In an incredibly heated exchange today during a U.S. House hearing (see video at left) Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) grilled Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice on whether she ever saw pre-war intelligence that countered the administration's claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

In a statement just released by his office, Wexler says she "falsely testified" in response to his questions...

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson says the recent disclosures in the UK's Sunday Times concerning the sale of U.S. nuclear secrets to the foreign black market, as aided by high-ranking government officials, are "stunning."

The previously covert agent, who had worked in the agency's counter-proliferation division for years monitoring traffic in the nuclear black market under the guise of a cover company named Brewster Jennings until being outed by Bush Administration officials, was asked about the recent series of explosive stories in the British paper during an interview this morning with Florida radio host Henry Raines of American AM.

Those disclosures include allegations that Brewster Jennings' real identity as a CIA front company was outed to Turkish officials by then-Asst. Sec. of State for European Affairs Marc Grossman as early as 2001...

Following a short "dead cat bounce" at the end of last month, after a precipitous six-month stock price plunge devaluing the company's net worth by more than 50% since an insider sell-off last August, Diebold's fortunes began turning south again late last week as the company was forced to begin restating previously-inflated revenue figures from 2006 and 2007.

The company's stock price is continuing to plunge today towards a seven-year low, after it admitted last week that it had over-estimated revenues of its election systems division by more than 300%.

As well, the company announced it will soon be laying off 5% of its full-time global workforce. The restatement of revenues comes as part of a deal worked out with the SEC, which continues its ongoing investigation into the financial practices of the once-great, now-disgraced company. Diebold also acknowledges that it is still being investigated by the DOJ, although the reasons and details of that particular investigation remain undisclosed at this time.

The 50% decrease in the company's share price began just after a number of company executives sold off several thousand shares of stock, all on the same day in August of last year, at $53.05/share, very near the company's 52-week high of $54.50, as The BRAD BLOG reported exclusively at the time. In the following week, the company's share price fell 15% just before the management attempted to misdirect investors by renaming their election division in order to offer "a fresh identity for our company."

Following the insider trading and fresh identity, now dubbed "Premier Elections Solutions," the company's share price has continued to fall ever since. The stock is down more than 3% so far today, selling currently at $24.64/share.

A statement released by the company late last week reveals once again that, despite the attempted name change bait-and-switch, the company still bears the liabilities of the old Diebold elections division; the company admits that the SEC and DOJ investigations continue and sales are sharply off for its voting systems, which have been decertified by several states after being found easily hackable and error-prone in study after study over the past year.

As well, there is a Securities Fraud class action lawsuit still pending against the company, as investors cast the only vote that counts --- the one that hits the 150-year old company in the pocket book. The company that made its bones in the security business has tumbled quite a ways since untouchable crime-fighter Eliot Ness served as chair back in the 1940's.

In the wake of its latest round of misfortunes/karmic return, Diebold announced plans for layoffs of some 800 workers last week. We're not happy to hear that. Though if any of those who find themselves out of a job due to the arrogance, corruption, and general failure of this company to perform as a responsible corporate citizen would like to share any inside information, we'd be delighted to hear from you. Your confidentiality, as needed, will always be respected by The BRAD BLOG.

A partial restatement of 2007 revenue estimates, released by Diebold last week in the wake of the SEC investigation which has forced it to discontinue its previously misleading practice of declaring revenues before products were actually delivered, reveals that the company continues to be rocked by its failing election division, newly renamed or otherwise...

On Wednesday, we covered some of the massive problems emerging from New Mexico's Democratic Party Caucus on Super Tuesday. The razor-thin margin between Obama and Clinton remains in question at this hour after ballot boxes were discovered to have been kept overnight, uncounted, at the home of a party official; voters faced long lines at the polls; and some 17,000 voters (11% versus 4% in the last caucus) were forced to vote on provisional ballots.

NPR had reported on Thursday that the state's Democratic party, which ran the election, as opposed to the state itself, had decided to do a full recount of all ballots. Tonight, though, John Gideon informs us the report was incorrect, and only "all qualified provisional ballots" are set to be counted by officials.

We had updated our previous story several times while covering the mess, before finally noting:

Tonight, Steve Rosenfeld at Alternet jumps in with a New Mexico update, in which he tries to make sense of it all. He ends up confirming our fears in his opening graf...

Golly, if only the Democrats had had any idea that AG Michael Mukasey would turn out to be such a stooge for the Bush Administration, maybe they wouldn't have confirmed him. Oh, wait. Yeah, we recall something about that coming up before the Dems decided to give this guy the job anyway.

