We spent a fair amount of time earlier this year reporting on the election fraud conspiracy scandal in Clay County, KY, where seven election officials were indicted on charges of conspiracy for rigging elections, changing votes on voting machines without voters' knowledge, and more during elections from 2002 through 2006. The officials included the district court judge, the county clerk, the school superintendent, and other election officials and judges.

As you've likely read by now, Bill Sparkman, a part-time census worker, substitute teacher, and local Boy Scout director was found hanged on 9/12 in Clay County's Daniel Boone National Forest (though the story wasn't made public until last night) with the word "fed" written across his chest.

According to AP, "The Census Bureau has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation," and the incident has drawn many to believe it may be related to recent distrust of the Census Bureau by elements of the Teabaggers, as sparked by comments made earlier this year by folks like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Glenn Beck, and many of the other personalities who advanced paranoia about the possibility of 2010 Census workers being hired from places such as favorite wingnut whipping-boy ACORN, via outlets like Fox "News."
Despite fomenting by comments like Bachmann's "enough is enough" (as seen in the video at right), Sparkman's death having come on September 12 (the day which Beck had called for his "9/12 Movement" Teabagger protests in D.C.), and the letters scrawled on Sparkman's chest, there is not yet definitive evidence that the hanging was tied to the Bachmann/Beck movement, though the blogosphere is understandably abuzz about it today.

As we spent quite a bit of time speaking to folks in Clay County last March while covering the election fraud scandal, we learned a bit about what's been going on there over the last several years. The hanging could be as much related to those events, and more that preceded them, as to Bachmann/Beck's ill-considered fear-mongering, even as that recent fear-mongering may well have served to inflame the local residents' already-inherent distrust of federal authorities...

A few quick updates so far today...

• The #1 recommended story over at dKos at this moment: "FBI Whistleblower says Neocons Negotiated Iraq Invasion with Foreign Agents in Summer 2001". Good. We thank diarist "The Anomaly" for noticing. Hopefully many others will begin digging into Phil Giraldi's mind-blowing cover story interview with Edmonds as posted yesterday at The American Conservative. There is much to dig into, and we can't do it all alone.

• Anti-War's Scott Horton interviews Giraldi and Joe Lauria, co-author of the January 2008 three-part front page Sunday Times of London bombshell series on Edmonds, which was entirely ignored in the U.S. (Read 'em all here, here and here.). Scott's audio interview with the two gents is now posted here.
  [Update: Just happened to hear from Scott as I was posting this, and he's asked me to be on tomorrow's (Thursday's) show. | Later Update: That interview, part 1 anyway, during which we got completely sidetracked from the Edmonds issue to discuss "war, peace and our bogus left-right political spectrum, " as Scott described it, is now posted here. Scott and I plan to sit down again very soon to finish up the Edmonds-related discussion for air.]

• Last night, amidst working on the Schakowsky story, I took a break to appear on Nicole Sander's Air America show to discuss 'our story to date'. You can download the MP3, or listen online right here (appx 37 mins):
  

[Update 9/22/09: The American Conservative story is now posted. As well, the office of the Congresswoman named for the first time in the report has offered a vehement denial of the allegations to The BRAD BLOG. Her full response, rebuttal now here...]

On Friday, we reported on the coming exclusive American Conservative cover story interview with formerly-gagged FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by quoting the magazine's own teaser description of the piece as "explosive." Over the weekend, we received an embargoed look at the final version of the AmCon interview by former CIA officer Phil Giraldi, and yes, "explosive" may be a vast understatement. At least if the U.S. corporate media bother to notice it this time.

It seems it may be difficult not to notice it, given that Edmonds finally names, on the record, for the first time, in a right-leaning periodical founded by Pat Buchanan, the identity of the currently-serving Democratic Congresswoman she has previously described as married with grown children and having been "hooked" into participating in a lesbian affair with a Turkish foreign agent, as she was secretly video-taped for blackmail purposes.

