In a bit of exciting news (which also tends on personal-level to give me some confidence that I I voted correctly), Green Party presidential candidate, David Cobb --- who was on the ballot in all 50 states, I'm sure you're surprised to learn --- and Libertarian presidential candidate Michael Badnarik will likely be calling for a full recount in the state of Ohio!

KPFK (90.7 FM in Los Angeles) broke the news yesterday in an interview with Mr. Cobb...

The full radio interview can be heard here...

They have issued a Press Release on the matter this morning with further details.

Well, this could be it folks! As a presidential candidates in Ohio, Cobb and Badnark are within their rights to demand a recount! And I'd hope that there's enough folks with a few dollars left in their pockets to cover those costs for the Ohio recount!

This is big (and very encouraging) news for a number of reasons, the least of which will be the ability to give all of the many punch-card ballots in the state a fresh look.

One of the stories I haven't covered here, while many others have, is Greg Palast's "Kerry Won..." article. Palast discussed the sizeable number of potentially "spoiled" ballots that were not counted for Kerry in Ohio during the initial count. A recount, and I don't know yet if that means it'll be a "manual" recount or not, may likely shake out as many as 93,000 possible new Kerry votes (by Palasts reckoning anyway). It's unlikely that all of the spoiled ballots would go for Kerry, of course, many are likely for Bush, or have no vote or more than one vote on them and "spoiled" for good reason. But the idea of a carefully monitored recount is good news by any definition.

(Perhaps we'll even get to figure out what the hell went on in Warren County on Election Night!)

On this blog, I've mainly been focusing on the many computer-related counting errors and/or possible cases of fraud, since those are the issues that I find most haunting as the country moves towards its mandated 2006 deadline for all-electronic voting. So, I've not bothered to point out the more speculative nature of reports like Palast's until now, because until a re-count possibility came into play, his theory was mostly unprovable speculation. That may all now be changing...

DONATIONS can be made for the recount to either of the following sites. They're working together...Can you imagine that?!:

Third parties are good for America...don't ya think?

UPDATE: 11/15/04 Recount fundraising goal has been met! Now seeking funds for "mobilization" costs and also volunteers to serve as "recount witnesses"! Click here for more info...

I've lived in L.A. for nearly 10 years now. I've never seen armored tanks in the streets.

Last night, during an otherwise peaceful anti-war demonstration in front of the Federal Building in Westwood, two armored tanks were called out.

Here's the story, here's the QuickTime video. What the hell is this country coming to?

(Via Raw Story)

UPDATE: The links above are not broken as one reader reported, but traffic at both the page and the video is now very heavy, so keep trying. Here, in the meantime, is the text of the article:

UPDATE: AMERICAblog now has more details on this.

Both Attorney-General John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans were booted resigned just moments ago.

And they were so darn effective! What a shame that, like Fallujah (where at least 16 American troops have been killed in the last 48 hours), this terrible news just happened to break after the election! What luck!

UPDATE: In related news...in case you didn't notice...The "Orange" security alert in both D.C. and NYC was lowered back to "Yellow" for the first time the day after the election and today pedestrian traffic was once again re-opened on Pennsylvania Ave. in front of the White House. The timing for all of these events should continue to not be noticed in any way. Thank you.

UPDATE: Looks like Ashcroft submitted his resignation on Nov. 2. Election Day. But, always in the service of politicizing justice, he remarked in his resignation letter:

But rest easy! He also informed the "President-Elect":

Phew! Thank you Mr. A-G!

And now, ladies and gentlemen, for (hopefully) the last time...The Attorney General sings.

As I was trying to get to sleep this morning, I wondered about the wild differences between the Exit Polling numbers, which strongly favored Kerry, versus the Final Results which narrowly favored Bush.

Given the statement in August of 2003 by Walden O'dell, the CEO of Deibold Inc., the Ohio-based company and the nation's #1 maker of Electronic Voting Machines there is reason to be suspicious.

He wrote in a fund-raising letter to Ohio Republicans last year that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

As I lay in bed, trying to make sense of what still makes little sense, I had hoped to look today into how much the Exit Poll results varied from the Final Results in states and districts where there was Electronic Voting versus the difference in states where paper ballots etc. were in use.