At right is just one sample from Mukasey's testimony today, answering (or not) Robert Wexler's questions asking if he's been given White House instructions on whether or not he may enforce Contempt of Congress citations. He takes the time to apparently make up a few "facts" along the way while dodging Wexler's questions.

David Swanson reports...

...before he goes on to offer some interesting information suggesting that John Conyers may be "on Edge of Starting Impeachment Hearings" after today's testimony. Whether that happens or not, Swanson offers contact information so that you can weigh in to the Chairman with your opinion on Impeachment (which is, after all, his Constitutional duty, for those of you keeping score at home.)

Former CIA analyst and international security and counter-terrorism expert Philip Giraldi has filed some of the American media's best reports (even though we realize that's not necessarily saying much) on the Sibel Edmonds case.

If you missed it a week or two ago, Giraldi filed a detailed report on the latest of Edmonds' allegations on the sale of U.S. nuclear secrets, on the foreign black market, to friend and foe alike, as aided and abetted by very high-ranking U.S. officials. His article, published at American Conservative Magazine and titled "Found in Translation," is a must read for both folks new to the issue and those who may have missed a beat or two along the way. The case also, if you haven't noticed, ties in to the Valerie Plame Wilson/Brewster Jennings CIA Leak Case, and includes allegations that her cover company was outed to foreign agents by the #3 in the State Department, Marc Grossman, years before Robert Novak wrote his infamous column blowing the cover of the previously covert Plame Wilson.

Giraldi has now posted a slightly more general read this morning at Huffington Post, in an article titled "Sibel Edmonds Must Be Heard." The piece offers both an easily readable summary of the case so far and another scathing (and well-deserved) condemnation of the American corporate mainstream media for all but ignoring the story.

He even notes, correctly, the failure of "so-called gadflies like Olbermann and Moyers" to cover this story, as we detailed ourselves several moons ago...

The courageous anonymous diarists at Daily Kos, the world's largest so-called "progressive" blog site, continue their pre-emptive suicide.

Today's dangerous mislead comes courtesy of anonymous poster "smintheus", who warns readers, in advance of Super Tuesday, that no matter what happens, there is nothing to worry your pretty little head about...

(Toon by Paul Jamiol. Hat-tip to TheZoo's "nwmuse" who offers, along with the above, a bunch of good details on the Sibel Edmonds case. Our own extensive Edmonds coverage can be read by you, and ignored by the MSM, right here.)

Brandon Friedman (no relation) writes:

Here's what happened...

Despite the tease at the end of those uncomfortable three minutes, that Williams would be back for more after the break, he was not there when the show returned from commercial.

More details on the above three minutes on Fox and Friends, and the fate of "former Marine and Naval officer," Montel Williams, here...

Last week, Reps. John Conyers (D-MI) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), both of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to the former Ohio Secretary of State and Co-Chair of the state's Bush/Cheney '04 campaign committee, J. Kenneth Blackwell, inviting him to appear next week at a subcommittee oversight hearing on voter suppression issues.

To the surprise of almost nobody, Blackwell has refused the invitation to testify, claiming his "schedule [would] not permit" him to attend the hearings.

The snub, according to both the following report from Jon Craig at the Cincinnati Enquirer and additional indications given to The BRAD BLOG by a Judiciary staffer other than the one quoted by Craig, may lead to an escalation of the longtime standoff between Conyers and Blackwell. A congressional subpoena requiring an appearance by the controversial former SoS, who presided over one of the worst-run Presidential Elections in American history, may well be in the offing.

As Craig reports today at the Enquirer's political blog...

Though our own Judiciary source spoke to the same point, if not quite as directly, the comments above from Godfrey offer an additional indication that we may be headed to a showdown.

Such a subpoena would require a majority vote of the committee, which likely wouldn't come in time for the hearings currently scheduled for next Friday, according to Craig's report.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

[UPDATE: The UK Sunday Times piece referred to below as "coming tonight" has now been published right here: "Tip-off thwarted nuclear spy ring probe." Some key passages and a bit more commentary has been been posted as an update, appended to the bottom of the article below.]

I'm in an alternative media conference up here in Santa Cruz, CA, for the bulk of the day and evening, so may or may not be here when the story gets filed. So offering an advance heads-up that UK's Sunday Times is set to offer another exclusive tonight on Sibel Edmonds' claims of the illicit sale of U.S. nuke secrets to the foreign black market, as protected by high-ranking U.S. officials, and the connections in the story to Valerie Plame Wilson's "Brewster Jennings" CIA cover company.

Should hit around 7pm PT ET. (If any of the BRAD BLOG eds are around, please feel free to update this item with a link to the new article when it runs.)

