It's been amusing --- if exasperating --- to watch the latest like-clockwork contortions of the wingnuts in their desperate, if predictable, attempt to spin the U.S. Attorney firing scandal into a "voter fraud" scandal. That, they tell us in lock-step is the "real scandal" that the "liberal media" is conveniently overlooking in their attempts to victimize poor poor George W. Bush.

As we previously noted, we are unaware of any actual "voter fraud" alleged in the New Mexico case, but rather voter registration fraud. And even those allegations seems to have little, if any, substance behind them.

All the while, the dead-end wingnutters happily ignore the fact that their own continuing attempts to forward the myth of a "voter fraud" epidemic (and a Democratic-based one at that) have failed time and again. The most recent attempt was a report on "voter fraud" as officially sanctioned by the partisan-comprised U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Despite desperate attempts to show such an epidemic, the study came up embarrassingly empty handed on the issue and so the EAC subsequently refused to release their final report.

(NOTE: EAC Chairwoman Donetta Davidson promised to turn over the spiked report last week to Congress during a hearing in which was called to testify. We'll keep our eye out for that report, as we are still waiting for Davidson to send us another report which they promised to us nearly two weeks ago on a related story we've been working on.)

The Bush Apologist Bloggers also happily ignore one of the only clear and actually documented cases of voter fraud: That which was actually committed by rightwing sycophant/hate-monger, Ann Coulter in Florida.

Nonetheless, in the wingnuts blogosphere's continuing quest to remain in utter denial of Reality, they're reaching for a new set of straws. Here's a few chuckle-worthy examples...

Hysterical...

(Thanks Paul B. for the link!)

As we alluded late last week, we'd say this new report further underscores our recommendation to keep an eye on Waxman's Congressional Oversight Committee and his investigation into the Iraq uranium/yellowcake scam by the White House...

The Los Angeles Times continues to beg readers to cancel their subscriptions altogether.

Their latest plan: Dump the progressive, interesting, non-white comic strips.

Last week, the Times decided to dump both Candorville, whose strip we've been running here from time to time --- the only one, mind you, that we're aware of which dealt with the e-voting issue directly. La Cucaracha, the paper's only Latino-based strip (in LA!), was dumped at the same time.

The latter was re-instated after a flood of reader complaints. So far, no return of Candorville, however, the last African-American related strip of note in the once-great Los Angeles newspaper, now gutted by its conservative Chicago Tribune owners/rapists. The Trib also recently canceled the strip as well.

We've gotten to know Darrin Bell, the strip's creator, a bit over the last year or so. He sent The BRAD BLOG the following announcement a few days ago on the latest corporate-media idiocy, noting that though his strip has been dumped, "Blondie and Marmaduke are still safe" at the Times.

The only good news in the bargain: The world's unfunniest "comic strip," Mallard Fillmore, has been put out of our misery. Finally. A dead duck we can all be happy about.

"Without at least one of these two papers," Bell writes in regard to the cancellations at both the Times and the Trib, "Candorville can't continue to annoy the knuckledraggers in two of our most important cities, and the strip itself may not be long for this world."

He also asks that complaints be sent to readers.rep@latimes.com. We join him in that request, and are happy to post his note in full below...

A report from McLatchy Newspapers Saturday night has busted the thing wide open, placing Rove and the White House smack dab in the center of the scandal in which 8 U.S. Attorneys from the Dept. of Justice were canned. As if they weren't already.

While both the now-disgraced Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) have already admitted their own inappropriate intervention in the matter, the state's Republican Party Chair, Allen Weh, has now gone on record directly implicating Karl Rove.

Further, we learn that one of the points the NM Republicans were upset about was Iglesias's failure to move fast enough on a "voter fraud" investigation. However, the McClatchy report indicates (as usual) that it wasn't actually a "voter fraud" investigation, but rather a "voter registration fraud" investigation in question.

We'll add here, for those who hadn't noticed, Wilson was named the winner over her Democratic opponent Patricia Madrid last November by fewer than 800 votes. Since New Mexico's new automatic recount law didn't kick in until the first of this year, there was no recount. That, despite our own discussions with Madrid after the election and our encouragement that she ask for a recount on her own.

(We'll hope, at least, that she kept her "Madrid for Congress" signs around, since depending on how things shake out down here there could be a Special Election in the not-too-distant future as more details of both Wilson and Domenici's inappropriate pressure as applied to Iglesias continue to come out.)

Between last night's report placing Rove at the center of the controversy, and a follow-up later in the evening from AP, it appears, according to Talking Points Memo (who has been all over this story), that someone --- oh, let's say Rove, just for the fun of it --- "may have gotten to Weh." In AP's later coverage, Weh appears to be attempting to mitigate his original account of the Rove incident, suggesting it happened after the attorneys had already been canned.

At the same time, New York Times has now gone on record calling for the termination of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in the wake of this particular mess, and several other failures including his gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The key details from each of the various relevant stories follow, as well as our recommendation about who really needs to be fired at this point...

I'll be on Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio's Ring of Fire today (Saturday) on Air America. We did a pre-recorded interview earlier this week, discussing Rush Holt's Election Reform bill (HR 811) and the Democrats and their public-advocacy group supporters who have failed to ensure that the bill will ban dangerous, disenfranchising DRE/touch-screen voting systems. I believe it'll be a very good interview if the bulk of what we talked about makes the edit.

Tune in to the live stream at 5pm ET (2pm PT) or check your local listings for when RoF airs in your hood.

Otherwise, I'll try to capture it and update this item with an .MP3 afterwards.

