{Blogged by Brad on the road...}

Jim Dyke, the liar who helped found the "non-partisan" American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), is boning up on his "non-partisan" creds of late by working for the White House to help them push Harriet Miers through the nomination process.

As reported last night by NPR's All Things Considered in a story about some rightwinger concerns about Miers:

Of course, BRAD BLOG readers will remember Dyke from our special coverage of ACVR, the phony voting rights group which claims tax-exempt "non-partisan" status. The group was co-founded by Dyke, former RNC Communications Director, and Mark F. "Thor" Hearne, National General Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. to help smokescreen the real problems that occurred during Election 2004, and to produce misleading propoganda in hopes of further disenfranchising American voters in the future through insidious new plans to making voting harder, not easier, for mainly Democratic-leaning constituencies.

Conservative readers --- real conservatives, not fake George W. Bush "conservatives" --- would likely admit to being outraged at these senior GOP operatives who are pimping their efforts to further disenfranchise Americans at the voting booth through the incidious work of a front group like ACVR. All the while, as we've pointed out, doing so by sucking off the tax-payer teat with their disingenuous tax payer funded 501(c)3 tax-exempt status.

One would think real conservatives wouldn't look too kindly on that sort of thing. (That assumes, of course, that there are any real conservatives left in America.)

Surely there must be some true conservative law firm or organization out there who feels like filing suit to get at the truth and hold these guys accountable for the fraud they are committing on the U.S. government, no?

Paging Judicial Watch...Your test case is ready...

UPDATE 10/11/05: Non-partisan Jim Dyke now working for Dick Cheney! Info here...

For more information on the "non-partisan" tax-exempt ACVR scam and the snakeoil salesmen who invented it, Bush/Cheney '04 National General Counsel Mark F. "Thor" Hearne and RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke, please see BRAD BLOG's full Special Coverage of the "American Center for Voting Rights" at https://BradBlog.com/ACVR.

{Blogged by Brad on the road...}

I've been so busy with so many things concerning and since the National Summit to Save Our Elections that I haven't had much time to write about it. Thankfully, others have. Including the great Bob Koehler of Tribune Media Services with whom I had the honor of sharing 45 minutes or so on stage at the Summit where we were both able to interview each other. (The BRAD SHOW carried that and more from the summit. The Koehler interview is in HOUR 3 of the archives for last Saturday's show which are now up here.)

More coverage of the weekend was written by DU's "Autorank" and carried by Scoop (only New Zealand is interested in Democracy in America, apparently). Coverage of Day 1 is here, and Days 2 & 3 is here.

As usual, of course, it's Koehler who hits the ball out of the park again after this conference, as he did after the Nashville Conference last April with his now-classic "Silent Screen of Numbers" column. (As well as with his "Citizens in the Rain" column which was spiked by Tribune Media Services and thus never ran other than on the net!)

In Koehler's latest, "Ballot and Soul" he again puts the weekend's events into appropriate --- and chilling --- historic perspective. Here is just a taste:

Please read the whole thing. And thank you, Mr. Koehler, for giving a damn. I wish more of your media brethren did so as well.

{Blogged by Brad from the road...}

During my radio debate last weekend with Ann Coulter on the Ron Insana Show --- audio here (exchange in question at appx. 17 minute mark) --- Coulter correctly suggested that evidence needed to be presented in re: allegations about Sen. Bill Frist's potential misdeeds concerning sales of stock he owned in his family's hospital chain before he should be found guilty. While I agreed with that, I remarked that Coulter was more than happy to call Bill Clinton "a felon" and "a rapist" before evidence was put forward in court or any jury had found him guilty to those ends.

Insana followed up on the fact that Clinton was rarely given "the benefit of the doubt" in the media and by Coulter specifically in such matters.

She answered, in part, this way:

That interview, where Coulter sneared that she'd "moved on from Clinton" was October 1, 2005.

Meanwhile, back in Reality Land, a quick check of Ann Coulter's personal website reveals the following two articles in her "Quotations from Chairman Ann" section. The first was written on October 2, 2005 --- the day after her quote above.

And then there's this one, posted just four days prior to Ann's having announced that she's "moved on from Clinton":

Glad to see she's "moved on from Clinton".

At least she's a terrific spokesperson for today's Republican Party! Being, as she is, apparently genetically incapable of telling the truth. But more than adquately programmed to lie and then lie and then follow it up with a lie. And then lie about it.

