Finally admitting what honest Americans who give a damn (and who have paid attention!) already know, former President Jimmy Carter admitted on Monday that Al Gore won the 2000 Election.

"There's no doubt in my mind that Al Gore was elected president," Carter told an audience at American University last Monday. RAW STORY has the scoop and the audio of Carter at Monday's event.

We have plenty else to be irritated about of late concerning Jimmy Carter as BRAD BLOG readers know. Nonetheless, it's notable that a former President of the United States has finally come out and said publicly what so many of us --- including the major media who confirmed it in the wake of 9/11 while nobody was noticing --- have known for years!

Al Gore won. George W. Bush lost. Period.

Bush is an illegimate "President" of the United States. Accept it. Get over it.

He is an abrogation of American democracy. If one hates America and democracy, then we see no reason why one wouldn't support the "Presidency" of George W. Bush.

Turning off Comments on this item, just to let ya know I'm staying on with Jack Blood for another to take calls on Diebold, Election Reform, Blogging and anything else you like.

Listen to the show here. CALL-IN# 800-259-9231 if you've got any questions or comments for either me or Jack...

Guest blogged by David Edwards

Phil Donahue had O'Reilly's number tonight. Bill gets backed into a corner over his support of the Iraq war.

Shaking and nearly beyond the point of "personal accountability", O'Reilly threatens to have Donahue thrown off the set.

Crooks and Liars has the video

ADDED NOTE FROM BRAD: This is Must See TV! Watch the clip! And yes, I do believe that poor Billy was damn near tears! Thanks for getting this up, David!

Shares of Diebold, Inc. hit a 52-week low today, for some reason, falling to $44.37/share at Tuesday's close. Perhaps it has something to do with this, but whaddu we know?

In other tales from the last vestiges of American democracy...I was working the media circuit big time today (e.g. here's me on the Stephanie Miller Show [MP3] at the crack o' dawn --- wherein the lovely Steph declared The BRAD BLOG her "favorite blog to steal from!" --- and we couldn't be prouder!). As well, I was busy carrying on other super-secret missions which we hope you'll hear about in the future...So I wasn't able to get done all I had hoped to here today. Then again, haven't I done enough damage already?

Instead, here's a few quick items and links of note that I believe you'll enjoy...

RAW STORY's Larisa Alexandrovna adds to the drumbeat by helping to tear the Baker/Carter Recommendations yet another new one, as she reviews the sordid genesis of the entire fetid Baker/Carter "Blue-Ribbon Commission" in her latest HuffPo blog item, entitled "Baked-Cooked Election Reform". Lots of good research, and lots of very good dirt on the very bad guys.

Speaking of the sordid genesis' of Baker/Carter and the man at the middle of the entire ill-concieved folly, BRAD BLOG regular, Valley Girl gives us a blast from the past, reminding us of our remarkable first-hand encounter with the Commission's own Executive Director Dr. Robert Pastor and the moment when we directly challenged him on the Commission's sorry/scammy make-up. Right at the get-go. He shoulda listened. No real Voting Rights groups invited to participate. Just fake ones. It's all recorded for posterity in an item called "Executive Director of National Election Reform Commission Goes Ballistic at BRAD BLOG!" (Reading that link will also give newer-comers here an idea of where the many "BRAD BLOG 6 or 7" references that you may have seen here come from).

Speaking of the sordid geneses of Robert Pastor and "The BRAD BLOG 6 or 7", we're told, by several birdies who were in attendance, that Dr. Pastor's invitation-only "get together" in D.C. with Voting Rights groups to discuss the Commission's roundly criticized Recommendations today went...um...less than good. The report was...um...less than well-received. By...um...every single group present. Every. Single. One. And the "get together" had to be...um...called to a premature end. So the birdies tell us. We'll try to have more details on that disaster of a meeting tomorrow if time allows. But for now, suffice to say...um...we tried to warn ya, Bob. (See link in the above item.)

Oh...Washington Post's editorial board didn't care much for Dr. Pastor's Disaster either, pointing, in an Op/Ed today to the sage point made by dissenting commissioner Spencer Overton who was forced to set up his own website to dissent when he was just shut down by Dr. Pastor. WaPo wonders why the Commission is attempting to impose Photo ID restrictions on voters who show up to the polls (which would disproportionately disenfranchise elderly and minority Democratic-leaning voters), while allowing absentee voters (largely White and Republican) to skate by with just a signature:

Indeed, election administrators agree that absentee ballots pose a bigger risk of fraud, and in that case the commission would guard against fraud by having election officials match a signature on file. As commission member Spencer Overton, an election law expert at George Washington University, asks, why wouldn't the same be sufficient for those who turn up at the polls without ID? Allowing voters to show alternative forms of identification or to sign a sworn affidavit of eligibility could go a significant way toward deterring fraud without imposing the burden of an inflexible photo ID requirement.