Looks like Raw Story has begun to do exactly that. UPDATE: Here is a graphic representation of the information that the Raw Story article details.

Their early investigation shows that in states where E-voting with no paper trails were used, there was an enormous difference --- always in favor of Bush --- between the Exit Polls and the Final Results. Whereas in the states with paper ballots or E-voting machines that provided a printed paper trail, the Exit Polling was within .01% of the Final Results. Look at those numbers yourself.

Perhaps the mainstream media will discover a sense of civic duty and look further into that. For some reason, I'm not holding my breath, and it'll probably fall to folks like us to do their heavy lifting for them.

Look also at the bizarre numbers that Oliver Willis discovered amongst the vote tabulations as they were coming out of Ohio's website last night. He supplies pictures, so it should be simple for you wingnuts to understand.

And on Nov. 1, the day before the election, BlackBoxVoting.org --- a site which has been warning for some time of such concerns - issued an urgent release which began:

I am pleased to see that that group has now filed "Freedom of Information Act" petitions for the audit logs of Electronic Voting machines in many states, given that they found some three hours of missing data from such audit logs six weeks ago on a central computer in Washington during their primary elections there.

Finally, I wonder if anyone will follow up with Karl Rove's statement to Sean Hannity on Sept. 29th when he said "We've got a couple of surprises that we intend to spring."

Now that the election is over and won, perhaps Mr. Rove could elucidate on what those "surprises" actually were.

Anyone in the media willing to take your job seriously enough to ask him?

Well, your email paid off! As much, perhaps, as we could hope given that we're dealing with the Republican behemoth that is the Fox "News" Channel. So all in all, a job well done, guys! It pays to make noise and fight for your Democracy.

As originally reported here, the Hannity & Colmes show had announced on Friday that tonight's guests would be:

ON THE RIGHT: Karl Rove, Dick Morris, William Weld
ON THE LEFT: Bill Richardson

By the time tonight's show aired, Morris and Weld on the Right were dumped, and Terry McAuliffe added on the Left. Unfortunately, Jeb Bush (obviously on the Right) was added as well. Yet, on it's face, it appeared to be more "Fair and Balanced" as such:

ON THE RIGHT: Karl Rove, Jeb Bush
ON THE LEFT: Bill Richardson, Terry McAuliffe

Well, that looks more "Fair & Balanced", doesn't it? But here was the actual show breakdown (Right leaning segments bold)

SEGMENT 1: Jeb Bush
SEGMENT 2: Jeb Bush
SEGMENT 3: Bill Richardson
SEGMENT 4: Karl Rove
(Seg 4 Rove interview by Hannity only! Colmes not allowed!)
SEGMENT 5: Terry McAuliffe

Final tally was 3 segments with the Right (one that Hannity had all to himself) and only 2 segments with the Left.

As I've mentioned in the past, my source inside H&C tells me that they have a very difficult time getting the DNC and Kerry campaign to cooperate and give them guests for the show. The theory --- a mostly plausible one --- is that Fox is so far to the Right, the Dems feel they won't get a fair shake when they go on.

I share my sources belief, however, that it's foolish for the Dems to simply write off Fox "News" in the bargain.

Yes, of course they won't get a fair shake on Fox, but it's better to show up and represent as best they can than to allow Fox to overweight with Republicans, or worse, stick someone like Pat Cadell on there and call him a "Democratic Consultant" when he hasn't worked or supported any Democrats since, I believe, Jimmy Carter! Or have Susan Estrich on there --- who worked for Arnold Schwarzenegger! --- and call her a "Democratic Consultant".

Like it or not, more Americans watch Fox these days for political news than anybody else --- and it's not all hard right wingnuts. There are a lot of reasonable, normal, Left-leaning Americans that watch FNC as well! I'm certainly one of them! Frankly because it's not quite as dull as it's competition (who are only slightly less slanted to the Right these days). So it's imperative that Dems show up and at least fight on that turf to try anyway to partially balance Fox's constant imbalance.

