Those of you who follow The BRAD BLOG closely may know that I've been working in the background, for a number of weeks, on an exclusive series concerning the billionaire Koch Brothers, the co-owners of the nation's second largest private corporation, the oil and chemical conglomerate Koch Industries. They are also massive funders behind much of the Rightwing political disinformation machine. The articles, as I can now reveal, cover audio I've obtained as recorded from inside their super-secret, super-confidential, invitation-only Summer Seminar held in late June at the tony Ritz-Carlton Beaver Creek Resort near Vail, CO (seen above).

Among this year's attendees, in addition to hundreds of corporate baron billionaires and millionaires, were GOP public officials such as current Republican Presidential front-runner Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL).

It appears the brothers went to extraordinary measures, particularly on the first night of the event, to assure that none of the uninvited would ever know what went on inside or even who the first night's keynote speaker actually was.

Nonetheless, a few of their closely guarded secrets are about to spill out.

The first of my two articles in the series is finally published at Mother Jones today.

Part 1 focuses on the opening and closing remarks, as heard on tape, by billionaire brother Charles as he raises still more undisclosed political money and rallies his troops in advance of the 2012 Presidential election --- or "the mother of all wars" as he's heard describing it. On the first night, Charles welcomes his "great partners" to the event, alludes to President Obama as "Saddam Hussein" and proceeds to list --- by name --- those "partners" who have donated more than a million dollars to the Koch Foundation political causes over the past year. So much for the post-Citizens United "anonymity" that Koch exec Kevin Gentry, the emcee for both evening's dinners, informs patrons they can "help protect."

The full audio and text transcript of Charles' opening and closing remarks are posted here.

Today's article also details remarks, several rather noteworthy I think, made by the Kochs' closing night speaker, Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox "News." The Fox host tells the crowd of corporate titans, among other things: how he got his job at Fox (it had to do with the FL 2000 Presidential election debacle, he claims); how he "sometimes" gets in "a little bit of trouble at Fox" when he's too tough on Republicans, and; what he believes the Second Amendment to the Constitution is really for. You'll have to read the article and/or the Napolitano transcript excerpts for the full details.

Finally, today's report at Mother Jones describes some of the extraordinary security measures taken by the Kochs to try and ensure that nobody outside the dinner pavilion at the Beaver Creek Resort in Bachelor Gulch would ever know the identity of the GOP public official who delivered the keynote address on opening night. To this day, neither the official's own constituents nor his own local media seem to have any idea that he'd ever even left the state to pal around with the Kochs, much less offer their opening night's headline address.

In tomorrow's report, we'll reveal the identity of that headliner and detail his stem-winder of a keynote! But for now...

• Part 1 of my exclusive report at Mother Jones...
• Complete audio & transcripts of Charles Koch's opening & closing remarks...
• Transcript excerpts from Judge Andrew Napolitano's closing night speech...

Enjoy!

UPDATE 3:56pm PT: Has been a busy day over her for some reason. CNN's just aired a not-bad story on the above (including a quick appearance by yours truly), and I'll be on MSNBC's The Ed Show tonight, late in the 10p ET / 7p PT hour. Ironically, I've been on Fox and CNN many times in the past. This will be my first appearance ever on MSNBC. Go figure.

After trying for days to get comment from the Koch's on Charles' "We have Saddam Hussein, this is the Mother of All Wars we've got in the next 18 months" remark, they've finally decided to respond now that the story is out and not, um, reflecting very well on them, it seems...

The following are quotes from media critic Howard Kurtz of CNN and The Daily Beast, as published for all to see last Sunday, even as Irene continued to devastate vast swaths of the Northeast, in his obnoxious article "Hurricane of Hype."

We, um, responded to his article here, while the New York Times' Nate Silver took a more statistically empirical approach in response, in "How Irene Lived Up to the Hype"...

[Images put to Kurtz' words by DCeiver. Hat-tip Bluegal aka Fran Fran at Crooks & Liars.]

Kurtz has yet to retract, correct, or apologize, despite Irene having resulted in "the deaths of at least 45 people in 13 states." according to Associated Press, making it the 3rd deadliest U.S. storm in over 30 years.

