Finally. The United States Congress was allowed 30 minutes by the Republican Majority to debate the War in Iraq!

Yesterday, an amendment by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) to the Pentagon's $491 Billion Appropriation Bill was debated on the floor of congress. Woolsey's amendment called on Bush to begin planning an Exit Strategy for Iraq.

Imagine that! An actual dialogue --- out loud, and on the floor of the U.S. Congress! --- about one of the most botched, illegitimate, ill-conceived and ill-waged foreign policies in the history of the United States of America. One that has taken hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, has made the world more dangerous (by the Pentagon's own admission!) and has no end in sight.

The amendment didn't pass, of course, but the topic is finally being discussed. Albeit all too briefly.

Nonetheless, even five Republicans, one of them Walter Jones (R-NC) of Freedom Fries fame (see yesterday's story on his change of heart and regret over both the fries and the war) voted in favor of the amendment!

Read the tea-leaves. Listen to the thunder.

RAW STORY's Larisa Alexandrovna is set to report shortly that a movement seeking a "Resolution of Inquiry" by members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee into details surrounding the Downing Street Memo is now under way.

A number of grassroots citizens organizations, including The BRAD BLOG and Velvet Revolution have issued our support for such a Resolution, which could potentially be the first move towards a criminal investigation and/or Impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives.

In the now-infamous July 2002 memo (issued a full 8 months prior to the War on Iraq), it is said that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Neither the Bush or Tony Blair administrations have disputed the authenticity of the memo or the information contained within it.

89 Members of Congress recently sent a letter to George W. Bush inquiring about the memo. As of today, no response has been received by Congress.

UPDATE: Alexandrovna's story is now up at RAW STORY. It begins...

FURTHER UPDATE: A website has now been established for the newly emerging citizen's coaltion at AfterDowningStreet.org

FURTHER FURTHER UPDATE: Velvet Revolution's official statement is now online here. Please sign this petition to your lawmakers now!

In a follow-up posted yesterday by Jim Lampley at HuffingtonPost.com, Lampley discusses his original blog item which set off a firestorm when he claimed that Election 2004 was "the biggest crime in the history of the nation".

His latest item suggests what we have been saying here for months: "a mountain of evidence suggests the 2004 Presidential election was decisively tampered with and general media are doing nothing about it."

He also answers back directly to his critics and once again compares the gaming of Election 2004 to Watergate and even links to a BRAD BLOG story in the bargain...

Jim Lampley appeared for an exclusive interview on our radio program, The BRAD SHOW, recently. You may listen to an .MP3 archive of our interview with him, in which he goes into great detail on this matter, at that page.

UPDATE: HuffPost has now added COMMENTS for each blog item! Go put in a good word for Lampley over there! Looks like the Freepers are trying to (surprise, surprise) avoid, distract and deflect over there. Go get 'em! Tell 'em the truth!

After reading the item posted here last night about what seems to have happened in Arizona, please take a look at what AP is now reporting as having happened in Miami-Dade...

The item above, run this morning by AP seems to be a report on the same news item run by Miami-Herald almost three weeks ago which includes many more details on just how out of line the final results were from the information in the poll books.

All of this is a pattern that most of us --- who have being paying attention --- saw months ago. Will the MSM see it now that these various reports are being confirmed in various segments of the "legit" media?

We look forward to digging into this one a bit, hopefully in the morning or at least after some elusive but much needed rest.

In any case, this template for a stolen national election, as presented by one man who's been diligently compiling his case since Election Day, is certainly compelling. We urge you to give it a look.

The Tuscon Weekly is to be lauded for their fine coverage of this story.

The rest of the media can largely go to hell for not doing same in every damn town and precinct across this country.

More on the story of John Brakey as we can find the time to look into it a bit more. But please do give the full article a read and let us know your thoughts.

(Thanks to our friend David Edwards for the tip!)

Not that we enjoy being "All-Conyers-All-The-Time" around here, but he is the man out in front of nearly everything these days, demonstrating what an actual opposition party is supposed to look and sound and act like.

As well, it should not go unnoticed that in the case of a Democratic Majority returning to the U.S. House of Representatives in '06 (yeah, we know the possibilities for that, given who owns the voting machines, but still...), Congressman John Conyers would be the Chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. That is the House Committee which would begin Impeachment Hearings were George W. Bush ever to have done anything that could possibly be considered an Impeachable Offense (as impossible as such as thing is to imagine!)

All of that said, Conyers made a few fairly remarkable comments in his recent interview with RAW STORY which we've only today been able to read in full.

We recommend a read of the entire transcript. The following few grafs, amongst many, certainly caught our attention...

