As readers know, our friend Andy Stephenson, a founding advisor of ours at VelvetRevolution.us passed away last Thursday night after a short, but heroic fight against pancreatic cancer.

His death came on the day prior to the BRAD BLOGATHON (wherein the readers took the joint over, so we could not post here at all!) and therefore I was unable to follow up with a few items of note. I shall do so now.

Those who knew of Andy's illness, may also have known about the disgraceful ghouls at FreeRepublic and elsewhere who had made a quick industry out of challenging Andy's illness after the Internet community came together to quickly raise $50,000 for Andy's surgery at Johns Hopkins (he had no health insurance after being unemployed in the wake of leaving Black Box Voting where Bev Harris and he parted on very less than good terms).

The loathesome Freepers charged that the fundraising effort was fraud, and succeeded in having his PayPal account frozen until an investigation proved that his needs were legit. That little act of thoughtfulness on the part of the repugnant folks who would unrepentingly do such a thing, helped to delay Andy's surgery for three weeks and added an unconscionable additional burden to his final weeks of life and death struggle.

There is some discussion on that, some words of tribute, and information on a memorial service to be held for Andy at Town Hall in Seattle at 1119 Eighth Ave., on Saturday, July 16, at 2 p.m. in the following items on his passing from over the last few days...

They were as sharp as ever last night. Still the best news program on television. Period.

The first two segments last night were devoted to Rove, natch. And here was one of our favorite moments:

Crooks and Liars has the full video coverage...

What follows this post may likely be a flurry of posts which I've been unable to make while I've been busting at the seams during my mostly involuntary BLOGATHON captivity. So, very quickly...

The BLOGATHON was an extraordinary event, no matter the financial results (and I don't know what they were yet since it was all set up and run by readers --- but I'm praying that we at least covered the expenses for it!) I consider the effort a tremendous success as well as a tremendously moving experience for me. Thanking Steve and Winter Patriot here is not enough since there were scores of folks that are due thanks. I shall try to do so in the coming days. For the moment, please see Winter Patriot's many thanks, followed by Commander Steve's in the comments for that item! Though I should also point to Mr. Conyers' incredible words posted last night which just blew me away. In the current political atmosphere, it is truly we who owe our thanks to him, not vice versa. But we graciously accept and appreciate his thoughtful words.

Thanks to every single one of you who participated in any way over the last several days and last several months to help support The BRAD BLOG and SHOW. Without you, I am nothing.

The map to the cornucopia of mad events that was the BLOGATHON Travelling Circus will be up and available in perpetuity for those who may have missed anything over the last several days, or wish to review the festivities. There is a treasure trove there to be explored! Enjoy!

In the meantime, I know you guys would love for me to get back to work here just about as much as I would love to do so myself...What a perfect bunch of days to have been held hostage and unable to report here!

So get ready for a flurry of delicious and wholesome BRADness... It's time to light it up, bitches!...

Andy Stephenson lost his fight with cancer last night. He was a great fighter but, apparently, this was one he couldn't win.

I only recently got to know Andy over the past year, but he instantly became a friend. As if I'd known him my whole life. I know there are thousands out there who feel the same about him.

He was a great supporter of this blog, of The BRAD SHOW (he helped us get our first show on the air, and appeared as a guest that night) and was one of the original advisors at Velvet Revolution.

His loss is a tremendous blow to the Election Reform movement, and to America.

He will be missed...but he will never forgotten.

Godspeed, Andy...

UPDATE 7/11/05:

Received this moments ago from our friend Tony Trupiano of The Tony Show who received it himself via Email just moments after going off the air and thus was not able to run it. He tells The BRAD BLOG that he considers his source for this to be "golden"...

This report seems to sync up with a report just out at RAW STORY which independently confirms the "tomorrow between 10 and 11 am" timeline, as well as with Bob Novak's column this morning which reported that "Rehnquist also will announce his retirement before the week is over."

UPDATE 7/8/05: No retirement announced as of 11am ET today. RAW STORY has more...

As London erupts, and Bush tells us "the war on terror goes on", Eric Brewer, BTCNews.com's man in the White House has a timely posting today on the Administration's continued fudging of numbers in their Terrorism Reports.