I was joined today by The Nation's Ari Berman on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show to discuss his new article today in Rolling Stone on "The GOP War on Voting". See my report on his article from earlier in the day right here.

This was an important discussion about an important article about one of the most important issues to directly effect the outcome of virtually every election in the nation in 2012. None of that, apparently, given what the rest of the MSM decided to cover today, is any where near as important as whether John Boehner will allow the President to speak to a joint session of Congress on Sept 7th or or whether it'll have to be on Sept 8th, and whether Christine O'Donnell or Sarah Palin will appear at a "Tea Party" event this weekend in Iowa.

And you wonder why we're in the mess we're in.

My conversation on "The GOP War on Voting" with Ari Berman today follows...

Download MP3 or listen online here [appx 27 mins]...

[NOTE: Ari Berman, author of the article discussed below, joined me on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show today. That interview is now posted here. - BF]

While readers of The BRAD BLOG may be familiar with many of the items covered in Ari Berman's fine new article "The GOP War on Voting" at Rolling Stone today (and in its Sept 15, 2011 issue on newsstands), it's great to have a summary of all of the latest state-based assaults on voting rights instituted to date, in the wake of last year's Republican wave election, all in one place.

Berman covers all of these and more in his piece on the "unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008," described by one civil rights advocate as "the most significant setback to voting rights in this country in a century"...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below!]

The Malloys have asked us at last minute to fill in tonight, so I'll be sitting in to guest host the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show this evening!

As ever, we'll be BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT) tonight, coast-to-coast and around the globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE and lively chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight:

• BILL MCKIBBEN of 350.org on the still-ongoing, weeks-long TarSandsAction.org protest at the White House, calling for the President to reject the proposed transcontinental Keystone XL pipeline scheduled to unlock an enormous amount of dirty tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
• ROBERT STIREWALT from Vermont Emergency Management on the catastrophic, record floods and devastation across the Green Mountain State in the wake of Hurricane Irene --- and how you can help with disaster assistance at Vermont211.org.
• PLUS! BOB KINCAID from the Head On Radio Network checks in from the Tar Sands protests in D.C., Green News Report's DESI DOYEN joins us for more on Irene's continuing fallout and the media failure in its wake. Also, the RW assault on Social Security and everything else this nation holds dear, and much more! And anything else that you'd like to talk about (would love to hear from folks dealing with flooding in the Northeast!), via calls to 877-520-1150 and tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or at WhiteRose Society or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: A lot to listen to tonight! And it's not all below in the commercial-free audio archives (along with the chat room archives). Enjoy!...

[UPDATED a number of times at bottom of article, with more extraordinary photos and videos of devastating "hype" in NY, MA, NC and VT leading their governor to declare Sunday that the state has "a full-blown flooding catastrophe on our hands." ||| To date, at least 45 are now dead in 13 states in 3rd deadliest U.S. storm in more than 30 years.]

Setting aside that at this time following 2005's Hurricane Katrina --- the morning after --- most in the media were breathing a sigh of relief that New Orleans had "dodged a bullet", one wonders if the folks in Wilmington, Vermont today...

...or in the Catskills of New York...

...are inclined to agree with insightful media critic Howard Kurtz' assessment that Irene amounted to little more than "A Hurricane of Hype":

Um, surely Howard knows that category rankings for hurricanes refer to wind speed and velocity, not the amount of moisture in the storm or the possibilities of life-threatening floods that may accompany it, along with the storm surge to follow, right? Surely he has many reliable sources that have explained that to him by now, doesn't he?

Dunno, Howard. Would a storm bearing down on Ft. Lauderdale have some 65 million people in its path, as Irene had? Please, Howard, have some apples with your oranges...

Be sure to click the "Layers" button on the map below and check some of the other boxes like "Cloud Imagery - East Coast". Yeesh. Or, if you live in the path of the storm, check the "Storm Surge" layer and then zoom in to where you live to see if you may be in for some serious flooding.