I've received word from Johns Hopkins where our friend Andy Stephenson, who has been tireless for years in his efforts to fight Election Fraud in this country, has just completed 7.5 hours of surgery.

He has come through the surgery successfully and his tumor was removed. He is currently in Recovery and on his way to Intensive Care shortly.

I have been asked to keep further details of the surgery and his further prognosis private as of now. It has been requested, however, that I pass along the news above for those who are concerned about him, and, as well, to ask everyone to say their prayers for Andy at this time.

Interesting catch via RAW STORY from today's Guardian:

Fancy that. Even once pro-war Republicans are turning against this bogus war and beginning to face the facts.

NOTE TO TROLLS: Please begin your character assassination of Congressman Jones now. Thank you.

Various obligations have made us slow on both the draw and analysis of this one, so we'll let the always excellent work of the Columbus Free Press' mighty Bob Fritakis speak for itself.

Suffice to say the infamous Hocking Country "Triad Whistleblower" is being fired for her patriotic efforts, Blackwell has taken a blow in his attempt to punish those who would challenge his Election Reign Supreme in the Buckeye State, and there is no such thing as "Bi-Partisan Boards of Election" in Ohio. Just another myth employeed by cheaters willing to shamefully disenfranchise American Citizens in order to hang desperately onto power.

See Fitrakis and Wasserman's latest here.

While we wish to see Election Fraud ferreted out and destroyed wherever it rears its ugly head, the GOP was dealt a setback in the current trial in Washington state where GOP sore losers are attempting to unseat Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire after a razor-thin margin last November. The Judge in the case has ruled --- to the chagrin of the crybaby GOP conspiracy theorists and tinfoil hat wearers --- that fraud is not at issue in the current case.

Nonetheless, beyond that, two things strike us of interest in this case.

1) The unmitigated determination displayed by the GOP to fight for the accurate counting and accounting of every vote. We only wish the DNC showed as much moxie in fighting for what was likely theirs (the Presidency). And...

2) The following strangely familiar argument (as described in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer) being cynically employeed by the partisan GOP hyporcits in Washington state, yet being ignored by same everywhere else in the country.

Sound familiar?

Of course, if that attempted legal argument was employed in Ohio and the other swing states, all of which went to Bush despite astronomically impossible statistical odds against it, the GOP's illegitimate "President" would not currently be occupying the White House.

Too bad Democrats don't fight for what's rightfully theirs as ardently as Republicans do. And, unlike Republicans, they wouldn't even have to lie and make stuff up to do it! Merely showing up for the game would likely suffice!

UPDATE: Joseph Cannon has some great details on what really went on in WA and explanations of the absurdity of the GOP Conspiracy Theorists claims in court.

Though John Conyers Forum on "Media Bias and Freedom of the Press" today on Capitol Hill continues, live broadcasting via Air America has concluded for the time being. C-SPAN's cameras were there and will hopefully be broadcasting in full sooner, rather than later. We hope to shout out when a time is scheduled on C-SPAN for the broadcast or when it is made available for streaming via their website.

In the meantime, Conyers' office issued his opening statement this morning via a Press Release. He decried the current assault on the Mainstream Media, their lack of willingness to report stories critical of the Administration in power, posited how different things would be if it was the Clinton administration who had lied the world into war, and cited The BRAD BLOG, DailyKos, RAW STORY and Air America as alternative media sources in the "forefront" of those "willing to speak truth to power".

He went on to say, that "these voices are too few and too diffuse to overcome the blatant biases of our cable channels and the negligence and neglect of our major newspapers."

Here is his prepared opening statement in full:

As we previously reported, the U.S. Senate Subcommittee has made the testimony of all witnesses from last week's hearings on the U.N. Oil-for-Food "scandal" available on their website.

All witnesses, that is, except for the stunning testimony given by British MP George Galloway, who tore Senator Norm Coleman (and the Bush Administration in general) a new one for their McCarthy-like witch hunt to distract from the Administration's devastatingly failed and dishonest Iraq policy. Galloway called the hearings and the trumped-up scandal "the mother of all smoke-screens".

As we reported originally, Coleman's office passed the buck for the absense of Galloway's testimony on the website by telling The BRAD BLOG that, "Senator Coleman is the chairman, but the committee makes their own decisions about what goes on the website."

Our calls to "the committee" have yet to be returned, yet the website has now been updated at least twice with pathetic explanations.

The first update, just after our original article on the missing Galloway testimony, informed us that: "Mr Galloway did not submit a statement".

A later update, currently available on the site, explains that (emphasis ours): "Mr Galloway did not submit a written statement".