Book publishers may feel free to contact me if they are interested in a pitch for a new best-seller: "How to Talk to Ann Coulter (If You Must)".

{Blogged by Brad from the road...}

In a speech today to a "Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Symposium", Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, lauded himself, John Ashcroft and the Department of Justice for having made "enforcement of election fraud and corruption offenses a top priority."

Gonzales claimed, without any apparent irony, that "We will not tolerate the infringement of voting rights."

He also seems to have contained the instinct to laugh out loud at his very own words when he said, "The results speak for themselves; you're getting the job done and we are making progress."

Progress, indeed. Here are some of the not-ironic-at-all highlights (or lowlights) from his speech today... (Complete text here)

Former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was re-indicted today on a second charge related to the $190,000 in corporate money that DeLay is said to have illegally participated in laundering for use in a number of Texas state races from 2002.

Using corporate money to finance campaigns has been illegal in the state of Texas for nearly 100 years. Yet DeLay, who had previously been indicted on criminal conspiracy charges in the scheme, is now being charged with directly laundering the money. All of which, incidentally, Republican apologist Ann Coulter has no problem with.

From this morning's NY Times:

{Blogged by Brad in Portland, OR}

Last week, Iraq War vet Paul Rieckhoff of OpTruth.org wrote a troubling blog item in which he discussed the DoD's lip-service given to supporting the troops, while sending at least 40,000 of them into harms way in Iraq with inadequate body armor. His item includes a link to a shocking video showing a sniper taking a clear shot at one U.S. troop who was lucky enough to have the appropriate armor!

Today, Rieckhoff follows that item up with another which includes an email from another troop currently serving in Ramadi, where 11 have been killed in the batallion within the last 10 days.

Rieckhoff notes:

The email from his friend in Ramadi complains about the lack of side armor on vehicles where troops are now being targeted every day by snipers and IED's, and goes on to say:

He goes on to add that, though they should have appropriate air support for their daily missions, they are not getting getting the air cover they need. And then he closes with this troubling phrase...

We continue to follow OpTruth's advice to "Really support the troops...Listen to them." We wish the DoD, and the American people, would do the same.

{Blogged by Brad from Portland, OR}

Day 1 of the "National Summit to Save Our Elections" in Portland, Oregon, USA, gets some media coverage...In New Zealand's SCOOP...

{Blogged by Brad in Portland, OR}

Just finished my hour on the Ron Insana Radio Show with Ann Coulter...Well, half hour with Coulter. She left at the bottom of the hour for some reason.

Prior to the show, when Ron asked her off air if she would be able to stay for the full hour, she said "Well, I had it down for 30 minutes, so I'll have to let you know at the bottom of the hour if I can stay."

For some reason or another, she was then gone after the bottom of the hour. Hopefully, you can listen and decide for yourself why that may have happened.

UPDATE FROM DAVID: Audio of Brad's debate with Ann Coulter is now available to download [MP3]. The breaks have been cut from this version. Total playing time is about 35 minutes. Or you can listen below, right here...

UPDATE 10/4/05: SpoofNews has some amusing coverage of the Brad/Coulter debate.

UPDATE 10/25/05: Thanks to a BRAD BLOG reader, the entire hour is now available via text transcript!

{Blogged by Brad from Portland, OR}

Cramming all of this into a single item, since I'm way up against it here in Portland where I'm speaking tonight (and all weekend) at the National Summit to Save Our Elections. If you're in the 'hood! Please come on by and say hello!

UPDATE: Our erstwhile engineer from our BRAD SHOWS in Crawford, Otie Mclay is here, and informs me he's currently streaming as much of the conference as possible LIVE right now at KPFTX.org! Go listen in!

Doing tons of media up here, trying to get the word out about the Summit and the grave need for Election Reform in America. (You can listen to two hours with me battling it out with "Conservative" Lars Larson yesterday, in studio, by way of example. Thanks for posting it, David!)

Got a call from the Ron Isana radio show folks inviting me to debate with ANN COULTER tomorrow morning at 9am PT (12noon ET). That should be fun. On Delay and Frist, etc. Will try to find a minute or two to bone up on it all late night tonight I guess! --- Insana is nationally syndicated all over the place.

UPDATE:See this item for listening links to hear the tape-delay version as it streams live again Saturday @ 3pm ET (Noon PT), and then for the archive posted thereafter.

