Blogged by Brad from St. Louis, MO...

"San Francisco's experience with ES&S raises extremely troubling questions, not simply about the integrity of this company's technology, but about the integrity of this company itself," San Francisco's City Attorney Dennis Herrera said today in announcing his new lawsuit against Elections Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S).

"There can be no more important duty in a representative democracy than to conduct elections, and it is a travesty to see that duty so flagrantly undermined by the fraudulent conduct of an election systems vendor," he added.

Well, no kidding! To quote from It's a Wonderful Life, "'Bout time one of you lunkheads said it!"

The suit filed today against ES&S, the "world's largest", comes on the heels of yesterday's announcement that California Secretary of State Debra Bowen was filing her own suit, to the tune of some $15 million, against the company for their illegal and undeclared use of uncertified touch-screen voting systems in several counties across the state, as well as their having lied about it to the state.

The Fog City Journal's coverage of the SF lawsuit begins this way...

We've been calling for some time for states and counties to hold the voting machine companies accountable for their horrendous, out and out fraudulent business practices. Looks like the floodgates may finally be starting to open.

So who's next? Make no mistake, there will be more. Perhaps many. Stay tuned...

Brad Friedman, from St. Louis, MO...

If you've followed our recent blockbusters about FBI translator-turned-whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds (the latest, in which legendary 1970's whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg describes her case as "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers," is here), but remain unclear on the heart of what she has to expose --- if she's ever able to expose it --- our friend Lukery at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak, offers a good summation today, as culled from his near-encyclopedic knowledge of the case. If you're unclear on things, and it's easy to be, given the scope of her allegations, please read his piece today.

You may also wish to see our handy bullet-point version of the breadth of cover-ups that she is ready to risk prison in order to disclose in full by defying her absurd five-year long "gag order" by the DoJ.

Lukery points us to Philip Giraldi's column on Edmonds from the American Conservative (yes, the American Conservative), which Edmonds has described as "the most accurate summary of my case". According to Giraldi...

The Giraldi piece is short and to the point, and described by Edmonds as "100% right", so we recommend you give it a quick read.

As Luke further explains in his helpful summation:

He also offers a few contacts for some of the media outlets we mentioned in our exclusive yesterday, as having so far failed to take up Edmonds' couragous offer to hand them one helluva blockbuster interview. We're happy to repost those contacts here for you, as without noise from the public (that would be you!), the American corporate media will continue to avoid the issue like the plague, and the bad guys will simply keep smiling from the shadows...

CBS...
EMAIL: 60m@cbsnews.com
PHONE: (212) 975-3247

ABC...
Email contacts

MSNBC & NBC...
Email contacts

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

The title of former Bush flak Scott McClellan's new book, "What Happened" brings to mind the title of O.J. Simpson's recent allegedly fictional memoir, "If I Did It."

Perhaps it's because both books seek to exonerate their authors from much deserved guilty verdicts --- both in the court of public opinion and in courts of law, certainly in O.J.'s case, and maybe even for Scotty too.

Here's an excerpt from Scotty's book:

And this was not just run of the mill political spin. Rove, Libby, Ari Fleischer and others, including Colin Powell's righthand man Richard Armitage, leaked the secret identity of a CIA agent whose specialty was tracking WMD. And they did it at the behest of the vice president who eagerly jeopardized state secrets for the tawdriest of purposes: to do political damage to the agent's husband, Joe Wilson, because he had dared to expose a lie told by the president in his 2003 State of the Union speech about Iraq seeking uranium from Niger.

The CIA, of course, can't reveal how many illegal weapons were successfully transported into the Middle East or how many foreigners acting as U.S. agents were permanently sidelined --- or captured or killed --- as a result the treasonous act of outing Agent Plame by George Bush, Dick Cheney and their henchmen.

Only Armitage has expressed regret about the leak.

Scott McClellan shredded his credibility for Bush, Cheney and the rest. Surely he can't expect anyone to believe he is telling the truth now when he claims he was misled by these same people. He is either the most gullible person to walk the planet, or he thinks the rest of us are fools.

Cross-posted at Pensito Review.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

After Blackwater guards opened fire and killed 17 Iraqis in the Nisoor Square section of Baghdad on Sept. 17, in true Bushie fashion, the State Dept. unilaterally conferred limited immunity on the Blackwater personnel who were on the scene --- including apparently the guards who opened fire --- in exchange for their statements detailing the events.