For those of you just jumping into this story, our most recent articles of note on the explosive series of Times/Edmonds stories are here...

1/6/08: SIBEL EDMONDS SPEAKS TO UK SUNDAY TIMES: SAYS U.S. OFFICIALS INVOLVED IN RELEASE OF NUKE SECRETS TO TURKEY, PAKISTAN, IRAN, OTHERS, POSSIBLY EVEN AL-QAEDA

1/8/08: Worldwide Coverage (Everywhere but in the U.S. ) of the Sibel Edmonds Bombshell

1/19/08: UK Sunday Times Scoops US Media Again, Confirms FBI Cover-Up of Documents in Sibel Edmonds Nuke Secrets Case

1/20/08: DANIEL ELLSBERG EXCLUSIVE: Covering Up the Coverage - The American Media's Complicit Failure to Investigate and Report on the Sibel Edmonds Case

The collection of all of BRAD BLOG's Edmonds stories are here...

UPDATE: The new Sunday Times piece is now posted. Here it is: "Tip-off thwarted nuclear spy ring probe"

It's another blockbuster. So big, the U.S. media have assigned several extra reporters to begin ignoring it immediately.

The article picks up on the Times' coverage from last week, which corroborated one element of an "anonymous letter" referring to an FBI case number said to be at the center of allegations by "gagged" former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. In response to a FOIA request, the FBI had denied the existence of documents related to such a case number, though the Times corroborated the existence of an official document referring to that case.

The BRAD BLOG obtained the anonymous letter several weeks ago, prior to the Times' expose, but has yet to publish it in full.

Part of the letter alleges that Marc Grossman, the former #3 State Department official under Powell and Armitage, tipped off Turkish agents that Valerie Plame Wilson's "Brewster Jennings" was actually a CIA counter-proliferation operation tracking the sale of nuclear secrets to the foreign black market.

The Times series of articles, including the latest, does not give Grossman's name, but refers to him, and quotes him as a "State Department official." Here are the money grafs, and there are several of them, from the Times article, along with a few more details in follow-up...

Blogged by Brad, from on the road...

Behold the "chain of custody" for the ballots in New Hampshire's ongoing Election Contest hand counts. The man seen in the still frame below, on the right, is NH Sec. of State Bill Gardner...

The above video clips were recorded and compiled by election watchdogs Bev Harris (of BlackBoxVoting.org) and Susan Pynchon (of Florida Fair Elections Coalition), both of whom were on the ground in Concord during the initial stages of the requested Democratic and Republican hand counts following the Primary Election in the Granite State. Harris offers more commentary on the video above right here.

Previously, Harris posted a stunning photo essay detailing the embarrassingly poor condition of the ballot boxes themselves --- unsealed, open for anyone to reach their hand in --- as they were picked up from towns around the state and delivered to the counting area at Concord's State Archives building.

The counting continues today for Republican Albert Howard, though New Hampshire SoS Bill Gardner, seen in the above video, has requested a halt in the counting for two days next week. That, after apparently misrepresenting Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich's serious concerns about "significant variances" discovered during counting of just one New Hampshire county so far. Disparities have been discovered as high as 10% for some candidates in some precincts.

On Monday, New Hampshire's Union Leader editorialized as follows...

While The BRAD BLOG has reported, in some detail, on the incompetence of New Hampshire's Secretary of State, Bill Gardner, his failure to track Diebold memory cards, and many more issues revealed during the course of the Election Contests following the state's recent Primary Election, we've yet to question his integrity.

However, if this report from today's Nashua Telegraph accurately quotes Gardner, then its time to begin questioning him on that score, because now it would appear he is simply out and out lying to the media about the hand count results, and Dennis Kucinich's position on it, at this hour, as stated clearly in a letter sent yesterday to the SoS.

Tucked at the end of the Kevin Landrigan's Telegraph piece today on the latest "recount" news, are the following, virtually inexplicable, comments from Gardner...

Apparently, it's just fine to break the law, as long as the economy is seen as being bad...

Seriously, we must remember to speak with Hoyer and Pelosi about this terrific bridge we've got for sale. We're certain they'd be interested.

And while there seems to be confusion in the Kucinich camp concerning the Election "Recount" in NH (more soon on that, hopefully), at least there's no confusion for Kucinich when it comes to what's going on in either the White House, or among his party's "leadership," according to the New York Times:

Yes, a lie. Some 935 of them to be exact-ish, on just one aspect of what the Kucinich Impeachment articles will detail.

As we reported last December, Kucinich has been preparing, for some time, to file Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush. While the Democratic "Leadership" may not like the notion, it should come as welcome news to the country's few remaining admirers of the U.S. Constitution.