It was nice to be in-studio, as well, this morning with Thom Hartmann up here. He's agreed to appear on The BRAD SHOW tomorrow (LIVE Saturday, 7p-11p ET or 4p-8p PT, with reBRADCast on Sunday at Noon ET). We'll have tons of stuff from the conference, loads of guests, including, but not limited to David Cobb, Clint Curtis, Robert Koehler, Ellen Theisen, and many more Election Reform All-Stars! We won't have phone lines, however, so you'll need to play along here at The BRAD BLOG in our Open Thread during the show.

Finally, and speaking of Election Reform All-Stars, Debra LaGuercio of the Daily Republic --- who picked up last week on our initial DIEB-THROAT story --- follows up with more on it this week!

It's a great column, that deserves to be read in its entirety, headlined, "Sadly, Dieb-Throat doesn't disappoint". It starts this way...

LaGuercio did receive "a deluge of feedback," but it wasn't what she had expected. Read the entire thing to find out how it came out. Wish I had more time to cover it today! But suffice to say, a new Election Reform All-Star is born in the media and her article ends simply "America - 1776-2004. R.I.P."

I'm reminded of the old Native American (I think) saying, "A path is laid one stone at a time."

Laying stones from Portland, OR...one at a time...and with your help...Talk to ya on the air tomorrow night! Brad

U.S. House ethics rules require Delay to step down as Majority Leader...

MSNBC has details...

AP reports Hastert as pointing to Rep. David Drier (R-CA), reportedly gay congressman, to take his place. CNN is now reporting that Roy Blunt will be the temporary majority leader. David Dreier and Eric Cantor will also assist in DeLay's responsibilities.

AP has more...

DeLay Statement: "I will step aside."

The sliming/swiftboating of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has already begun...

Media Matters cuts the slime off at the pass:

McClellan: Bush considers Tom Delay "a good ally".

Pelosi: "Republicans plagues by culture of corruption at the expense of people of the USA."

Smoking Gun has the full indictment...

Videos in Windows Media format
White House defends DeLay...
DeLay denies charges, attacks District Attorney...
DA Ronnie Earle answers questions...
Behind the DeLay indictment...

...DEVELOPING...

As I'm currently on The Road to Portland (with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and the lovely Dorothy Lamour!) to speak at the "National Summit to Save Our Elections" my ability to post regularly here at BRAD BLOG will again be somewhat curtailed for the next couple of weeks.

However, there is more to come from excellent Guest Bloggers Katrina and Dan Wilcox from their experience over the weekend at the huge rallies in DC, along with the return of other fave Guest Bloggers including David Edwards, Winter Patriot and various other Special Guest Bloggers who may drop in from time to time in the upcoming weeks with some interesting reports!

Further good news is that we are hoping to broadcast a LIVE BRAD SHOW this weekend, on location from Portland during our usual Saturday Night 7p-11p ET timeslot. See http://www.BradShow.com for more and join us here at BRAD BLOG during the show for a Live Open Thread (presuming we are able to pull it all off...which is looking positive as of this morning!)

I had hoped to lay low concerning the weekend show for a bit, in preparation for a "step up" for The BRAD SHOW which, to nobody's surprise, is taking a bit longer to get nailed down than we'd like. So hopefully a fix this weekend will do everyone (both you and me!) a bit of good as we move forward! Feel free to help us out with a bit of gas and/or cell phone money (don't ask about my cell phone bill after Crawford!) to help defray all of the above, as we will likely be unable to get ads sold for this weekend's show as we move Northward!

And thanks, as always, for all of your various and generous support!

With Diebold, Inc.'s financial and ethical and political chickens perhaps finally coming home to roost, Andrew Gumbel, author of Steal This Vote: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America comes out with some more troubling information on the voting machines sold by America's largest Voting Machine Company.

As we write this morning, Diebold's trouble stock prices, which fell nearly 20% over two days last week alone, continue to tumble. DBD share prices are down 2.33% so far in early trading today closed down another 3.3% today!

The trouble reported by Gumbel today, comes out of Georgia, vis a vis the Democratic Secretary of State down there and what appears to be some less-than-above-board contractual shenanigans with Diebold and their hardware and software. The report also suggest that votes may have disappeared entirely from Diebold voting machines.