According to an ABC report, of the 17 Blackwater guards at the scene of the incident, only five fired their weapons. And an investigation by the FBI reportedly has turned up evidence that only three of the 17 people shot had been involved in attacking the Blackwater detail.

Now comes word that a federal grand jury has been impaneled to investigate the shootings:

The limited immunity given to the Blackwater personnel presents another question: Would it prevent justice from being served if the grand jury finds evidence that the killing of the 14 apparently innocent Iraqis was unprovoked?

Blogged by Brad (quickly) from the road...

California Sec. of State Debra Bowen has announced a $15 million lawsuit against voting machine company ES&S for their use of uncertified AutoMARK voting systems in the state.

The BRAD BLOG initially reported on the likelihood of such a suit, in some detail, after Bowen's initial announcement of ES&S's violations of state law last August.

“ES&S ignored the law over and over and over again, and it got caught,” said Bowen in a press release just issued this evening. “California law is very clear on this issue. I am not going to stand on the sidelines and watch a voting system vendor come into this state, ignore the laws, and make millions of dollars from California’s taxpayers in the process.”

According to the release, ES&S seems to have simply lied about their use of the uncertified voting systems in the state of California. "The Secretary of State’s office held a public hearing on the matter on October 15, 2007. At that hearing, ES&S asserted the Secretary of State was notified about changes to the AutoMARK. However, ES&S provided no evidence before, during, or after the hearing to substantiate its claim."

Such deceptive practices are not uncommon for ES&S, as well as the other major e-voting machine companies. Diebold's touch-screen voting systems were decertified in the state in 2004, after it had been found that they had similarly deployed uncertified hardware and sofware, in violation of state law, in a number of counties in the state.

The complete press release from CA Sec. of State Debra Bowen's office follows below...

-- Brad Friedman, The BRAD BLOG

"I'd say what she has is far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers," Daniel Ellsberg told us in regard to former FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds.

"From what I understand, from what she has to tell, it has a major difference from the Pentagon Papers in that it deals directly with criminal activity and may involve impeachable offenses," Ellsberg explained. "And I don't necessarily mean the President or the Vice-President, though I wouldn't be surprised if the information reached up that high. But other members of the Executive Branch may be impeached as well. And she says similar about Congress."

The BRAD BLOG spoke recently with the legendary 1970's-era whistleblower in the wake of our recent exclusive, detailing Edmonds' announcement that she was prepared to risk prosecution to expose the entirety of the still-classified information that the Bush Administration has "gagged" her from revealing for the past five years under claims of the arcane "State Secrets Privilege."

Ellsberg, the former defense analyst and one-time State Department official, knows well the plight of whistleblowers. He himself was prepared to spend his life in prison for the exposure of some 7,000 pages of classified Department of Defense documents concerning Executive Branch manipulation of facts and outright lies leading the country into an extended war in Vietnam.

Ellsberg seemed hardly surprised that today's American mainstream broadcast media has so far failed to take Edmonds up on her offer, despite the blockbuster nature of her allegations.

As Edmonds has also noted, Ellsberg pointed to the New York Times, who "sat on the NSA spying story for over a year" when they "could have put it out before the 2004 election, which might have changed the outcome."

"There will be phone calls going out to the media saying 'don't even think of touching it, you will be prosecuted for violating national security,'" he told us.

"I have been receiving calls from the mainstream media all day," Edmonds recounted the day after we ran the story announcing that she was prepared to violate her gag-order to disclose all of the national security-related criminal allegations she has been kept from disclosing for the past five years.

"The media called from Japan and France and Belgium and Germany and Canada and from all over the world," she told The BRAD BLOG.

"But not from here?" we asked incredulously.

"I'm getting contact from all over the world, but not from here. Isn't that disgusting?" she shot back.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Howard Krongard, the inspector general (IG) for the Bush State Dept., has recused himself from a second major probe under his purview. The new recusal was announced yesterday and came at the "request" of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA).

This new development follows a dramatic moment during a hearing before Waxman's committee on Wednesday when Kronberg was forced to recuse himself from an investigation into Blackwater after it was revealed that, despite his earlier denials, his brother sits on an advisory board for the controversial paramilitary government security contractor. Making matters potentially worse for Krongard, his brother, Buzzy Krongard, issued a statement after the hearing contradicting Howard's testimony regarding the timing of when Howard learned that Buzzy had accepted a seat on the Blackwater board.

It is unclear at the moment whether Democrats on the committee will pursue perjury charges against the State Dept. IG.

