Is the photo at left beginning to seem less and less absurd?

Looks like we're headed for an interesting game of chicken next month in the House Judiciary Committee surrounding Rove's subpoena to appear before it to answer questions in the Don Siegelman affair (and perhaps others) on July 10. RAW has the story worth putting on your radar, with no less than two House Judiciary members hinting that they may be willing to take extra steps (e.g., use of "inherent contempt" to have Rove arrested by the House Sergeant at Arms if need be) should he refuse to testify.

If Rove refuses to appear, says Rep. Wasserman-Schultz, "then we have to take the next step." And Rep. Sanchez notes, "We really need to set our foot down and show there are consequences to people who laugh in the face of Congressional subpoenas."

Tea leaves sure, but interesting ones, worth watching. The point is also made that the Committee may continue with this particular investigation, even as a new President takes office. Would be a whole different ballgame under those conditions. Presuming that new President isn't McCain, in any case. Hmmm...

If you haven't noticed, as part of the new upgrades to The BRAD BLOG, the Voters Unite "Daily Voting News" items that John Gideon faithfully shares with us each day, are now featured in the sidebar of every page, instead of on the main page index. The latest DVN will always be available in the right sidebar, allowing for one click access to both the complete list of the day's notable voting news links and/or the entire DVN archive.

There are a number of reasons for the move, among them, my hope that it might help to get the DVN in front of even more eyeballs, since more folks tend to come to The BRAD BLOG each day via links from other sites to specific pages here. Those folks might otherwise never see the DVN at all when they visit.

It will also allow us to post more to the front page without fear that it'll be moved quickly down the page by the each day's DVN. The move, I hope, will also have other added benefits that will hopefully become more obvious in the future.

For now, I hope you'll take the time to note John's very helpful link to VotersUnite's voter registration info database from yesterday's DVN. The VU database contains convenient info for many states on how to quickly check to make sure you haven't accidentally been purged. Like John, I urge you to make use of it now (and again, once or twice, between here and November), as opposed to waiting to be surprised on Election Day!

As ever, your input, thoughts, suggestions, ideas, complaints and wish lists for the site as I continue to strive to improve things whenever I'm able to find a minute or two to do so are always very welcome!

I'll be on the road for a few weeks, as mentioned previously, so may be here a touch less than usual (if I'm lucky!), but Jon Ponder of Pensito Review, Arlen Parsa of The Daily Background, the very busy Alan Breslauer of HotPotatoMash, John and undoubtedly others will be jumping in to to keep things more than lively around here in my "absense".

And speaking of keeping things lively around here, below is a bit of very good news, in the form of an inside joke for frequent BRAD BLOG commenters, courtesy of yesterday's USA Today. Enjoy...

Who says Republicans don't have class? From the Dallas Morning News blog's report on the Texas GOP state convention...

If you're interested in their items, their website is here. Their slogan: "Patriotic and Republican Products at Republican Market." I guess the above is an example of one of the Republican products. No clue if they've actually got any patriotic ones.

But if you'd like to find out about that, or anything else, you can email them at: sales@republicanmarket.com. More info on this impressive outfit is available here.

(Hat-tip BRAD BLOG reader GM)

UPDATE: Our friend Mike Rogers points out that Republicanmarket doesn't bother to show that particular button on the buttons page at their slimy website for some reason. Go figure. Not sure why, since, as commenter Creid points out, they aren't embarrassed about running this sexist garbage. Again, very very classy stuff.

UPDATE 6/19/08: The Texas GOP distances themselves from Republicanmarket.com, bans vendor from future events. Details now here...

Del Martin, 87, and Phyllis Lyon, 83, got to tie the knot today, after 56 years together. That's what liberty and freedom look like. Congratulations to the lovely couple.

Also, this. Fiscal conservatives here in California, and elsewhere, may wish to re-think their stance on marriage equality and say "Thanks, gay people!"

Of course, some folks are hoping to turn back the clock by trying to change the Constitution next November out here. Here's my interview, from last week, with Richard Prenctice, CEO of the so-called California Family Council, a member of the "Protect Marriage Coalition." Why he's against liberty and freedom (and apparently sound fiscal policies) remains a mystery to me. Though I did my best to try and find out.

Another reminder may be needed: Just because California now allows same-sex marriage, it does not mean you must marry someone of the same sex. Also, if you are currently in a heterosexual marriage, you are more than welcome to stay married. I'm no lawyer, but I'm pretty certain about both of those points.

Wall Street Journal (subs. req'd) reports Bradley Schlozman, one of the DoJ's GOP "voter fraud" operatives, who was inserted as US Attorney in Missouri just in time to bring "voter registration fraud" indictments just days before a major election, may be heading for more trouble...

