Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

In an interview posted on the website of the London Telegraph, John Bolton, one of the most belligerent of the neocon war hawks, predicted that Israel will attack Iran sometime after the U.S. presidential elections on November 4 and before January 21, the day George Bush and Dick Cheney leave office.

Attacking Iran has long been a neocon objective. Last February, New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh revealed that Dick Cheney had secret plans for creating an "open confrontation" with Iran, and that he had the Pentagon ready to start bombing with 24 hours of a signal from the White House. At the same time, the Times of London reported that top U.S. military brass had let it be known they would resign if Cheney launched the attack.

Public outcry generated by the Hersh article and other reports quickly dampened the fervor for attacking Tehran. Two months after the report, however, John McCain ramped up the bellicose rhetoric when, during a campaign stop in South Carolina in April 2007, he made a joke about bombing Iran by singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys song, "Barbara Ann."

John Bolton now believes Bush and Cheney have succumbed to political reality and will not pursue the attack using U.S. forces. According to the Telegraph, Bolton said, "It's clear that the administration has essentially given up that possibility... I don't think it's serious any more. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don't think it's in the cards."

About his suggested timeframe for the attack of November to January, Bolton said, "The Israelis have one eye on the calendar because of the pace at which the Iranians are proceeding both to develop their nuclear weapons capability and to do things like increase their defenses by buying new Russian anti-aircraft systems and further harden the nuclear installations.

Blogged by Brad from somewhere near Portland...

Here's a chuckler. From Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic...

And if you believe the GOP has any intention of scaling back any such thing in 2008, we've got a swell bridge, beautifully located near Manhattan, to sell ya.

But just to drive home the point that we're equal opportunity disbelievers, there's this old standby from the Obama camp, later in the article...

We're fairly certain the following video, shown at the recent TX GOP convention (where they were selling racist Obama buttons, incidentally), isn't meant as a joke. It just plays that way, for those of us who happen to live on Planet Earth...

Between this and some of McCain's ads, and the lack of actual issues for Republicans to run on this year, perhaps the plan this year is to out macho the Democrats. It's all they've got, perhaps. Even if it comes across kinda gay. But maybe that's just us...

(Hat-tip Mark Crispin Miller)

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

There is good news for the campaign of Barack Obama in polls from states that are traditionally keys to winning the general election. However, it is too soon to tell if the upticks are indicators of a trend toward Obama or simply "bumps" resulting from his finally clinching the Democratic nomination from Hillary Clinton.

Quinnipiac Polls in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania released Wednesday indicate that Barack Obama leads John McCain in all three battleground states...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

In its May 29 edition, the New York Times contributed another meme to the myth of John McCain. The Times' front-page profile led with this:

Got that? McCain gave up the opportunity to become the first third-generation admiral in order to become a lowly congressman. Sounds plausible but, writing in Huffington Post, Jeffrey Klein calls this story "highly improbable." Reasons for doubt include the fact that in his memoir, Worth Fighting For, McCain did not mention that he had nobly turned down a promotion to admiral, with all its dynastic implications, to pursue a career in public service. In fact, McCain's own assessment was he was very likely unqualified to be an admiral. Klein also cites the fact that, over the years, none of McCain's close friends has ever mentioned his turning down the promotion --- and the fact that a promotion for McCain at that juncture would have gone against the Navy's strict pecking order, leapfrogging him to the top of the ranks past others who had waited their turns. And, Klein says, John Lehman a) had only been on duty as secretary of the Navy for two months at that point and b), as secretary, he was not in charge of who got promoted to admiral.

Finally, Klein notes that the Times article failed to point out that Lehman is now a McCain adviser.

Myths about John McCain die hard, and you can bet that this shiny new bullet-point is now a fact in his resume, even if it is not true.

And yet there has been considerable chipping away at the McCain mythologies lately, much of which has been coming from an unexpected source: the candidate himself. In fact, John McCain has done more to expose the reality behind the fabulations that he is a straight-talking maverick than his political enemies ever could.

The prime instance of this is the fantasy that he is a straight talker. In this month alone, McCain has contradicted himself in public statements no less than 10 times. The list of McCain's flipflops as of June 16, which was compiled by by Jon Perr, writing at Crooks and Liars, ranges from the media's treatment of Hillary Clinton to privatization of Social Security, to the estate tax, domestic spying, restoring the Everglades, opposing investigations into Hurricane Katrina and more.

And then there is the myth that McCain is a maverick --- you know, the sort of maverick who voted with his Dear Leader 95 percent of the time last year.

