Hearings on George W. Bush immediately, if only they had the numbers in Congress to do so, then why, in the wildest stretches of anyone's imagination, would they defer to him the singular power to shift the balance of the court for decades beyond his shameful, criminal, and illegitimate reign?

There are many reasons to filibuster Alito. No matter what the Conservative Media tells you repeatedly. Those are the same folks, after all, who also told you that "John Kerry would be much tougher than Dean to defeat as a Presidential Nominee." And you believed them. While there are few reasons not to fillibuster Alito, aside from what those very same Wingnuts have hypnotized you Dems (again) into believing.

For the moment, however, I'll point to just one reason, as described in this study of Alito's prevarications about and claims of "Unitary Powers of the Executive" as compiled by the good folks of the Oregon Voter Rights Coalition. They, correctly, conclude thusly:

Amen.

I've been out of town for a bit, and on and off line in the bargain, so haven't compiled an authoritative list of actions for folks to take if they agree that Dems should filibuster Alito. Come what may. So I'll leave it to folks in comments here to offer links to email petitions, phone numbers, and other such campaigns to help get the message to Senate Dems that the time for "playing it safe" is over. The time for stepping up courageously to do the right thing for this country...for our country --- fallaciously perceived political costs be damned --- is now here.

Do it Dems, and you will deserve every kudos. Do not, and you deserve every bit of disdain that will come your way from those who might have otherwise supported you to the ends of the earth. Either way, I promise, you will receive very same the slings and arrows from the Right. That's what they do for a living. But if you attempt to pander to the non-existant "middle" yet again --- as the Wingnuts have tricked you into believing actually exists --- I hope you'll not wonder why your base may justifiably turn their backs on you when you may need them most.

Fool you a dozen or so times...shame on you.

UPDATE 1/20/06: Dick Durbin says 'Filibuster now possible'! Details here...

UPDATE 1/22/06: Guest Blogger Pokey Anderson builds the case for filibuster...

Yesterday, I wrote about the suicide of Specialist Douglas Barber, an Iraq War vet who suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) upon returning home from fighting on behalf of this country. A man who put his life on the line for this country, but who was unable to receive adequate help from the Veteran's Administration as run (and facing deep cutbacks) by George W. "Support the Troops" Bush.

Here is an email posted on SCOOP, from Barber, as written in January of 2005.

He had a difficult time getting people to listen to him while he was alive. Perhaps some of us can try to listen to him now that he's dead, so that perhaps his death will not be in vain.

In his email, Barber describes what many families go through when they witness their sons and daughters coming home in flag-draped coffins, hidden from view by the Bush Administration. And, even more telling in this case, some of the horrors veterans suffering from PTSD face once back on the homefront. Here's a few grafs...

See his full post for some of the specific personal issues that Barber faced as he wrestled with his PTSD demons.

But then, he goes on to finish with some words for all of the Wingnuts out there who make this sort of disaster possible. Those who, from the comfort of their million dollar homes and multi-million media contracts, distort the cost of this war to sell it as "a noble cause," as if it's a Made-in-America product we can all be proud of and ought to promote to every corner of the earth. Those who bang on a political drum to give the death and destruction of others a "positive" spin for their own personal benefit. Those who gain from the nameless, faceless deaths of real heroes who --- unlike the media-politico scoundrels --- will never benefit by having their contracts renewed, their books promoted to the Best-Seller lists, or see offers for multi-thousand dollar speaking fees. Those who haven't the first clue of what heroes like Barber faced in order to make the lives of such Chickenhawks so cozy and swell. Those like Rush and Sean and O'Reilly who, in Barber's own words are "nothing but dirt under every soldier's boots!"

All of that, even as Barber's death, along with countless others, won't even rate to make the Pentagon's ever-growing list of U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, or even seem themselves added to the scores of thousands listed on the Injured Lists.

I'll let Barber finish out this post...

(Please consider supporting Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), formerly OpTruth.org --- Unlike Rush and Sean and O'Reilly, these guys were actually there...and they actually give a damn.)

RAW STORY has an early release of Gore's full statement replying to the attempted obfuscation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in reply to Gore's speech yesterday.

Letting you know here, since the Mainstream Media will likely ignore it --- as they did with Gore's speech yesterday. Or misrepresent it and twist its facts. As they did with Gore's speech yesterday.

I'll leave others to embarass the Trolls when they try to retread the Gorelick "Blackbag" physical search nonsense (not covered by FISA!) here in comments. I'm taking a few hours off...

I'm on the road for a few days, currently near Palm Springs (or, as I like to call it, the Hollywood Old Folks Home), so unable to blog as around-the-clock as normal. But a couple of points today have really got me upset.

