Since Ohio seems to be doing a fine job collapsing on itself politically, we haven't waded too much into the entire mess. Suffice to say, the Buckeye State seems to be imploding without much help from us, so far be it for us to get in its way.

We're fairly certain that the evil J. Kenneth Blackwell (OH Sec. of State and, by complete fluke of nature, Co-Chair for Bush/Cheney '04) will be sucked irrevocably into the vortex of criminal political corruption now unravelling in Ohio. Hubris has its way. The only unclear question is whether the entire national Republican Party will be sucked in as well.

Either way, we congratulate Ohio on overtaking Florida --- for the moment --- as the filthiest political state in the union! It seems a sure bet that any state responsible for delivering George W. Bush a "victory", is most likely corrupt from top to bottom. Ohio has yet to disappoint in that regard!

We also have a feeling, as Jolson used to say, we ain't seen nothin' yet!

As reported today by AfterDowningStreet.org...

The letter to colleagues from Conyers, Waters and Lee is here...

UPDATE 6/28/05: Plan for speeches on the floor rescheduled for Thursday...

As usual, on Monday morning, after taking a few hours off yesterday, I'm beseiged with stuff that I must catch up on. I'm doing my best to do so, and hope to be making some noise here soon. In the meantime, a couple of personal mop-up items from the weekend...

Not sure what happened, but somehow GreyMatter (the software we use here) overwrote a short entry from Friday pointing to my weekly guest appearance that day on Tony Trupiano's swell show. We had a few fun wing nut callers, always fun, with guest host that day Sean (Tony shows up near the end of the show after returning from a gig on Fox "News"). Here's a link to the MP3 once again, since the first one disappeared for reasons unknown.

This evening, I'll be in-studio at 6pm PT with Barry Gordon for his show on LA's News Talk KRLA 870am, so those of you in town can listen on your actual radios, if you're so inclined. Otherwise, it'll be streaming live for the hour. If you're so inclined. (UPDATE: See this item for some post-Barry Gordon Show thoughts, and a link to the archive of the hour.)

We were able to get a clean copy of last night's fine BRAD SHOW over to the network so that this mornings "Re-BRADcast" was clean and without the technical glitches and drop-outs that occurred LIVE last night. Very frustrating, but such is the way of the technical world in these matters from time to time. We believe we know what caused it, and should be able to avoid the problem again in the future.

We now have clean versions of all of last night's interviews and ther mayhem on the BRAD SHOW ARCHIVES page soon in case you missed anything, or want to hear anything that dropped out due to the technical probs.

I thought the interview with Vincent Fry of the DNC Voting Rights institute was enlightening, the one with John Amato of Crooks & Liars hilarious, with Green Party Presidential Candidate David Cobb energizing and uplifting, and with Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schulz fascinating and encouraging! They're all now up in the archives for your listening pleasure.

Thanks again for all of your support!

It must be Friday. Just breaking from the AFP...

Meanwhile...Dick Cheney remains in Fantasy Land and wants us to know that there's nothing to worry about, since Gitmo prisoners are "well fed" and "living in the tropics"...

We can only hope that Mr. Cheney finds himself taking advantage of such enjoyable digs himself some day.

(Hat tip Desi for the usual keen Friday eye!)

Senator John Kerry (D-MA) has written a letter, signed by nine other Senate Democrats, asking Senators Roberts (R-KA) and Rockefeller (D-WV) of the Senate Intelligence Committee to deliver their promised investigation on the political use (or misuse) of pre-war intelligence in light of a "new urgency" due to revelations in the Downing Street Documents. Roberts had promised that investigation would occur after the election, but so far, he hasn't delivered a damn thing.

RAW STORY's Larisa Alexandrovna, who has been one of the major driving forces in verifying and reporting on the Downing Street Documents in America, has an exclusive on the leaked letter from Kerry et al.

Another notable item from HuffingtonPost this week (where they've recently removed BRAD BLOG from their blogroll for reasons unknown to us, but probably known to Scoop@HuffingtonPost.com), this time from Alex Keyssar, a Professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Keyssar was in Chicago a week or so ago for a Rainbow/PUSH conference where Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) spoke about his Right to Vote amendment to the U.S. Constitution, otherwise known as H.R. 28 and currently co-sponsored by 55 other House Members. That's right, you have no constitutional right to vote in this country...just in case you didn't realize it.

In covering the event where Jackson and Howard Dean spoke on the proposed constitutional amendment, Keyssar had the following observation pinpointing precisely where it is that the Mainstream Corporate Media in this country is failing America...