Meanwhile, we're pointed to Steven Carbó's must-read from mid-August pointing out "The Hype Over Voter Fraud" wherein we're reminded yet again how the entire "Voter Fraud" brouhaha is nothing more than a cynical and well-coordinated Rightwing scam on the American Voting populace. Definitely worth both reading and BOOK MARKING that article for use later! Have a feeling we're gonna need to keep hauling it out for the wingnut zombies!

We came across the above link, via a blog item by Democrats.com's Bob Fertik who responded to the Baker/Carter Photo ID fiasco by wondering why Americans aren't simply registered to vote automatically when they receive their Social Security numbers. We haven't yet figured out the potential pitfalls of Fertik's notion (if there are any), so it seems worth pondering.

And then Kathy Dopp, one of the first folks to ask questions and compile data about the election results mess last November, and organizer at USCountVotes.org and ElectionArchive.org, has an entirely different reason to hate the Baker/Carter report: Namely, their recommendations to hide Exit Poll Results from Americans!

Lastly, Fitrakis & Wasserman over at FreePress.org, the investigative guys on the ground from the get-go in Ohio, blast Baker/Carter to smithereens in their latest, with a splash of cold water which includes "unless the public is ready to face the reality that we no longer live in a nation with credible elections, the 2008 balloting is all but over."

Does the phrase "like a turd in a swimming pool" come to anyone else's mind yet? Not that we enjoy being vulgar, but we gotta call 'em like we see 'em.

So many things to hate about Pastor's Disaster...so little time to cover them all. But I have a feeling...there will be much more to come...Stay tuned Democracy Fans! And be sure to tell a few friends!

The death toll for U.S. Troops in George W. Bush's ridiculous war "Noble Cause" topped 1,900 as 5 soldiers were killed in 3 different incidents over the last 24 hours...Do you feel safer yet?

Washington Post's Dan Froomkin has the story (overlooked by most of the media, even though it would have been a top banner headline had it been the Clinton White House, of course):

And in the expected (by now) bit of further troubling irony from this bunch:

Of course, had you read RAW STORY at the beginning of September, you would have known all about Mr. Safavian and his dirty links to Abramoff and Friends.

Reports from eye-witnesses are now emerging on the net here, here and here...that a "Camp Casey" Peace Rally in NYC was broken up earlier today by police just as Cindy Sheehan was beginning to speak. Unclear whether she was arrested or not at this time...

Photos of the rally, the aftermath and police posted here...

The Village Voice now has the full story described as "City's Finest pulls move even Bush wouldn't have tried."

The rally in NYC was "one of 200 hundred in 28 states over 21 days," according to Reuters. Sheehan is working her way with other anti-war activists towards Washington, D.C. where a massive anti-war rally is scheduled to be held this weekend in front of the White House and on the mall.

The site of her original stand in Crawford, Texas, where she requested a meeting with George W. Bush to inquire about the "noble cause" he says that her son Casey died for in Iraq, was recently plundered and all remaining memorial crosses --- and Casey Sheehan's boots, which sat next to his cross --- were stolen in the middle of the night.

UPDATE 9/20/05: AP covers to the story to report that NYC police stopped Sheehan's speech and arrested the organizer of the event on the charge of "using a loudspeaker without a permit." Yup.

Guest Blogged by Congressman John Conyers, Cross-Posted at ConyersBlog

I have spent my more than 40 years in public service fighting for voting rights and a better democracy. Today, I am sad to say, there are proposals being made that would set us back in that struggle. A privately funded, unaccountable Commission organized by former Bush-Cheney campaign lawyer James Baker, III, and former President Jimmy Carter issued a report today that includes policy proposals that will disenfranchise over ten percent of eligible voters --- a national ID requirement to vote. I need your help to fight this 21st Century poll tax today.

The simple fact is that many minority and poor voters do not have the time, money or need to purchase a drivers license. In fact, over ten percent of eligible voters in the last election did not have a photo ID. They vote by presenting other means of identification (a voter registration card, utility bill, or affidavit). This Commission is now asking Congress to deny the franchise to those voters unless they get a national ID card. The Commission makes the implausible claim that, in these times of a multibillion dollar war in Iraq and multibillion dollar restoration of the Gulf Coast, the Congress will pay for ID cards for those who cannot afford to buy them. We know this is not going to happen.