The number of terror incidents continue to rise, even as the Administration attempts to downplay, fudge, obfuscate the numbers in various statements and annual reports wherever possible.

According to Brewer...

Brewer's fine analysis goes on to point out that virtually all of the numbers reported by the Government, completely leave out incidents from Iraq and Afghanistan despite Bush's continued assertion that these countries are now the "central front in the War on Terror"...

Need more evidence that you are being lied to and manipulated in this "War on Terror"?

Brewer reports on a new analytical tool available from the "Terrorism Knowledge Base" run by Oklahoma City-based non-profit National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism which is, as Brewer points out, funded by the Department of Homeland Security.

Brewer used the tool to create a graph of Terror Incidents from 1995 to 2004. Compare the years when those pesky "Liberals" who, according to Rove, were fighting terrorism by "prepar[ing] indictments and offer[ing] therapy and understanding for our attackers," versus the great success of those "Conservatives" and their new "catastrophically successful" approach...

"The war on terror goes on..."

(Brewer, BTCNews.com's blogger/White House correspondent, was interviewed several weeks ago on The BRAD SHOW along with BTC's blogmaster Weldon Berger. The archive of that interview is available here in MP3 format.)

Hocking County, Ohio's recount whistleblower, Sherole Eaton --- who was recently fired without explanation in the wake of having reported on a voting company employee tampering with the hard-drive of a central tabulating computer and offering "cheat-sheets" prior to the recount of the November 2004 Presidential Election --- received some support yesterday from both a Court Order and several dozen backers at a dramatic Board of Elections meeting.

Attorney Cliff Arnebeck, one of the attorneys who filed a case in Ohio to have the November Election results set aside due to evidence of fraud, served County Board of Elections officials with a court order mandating Eaton not be replaced until further court orders are issued.

"Yesterday was the first of what I hope are many victories for Sherole," Karla VanBibber told us via Email earlier today. VanBibber, who is Sherole's niece attended the meeting, and described the moment when Arnebeck arrived with the court order: "The expressions on the board members faces when given the court injunction was priceless."

VanBibber also gave us her take on the reactions from the Board Members in the face of questions from supporters about Eaton's dismissal, which she says is illegal under Ohio law. "Their sputtering and faultering and lying was unbelievable," she said. "It's amazing how the arrogance we see in the Bush administrations has filtered down to the local level as it has."

Apparently, they won't be giving up the fight for Eaton, who is recovering from recent brain surgery, but attended the hearing "in apparently good spirits and seemingly good health - full of energy and zeal and very appreciative of the support," according to Evan Davis's detailed account of the meeting at Ray Beckerman's blog.

Said VanBibber, "We knocked them down a few notches yesterday, we won't give up until they're on their knees and Sherole has her job back."

Eaton's firing, and her dramatic appearance at another recent Board of Election hearing, just two days surgery, was covered in this previous BRAD BLOG report.

Hocking County's Logan Daily News also had a report today on yesterday's meeting. "[Sherole] was so happy this morning when she received her paper," VanBibber said, "she came over and was so excited and for the first time in awhile was optomistic."

Logan Daily News described Arnebeck's dramatic appearance at the meeting...

We've said it before...and say it almost everytime we speak anywhere publicly in fact...but if you need any more proof that the actions of one person can make a difference, allow us to offer just a few more recent examples of the actions taken by just a few of the good BRAD BLOGGERS out there.

We're sure we could offer loads of similar examples from several score more of you, but these two folks have jumped out of late and we're happy to add to the noise they've already made.

Last week, a frequent BRAD BLOG commenter (whose name we'll leave out, since we didn't get express permission to mention it --- they can take credit for here in comments if they are so inclined) made a bit of news after sending a letter of complaint to the Tennessee Department of Health complaining about Sen. Bill Frist's videotaped (and incorrect) "diagnosis" of Terri Schiavo a few months back.

The letter, apparently, has triggered a review of Frist's actions, according to the return letter received from the Director of Investigations for Health Related Boards.