The article goes on to say it's unclear which of Schlozzie's comments --- characterized by one BRAD BLOG DoJ source, at the time, as "on the razor's edge of perjury" --- that prosecutors are specifically focusing on.
Perhaps it could be the moment seen in the video at right? (But, even if not, the clip featuring an outraged Rep. Patrick Leahy, is always worth watching again!)

After his testimony, Schlozman, who had passed the buck, claiming he was "acting at the direction of the [DoJ's] Public Integrity section," suggesting that they had given him the go-ahead to violate DoJ rules disallowing election-related indictments just prior to elections, was forced to offer a retraction to that part of his testimony.

Today's WSJ article also notes: "Separate investigations into the department's handling of the prosecutor firings and related issues, which are being conducted by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility and the Inspector General, are expected to be completed within the next few weeks."

Looks like it could be a long hot summer for Schlozzie. Or the DoJ could bury it entirely. At this point in the Bush Adminstration, it's anyone's guess how, or if, the DoJ works at all.

TPM Muck offers more background.

I think we've kept our oft-made promise, so far, to bring you coverage of the 2008 Election that you will find nowhere else.

From the first Primary mess out of the box in NH; to Rep. Heather Wilson's vote-buying scandal in NM (she lost her bid for the Senate nomination, btw, poor dear); to thousands of "Double Bubble" ballots left uncounted on Super Tuesday in Los Angeles; to miscounted votes on Sequoia machines in NJ and the dope the company tried to put in charge of the "investigation"; to being called to testify to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission on their utter failures of federal oversight; to the federal fraud suit filed against Hart InterCivic; to their attempted takeover of Sequoia and our exclusive findings that the company doesn't even control its own software or intellectual property and their CEO has been busy lying about it; to nuns, students, vets, the elderly being disenfranchised altogether by the Supreme Court upholding unconstitutional Photo ID restrictions; to multiple races flipped by e-voting machines in Arkansas; to the continuing saga of voter fraud felon Ann Coulter and Fox "News'" attempts to ignore it; up to my very own e-votes getting flipped in L.A. the week before last; and so much more in between.

All that, just since the first few days of January this year.

We promised to keep an eye on the track conditions, even as everyone else was obsessed with the horse race, and so far, I think we've delivered.

If you are able to express your support with an online donation, it would be as appreciated as it is needed.

We have been forced to scale back our Summer travel plans for shortage of funds, and prices of fuel. But we've still got places we have to get to, beginning with a family commitment this coming week that will put us on the road again for the next several weeks.

Our 2008 Election Integrity Fund Drive continues, allowing you --- for as little as a $5/monthly commitment --- to receive any one of three items described at that link. If you can spare more per month, we'll toss in more Premium gifts in return.

If you can contribute at least $50 one time, we'll send you a collector's edition DVD of the remarkable documentary, Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections, hand-signed by the filmmaker, David Earnhardt. (DISCLOSURE: I'm in it, but it's a good film anyway.)

I can't express how much I hate asking folks for help here. Especially these days. But as blog ads have largely dried up for much of the blogosphere so far this season, and as The BRAD BLOG has no corporate or foundational funding, we have nowhere to go but to you.

If you can help us keep going, I commit to continuing the same investigative, muckraking, cry-till-ya-laugh, laugh-till-ya-cry coverage of our American democracy that you will find nowhere else. Although if I can find a few days off between now and the conventions, I'm gonna try to take 'em. Not that I usually have much luck at that sort of thing. But it won't stop me from trying.

As always, your support means the world. Thank you, in advance... --- Brad

Vidal at TruthDig:

And perhaps the capper:

In all my "free time," I've been working for quite a while on programming a number of updates and reformatting to the site. I'm rolling some of that out today, and welcome your feedback.

Some of the updates are meant to freshen up the format a bit, allow for more future additions and expansion, and, hopefully, to improve the speed issues a bit.

You may need to hit shift-refresh once to get all the updated graphics and such, but thereafter I hope you enjoy the new changes, along with more to come as mentioned. If you have any problems on any pages, or any other concerns, complaints, other thoughts (even positive ones) or requests for the future here, I hope you'll feel free to share them in comments.

Thanks for your patience as I smooth out any bumps and, as always, for your continuing support, without which we'd have never even made it this far.

It's my final day of Guest Hosting this week for the syndicated Peter B. Collins Show! Can't think of any better day than Friday the 13th!

We've had a blast, so far. So please join us for one last outing, this week, being the media from within the mainstream belly of the beast. (Yes, we've been BradCasting out of the Clear Channel building, from the studios of KTLK AM1150 in Los Angeles.) We're back today from 3p - 6p PT (6p - 9p ET), and hope you'll join us by tuning in, streaming in, blogging in, throughout the show.

Scheduled guests for today (Friday) include...