Underpinning the McCain mythos is his service in the military. But in his Huffington Post article, Jeffrey Klein found that a close examination of McCain's time in the service reveals faint echoes of George W. Bush's approach. Like Bush, McCain was admittedly more focused on partying than on duty, God and country, and, like Bush, he used highly placed connections to receive plum assignments that should have gone to more qualified men. Klein writes:

Guest Blogged by Arlen Parsa of TheDailyBackground.com

As readers of The BRAD BLOG know, former comedian Al Franken will be the Democratic candidate running against incumbent Republican Senator (and Bush Buddy) Norm Coleman this November in Minnesota. The seat is a prime pickup opportunity to for Democrats this year, and Coleman is running scared. Franken was on CNN Monday night and was subjected to a truly awful interview by Campbell Brown. If you can stand to watch this lousy excuse for an interview, check it out:

The four questions that Brown asked him were essentially...

Who says Republicans don't have class? From the Dallas Morning News blog's report on the Texas GOP state convention...

If you're interested in their items, their website is here. Their slogan: "Patriotic and Republican Products at Republican Market." I guess the above is an example of one of the Republican products. No clue if they've actually got any patriotic ones.

But if you'd like to find out about that, or anything else, you can email them at: sales@republicanmarket.com. More info on this impressive outfit is available here.

(Hat-tip BRAD BLOG reader GM)

UPDATE: Our friend Mike Rogers points out that Republicanmarket doesn't bother to show that particular button on the buttons page at their slimy website for some reason. Go figure. Not sure why, since, as commenter Creid points out, they aren't embarrassed about running this sexist garbage. Again, very very classy stuff.

UPDATE 6/19/08: The Texas GOP distances themselves from Republicanmarket.com, bans vendor from future events. Details now here...

I think we've kept our oft-made promise, so far, to bring you coverage of the 2008 Election that you will find nowhere else.

From the first Primary mess out of the box in NH; to Rep. Heather Wilson's vote-buying scandal in NM (she lost her bid for the Senate nomination, btw, poor dear); to thousands of "Double Bubble" ballots left uncounted on Super Tuesday in Los Angeles; to miscounted votes on Sequoia machines in NJ and the dope the company tried to put in charge of the "investigation"; to being called to testify to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission on their utter failures of federal oversight; to the federal fraud suit filed against Hart InterCivic; to their attempted takeover of Sequoia and our exclusive findings that the company doesn't even control its own software or intellectual property and their CEO has been busy lying about it; to nuns, students, vets, the elderly being disenfranchised altogether by the Supreme Court upholding unconstitutional Photo ID restrictions; to multiple races flipped by e-voting machines in Arkansas; to the continuing saga of voter fraud felon Ann Coulter and Fox "News'" attempts to ignore it; up to my very own e-votes getting flipped in L.A. the week before last; and so much more in between.

All that, just since the first few days of January this year.

We promised to keep an eye on the track conditions, even as everyone else was obsessed with the horse race, and so far, I think we've delivered.

If you are able to express your support with an online donation, it would be as appreciated as it is needed.

We have been forced to scale back our Summer travel plans for shortage of funds, and prices of fuel. But we've still got places we have to get to, beginning with a family commitment this coming week that will put us on the road again for the next several weeks.

Our 2008 Election Integrity Fund Drive continues, allowing you --- for as little as a $5/monthly commitment --- to receive any one of three items described at that link. If you can spare more per month, we'll toss in more Premium gifts in return.

If you can contribute at least $50 one time, we'll send you a collector's edition DVD of the remarkable documentary, Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections, hand-signed by the filmmaker, David Earnhardt. (DISCLOSURE: I'm in it, but it's a good film anyway.)

I can't express how much I hate asking folks for help here. Especially these days. But as blog ads have largely dried up for much of the blogosphere so far this season, and as The BRAD BLOG has no corporate or foundational funding, we have nowhere to go but to you.

If you can help us keep going, I commit to continuing the same investigative, muckraking, cry-till-ya-laugh, laugh-till-ya-cry coverage of our American democracy that you will find nowhere else. Although if I can find a few days off between now and the conventions, I'm gonna try to take 'em. Not that I usually have much luck at that sort of thing. But it won't stop me from trying.

As always, your support means the world. Thank you, in advance... --- Brad

Last week I reported in great detail that four out of the twelve votes I'd cast on my ballot on L.A. County's e-voting system, during California's state primary on June 3rd, were flipped to candidates that I hadn't voted for. The ES&S InkaVote Plus system printed my ballot incorrectly.

I was voting on the audio ballot voting system meant primarily for blind and visually-impaired voters. Had I not been able to inspect my ballot visually after it had printed --- for example, had I been blind --- I would never have known that I was about to cast votes for candidates that I had not selected.

Because the "disabled-accessible" e-voting system at my own precinct was not working, again, for the second election in a row, I was told I'd have to cast a provisional ballot on the "disabled-accessible" e-voting system at the other "precinct," in the same polling place, in the same room, as my own "precinct."

The machine had been down all day, and nobody had come out to replace or repair it, even though the county had been called early in the day and told about the problem. Last election, on Super Tuesday, the machine was also broken, and none of the poll workers would touch it, due to exposed wires.