All we can say is: Well done!

And another BRAD BLOG commenter, Sheila Leavitt, has been bravely making noise for quite a while. She seems to have little fear when it comes to speaking out rather publicly and for that alone (sadly enough) she deserves a round of applause in this chilling day and age.

That's her on the right as photographed by AFP on the day Conyers was delivering the Downing Street letter to the White House.

Today, Sheila made the news again as she was featured in a great Boston Herald column.

We're not certain, but it may be her car that caught the attention of the Herald reporter

In an email exchange we had today, Sheila told us, "My medium is cardboard, just as yours is words in the computer. Each of us only needs to do what we do best, and do it with love and persistence, don't you think? Eventually, maybe things will get better."

Yes, we think maybe eventually it will.

Since the Herald site is subscription only, here's a few more grafs than usual from today's article on Sheila, some of the thugs she's faced down in the course of bravely speaking out, and, of course...a must-see EXCLUSIVE BRAD BLOG photograph of...Sheila's car...

Just in from AP...Time Magazine's Matt Cooper looks to be ready to talk.

New York Times gets back into the reporting game with two stories in one day on Trouble in Tom Delay Land.

In a short piece by Philip Shenon, it's reported that the U.S. House Resources Committee has asked the Dept. of Justice to widen their criminal investigation into Jack Abramoff, the "Washington lobbyist whose ties to Tom DeLay, the House Republican leader, and other prominent lawmakers are the subject of inquiries throughout the government."

The request, sent in a letter last week, according to the Times, "cited a flurry of accusations of wrongdoing involving Mr. Abramoff's multimillion-dollar lobbying on behalf of the Northern Mariana Islands, a small American commonwealth in the Pacific."

What we find most notable here is that a House Committee, all of which are headed by Republicans, has finally taken any kind of proactive stance in any of the myriad criminal corruption scandals now rocking Capitol Hill (or at least percolating just below the surface, even if they haven't shown up "in person" yet in the Committee Hearing rooms --- basement broom-closet hearings held by Democrats notwithstanding.)

It is, as the Times points out, "the first known request by a Congressional committee for prosecutors to review accusations of criminal conduct in the lobbying activities of Mr. Abramoff, who was one of the most powerful and best-paid Republican lobbyists in Washington."

We'll not bother to ask "what took you so long", but rather take heart in that action of some sort may finally be beginning.

As to how the Northern Marianias and Abramoff will all come back to bite delay, Shenon explains...

...But that's not all the Times has today on Abramoff/Delay!...

In an open letter to John Tanner, Chief of the Voting Section of the Dept. of Justice, Bob Fitrakis of the Columbus Free Press responds to the unrequested and blatant whitewash "report" that the DoJ published last week on disenfranchisement (or a lack thereof, as the the DoJ "report" characterized it) in Franklin County, OH.

Fitrakis has been on the ground since Day 1 (and before) in Ohio, and knows whereof he speaks.

The more one looks at the outrageous "report" from the DoJ, the clearer it becomes what a despicable obfuscation that particular piece of propaganda was meant to be. For our money, the DoJ "report" represents perhaps one of the most chilling set of tea-leaves we've seen so far as an indication of just how cooked this DoJ now is, and to what lengths they are prepared to go in order to mislead the American public and media away from the truth.

We're not particularly prone to hyperbole, but we find this small indication of what the DoJ is now made of to be particularly troubling. Anyway, read Fitrakis' rebuttal to get a sense of how outrageous that "report" actually was...

Brad's Friskies Fund...

{Ed Note: Bumping this up to the top for a bit so that you catch the couple of updated links added yesterday and today.}

As you all likely know by now, Lawrence O'Donnell has fingered Rove as the leaker to Time's Matt Cooper in the Valerie Plame investigation.

This morning O'Donnell offers further developements on the issue...

UPDATE 7/4/05: More coverage today by O'Donnell. This time on Rove's emerging Clintonesque Defense.

UPDATE 7/5/05: And today O'Donnell has three questions for Rove's Attorney...

ALSO...Democrats circulate Congressional Letter calling for the resignation of Karl Rove.