Krongard's latest recusal stems from what appears to be obstruction of justice and witness tampering in a criminal probe by the Dept. of Justice into the way billions of dollars in contracts for the construction of the U.S. embassy complex in Baghdad were let by the State Dept.:

James L. Golden, an embassy project overseer who works on a contract basis for the State Dept. in Washington, and who is also said to be a subject of the DoJ probe, may be the other person of interest Krongard met with.

Sean McCormack, a State Dept. spokesman, said Krongard recused himself from the embassy contracts investigation at Chairman Waxman's request:

Despite Krongard's removal from the two highest profile investigations by his office, McCormack says he still has the confidence of Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

The White House is probably busy right now dusting off a Medal of Freedom --- as well as complete and full pardon --- for Howard "Cookie" Krongard, their inspector general (IG) at the State Dept. It appears that in Krongard's testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform yesterday, he made false statements under oath about the membership of his brother, Buzzy Krongard, on an advisory board for Blackwater, the controversial paramilitary security contractor based in North Carolina's Dismal Swamp.

Blackwater has close ties with Howard Krongard's bosses in the Bush administration, who have awarded over $100 million in contracts to the company since the invasion and occupation of Iraq began. The fact that the brother of the Bush State Dept.'s chief investigator into Blackwater's activities in Iraq is on Blackwater's payroll would appear to be a conflict of interest, to put it mildly.

Early in the hearings, Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) laid out a series of allegations from officials in the State and Justice departments that Krongard has been stonewalling investigations into corruption and illegal activities by Blackwater and other U.S. personnel and companies in Iraq.

Here is video of Waxman's questioning and Krongard's evasive responses:

Laters, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) asked Krongard if his brother was a member of the Blackwater advisory board:

Howard Krongard responded, under oath, with a flat denial:

But during the break, Howard Krongard called his brother and found out that Buzzy did, indeed, sit on a Blackwater board:

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Judith Regan, the tough-talking former book publisher and editor and television producer, has accused an executive at Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation of encouraging her to lie about her affair with Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, in order to protect the presidential aspirations of Kerik's friend, Rudolph Giuliani:

This story quashes any doubt which candidate the folks at NewsCorp are rooting for in the next election. Not that the revelation is particularly surprising. Giuliani is a close friend of Roger Ailes, the CEO of Fox News, NewsCorp's loss-leading marquee cable channel. With Rudy in the Oval Office, FNC's conduit into and out of the White House propaganda shop would be assured for four more years.

On a much more salacious level, even in the continuum of recent revelations of GOP adulteries --- think Sens. Larry Craig and David Vitter, Rev. Ted Haggard and publisher Richard Mellon Scaife, who funded the Arkansas Project to dig up dirt on the Clintons' marriage --- Regan's affair with Kerik was particularly sordid. While Kerik was hooking up with Regan, he was simultaneously having an affair with another woman, all while his wife was pregnant:

By Brad Friedman from Richfield, Utah...

In what may be one of his most ironic public statements to date, far-Right Fox "News" commentator Bill O'Reilly charged last night that Dallas Mavericks owner and media mogul Mark Cuban's "arrogance is horrifying."

He then went on to call the billionaire blogger Cuban "anti-American" and noted, approvingly, that "during WWII President Roosevelt might have incarcerated" him and "General Patton would have slapped the tar out of him."

Why? Because Cuban's cable television network, HDNet, is distributing Brian DePalma's new film Redacted, apparently.

That, and Cuban laughed at O'Reilly last Friday, along with thousands in the crowd, at the keynote address we reported on from the BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas.

After Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur, had earlier noted in his address that while he might feel O'Reilly was "a moron," for the various attacks the news commentator had unleashed upon him, he had thought better than to blog that point, noting that the written word hangs around forever on the Internet.

When The BRAD BLOG, who was present at the speech, later asked him during the Q&A if he felt O'Reilly's attacks have been a "net plus or minus" in regard to Redacted, the amused Cuban said that he was "very grateful" to O'Reilly, who he called his "new best friend" for all the attention he'd brought to the otherwise small film release.

We covered the brouhaha late Friday.

Last night on The O'Reilly Factor, the Fox "News" host shot back, promising still more publicity for the film, by calling for the public to show up outside theaters showing Redacted with signs reading "Support the Troops." O'Reilly claimed that he will personally be at theaters holding up such signs, charging that "Mark Cuban has a grudge against his country" and that he is somehow "putting our troops in danger."

At the end of the segment, O'Reilly promised that he would "have more information about what we're going to do and when we're going to do it...coming up."