Edmonds has alluded to the Congresswoman, without naming her, in the past, most notably in her recent sworn and video-taped deposition in the Schmidt v. Krikorian case now pending before the Ohio Election Commission. In that testimony, she did manage to name the names of other Congress members she had previously identified publicly. At the time, we (and virtually no other media outlets) reported on her disclosures that Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Bob Livingston (R-LA), Dan Burton (R-IN), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Stephen Solarz (D-NY), and Tom Lantos (D-CA, deceased), were all participants in blackmail and/or bribery schemes by and with agents of the Turkish government, as she became aware while translating wiretaps in the FBI's counterintelligence division after 9/11. Some of those crimes are said to have resulted in the theft and sale of nuclear weapons technology to allies and enemies alike.

In her 8/8/09 D.C. deposition, she discussed, for the first time on the public record since being previously gagged by the Bush Administration's use of so-called "State Secrets Privilege" (twice), details of what she heard while reviewing and translating wiretaps of Turkish agents who were targets of a long-running FBI investigation centered out of Chicago, but extending far beyond.

In addition to specific details on allegations of serious wrongdoing by the Congress members mentioned above, as well as State and Defense Department officials such as Marc Grossman, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, Edmonds had offered details, during the deposition, about a Democratic Congresswoman who is "married with...grown children, but she is bisexual."

"So they have sent Turkish female agents," she testified, in her sometimes-broken English, according to the transcript [PDF]. "And that Turkish female agents work for Turkish government, and have sexual relationship with this Congresswoman in her townhouse actually in this area, and the entire episodes of their sexual conduct was being filmed because the entire house, this Congressional woman's house was bugged."

She went on to add that she hadn't used her name in the past because she left the FBI before knowing whether or not the information was actually used against the Congresswoman to blackmail her, or if the woman had even been made aware of it. "I don't know if she did anything illegal afterwards," Edmonds said.

In Giraldi's AmCon interview, Edmonds again repeats that she doesn't know if the Congresswoman "ever was actually blackmailed or did anything for the Turkish woman," but she does name her name this time...

Who could have predicted the one man on the ballot with a weekly show on the Republican News Channel (RNC, nee: Fox "News" Channel) would win the 2012 Presidential straw poll at the 2009 (anti-American) Values Voter Summit this weekend?

(By the way, be sure to catch's Mike's latest not-ironic-at-all column at the Republican News Channel (RNC)'s website on the "The Death of Journalism"!)

No doubt the Republican News Channel (RNC), recently seen on video-tape "stage managing" the Teabagger protests they sponsored last week in D.C., is very proud. Though perhaps they missed an opportunity by not putting Glenn Beck into the poll? With a show five days a week on the RNC, and on your public radio airwaves --- unlike Huckabee, who's only seen on weekends (though he does do a short syndicated daily essay on your public airwaves in 500 radio markets) --- it's likely he would have been a shoo-in! Why waste all that valuable air time, Fox, when you could be using it to put your superstar in office?!

This weekend's summit in D.C., as in previous years, celebrated far-rightwing liberal interpretations of the Constitution and extremist judicial activism, such as the promotion of big government intrusion into the lives of American citizens, the "right" of that government to come between patients and their doctors, and other anti-American values such as ignoring the Rule of Law, and the Constitutional right to equal protection under the law for same sex couples who wish to be recognized by the government as married, just like their heterosexual counterparts.

The winners and losers, out of 597 votes cast in the straw poll, were reported to have been Huckabee with 28%, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney a distant second at 12%, followed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, with the celebrity community organizer and former Alaskan Governor who aborted her term earlier this year, Sarah Palin tying with Indiana's U.S. Rep. Mike Pence for fourth/fifth.

Congratulations to them all! You're all both winners and losers in our eyes!

Broke the news on air tonight. 4,000 word cover story on FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds in The American Conservative to hit stands and web early next week, by former CIA agent Phil Giraldi.

Here's the teaser from TAC...:

Good. Rightwingers are covering it. So hopefully that means the "liberal media" will now pay attention!

UPDATE 9/18/09 1:15pm PT: Sibel posted the cover over at her site, and I've added it above. She also notes that the story is available online to subscribers on Monday when they'll release "a major press release" along with the print version out the same day. The story should then be available to all online on Tuesday.