Even if you are not among these vulnerable populations, this affects you. The institution of a National ID card has throughout our history been the tool of every despotic regime the world has known. This recommendation, coupled with the Commission's recommendation of interoperable data bases of voters, is the first step toward data bases of American citizens.

Make no mistake about it, this national ID voting card is more of the same old Ken Blackwell-style Republican electoral dirty tricks, where Democratic voters are deliberately disenfranchised so that Republicans can win elections. Remember the lack of voting machines in Ohio for Democratic voters? Remember the machines that broke down or registered strange numbers of votes for George Bush or unknown third party candidates? Remember Ken Blackwell's paper weight requirements for voter registration cards?

Imagine if the Republican party can, in one fell swoop, legally prohibit more than ten percent of voters, most of them poor, minority and elderly voters, most of them Democratic voters, from being able to vote.

Please help me today. I have made the front page of my website into an action center on this issue. It will be constantly updated with actions you can take to help and up to the minute news on this issue. Thanks for your help and your continued stand for a better democracy.

The discredited "Blue Ribbon" National Election Reform commission led by Bush Family Crony and Democracy Hater James A. Baker along with former President Jimmy Carter releases their recommendations today.

As expected, the scam to disenfranchise millions of more minority, elderly, poor and urban-dwelling Americans through a call for a Photo ID requirement at the polls has been made. Washington Post has the first look at what this shameful excuse for a "Blue Ribbon" commission --- irreparably stocked and tainted with Voting Machine Company officials and anti-American, anti-democracy advocates from GOP front-groups like the phony "American Center for Voting Rights" --- is now hoping to perpetuate on an under-informed (thanks WaPo and friends) American public.

BRAD BLOG readers will be delighted to know that WaPo's Dan Baltz informs readers in his article on the Commission's report this morning that "there has been no credible evidence of partisan manipulation of the election in Ohio." Betcha didn't know that!

The only upside as reported for now:

Not that anyone will bother to listen.

More after we get some sleep, and try to convince ourselves in our dreams that we are still in the United States of America.

...CONTACT...
Dan Balz, Washington Post, balzd@washpost.com

UPDATE: More details...many more...in this update!

Perhaps the best "New Rules" segment I've seen yet on Bill Maher's show. He knocks it out of the park, frankly. Don't miss this one.

Crooks & Liars has the complete video...

If you missed it the first time, it's new to you! Be sure to catch our jam packed Special Edition of The BRAD SHOW celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. Originally aired on Aug. 6th, the show features an amazing array of folks both live and on tape! Here's a few of them, but see www.BradShow.com for more details!

Rep. JOHN LEWIS (D-GA) · Rev. JESSE JACKSON · SAM WALKER · Rep. CYNTHIA MCKINNEY (D-GA) · Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING · LEON SMITH · KEENAN KELLER · Rev. BILL MOSS

Interestingly, the day we originally broadcast this show, a woman named Cindy Sheehan had showed up in Crawford, Texas, outside Bush's vacation home to request a meeting with him. We spoke that night with Leon Smith, editor of the Lonestar Iconocast in Crawford, about what became quite a national event!

This program is also particularly timely as the Baker/Carter Commission on Election Reform, the one that was created in part with the help of the cretins/GOP-operatives who call themselves the "non-partisan" American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), is to release their findings on Monday. Our early word is that they will making their recommendations to ensure disenfranchisement of millions of American through the requirement of Photo ID at the polls (which millions of Elderly, Urban Dwellers and Minorities simply don't own). So this show is a good reminder of what was won 40 years ago in the name of government of the people, by the people and for the people...and what may well be lost at the hands of America and Democracy Hating folks like James A. Baker who continues to do George W. Bush's bidding...or vice versa.

Perhaps Americans and Democrats will soon wake up before it's too late. Though we're not particular optimistic about that today. Either way...Enjoy the show! It was a great one!

The Lonestar Iconoclast is reporting that the remaining memorial at Camp Casey, crosses, tent, the boots of Cindy Sheehan's fallen son, Casey, were stolen on Wednesday Night/Thursday Morning in Crawford, Texas...

Nice "support for the troops", we guess. Incredible.

UPDATE 9/21/05: Stolen items returned by Sherrif's office! No explanation given! Lonestar Iconoclast reports...