His "Talking Points Memo" tirade (video below) charges that "subsequently the effort became extremely difficult," after opposition to the Iraq War was brought by "the far-left." He then went on to include a quick, out of context video clip from Cuban's BlogWorld address. He did not show the part in which Cuban said he was "very grateful" to O'Reilly, or that he considered him his "new best friend."

Here's O'Reilly's "outraged" comments from last night's The O'Reilly Factor on Fox "News," along with a discussion with a Republican and a "Democratic" analyst which follows. (Thanks to Alan Breslauer for the video!)...

UPDATE: Cuban blogs on the ridiculous O'Reilly situation, in a piece which begins "I've grown to love Bill OReilly. Seriously. If there is anyone who can publicize a political movie, it's Bill and I truly appreciate that about him."

New from the American Research Group:
Bush:

Of all voters, 34 percent believe Bush should be impeached and removed from office, while another 21 percent believe Bush is guilty of impeachment-worthy offenses but nonetheless prefer to give him a pass. Thus 55 percent of all voters in the poll believe Bush is impeachable and yet, bizarre as it seems, a sizable minority (21 percent) of the folks who think Bush has committed high crimes and misdemeanors do not want the Congress to pursue impeachment.

Cheney:

Among all voters, 52 percent believe Cheney has committed impeachable offenses, and 43 percent believe he should be impeached and removed from office while only 9 percent believe he's guilty but should be allowed to complete his term.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Just when you think you have inured yourself to Bush-era outrage fatigue comes news that U.S. veterans were denied their free-speech rights to protest the U.S. occupation of Iraq on Veterans Day.

First, the organizers of the 11th Veterans Day Parade in Long Beach, CA, prohibited anti-war veterans groups from participating in the event on Saturday:

And in Boston on Sunday, 18 veterans were arrested after they peacefully protested the war at the Veterans Day parade:

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

In a ruling pursuant to lawsuits from two public interest groups in Washington, U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. issued a temporary restraining order against the Bush White House today, ordering it to preserve backups of millions of emails the administration claims to have deleted:

The lawsuits were brought separately by the National Security Archive, which is affiliated with George Washington University, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and have since been combined. The groups sued the White House after it claimed in April that 5 million emails that were generated between March 2003 and October 2005 were "missing." Topics of intra-office communication during that period would likely have included Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 presidential campaign.

In reality, email can require quite a bit of effort to destroy. Copies of individual emails --- even emails that users believe they have deleted --- are saved on the hard drives of the sender, the recipient and often on the various servers in the relay. On the other hand, in the ensuing seven months since it announced that the emails were missing, Bush operatives have had time to wipe clean hundreds of back-up drives and servers.

This fact was apparently contemplated in Judge Kennedy's ruling, in which he agreed with the recommendation of U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola last month that a restraining order should be issued. "Without such an order," Facciola wrote, "destruction of the backup media would be without consequence."

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Today in war news:

• AP: 2007 Bloodiest Year for U.S. Troops in Iraq:
  
  The U.S. command announced six new deaths Tuesday, making 2007 the bloodiest year for American troops in Iraq despite a recent decline in casualties and a sharp drop in roadside bombings. With nearly two months left in the year, the annual toll is now 853 --- three more than the previous worst of 850 in 2004.
• AP: 2007 Deadliest for US in Afghanistan:
  
  Six U.S. troops were killed when insurgents ambushed their foot patrol in the high mountains of eastern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday. The attack, the most lethal against American forces this year, made 2007 the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
• AFP: Bush Plays Video Games with Recovering War Veterans:
  
  US President George W. Bush had a shoot-out with the "bad guys" in Iraq on Thursday, playing a computer game with war veterans that simulates a firefight in Baghdad, the White House said. Bush tried his hand at the game with two soldiers during a visit to a rehabilitation center in Texas that treats veterans wounded in Iraq... Apart from the computer game session, Bush's visit with badly wounded soldiers was often emotional as he spoke with patients who had lost limbs or suffered severe burns in the Iraq war.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

We'll believe it when we see it:

CREW contends that the educational programs distributed by Ignite!, Neil Bush's company, are worthless, and that school districts who spend federal dollars on the programs are wasting taxpayers' money.

Ignite! president Ken Leonard said that that his company had not been contacted by anyone from the Education Dept. about the matter:

The program in question is "Curriculum on Wheels," which includes software for teaching math, social studies and science. Each program costs $3,800 each, not including subscription fees, according to the Associated Press.