Gumbel reports, in a Huffington Post blog item today based on several original documents and contracts obtained via public records requests made by CountTheVote.org's Roxanne Jekot, that recent "elections were run on software that was not only untested but also uncertified, that key components broke down during live elections, that county officials were left clueless on how to operate the new machines because of a breakdown in the training schedule, and that the cost of installing the electronic touch-screen system jumped dramatically beyond the advertised $54 million, without proper legislative oversight or approval."

While Gumbel's concerns seem to be used to question Sec. of State Cathy Cox's fitness for office as she makes a 2006 gubernatorial bid, it's Diebold's complicity in keeping security issues with their machines quiet that caught our eye. Amongst the items reported by Gumbel based on records reviewed (more links available in his original article):

NOTE: The 2002 election questioned above, was when Senator, War Hero and 3-time amputee Max Cleland (D-GA) lost his seat in a surpise victory by Republican, Saxby Chambliss who had run advertisements questioning the patriotism of Cleland, and comparing the Vietnam War hero and 3-time amputee to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Gumbel continues...

In a story about Diebold, Inc. continuing trouble the Cleveland Plain Dealer's business section reports that the Ohio-based company "lost almost a fifth of its share value last week." (Trading of DBD continues flat again today with shares off some .50% on the day.)

As well as comparing the company's restructuring to the failed strategies at Enron, reporter Alison Grant picked up on BRAD BLOG's Exclusive story of the Insider we refer to as DIEB-THROAT:

Apparently, Diebold has no response to all sorts of "nonsense." Like a branch of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security sending out a Cyber Alert Bulletin prior to last year's November Election warning that Diebold's central vote tabulator was open to any malicious user who might wish to change the results of an election. Diebold failed, apparently, to offer a security upgrade even after that Alert was issued, and to this day acknowledges it as no more than an "unproven allegation."

Failure to respond to such "nonsense" seems to be costing the company dearly. And more trouble, our so-far very reliable inside sources tell The BRAD BLOG, is soon on its way...

Special BRAD BLOG / Velvet Revolution coverage
of the Sep 24-26 Rally in D.C.
Blogged by Brad

The Anti-U.S. Constitution, Pro-Corruption, Dead-Enders who still support the War in Iraq --despite the fact that it was founded on lies and deceitful misinformation given to the American People and Congress by its supporters in the Bush Administration --- are finding themselves in a quickly shrinking minority in America.

This weekend's Anti-War rally, which turned out at least 100,000 supporters by conservative estimates, and up to 600,000 by other estimates, dwarfed the Pro-War faction left to turn out for an embarrassingly sparsely attended Pro-War rally. The War Lovers sheduled their rally as a counter to counter those who support American Values and American Troops by calling for their proper protection in battle, their appropriately-funded medical care after they return, and for them to be returned home to America and their families as soon as possible.

AP's story on the Pro-Bush/Anti-Sheehan rally this morning revealed that the dwindling pro-war movement in America could barely muster up more than a few hundred folks to turn out in D.C. this weekend.

The story also points out that such folks are squarely in the American minority --- not that you'd know it from the way the Conservative Media, such as CNN, MSNBC and FOX "News" covered the events. "[O]nly 37 percent approved or leaned toward approval of how Bush has handled the situation in Iraq," the story points out. As well, those who "strongly disapprove" of the war, outweigh those who "strongly approve" by a vast 2 to 1 margin.

(None of which kept C-SPAN, of course, from giving the 400 Pro-War demonstrators the same amount of airtime they gave to the 100,000+ Anti-War demonstrators, further validating our oft-repeated journalistic critique that "Balance is Bullshit")

Here's what AP had to say...

Special BRAD BLOG / Velvet Revolution coverage
of the Sep 24-26 Rally in D.C.
Blogged by Brad

Earlier we demonstrated that there are no photos to prove that anything unusual happened at all today in our nation's capitol. Just as the Cable News Channels reported. Or didn't.

And here now is video evidence to also show that nothing occurred...Good thing CNN, MSNBC and FOX (despite Bill O'Reilly's promise to cover it) didn't waste any valuable time or resources to send out any news crews! Fortunately, unlike the major Cable News outlet, us bloggers have unlimited budgets so we can afford to cover such non-events!

Windows Media Player Version...
Quicktime Version...

(Video courtesy of Michael Blane who happens to give a damn! Thank you!)

UPDATE 9/26/05: Longer, more detailed Exclusive Video from in front of White House...including shots of Cindy Sheehan and Jesse Jackson in the march, right here...