UPDATE 3/11/07: I was able to listen to part of the pre-taped interview on RoF yesterday, and noted that they had to cut out some of the good stuff for time. I've requested a copy of the full un-edited interview from the producers, and have been told they'll likely be able to send it to me on Monday. I'll post that version of the interview here as soon as I get it from them.

And still another complaint registered against DRE/touch-screen voting systems. It's Diebold's turn again this time. According to the Dayton Daily News...

The avalanche of these types of complaints and lawsuits is just beginning, people. Will Congress and Elections Officials figure it out any time soon?

In any case, it doesn't look like Montgomery County's Election Director, Steve Harsman, has joined the rest of us here in Reality Land yet.

Even after the story linked above detailed a member of the board of elections who "said the machine he used would not record his vote" properly, Harsman told the paper that "he believes most of the problems can be explained by voters unfamiliarity with the new machines, rather than equipment failure."

The BRAD BLOG begs to respectfully disagree with Harsman. We believe most of the problems can instead be explained by Mr. Harsman's overfamiliarity with the bullshit he's been peddled by Diebold, in addition to a complete Election Director failure.

E-Voting - Game Over. We win. They lose. Move on. Get over it. The only question now is how long it takes them to get it and how many more elections jerks like Harsman are willing to see trashed (and how many voters he's willing to trash along the way.)

(Hat-tip BRAD BLOG commenter "A Concerned Citizen")

E-Voting expert, Johns Hopkins computer science and security professor, Avi Rubin, once again stated for the record, this time in his testimony before a House subcommittee hearing on "Ensuring the Integrity of Elections", that Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems --- with or without a paper trail --- are "not reasonable" for use in a democracy.

Period.

From his blog item Wednesday discussing his testimony (which also includes a link to his complete formal statement):

So between Rubin's beliefs, and those of most every other computer scientist I've heard from, why do we (meaning Congress and their public-advocacy group supporters such as PFAW, Common Cause, MoveOn, VoteTrustUSA and others) continue to play this DRE game???

It's madness...

Impeachment, it seems to us, gets closer to "the table" every day now. From Truthout:

Lest anyone think the buck stops in the Office of the Vice-President, however, it looks as if the not-insignificant evidentiary revelation concerning Cheney's hand-written note referring to "this Pres." may also be revisited by Congress.

Those two words were scratched out on Cheney's note, but were still clearly visible and discussed during trial testimony. Had they not been scratched out, Cheney's note would have read: "not going to protect one staffer & sacrifice the guy this Pres. asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others."

To be honest, we're amazed that detail was overlooked as much as it was when it originally appeared. According to Truthout:

See the complete Truthout report for much more detail...

Whaddaya know? Yet another confirmation by the non-partisan GAO on Wednesday, in yet another sure-to-be-ignored report, that our voting systems across the country are a hellish patchwork of un-overseen technological mayhem and disaster. This latest is entitled "ELECTIONS: All Levels of Government Are Needed to Address Electronic Voting System Challenges" [PDF] and was presented at a Congressional oversight hearing yesterday on "Ensuring the Integrity of Elections."

But what are the chances that anyone will bother to notice either the report or the hearing? (We're talking to you, Mainstream Media!)

So far this article, and the one I've published over at ComputerWorld this morning, are the only ones to have done so.

My report opinion piece over there today offers details and analysis of that new report, and how it underscores --- yet again --- that our increasingly complicated system of voting in America would be immeasurably and immediately simplified by doing away with all dangerously disenfranchising, demonstrably unreliable, historically inaccurate, and easily hackable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems.

(Sidenote: If you haven't already, take action to demand that Rep. Rush Holt's new, but dangerous, Election Reform bill be amended to ban all DRE voting systems by emailing Congress here and calling your legislative members here!)

My CW article today also points to earlier ignored GAO reports --- covered only by The BRAD BLOG when they were released --- but again referred to in the latest GAO report and worth underscoring here again, since few noticed the first time. To wit:

Hello? [Thump-thump] Is this thing on?...

One last point to recommend my piece over there today: It offers fresh criticism of the EAC's latest woeful claim ("We can't decertify something we didn't certify"), and a related hint or two at an upcoming long-in-the-work investigative report we've been working on at The BRAD BLOG.

There's your tease. My full ComputerWorld article is here...

Pounding on several deadlines at once, so for the moment, here's something to chew on...

References to Anna Nicole and Walter Reed on cable networks on March 2:

Courtesy of ThinkProgress, with more details here...

Discuss.

heheh...

(Hat-tip Josh Marshall, who claims he's "been assured that the creators are not connected to the Obama campaign.")

Still more good news today! The appellate court in Missouri agrees with The BRAD BLOG!

The stories that were censored in Kansas over the weekend, regarding allegations of wrongdoing by the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities, have now been un-censored:

Late Sunday night, The BRAD BLOG exclusively ran the censored stories in full --- in First Amendment solidarity with the two censored papers --- in the belief that the stories are in the public interest. Looks like the appellate court agrees with us.

As we've got our hands more than full, we'll leave it to the folks in Kansas now to deal with the substance of the story itself (which was/is quite troubling). In any case, we'll consider this a happy ending. For a change.

Sent to The BRAD BLOG by the House Judiciary Democrats concerning this morning's oversight hearings on the U.S. Attorney firings (full statement posted at end of this article):

In regard to the alleged threats of retaliation against the attorneys for speaking out on this, an email from Cummins, published by Sacramento Bee, gives contemporaneous specifics. According to SacBee...

Of course, Gonzales today said none of it ever happened, these aren't the droids you're looking for.

The complete statement issued by the Judiciary Committee Democrats follows below...

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R-NE) IN ESQUIRE TODAY...