If I hear from my source any plausible explanation as to why H&C still managed to skew things to the Right tonight, on Election Eve of all nights --- even though they had a seemingly even number of Democrats to interview --- I'll update this item.

Other than that, I'm without ammunition to defend it. So instead, I'll just leave you with this exchange from the end of the segment tonight with McAuliffe:

I guess it is.

· 10/06/04: WH Scrubs Coalition List from Website...
· 10/17/04: WH caught red-handed trying to cover tracks...
· 10/18/04: Bush's "not that concerned" about bin Laden Audio/Video goes missing...
· 10/21/04: More embarrassing Audio/Video files found missing from site...
· 10/22/04: 'Vanished Coalition List' story hits AFP news wires...
· 10/24/04: Scrubbed files in violation of "Presidential Records Act"...
· 10/25/04: Washington Post gets in game, covers Scrub story twice in one day...
· 10/25/04: State Dept. website scrubbed as well!...
· 10/26/04: WH uses website to campaign for Prez!...
· 10/29/04: SUCCESS! WH restores Audio/Video! Though much still missing...
· 1/21/05 (Yes, '05!): Reuters Reports: "White House Scraps 'Coalition of the Willing' List" (What took ya so long?!)
· 9/15/07: White House Still Lying About Coalition in Iraq After All These Years...
· 12/5/08: Altered White House Iraq War Docs "Discovered" by University Professor...More Than Four Years After The BRAD BLOG Originally Reported Same

Wow. I told you this thing was gonna get ugly. John O'Neill implodes on live TV on Thursday, and on Friday, live on CNN, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart blows up Tucker Carlson, CNN and Crossfire. Finally!

Watch it, or read the highlights below. It's funny, sad, true and incredible LIVE television!:

I don't usually like to quote this much text, but if you missed the show, you've got to read some of this that I pulled from the full transcript...

Wow. And bravo, Mr. Stewart.

"[F]rankly, [the sanctions on Iraq] have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." - Colin Powell, February 24, 2001

"But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt." - Condoleeza Rice, July 29, 2001

For more on the many stunning flips, flops, mixed-messages and more flops of Bush Iraq Policy, click here for documented details.

Would Republicans actually do this?

So does that sound like the Republicans? The same group who called South Carolina voters during the 2000 primary to ask what they thought of John McCain fathering a black out-of-wedlock baby? Oh, yes. It sounds a lot like them. Gillespie's inability to deny it, of course, seals the deal. Your Republican Party: Anything to Win.

(If anyone finds a scanned graphic of that mail, please let me know!)

The case against Bush's failed execution of the War on Iraq is becoming clearer every day.

Best put this morning by Pro-Iraq Warrior, Andrew Sullivan, who said today:

And in regards to the damning report today from the U.S. Marine Corps general in charge of western Iraq that Fallujah was completely bungled by the upper Civilian Command (after Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the boys have gone out of their way to suggest they wouldn't make the Vietnam mistake of getting in the way of Military Command on the ground), Sullivan --- a longtime BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Republican" Award winner --- was also on the money:

Sullivan's last question there is a doozy. Just imagine if Al Gore had executed this "War on Terror" in exactly the same fashion and as disastrously. Imagine what the Republicans would be saying with 1000+ dead, no WMD's to be found, no exit strategy anywhere on the horizon, and if "insurgents" in Fallujah were now using the arms we gave them against us now as they are! Can you imagine?!

The blatant and outrageous hypocrisy at work amongst the apologists on the Right at this moment is surely at an all time high (or low). Just incredible.

Wow...that Alan Keyes interview where he called lesbian Veep daughter Mary Cheney a "selfish hedonist" for her lifestyle, along, presumably with any other heterosexual couple who can't, or chose not to mate, is even more astounding than just the quotes I gave you earlier.

He had more to say about loving couples that God has made incapable of having children together: "They cannot mate. They are not made to do so. Therefore the idea of marriage for two such individuals is an absurdity."