One is the spin-meister Bill O'Reilly's unpardonable apologies for the criminal George W. Bush administration. His remarkable rationalizations and attempts to excuse what noted constitutional attorney Jonathon Turley just called "an open and shut criminal case" against Bush (at the bottom of the first hour of O'Reilly's radio show today), are simply appalling.

O'Reilly's reasons why none of these broken rules of law or corruption of the U.S. Constitution rises to impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors? Because the American people don't support the impeachment of Bush. (Never mind the new Zogby poll showing that 52% of Americans would support such action for illegal, warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens. And never mind that no more than 30% of Americans ever supported the impeachment of Clinton!). But more on that, hopefully, later or tomorrow as my stomach, and time-away allows it.

For the moment however, a very disturbing story...just another one of far too many similar ones, I'm afraid...pointing up why this son-of-a-bitch who sits in the White House needs to be held accountable for the horrific actions of which I don't believe he actually has a clue. Or, at least, has insulated and lied to himself so much, that he can't even conceive anymore of the pain he has caused the citizenry of this country which he once swore to protect and defend. That, on top of the cynical claims of looking after the armed forces which he (fallaciously) claims at every opportunity to support.

I received some very disturbing email messages this morning, which have, by now, become all too familiar...

The BRAD BLOG has obtained a statement from "Gag Ordered" FBI Whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds, Founder and Director of the National Security Whistleblowers Coaltion, in response to Al Gore's just completed speech earlier today in Washington D.C.

Gore's address, sponsored by a bi-partisan coalition, warned that our "constitution is in grave danger" and called for, amongst many other things (highlights of speech here), the creation of new Whistleblower Protections for members of the Executive Branch and others.

Edmonds, due to a rarely invoked "State Secrets" privilege by the Dept. of Justice, is legally barred from discussing remarkable and troubling findings she made as an FBI translator after 9/11, in regard to a number of explosive matters of national security.

She emailed the following statement to The BRAD BLOG moments ago:

In a Guest Blog of her own here at BRAD BLOG in late December, Edmonds called for whistleblowers from within various national security agencies to step forward and reveal illegal activities by the agencies, as a "patriotic duty" to the country.

Several days later, NSA whistleblower, Russell Tice, revealed to ABC News that he was one of the New York Times' sources who had provided the paper with information concerning the alleged illegal, warrantless wire-tapping of U.S. citizens in apparent violation of the Foreign Intelligence Security Act of 1978. Tice is also a member of Edmonds' National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.

Al Gore's speech, to a bi-partisan audience, on our "Constitutional Crisis" has just concluded. UPDATE: We've posted extended video highlights from the speech here...

Gore was to have been introduced by former Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA), but Barr's live video feed broke down at the last moment. We are told by the Liberty Coalition's Michael Ostrolenk (who jumped up to introduce Gore in an improvised statement), that Barr will be appearing on CNN's Situation Room later this afternoon.

An early highlight from Gore's address: "The President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently."

MORE HIGHLIGHTS...

Much more in the extraordinary full speech, for which RAW STORY now has the complete prepared text.

UPDATE: FBI Whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds issues an exclusive statement to BRAD BLOG in reply to Gore's speech...

Crooks and Liars has video highlights.

A new Zogby Poll, just announced, to be officially release tomorrow shows that a majority of Americans would support Congressional consideration of the impeachment of George W. Bush if, in fact, he wiretapped U.S. citizens without obtaining a legal warrant to do so!

Earlier today, we posted a video of Arlen Specter, of the Senate Judiciary Committee, admitting on ABC's This Week that "impeachment" was one of the first remedies for the illegal wiretapping by a President of U.S. Citizens.

John Nichols over at The Nation seems to have what appears to be some good inside skinny on Al Gore's speech in DC on Monday. Here's a small taste...

With Barr on board, and the event being co-sponsored by the Liberty Coalition, it's gonna be a helluva lot harder for the wingnuts to try and discredit Gore here. Though, no doubt, they're busy this weekend plotting exactly how they hope to do so.

Additional Reporting by John Gideon

Are the voting machine vendors now teaming up against an election official who dared reveal the vulnerabilities of their voting machines?

As you'll recall, Ion Sancho, Leon County, Florida's courageous Supervisor of Elections stood up against both the state and Diebold and said that he would never again use Diebold's voting equipment after he allowed for a test which demonstrated their election equipment was easily hackable. The results revealed an electronic optical-scan election on Diebold equipment could be flipped without a trace being left behind.