And so it goes. Nothing new there. Just a reminder of what most BRAD BLOG readers know all too well already.

If only a young blonde white girl had introduced a Right to Vote amendment in America before being kidnapped! Perhaps then the Mainstream Corporate Media would have decided such an issue was worth letting Americans know about. The abysmal record of the MSM continues...

We've been attempting to track down Kristen Breitwesier, whose husband was killed on 9/11, for this weekend's BRAD SHOW. So far, we haven't been able to get in touch with her, but in the meantime, she posted an open letter to Karl Rove concering his "Understanding of 9/11" yesterday at HuffingtonPost.

The entire letter needs to be read, since quoting just a few grafs here can't convey the full message of her letter. Nonetheless, here are a just a few highlights from her response to Rove's latest obnoxious, divisive and opportunistic statements as he continues his desperate attempt to help Bush divide the country in an effort to shore up a failed Presidency by using the carnage of 9/11 for their own reprehensible political gain...

Guests currently scheduled...

Join us Saturday Night 7p-11p ET (4p-8p PT)! Listen up via www.BradShow.com, call in with your questions and comments for our guests at 323-650-1286, and play along right here at BRAD BLOG in our LIVE Open Thread during the show!

Until we become the bought and paid for corporate media whore we strive to become, your DONATIONS help us to stay on the air and are very much appreciated!

We love this. Crooks and Liars and Jesus' General have combined forces to form Operation Yellow Elephant. One of their first actions was to purchase the following ad in the program for the upcoming Young Republicans National Convention in Vegas (July 6-7 for those who wish to participate):

We are simply shocked...shocked!...to learn that the Young Republicans turned down the ad with the following comment:

Cowards and hypocrites. But no surprises yet.

The liars and hucksters of the "American Center for Voting Rights" are at it again.

As those who remember our series exposing this phony Republican front-group will recall, the ACVR calls themselves a "non-partisan" group and claims a tax-exempt status in exchange for it.

They are, however, comprised of two key high-level GOP operatives: Mark F. "Thor" Hearne, the General Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04, Inc., and Jim Dyke, the Communications Director for the RNC.

ACVR has yet to produce their legal 501(c)3 paperwork --- which allows them tax-exempt status --- to us as they had promised, and when Thor Hearne testified at a Congressional hearing just three days after the creation of his phony organization in March, he identified himself only as a "long time voting rights advocate". Apparently he forgot to mention his or Dyke's direct connection with Bush/Cheney and the RNC.

In response to today's long-await report, "Democracy at Risk: The 2004 Election in Ohio", from the DNC on the problems, including massive voter disenfranchisement and other chicanery in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential Election, the ACVR has just released another smokescreen in favor of Voter Disenfranchisement, this time in the form of a Press Release in response to the DNC report.

Get a load (and we do mean load) of this:

It must be made clear that these guys are snake-oil salesman of the highest order. Note how they disingenously make the point to appear as if they are in general agreement with the DNC report, but quickly slide the focus elsewhere, away from Ohio where the disenfranchisement and electoral chicanery was at maximum impact courtesy of a crooked Secretary of State and Ohio Bush/Cheney Co-Chair (both in the name of J. Kenneth Blackwell). In Ohio, Blackwell still refuses any real investigations of the machinery or of the criminal allegations.

From there, the press release slithers predictably over to the notion of voter fraud which, by our count, has resulted in two --- that's two --- cases in the entire state of Ohio of anyone fraudulently casting a vote last November. Contrast that to the thousands of documented cases of provisional ballots discarded, electronic votes flipped from Kerry to Bush, hours-long lines and too few machines in Democratic precincts only, and legitimate voters surprised to find they'd been purged entirely from the voting rolls.

(CORRECTION: It was not two cases of voter fraud in the state of Ohio as we originally suggested above. We've found the information we had recalled, but couldn't find at the time we filed this report originally. According to a June 15, 2005 story headlined "Rampant Voter Fraud a Myth" from Cleveland Plain Dealer, the actual number of fraudulent votes in the state of Ohio was not two. It was four. The article begins: "Of 9,078,728 votes cast in Ohio in 2002 and 2004, only four were fraudulent, according to a new review by a pair of voter advocacy groups." The BRAD BLOG regrets the error.)