As a public service to the U.S. Senate subcommittee on Investigations whose transcribers are either very slow, or very inept when it comes to copying and pasting, and to the future ex-Senator Norm Coleman who has no say about what goes on his own committee's website...Galloway's Testimony has been available on this London Times page for nearly a week.

Video from portions of that testimony is available via this previous article.

Norm Coleman's office can be reached at 202-224-5641 if you have any questions or wish to leave a message for "the committee" since there is no phone number online for "the committee". Hopefully the chairman of that "committee" can help you.

A source inside Congressman John Conyers' office has informed The BRAD BLOG that C-SPAN will indeed be covering his forum tomorrow in D.C. on "MEDIA BIAS AND THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM OF THE PRESS".

So it looks like the "6 or 7" of you who have written to C-SPAN requesting they do so have been successful! Well done!

Since both the House and Senate are in session tomorrow (NUKULAR DAY and all!) the forum, unfortunately, will not be carried live but will instead run later at a later time still to be determined.

UPDATE: Air America will be broadcasting the Forum live beginning at 1pm ET tomorrow (Tuesday). You can listen online via this link.

And speaking of the future of the Freedom of the Press, last Saturday night's BRAD SHOW on the Air! broadcast is now available for your archival listening pleasure! Including the complete interviews with HBO/NBC's Jim Lampley, Editor & Publisher's Dave Astor, USMC 1st Lt. Andrew Borene, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and much much more! The archives are here as always...

A Washington Post article exposing the specific details of several pre-war doubts by Bush Administration aides and anlaysts in the lead-up to war ran on page A1 in the early Saturday editions of WaPo's Sunday paper. By Sunday morning, however, the story had its headlined softened and was subsequently buried on page A26.

The story, by WaPo staff writer Walter Pincus, details the doubts of the administration's own intelligence analysts concerning WMD, Munitions Plants and Saddam Hussein's Unmanned Aerial Vehicles program, all of which were widely trumpeted as justifications for going to war by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and others within the administration during the build-up to the War on Iraq.

Pincus' Page 1 item, which originally ran in Saturday afternoon editions of the Sunday paper and on the front page of the WaPo website was headlined "More Evidence of Bush Aide's Doubts on Iraq --- Analysts Questioned Most Intelligence".

By Sunday, however, the article had been pushed back to page 26 with the softer headline, "Prewar Findings Worried Analysts".

The Washington Post has come under fire lately by critics decrying the lack of news coverage critical to the Bush Administraton. It was nearly two weeks before WaPo even mentioned the appearance of the "Downing Street Memo" which some have cited as a "smoking gun" demonstrating that George W. Bush lied to the American People and Congress during the build-up to war in Iraq. Several sources have called the information included in the memo as evidence of "an impeachable offense".

That memo, written in July 2002 --- a full eight months before going to war --- describes the Administration as already having decided to topple Hussein through military means and that the intelligence was being "fixed around the policy". Several days after 89 U.S. Congressmen sent an inquiry to Bush asking about the information in the memo, WaPo finally ran their first news item to mention the memo. On page 18.

A source at the Washington Post has commented that it's not unusual for stories to move off of page 1 between the Saturday and Sunday editions of the Sunday paper. Yet the move all the way back to page 26 and the softened headline certainly raises questions.

The Page 1 version of the story, originally linked to by the Internet news site RAW STORY early Saturday evening, retained the same URL on the WaPo website as the move was made and the headline and page number changed. The bulk of the article was unchanged as the move was made, though there were a couple of minor changes made to the text with little effect on the story itself.

The BRAD BLOG has contacted both Walter Pincus and his WaPo editor, Scott Vance, for comment and/or explanation for the move. We will update this item with additional information if and when we hear back from them.

(Thanks to Emailer David Griscom for the tip on this story!)

UPDATE: Looks like our friend Jesselee over at The Stakeholder was getting a similar scent on this story last night as we were looking into it as well. He has additional information on WaPo's burying of various Pincus articles as well as an admission/apology for same by WaPo editors last summer. Despite that self-flagellation nearly a year ago, it would seem that WaPo is still in the business of going easy on the Bush Administration.

In a Page 1 Washington Post article this morning (one that seems to be staying on Page 1 versus another story from over the weekend which we will be reporting on shortly!), the parents of Pro Footbal Player turned U.S. Army Soldier, Pat Tillman, have blasted both the Army and George W. Bush for their "lies" concerning the death of their son via "friendly fire" in Afghanistan in 2004.

Some of the extraordinary details from the WaPo story which likely won't make it onto the Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly programs, unless the plan to call Tillman's parents America Haters as well (wouldn't be a surprise at this point)...