The cover title: "Who's Afraid of Sibel Edmonds?: The gagged FBI whistleblower on espionage, al-Qaeda, and secrets for sale"

In an email she just sent me just now, she notes: "We've been getting foreign MSM inquiries; tons. Zilch here; so far..."

Not much of a surprise by now. After all, what U.S. media would possibly care about members of the U.S. Congress (both Republican and Democratic) and high-ranking State and Defense Dept. officials taking bribes, being blackmailed, and enabling the theft and sale of U.S. nuclear secrets? Even if the allegations came under sworn and video-taped deposition by a former FBI translator who overheard such things first hand. Non-story, apparently.

UPDATE 9/21/09: I've now gotten a look at the final version of the story. 'Explosive' may prove to be an understatement. Details now here...

Guest Blogged by Sue Wilson

I was strolling through my local county fair this summer, a small fair, a friendly fair, where cows, sheep, and pigs outnumber food vendors.

The Republican booth caught my eye, but not because of the red, white, and blue decorations. What caught my eye was the sign they'd posted, the sign that summed up the one key issue of importance to local Republicans.

What would it be, in this raucous political summer of 2009? Anger over bailouts, fear over death panels? No. The number one issue for Amador County Republicans: "Save Talk Radio."

I hadn't realized that the industry that just signed a $400 million contract with Rush Limbaugh needed saving, but they thought so; they even had a petition to save it...

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

Last week, in his address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama correctly noted:

That was the easy part. Anyone who has paid attention understands that the core problem lies in the profit motives of the private insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

Thus, the President's diagnosis of the U.S. health care system was accurate, but did he prescribe "change we can believe in?"...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Separate articles appeared in Monday's New York Times and in the Washington Post. Both suggest that the resignation submitted by Van Jones, a special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council for Environmental Quality, were the result of inadequate White House "vetting." Neither newspaper examined the question as to whether the true problem was the inability to withstand a smear campaign led by extreme right-wing whack jobs like Glenn Beck; an inability reflected by the Times' description of a "terse" acceptance of the resignation, with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs taking pains to stress that President Barack Obama "did not endorse" Jones' views.

The three Jones sins were his having uttered an expletive in referring to Republicans, his having "signed a petition in 2004 questioning whether the Bush administration had allowed the terrorist attacks of September 2001 to provide a pretext for war in the Middle East," and his support for Mumia Abu-Jamal ("Mumia")...

Jim White, 1936 - 2003

A few personal observations... I doubt that I'd be involved in radio at all these days myself, were it not for the many late nights, as a child, in the dark, when I should have been sleeping, listening to Jim White broadcast over the 50,000 watt KMOX blow-torch in St. Louis, MO. Back in the days when talk radio was something very different than what it has now become...

It has now been over a week since the video tape and transcript from the remarkable 8/8/09 deposition of former FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds was publicly released. Previously, the Bush Administration invoked the so-called "state secrets privilege" in order to gag Edmonds, in attempting to keep such information from becoming public.

The under-oath, detailed allegations include bribery, blackmail, espionage and infiltration of the U.S. government of, and by current and former members of the U.S. Congress, high-ranking State and Defense Department officials and agents of the government of Turkey. The broad criminal conspiracy is said to have resulted in, among other things, the sale of nuclear weapons technology to black market interests including Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, Libya and others.

Even as many of these allegations had been previously corroborated to varying extents, by a number of official government reports, documents and independent media outlets (largely overseas), not a single major mainstream media outlet in the U.S. has picked up on Edmonds' startling claims since her deposition has been made fully available.

Granted, last week was a busy news week, with the death of Ted Kennedy, the release of the CIA Inspector General's report on torture, and the announcement that Michael Jackson's death was ruled a homicide. And, it's true, a 4-hour deposition and/or 241-page transcript [PDF] is a lot of material to review, particularly given the wide scope of the charges being made here. Still, given the serious national security issues at stake, said to have the been among the most important matters of the past 8 years, one would think someone in the corporate MSM might have taken the time to go through the material, and report on it. Particularly as Edmonds' claims have previously been found "credible" "serious" and "warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review," by the DoJ Inspector General, and confirmed as such, on several occasions, by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and many many others.