I've been working on a rather important story since I've returned home. You'll recognize it when you see it. Hopefully very soon. So apologies in the meantime for things having slowed down here a bit since my return. Plus, the good David Edwards, Winter Patriot and Joseph Cannon all deserve a bit of a break since pulling extra long Guest Blogging duty in the wake of my unexpectedly long summer "vacation". Hopefully they will each continue to contribute here, however, after a bit of a well-deserved rest. They are welcome any time and I can't thank them all enough for their tremendous work here while I was on the road. Especially since I'll soon be heading out for it again to make my way up to participate in the National Summit to Save Our Elections in Portland along with Thom Hartmann, Bob Koehler, Jesse Jackson Jr. and other illuminaries too numerous to mention at the end of the month.

Beyond that, I can't seem to get this E.J. Dionne piece from yesterday's WaPo out of my mind. Though Dionne may be jumping the gun a bit (anything and everything could happen any day now), his epitaph for the "End of the Bush Era" seems to be right on target. Or at least provide a bit of welcome and smart perspective to an America in trouble, but perhaps soon on the mend. Perhaps.

Here's a few key grafs, though I recommend you read the whole thing if you haven't already:

As I said (twice) read it all.

Every now and again, we like to remind BRAD BLOG readers how the wingnuts --- from the "mainstream" Washington Times to the top nutcase blogs like "Little Green Footballs" and "Powerline Blog" to the expected spinners at Fox "News" --- love to grab onto a lie, avoid bothering to check a single fact, and shove it down America's throat as if it had any basis in reality. Which all results in the actual mainstream corporate media like ABC and CNN repeating the horseshit as if it was actually true.

Case in point, courtesy of Media Matters (via this morning's Al Franken show), is the falsehood repeated over and over again in the wingnut media and beyond about the "2000 school buses" that could have been used to evacuate everyone in New Orleans who needed evacuation, but sat instead in a parking lot unused.

Turns out, the city of New Orleans actually owns only 324 school buses, 70 of which are broken down (according to September 5, 2003, article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune) plus another 364 city owned public transit RTA buses. Bringing the total available fleet in New Orleans to less than 700. The Times-Picayune reported on July 8 in an article headlined "RTA buses would be used for evacuation: But plan still falls far short of needs" that "Even if the entire fleet was used, the buses would carry only about 22,000 people out of the city --- far short of the 134,000 people estimated to be without cars in a recent University of New Orleans study."

No excuses here for those available buses which were not being used (Mayor Ray Nagin has claimed they didn't have enough drivers for them, but we haven't verified that one way or another at this time.) Nonetheless, the wingnuts repeated the nonsense about "2000 unused school buses" over and over again as if it was based in reality.

So where did the wingnuts version of "reality" begin this time? The story apparently began (little surprise) when it was used in a Sep. 6 column by Washington Times managing editor-and-liar-in-chief, Wesley Pruden. He wrote instructed followers to say:

That claim was quickly and unsurprisingly linked by the popular wingnut blogs Power Line and Little Green Footballs, both of whom have shown an utter inability, day after day, month after month, year after year, to check a single fact, or do anything other than repeat one Republican talking point after another. Hence, they are both very popular amongst the faith-based Bush dead-ender crowd. That's what they're paid for.

Of course, Sean Hannity then raced to the airwaves that same evening to dutifully repeat the misinformation to Fox "News" viewers on Hannity & Colmes:

The next night on Hannity & Colmes, Newt Gingrich was called upon to continue spreading the misinfo:

In fact, the number of buses required to evacuate the city's approximately 100,000 elderly and disabled, according to the New York Times on Sep. 4, was 2,000, but as their article responsibly noted, that 2,000 number was "far more than New Orleans possessed."

Never mind responsibility and reality, though. Back to the wingnuts and the so-called myth of the "Liberal Media".

By last Sunday, Sep 11, the lie had become mainstream "reality" as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's national security writer Jack Kelly wondered:

...And then the deed was finally done --- as Wingnut Horseshit becomes Conventional Wisdom --- on last Sunday morning's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Gingrich was the guest, but it was "Liberal Media" elitist, Stephanopolous who made certain the lie got out to all of America across the ABC Television Network:

Not bad for a week's work. Mr. Rove and his America-Hating friends have certainly earned their pay check over the past week.

Kudos to Media Matters for their detailed tracking of all of this. And if you stop by over there (where all the audio and video is also available) be sure to check out how the Fox and Friends wingnuts also keep spinning the nonsense of when Gov. Blanco declared a state of emergency and those "Liberals" at CBS who repeated it thereafter, how the entire media gave a free pass to Bush's "dodged a bullet" claim about the levees, how O'Reilly is spinning numbers to trick America into believing that Bush is better on poverty than Clinton was, and oh, so many documented, out and out Right Wing lies we'd need about 2,000 unused school buses full of bloggers to report them all.