This time, despite asking to vote in a specific party's open primary, I was given a non-partisan audio ballot to compound the fiasco when I tried to vote provisionally on the other "precinct's" e-voting system that was up and running, even though not a single voter had used it in either this, or the previous election.

The voting went smoothly enough --- even if it took 20 minutes to move through the short audio ballot, shorter than usual because it was a state primary, and because I wasn't allowed to vote in partisan races for some reason --- at least until it misprinted my selections, which I had confirmed as correct while actually moving through the audio selections.

Luckily, after noticing that the e-voting system had printed my ballot incorrectly, I was allowed to VOID that ballot, and this time chose to vote on a regular, hand-marked paper ballot instead. My hand filled in the ballot far more accurately than the computer did.

That night, I alerted officials at the CA Sec. of State's office and L.A. County's acting Registrar of Voters, Dean Logan, about the problem, and the machines and ballots in question were isolated for testing. Whether someone who wasn't a loud, muckracking journalist, specializing in issues of election integrity, would have had that kind of quick service, I can't tell you.

Logan promised the machine would be tested, and the SoS office promised to follow the testing closely.

Earlier this week, Logan sent me an update via email, with photos, on what the investigation had so far found. The problem, Logan wrote, is being attributed to the "human error" of the poll workers who, he says, entered incorrect information into the e-voting system when setting up my ballot for me to vote.

Logan's complete email, detailing the findings of the cursory investigation to date, follows below, along with my email in response to it. As you'll see, the all-too de rigueur "human error" excuse does not sit well with me...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

From Eric Kleefeld at TPM...

What could possibly go wrong?

-- Brad Friedman, The BRAD BLOG

As a fairly well-known Election Integrity journalist who has personally covered, for years, the myriad election woes of thousands (if not millions) of voters around the country who have tried to bring seemingly endless stories of votes flipped on e-voting systems to the attention of officials, these stories always continue to be remarkable to me, even if not to many others in the rest of the mainstream media.

It's even more troubling when one realizes that so little ever seems to be done in light of so many of these horror stories, as those very same failed systems are still deployed across the nation, with little or no modification to correct the mountains of documented problems even now, as we head towards an election likely to be of historic proportions this November.

What follows is yet another one of those stories, where a voter had vote selections flipped by the electronic voting system, such that candidates were chosen other than the ones intended to be selected by the voter, though no fault of his own.

But this time, the voter is me.

Though I've covered so many of these stories, it was nonetheless remarkable to see it happen before ones very eyes, as occurred yesterday when I voted here in Los Angeles during our very low turnout California state Primary election.

The ES&S electronic voting system that I used to try to vote on yesterday, ended up flipping a total of 4 out of the 12 contests and initiatives for which I had attempted to vote.

Right before my very eyes, the computer-printed ballot produced by the voting system I was using, incorrectly filled in bubbles for four of the races I was voting in. Had I not been incredibly careful, after the ballot was printed out, to painstakingly compare what was printed to what I actually voted for, I'd have never known my votes were being given to candidates I did not vote for.

Had I been a blind voter --- as the system I was using is largely intended for use by the disabled --- I would have cast my ballot without having a clue that a full 40% of the votes I'd tried to cast for various California Superior Court judges were flipped to other candidates...

Yes, four different selections, on my very own ballot, were flipped before my very eyes when I went to vote in yesterday's California state Primary Election.

One might think that someone might have been smart enough to make damned sure, at the very least, that the equipment where that widely-known Election Integrity muckraking journalist jerk, Brad Friedman of The BRAD BLOG goes to vote, would have been thoroughly tested and working as it was supposed to. One might think that. But if so, one would be wrong.

Full story soon...

UPDATE: Full story now posted here...

There was a very low-turnout state Primary Election in New Mexico today. And yet, it brought more November tea leaves....

Last we had checked (and no time to re-check for the moment), ES&S ran the voter registration system in NM. During the state's Democratic Caucus last February, thousands of voters were reportedly dumped from the newly-privatized voting rolls. If you live in New Mexico, or anywhere else, please check your voter registration status soon!

See the full article for details on today's failures in other counties across the state.

How easy is it to enter any election results you want into the Diebold central tabulator? When you use Diebold's "Manual Override" option, it's exactly this easy...

The video above was shot on the night of the recent Primary at the election headquarters in Florida's Sarasota County, home of the infamous 2006 13th Congressional District where 18,000 votes disappeared on ES&S iVotronic touch-screens in an election decided by a 369 vote margin. The county now uses Diebold's paper-based optical-scan system, which failed to work as it was supposed to on Election Night. So, as seen in the above, the county election staff used Diebold's "Manual Override" to enter voting results into the tabulator with none of the party observers or board of election commissioners bothering to watch.

Kudos to one of Florida's Election Integrity citizen activist/video heroes, Jeannie Dean, for shooting and compiling the above.

Please note her advice tips, at the end of the video, instructing how you can similarly help out big time this November!