I've also created a public Twitter list for essential Irene news if you'd like to follow it. If you have any essential follows I should add to it, please tweet 'em to me @TheBradBlog.

And for our friends on the East Coast who are staying put this weekend, a bit of musical inspiration below to help you through. Stay safe, people!...

The Republican special prosecutor recently appointed to investigate allegations by WI Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley that her fellow anger-management challenged Justice David Prosser had placed her in a "choke-hold" during recent deliberations over the anti-union legislation of Prosser's former colleague Gov. Scott Walker.

See Milwaukee's Journal-Sentinel coverage of this news yesterday for the complete, insane details.

In a terse announcement from the prosecutor, Sauk County District Attorney Patricia Barrett would say only that she had "determined that no criminal charges will be filed against either Justice Bradley or Justice Prosser for the incident on June 13, 2011."

The letter notes that Barrett reviewed transcribed reports from law enforcement officials given to her after Dane County Democratic District Attorney Ismael Ozanne recused himself from the case, as the matter over which the Supreme Dispute took place was a lawsuit he had brought charging that the anti-union bill in question was passed by Republican legislators in violation of the state's open meetings law. The newly-assigned prosecutor also reviewed an audiotape interview with Prosser who was, apparently, the only one who had a taped interview. In addition to Bradley, four of the other Justices were said to have been witness to the fracas.

According to the Journal-Sentinel, "Barrett declined to say whether she had rejected charges because no criminal conduct had occurred or because no crime could be proven to a jury. She would say only that a case must meet both those standards before a prosecutor could bring charges"...

In a written statement following word that there would be no criminal charges, Prosser said Bradley "made the decision to sensationalize an incident that occurred at the Supreme Court." He said he "was confident the truth would come out and it did. I am gratified that the prosecutor found these scurrilous charges were without merit."

That is not, of course, what the prosecutor actually stated that she found...

I'd returned to NYU from my parents' home in St. Louis a few weeks earlier than usual in the late Summer of 1985 to produce and direct a play I'd written, PUCK: A Power Play --- about two hockey players in the desert, naturally --- so we'd be able to open during the first week of classes.

We were forced to postpone opening weekend thanks to Hurricane Gloria, the last hurricane, prior to this weekend's Irene, to have drawn a bead on New York City.

"Play Canceled Due to Hurricane" seemed as unthinkably bizarre at the time, to someone like me from the Midwest, anyway, as "Play Canceled Due to Volcano" or "Play Canceled Due to Plague of Locusts."

It was in the pre-Katrina, pre-Ike, pre-Tuscaloosa, pre-Joplin, pre-100 year flood, fire, and drought days, however. So while the city took things relatively seriously, I suspect its nothing like what's going on there this weekend.

Gloria ended up taking a right turn at the last minute, and little more than the barest drizzle ended up hitting the empty streets of Manhattan that weekend, though I remember well the big white Xs taped across virtually every window in town --- NYC's version of "boarding" things up.

Here's hoping Irene changes her mind as Gloria did 26 years ago(!), in the Summer of 1985. And here's hoping our friends on the entire Eastern Seaboard stay safe, smart, and dry over the next few days.

You can always open the play next weekend instead. We did. And lived to tell the tale.

...But who's counting?

Plus there were show tunes! From Fiddler on the Roof! Cause it's kind of Jewishy.

No doubt, the cowardly Israeli people were buoyed today by Glenn Beck's "Restoring Courage" rally near the Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Glenn who? Some guy who used to be on TV here in the U.S. At one point, it seems, he actually mattered to some people in this country. Those were the days, eh?

UPDATE: Though Beck's folks said the event was sold out, Ami Kaufman, who covered it for Israeli oulet +972 offers coverage and photos suggesting otherwise. Writes Kaufman: "It must have been pretty rough for Glenn Beck to see this"...

Kaufman adds: "After months of preparations, hours of television and radio talk all geared up for the big day, tons of merchandise manufactured, Glenn Beck could just about muster over a thousand people at his 'Restoring Courage' last night in Jerusalem. ... I can’t help but think that this flop might be a lethal blow for this guy."