After dumping Diebold, Sancho made a deal to buy machines instead from Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S) on the promise that they would supply their optical scan machines for use along with the AutoMARK system which prints a countable paper ballot. AutoMARK has an agreement to allow ES&S exclusive marketing rights for their machines.

But a strange thing happened after Sancho's agreement with ES&S and just prior to the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) deadline on January 1, 2006. As reported by Susan Pynchon of Florida Fair Elections Coalition, a voice-mail message was left on Sancho's cell-phone on December 29, 2005 by Gary Crump, ES&S Chief Operating Officer. Crump was calling to inform Sancho that the company had decided to deal only with long-time customers due to equipment deadline considerations. Pynchon says that statement is "patently untrue, since ES&S went ahead and contracted with Volusia County, Florida after agreeing to sell to Leon County."

Pynchon goes on to offer some possible reasons for this odd betrayal and what the Leon County Manager had to say about it:

So what the hell is going on here? Black Box Voting has still more details in the bizarre on the story, though we're still left wondering what the real skinny is on this one!

If we can learn anything more, you'll be the first to know.

The powerful Ohio Congressman man who, while gambling at a London casino on a lobbyist paid vacation, got "lucky" and won $34,000 on a $100 bet (just in time to pay off a $30,000 credit card debt) may be seeing his luck finally run out.

Reports now breaking all over the place that House Speaker Denny Hastert is pushing Ney out of his chairmanship position on the House Adminstration Committee...

He'll step down "temporarily" and "come back". Now where have we heard that before?

COVERAGE:

-- MSNBC...
-- Hotline...
-- Roll Call... [subscription required]
-- AP...
-- CNN...

-- BRAD BLOG's Ney exposé from Tuesday...

UPDATE from David Edwards: Video Report by CBS News:

-- Video in Streaming Flash format...
-- Video in Windows Media format...

Ney, a principal author and advocate for the disastrous Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 was revealed, last Tuedsay, in a detailed BRAD BLOG exposé to have had very close ties to lobbyists paid by Diebold and Jack Abramoff's firm, Greenberg Traurig.

Most of those ties had yet to be reported by the mainstream media who have been focusing primarily on information concerning Ney's lobbyist-funded trips, gifts and other monies raised via his close relationship with Abramoff and his clients. Much of the information so far reported by the MSM was revealed by the guilty plea agreements filed by Abramoff and his former associate Michael Scanlon.

As we reported in our piece on Ney, his former chief of staff, David DiStefano, was hired by the beleagured and duplicitous Voting Machine Company, Diebold, Inc. in order to lobby Ney to ensure that HAVA's provisions mandating disabled-accessible voting machines in every precinct in the country stayed firmly in place. At the same time, via his post as Chair of the House Administration Committee, Ney was able to hold hearings to smokescreen massive election irregularities in Ohio in 2004 and see to it that bills calling for voter-verified paper records for every ballot cast would never see the light of day.

Our story also reported the thousands of dollars being paid by Diebold to Jack Abramoff's firm, Greenberg Traurig. Though we have yet to find any official disclosure of those payments via congressional lobbying databases. So for the moment, we're still left wondering what happened to that money, and what precisely it was meant to be used for.

We're shocked --- shocked! --- to learn that Bush was actually using illegal wiretaps on American citizens prior to 9/11.

Jason Liepold has the skinny at TruthOut:

It looks like the Rightwing may have found a replacement for the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), the GOP front group set up to smokescreen against true election reform and transparent democracy. The ACVR has been mighty quiet of late, which we might like to attribute to their having been thoroughly discredited and rendered mostly impotent due to some longterm, airtight, crack reporting here by The BRAD BLOG about their attempted democracy-hating scam.

But now, a West Coast "non-partisan" conservative think-tank called Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRI) may be stepping in to fill at least part of the void in the person of TechNews World columnist and PRI Director of Technology Studies, Sonia Arrison. Arrison has been op/ed'ing and releasing "white papers" lately rallying against voter-verified paper ballots for electronic voting machines. Her reasons for being against transparent democracy are both bizarre and seem freshly pulled out of her hind quarters (or out of those of Diebold's).

We'll look at some of her already-discredited charges in a moment, but let's take a look at this PRI group. Their staff seems to be a who's-who of Canadians, staffers of former-California Governor Pete Wilson, former staffers of Tom DeLay ally Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), and other "conservative" "thinkers".

PRI seems to be little more than yet another dirty dot in the massive now-metastasized matrix of "conservative" think-tanks, phony trade-associations, lobbying firms, consultants, columnists, politicians, "reporters" and other media pimps who are part of a wickedly tentacled network of people and organizations meant to prop up wingnut causes in the press while firing up the unquestioning, lockstep "grass-roots" believers...