ROBERT PARRY of Consortium News, formerly of AP and Newsweek and author of Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush; BERNIE ELLIS of Tennessee's Gathering to Save Our Democracy; a big old in-studio L.A. BLOGGER'S ROUNDTABLE (Tune in to see who shows up! I know I'll be there!); and of course, JOHN GIDEON with Daily Voting News and DESI DOYEN with the Green News Report! Plus YOUR calls, BRAD'S rants and much more!

Join us! Listen live on the air, or via the Internets, and call in with your questions at 888-5-PeterB (888-573-8372)! Or post your questions here in this Open Show Thread and I'll try to keep my eye on 'em while on the air!

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Thanks for a great week y'all! Especially to Peter for letting me sit in and ruin his show. I always enjoy doing so.

Audio archives from today's show. Commercials removed courtesy of the PBC affiliate, San Francisco's Green 960am!

HOUR 1: Breaking news on Tim Russert's death. Robert Parry on the Supreme Court and John McCain. Brad takes calls and rants, as he's wont to do. Download MP3 or listen online...

HOUR 2: Bernie Ellis (in-studio and fresh from the Playboy Mansion!) The "Green News Report" with Desi Doyen and Daily Voting News with John Gideon. Download MP3 or listen online...

HOUR 3: An in-studio L.A. Bloggerama Roundtable! With Howie Klein, Stephen Anderson, D.L. "Bear" Bruin and David Dayen. Download MP3 or listen online...

According to HuffPo, "Russert was in the tracking booth, recording a track, when he collapsed. He returned from Italy Thursday night. His wife, Maureen Orth, and son Luke, are still in Italy."

New York Times has more...

UPDATE: NBC confirms, has more...

Last week I reported in great detail that four out of the twelve votes I'd cast on my ballot on L.A. County's e-voting system, during California's state primary on June 3rd, were flipped to candidates that I hadn't voted for. The ES&S InkaVote Plus system printed my ballot incorrectly.

I was voting on the audio ballot voting system meant primarily for blind and visually-impaired voters. Had I not been able to inspect my ballot visually after it had printed --- for example, had I been blind --- I would never have known that I was about to cast votes for candidates that I had not selected.

Because the "disabled-accessible" e-voting system at my own precinct was not working, again, for the second election in a row, I was told I'd have to cast a provisional ballot on the "disabled-accessible" e-voting system at the other "precinct," in the same polling place, in the same room, as my own "precinct."

The machine had been down all day, and nobody had come out to replace or repair it, even though the county had been called early in the day and told about the problem. Last election, on Super Tuesday, the machine was also broken, and none of the poll workers would touch it, due to exposed wires.

This time, despite asking to vote in a specific party's open primary, I was given a non-partisan audio ballot to compound the fiasco when I tried to vote provisionally on the other "precinct's" e-voting system that was up and running, even though not a single voter had used it in either this, or the previous election.

The voting went smoothly enough --- even if it took 20 minutes to move through the short audio ballot, shorter than usual because it was a state primary, and because I wasn't allowed to vote in partisan races for some reason --- at least until it misprinted my selections, which I had confirmed as correct while actually moving through the audio selections.

Luckily, after noticing that the e-voting system had printed my ballot incorrectly, I was allowed to VOID that ballot, and this time chose to vote on a regular, hand-marked paper ballot instead. My hand filled in the ballot far more accurately than the computer did.

That night, I alerted officials at the CA Sec. of State's office and L.A. County's acting Registrar of Voters, Dean Logan, about the problem, and the machines and ballots in question were isolated for testing. Whether someone who wasn't a loud, muckracking journalist, specializing in issues of election integrity, would have had that kind of quick service, I can't tell you.

Logan promised the machine would be tested, and the SoS office promised to follow the testing closely.

Earlier this week, Logan sent me an update via email, with photos, on what the investigation had so far found. The problem, Logan wrote, is being attributed to the "human error" of the poll workers who, he says, entered incorrect information into the e-voting system when setting up my ballot for me to vote.

Logan's complete email, detailing the findings of the cursory investigation to date, follows below, along with my email in response to it. As you'll see, the all-too de rigueur "human error" excuse does not sit well with me...

It's Day 3 of my Guest Hosting gig this week for the syndicated Peter B. Collins Show! Please join us for another rip-roaring adventure in radio and accountability-land!

We'll again be BradCasting live from the studios of KTLK AM1150 in Los Angeles from 3p - 6p PT (6p - 9p ET). Hope you'll tune in, call in, stream in, and blog in throughout the show.

Scheduled guests for today (Thursday) include...