Sitting in for Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC's The Last Word, Chris Hayes' coverage tonight (video posted below) highlights another hilarious passage from Beck's rally in the Holy Land: "O, Israel, hear the words of my mouth!" ...

What the hell is the matter with Mississippi and their elections all of a sudden?!

You'll recall that two weeks ago, e-voting system failures --- such as machines that wouldn't boot up at all and votes that were counted twice --- created chaos during Mississippi's state primaries, leading one official to declare days afterward, as they were all struggling to sort out results of several close elections: "At this point there is no election...Everyone is baffled."

Then, last week, we reported on the Jones County, MS election clerk who asked for, and received permission from, the county Board of Supervisors to remove the so-called "paper trail" printers from his county's 100% unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting machines because, as he told the board reportedly (with a straight face), "the voting machines record every vote and there is no way for them to be tampered with."

(That Jones County Circuit Clerk, Bart Gavin, has still not replied to our request for comment hoping to determine whether he's just hopelessly clueless, or something worse.)

And now comes this, from Rankin County, MS in advance of today's Democratic gubernatorial run-off election...

In apparent response to GOP leaders of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee who requested in June that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Julius Genachowski "strike the Fairness Doctrine from the agency's rulebook," the former corporate media executive has announced exactly that today, striking the rule, and 82 others, from the official FCC rulebook...

See ThinkProgress for more detail on this, but I just wanted to flag this moment as I find it exceedingly creepy, and suspect this is more often than not the way these things happen. The quick handshake, wink, nod and walk away --- Bank of America, in the form of a top national executive, pledges the corporation's fealty to a Presidential candidate.

No need to discuss what the quid pro quo will be. No need for Perry to even acknowledge it out loud. It's just a 5 second investment by BofA almost certain to pay off should Perry be victorious. Really creepy...

But, ya know, what's the big deal? As Gov. Rick Perry's current main competitor for the GOP Presidential nomination, Gov. Mitt Romney explained recently, "Corporations are people, my friend."

Wisconsin's old State Elections Board website (http://elections.state.wi.us/) appears to have been "hacked by Sovalye"...

[Hat-tip Election Integrity advocates Jeannie Dean, Neal Schulz and the folks at the Facebook Election Integrity group.]

[Update 7:19p CT: It looks as if officials have now restored the site. Sort of. Hat-tip again to Neal Schulz.]

The State Elections Board was replaced by the WI Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.) in 2008 as the state's top election authority, combining responsibilities of both the Elections Board and the State Ethics Board into the agency. The G.A.B.'s website (http://gab.wi.gov/) does not appear to be hacked. For now.

Of course, that's just a website, not an actual election or e-voting database. So just because the state's Elections Board website proved to be insecure and was hacked does not mean their actual elections are vulnerable to hacking in any way, shape or form, right? That, even though the state, shamefully, does not bother to check even a single ballot to make sure it has been tallied accurately during an election by its computer op-scanners made by Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S.

Why worry?

The BRAD BLOG has been warning about the manipulation of e-voting systems for years, along with members of the world's computer science and cyber security communities, and even the CIA, as our own Ernie Canning noted just last week. And yet, our nation continues to use the same vulnerable e-voting systems to tally our elections, rather than bothering to count them with our own, far more reliable and verifiable, hands and eyes, as per Democracy's Gold Standard.

I could link back to all sorts of e-voting hacks we've reported on over the years here, like this one from Princeton in 2006 or this one from the U. of MI in 2010 or this bone-chilling warning from the CIA in 2009, but they'll mostly likely just be ignored. Again.

Instead, we'll just tease you for now with news of yet another new e-voting hack --- perhaps the most disturbing one yet in a number of ways --- that we'll be reporting on very soon. Let's call that one a special delivery for election officials like Jones County, MS, Circuit Clerk Bart Gavin, who reportedly told his county Board of Supervisors this past week that the Diebold touch-screen voting machines used by the entire county "record every vote and there is no way for them to be tampered with."

Really, Bart? You're gonna stick with that, are ya?

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