He then objected "to the notion" that we refer to two partners who cannot mate as having "sexual relations because it is nothing of the kind". Rather, he said, "It is the mutual pursuit of pleasure through the stimulation of the organs intended for procreation, but it has nothing to do with sexuality."

Here's the full transcript, and a copy of the audio, courtesy of AMERICABlog.

Wow. Finally, someone who's willing to stand up and publicly support the GOP Platform!

With that, I might have finally voted Republican, except for my fear that they might "mutually pursue pleasure through the stimulation of the organs intended for procreation" me!

The Republican Party had the entire United States of America from whom to chose their nominee for the US Senate seat in Illinois. Demonstrating quite clearly the kind of party they are, they chose Alan Keyes. From Maryland.

On Tuesday, Keyes called the "Vice-President's" lesbian daughter Mary Cheney, a "selfish hedonist" apparently solely because of her sexual identity.

He did both that, and took a swipe at married couples who either can't, or choose not to have children all in one fell Republican swoop.

Said Mr. Keyes in a satellite radio interview this week:

So there ya go. You folks in the "married state" out there who have no children, are apparently "selfish hedonists" along with lesbian Mary Cheney. You, like those homosexuals who'd like to simply be recognized as a legitimate American family seem to have an "improper basis" for your marriage according to your party's national pick for the U.S. Senate.

Bush/Cheney '04: What's not to be proud of?

Ann Coulter makes Bill O'Reilly appear - if only briefly - to not be a hideous person with an evil insidious agenda! Not all that easy to do. But if anyone can, it would be the insipid Ann Coulter.

This sample exchange, and it's "Editor's notes" come courtesy of "Left I..." as taken from the full O'Reilly Factor transcript from May 27, 2004:

We've been on the road for the past few days, and thus not locked into our usual media routine. Out here, in the desert, we get a dose here and there of Cable News, though without the erstwhile FOX News drone to keep us as aware of what the Evil Doers are up to.

Rush comes in partially, with much static, so I haven't been able to keep up with the Right Wing Marching Orders with my usual alarming up-to-the-moment accuracy. Nor have I had any Internet Access for the last 3 days or so, so please pardon me if I'm missing a beat or two, and - unbeknownst to me - the entire Blogosphere is abuzz with this already. But from here, I've got just one big question since last Sunday's Bob Woodward explosions on 60 Minutes.

(DISCLAIMER: Both CBS, the producer of 60 Minutes and Simon & Schuster, publisher of Woodward's Plan of Attack are owned by the same parent company, Viacom. I have watched CBS before and have read books published by Simon & Schuster. As well, I have also watched both VH-1 and MTV on several occasions. Both of those cable channels are also owned by the parent company Viacom.)

So, anyway...The various Cable News programs we've been able to catch since Sunday, seem to be dwelling on the Powell-outta-the-loop and Bush-Saudi-low-oil-prices-before-the-election issues.

Yes, the most alarming item from Woodward on Sunday to my ears, was the bit about Bush having diverted some $700 million from the Congressionally approved Afghanistan spending over to a secret unapproved pre-Iraq War effort.

So my question is this...If Bill Clinton lying about a blowjob is an Impeachable offense, how can it be that subverting the US Constitution by diverting $700 million to a Congressionally Unapproved project by the this Administration barely raises an eyebrow by anyone? Both the House of Representatives (responsible for instituting Impeachment Proceedings) and the supposed "Liberal Media" seem to be completely ignoring the issue.

Now, I realize that the House is controlled hard by Republicans, but where is that supposedly "Liberal Media" on this one? And how can even the supposedly "Conservative" Republicans in the House sit by and ignore such a blatant disregard - if true - for the United States Constitution by this Administration?

Surely there must be at least a couple of intellectually honest Republicans out there who are outraged enough by this report to begin a very serious investigation into this very serious alleged breach of ethics by this Administration. No?

Can you imagine the Republican apoplectics that would be occurring today if it was Bill Clinton (or John Kerry!) who was reported to have done such a thing?

As Bill Bennet would have certainly asked in such a situation had this been a Democrat at the helm, "Where's the outrage??"

Or is it out there and I'm just missing it?