FAIZ SHAKIR from the Center for American Progress; Military affairs correspondent SCOTT DICK; Former Asst. U.S. Attorney under Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, and author of United States V. George W. Bush et al., ELIZABETH DE LA VEGA; Voters Unite's ELLEN THEISEN; and of course, JOHN GIDEON with Daily Voting News and DESI DOYEN with the Green News Report! Plus YOUR calls, BRAD'S rants and much more!

Listen live on air, or via the Internets, and call in with your questions at 888-5-PeterB (888-573-8372)! Or post your questions here in this Open Show Thread and I'll try to keep my eye on 'em while on the air!

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Fun show today (if that's the right word for it).

Audio archives from today's show. Commercials removed courtesy of the PBC affiliate, San Francisco's Green 960am!

HOUR 1: Faiz Shakir on SCOTUS restoration of habeas corpus and Impeachment by Kucinich. Brad rants on both issues, with callers in second half. Download MP3 or listen online...

HOUR 2: Scott Dick on the latest military related issues. Plus, the "Green News Report" with Desi Doyen. Download MP3 or listen online...

HOUR 3: Elizabeth de la Vega on habeas corpus, Impeachment, unprecedented Bush corruption. Also John Gideon with Daily Voting News, Brad gets an explanation from the L.A. County Registrar's office for his flipped votes last week on L.A. County's e-voting system, and Ellen Theisen finds the error rate for Brad's ballot to be several million percent higher than that allowed by federal law. Download MP3 or listen online...

From the full story at Public Record...

We'll be talking about this, and other related issues, such as today's SCOTUS finding restoring Habeas Corpus and last week's Senate Intel Comm's "Phase II report" on Bush's (mis)use of pre-war intel, with former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega, author of United States V. George W. Bush et al., when I guest host the syndicated Peter B. Collins Show again later today (3p-6p PT, 6p-9p ET). Please tune in!

DISCLOSURE: The BRAD BLOG was consulted by Kucinich's office prior to his filing of Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush. We were asked to submit material as used in Article 28, "Tampering with Free and Fair Elections" and Article 29, "Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965".

During a segment on his radio show this morning, Bill O'Reilly reported from the alternate universe he lives in that the non-conservative radio network, Air America Radio, had "folded." (The audio clip is at the end of this article.)

The news, undoubtedly, came as a bit of a surprise to Thom Hartmann, whose successful live weekday radio program is syndicated by Air America Radio and runs in the same time slot as O'Reilly in many markets.

Contrary to O'Reilly's misinformation, The Thom Hartman Program likely even outpaces the Fox entertainer in listenership, as he told us this afternoon.

In response to our query, Hartmann told The BRAD BLOG that, while he didn't currently have access to O'Reilly's ratings for comparison, in a number of markets his show regularly beats Rush Limbaugh, who also broadcasts during the same hours. Limbaugh, in turn, regularly beats O'Reilly in listener numbers, Hartmann explained via email.

"I beat Limbaugh in Portland in the last [ratings] book," wrote Hartmann, who broadcasts out of Portland's KPOJ, "and in Seattle in the Fall '06 book...Limbaugh almost always beats O'Reilly, and I've beaten Limbaugh in multiple markets (2) over multiple years (3)."

Yesterday, as we reported, O'Reilly featured a segment on his Fox "News" television show declaring that Progressive activists calling for reform of the corporate stranglehold on mainstream media and the public airwaves were "fascists," "loons," "unstable people" and a "threat to the country." One of his guests, rightwing Republicanist Mary Katherine Hamm, charged that proponents of media reform, and those who oppose her and O'Reilly's minority fringe viewpoints, are "a group of people living in an alternative universe."

This morning, while arguing on The Radio Factor that it's a "bad strategy" for the GOP to attack Barack Obama's wife Michelle because it would "turn off independent voters" as needed by John McCain to win the Presidency, O'Reilly responded to a caller who disagreed with him by pointing to Air America as "the best example I can give you." He then proceeded to use wholly inaccurate information, describing Air America in the past tense, as if it no longer existed, in his "best example"...

Looks like we're coming into rewards season at the White House for longtime Bush loyalists. Of course, we thought that's what the last seven year were about, but we digress.

Apparently, being named as a criminal co-conspirator in Articles of Impeachment is worthy of a prize from this particular White House, as Bush/Cheney '04 Inc.'s self-proclaimed "non-partisan" "longtime voting rights advocate" --- and not-self-proclaimed national champion GOP vote-suppressor Thor Hearne --- received yet another thank you gift from the White House today: A non-partisan appointment to a "non-partisan Commission" (according to the nationally renowned liar Thor) by George W. Bush.

Jo Mannies of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, one of the few reporters Thor will answer the phone for (other than those at "liberal media" outlets such as NYTimes, NPR, USA Today and again at USA Today) writes today, while failing to note Hearne's infamous entry into the history books on the floor of the U.S. House this week...