Nonetheless, as these operatives move to encourage the enactment of Voter ID laws which will disproportionately disenfranchise millions of minority, elderly and urban Americans (read: Democratic voters), through backchannel political manipulation, they continue to misrepresent their phony "non-partisan" creds. More from Dyke's release...

In this 40th Anniversary year of the Voting Rights Act, there are few Americans as despicable as those who use the cynical veneer of presenting themselves as "Voting Rights Advocates" when they are anything but. The are, in fact, the complete antithesis of those brave advocates and activists who have given so much --- including their lives --- in the fight for a right to vote in America. Not to mention those Americans who have been sent to fight and die right now around the globe under the premise of "spreading democracy" by the paymasters of Hearne and Dyke of the ACVR.

The ACVR clearly has both the money and political pull, however, to make great strides in this area. Real Voting Rights groups were not called as witnesses by Rep. Bob Ney's (R-OH) trumped up Congressional Hearing on the Ohio Irregularities, but Hearne was. That, just three days after his organization appeared on the World Wide Web with a snailmail address at a P.O. Box in a UPS Mailbox Etc. store in Houston, TX, which nobody for the organization has yet to claim as their own. (Hearne is from St. Louis, MO, Dyke now lives in North Carolina).

As well, the cooked Baker/Carter Commission on Election Reform --- headed appallingly by Bush Family crony, James Baker, who successfully ensured that American citizens would not be allowed to have their votes counted in 2000 --- has Thor Hearne sitting as a member of their "Advisory Panel". No real Voting Rights groups have been invited to sit on that commission or its advisory panel.

It pays to have unscrupulous friends in high places.

And, just in case you have any further questions about the sort of unrepentant, un-American, opportunistic phonies these guys really are, take a look at this short video clip --- from ACVR's own website --- of Hearne testifying to Ney's committee last March wherein he avers that it was John Kerry's team that systematically attempted to misinform voters about when Election Day actually was.

Perhaps this is one of the letters (courtesy of FreePress.org's book "Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election: Essential Documents") that Hearne suggests, in his video testimony, that the Kerry campaign was sending out to trick voters into not voting:

These guys --- both the sort who would send the letter above and those who make up the ACVR --- are vermin. And it all serves as a good reminder of why it's so important to continue everything that we're doing here. There is a special place in hell waiting for these creeps. May God save America from cretins like these.

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.

As presented to DNC Chairman Howard Dean this morning, the DNC Voting Rights Institute has finally released its long-awaited report entitled "Democracy at Risk: The 2004 Election in Ohio".

We're currently reviewing the report, which is available for download in full or by sections at the DNC website.

Donna Brazile, the chair of the Voting Rights Institute introduced the report at a press conference this morning as reported by The BRAD BLOG late last night. In her opening statements she said that the report "was five months in the making and represents an exhaustive review of public documents."

The BRAD BLOG has obtained Brazile's complete opening statement, available here. Here are some of the highlights from that statement [emphasis added]...

As presented to DNC Chairman Howard Dean this morning, the DNC Voting Rights Institute has finally released it's long-awaited report entitled "Democracy at Risk: The 2004 Election in Ohio".

We're currently reviewing the report, which is available for download in full or by sections at the DNC website.

Donna Brazile, the chair of the Voting Rights Institute introduced the report at a press conference this morning as reported by The BRAD BLOG late last night. In her opening statements she said that the report "was five months in the making and represents an exhaustive review of public documents."

We will make her full opening statement available here shortly. Here are some of the highlights from that statement [emphasis added]...

...DEVELOPING...

Great video up on Conyers' site of his delivery of the 560,000+ signatures from American citizens asking for answers concerning the Downing Street Minutes.

Go to his letter page (which you can still sign if you haven't already), and the link to the video is on the top-right.

We previously posted photos of the delivery, but the video really brings the moment alive. Driving home the fact that the longest serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives, along with 9 other members of Congress, are not currently welcome in the White House. So much for that "People's House" thing we heard so much about when the wingnuts were so damned disturbed about Clinton having "soiled it". Guess they were just kidding.

And because he deserves it, here's one last victory lap for Chairman Conyers...

This release came via Email too late this evening to verify the details, but as it syncs with information we'd received last week from highly placed sources concerning this report --- which we were told at the time was "due within days" --- we believe the following information is good...

Various sources have referred to this report as "explosive" and/or "will knock your socks off" and that the focus of the report is to be on Ohio and Florida. However, we'll wait until we see it to determine if our socks are indeed to be knocked or exploded off.

Either way, we thought you'd appreciate the heads-up.