So for the benefit of the U.S. media, and other readers, who may find it helpful for this large body of newly-available information to be culled down into more digestible pieces, I will attempt to break down the deposition, a bit, into some of its subject matter-based component parts. I will try to go through the major disclosures from the deposition, one-by-one, in a series of pieces which might help others to further report and/or investigate these breathtaking disclosures from a former FBI official who, following 9/11, listened to and translated wiretap recordings made from 1996 through 2002, in the FBI's counterintelligence and counterterrorism departments, under top-secret clearance.

In this first break-down article, we'll look at the answers given by Edmonds during her deposition in regard to bribery and blackmail of current and former members of the U.S. Congress, including Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Bob Livingston (R-LA), Dan Burton (R-IN), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Stephen Solarz (D-NY), Tom Lantos (D-CA, deceased) and an unnamed, currently-serving, married Democratic Congresswoman said to have been video-taped in a Lesbian affair by Turkish agents for blackmail purposes.

In further breakdown articles, we'll look at her disclosures concerning top State and Defense Department officials including Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and, perhaps most notably, the former Deputy Undersecretary of State, Marc Grossman, the third-highest ranking official in the State Department. Also, details on the theft of nuclear weapons technology; disclosures on Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA front company Brewster-Jennings; items related to U.S. knowledge of 9/11 and al-Qaeda prior to September 11, 2001; infiltration of the FBI translation department and more...

Because they don't get nearly enough airtime. What we've allowed the world to become. Good luck to us all...

UPDATE: Thanks to BRAD BLOG commenter Rady for this perfect response to the above. Big props to these kids...

And for good (and also very funny) measure, there's this [hat-tip dday over at Hullaballoo]...

Phil Giraldi, a former CIA counter-terrorism officer, is one of the few in the U.S. "mainstream" media (of a sort), who has bothered to cover --- and cover responsibly --- Sibel Edmonds' story in the past.

Today over at The American Conservative --- that's right, The American Conservative --- Giraldi notes this week's release of Edmonds' remarkable deposition video and transcript, appropriately under the headline "Sibel Edmonds Speaks, But No One is Listening"...

The other interview Giraldi refers to there is the one I did with Edmonds a month or so back while guest hosting the Mike Malloy Show. That one made mainstream news headlines around the world...except for in the U.S., of course, where it doesn't matter in the slightest...after Edmonds expert Luke Ryland covered what he described as the "bombshell" within it. (Links to the audio and the transcript of that interview at that last link.)

Giraldi, at The American Conservative --- did I mention his quick article was at The American Conservative? --- goes on to note that "Edmonds is a credible witness who is ignored by the mainstream media and congress because her tales, if true, would be devastating to both political parties and to the Israel and Turkish lobbies," and then asks: "Now that she has testified under oath and in considerable detail making very specific accusations isn't it time for someone in the administration to review the FBI files and stand up to say whether her accounts are true or not?"

Well, one would think that, no? Silly, one.

Scott Horton of AntiWar.com however, who has covered the Edmonds deposition earlier this week), interviews Giraldi about the Edmonds deposition today. That 26 minute interview can be heard online here. (They also speak a bit about Holder's recently announced torture investigation, and Giraldi, an actual conservative, as opposed to a fake one, as well as a former CIA analyst, believes the announced investigation does not go far enough.)

I hope to help encourage more coverage/investigation of the Edmonds story in the coming days, with some pieces in which I'll try to help the poor poor resource-less mainstream media out by putting the matter, and the deposition, into a few more accessible bite-size chunks for them. The way you might cut up a piece of steak for a child, I guess. Also, I've doing my best on the radio over the last couple of days to further help get the word out. (You can too, by Digging and Redditting and emailing etc. please!)

Here are a couple of those recent appearances. One on the Malloy Show on Tuesday, and another one yesterday, in studio on KPFK, our local Pacifica station here in Los Angeles, on Roseanne Barr's program (though she was off this week). Both radio interviews follow below, and the latter includes a bit of new news at the end which I haven't yet had time cover here on the blog, but hope to soon...

Collect and trade 'em all!

[Hat-tip Jeremy Scahill]