It is no more offensive for a potential chair of the RNC to circulate a song called "Barack the Magic Negro" than it would be for a potential chair of the DNC to circulate a song called "Bristol's Bastard Baby."

Both acts would be equally amusing.

Our favorite snippet from the latest round of newly-released Nixon tapes is one that is completely anachronistic now that such school of thought by Republicans has been thoroughly discredited in the wake of Nixon's disgrace. This quote from Nixon to Kissinger, from an Oval Office recording from December 14, 1972, has no relevance whatsoever to the current occupant of the White House...

Here's the completely irrelevant audio (:30 seconds)...

UPDATE at end of article.

Math/statistics/poll-wiz Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com predicts the race between incumbent MN Sen. Norm Coleman (R) and challenger Al Franken (D) could result in a 27 vote win for Franken. That's right, just 27 votes.

With that in mind, every single vote matters, so it's of note that the Franken campaign is now wondering about some missing ballots in a number of counties. From Public Record's coverage last night:

That in mind, we'll take the opportunity to remind both parties in the recount of our earlier suggestion that they make public records requests (if they haven't already) for the invoices from printers of all of the original ballots, and then request that all ballots --- including unvoted ballots --- be counted as part of the final reconciliation of ballots. The number of voted, spoiled, and unvoted ballots should be exactly equal to the number of ballots shown as printed originally on those invoices. If not, there's a problem.

But while ballots have now turned up "missing," and absentees have been tossed from the hand count, the GOP seems to be preparing for a FL 2000 PR gambit to "win" at all costs...

We've got a few more notes/thoughts on a couple of related ballot issues that have bubbled up over the last few days as we've been driving across the country. Given the closeness of this race, these issues could ultimately end up deciding it one way or another, even as the GOP seems to be preparing a FL 2000 PR gambit to "win" at all costs, no matter the final outcome of the hand-count...

With just over 40% of the ballots in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken, the gap has now shrunk to just 129 votes at the end of the second day of counting.

According to tonight's update of the MN Secretary of State's "recount" webpage, Coleman has so far lost a total of 212 votes and Franken has lost 126 during the counting. The net gain is 86 votes for Franken out of the original 215 vote advantage certified by the state for Coleman before counting began yesterday.

The original numbers were based on the tabulations reported by the state's faulty ES&S and Diebold optical-scanners. But today's numbers may be equally misleading, for the moment, as there are some 360 ballots so far challenged by Coleman, and 374 by Franken, which will be judged later by the canvassing board. Those numbers are not included in today's totals.

Last night, after the first day's counting with just over 15 percent of the ballots manually inspected across the state, Franken had a net gain of 43 votes. Today, with slightly over 40 percent counted, Franken's net gain has exactly doubled that to 86 votes...

Of all the shameful behavior by the Republicans during this last election cycle, the National Republican Senatorial Conspiratorial Committee's continuing baseless charges that Al Franken and the Democrats are trying to "steal" the U.S. Senate election in Minnesota has to be near the top of a difficult list to top! If only because that rejected sort of politics continues despite the thorough spanking their party took in an election which would seem to have been a rejection of such tactics.

Even Minnesota's own governor, Tim Pawlenty, has now reversed his previous conspiratorial tone to declare on yesterday's Fox "News" Sunday that there is "no actual evidence of wrongdoing or fraud in the process." He was referring to the currently reported election results --- where Franken trails the incumbent Sen. Norm Colman by just over 200 voters --- and in the upcoming manual recount plans.

None of that has kept the RNSC from keeping up their shameful "Minnesota Recount" conspiracy theory website with postings that declare Franken "lost the election, so he is pulling an Al Gore, with his supporters manufacturing postelection votes by the hundreds" and shoveling, without correction, the now wholly debunked theory that "his supporters discover mislaid ballots in places like the trunks of their cars. By a mysterious coincidence, none of these includes votes for Franken’s rival Norm Coleman."

Though the last post on their conspiracy website was made on Friday --- so perhaps that signals they're getting the message --- all of it still remains there, as unretracted garbage, even after Pawlenty himself has now acknowledged it as such. But the RNSC isn't the only bad actor here. So are the networks, cable channels and even the New York Times...

For those following the nonsense being put forward by the GOP conspiracy theorists (such as Sean Hannity, Norm Coleman, RedState blog, PowerLine blog, and all their fact-free friends), David Brauer at MinnPost.com does a terrific job of debunking the whole "32 ballots driven around in an election director's car for days" nonsense.

They weren't driven around in her car, they weren't all votes for Franken, they weren't "lost" for days, and the claim, which is being used by the national GOP at their conspiracy theory "Minnesota Recount" site to prop up their unsubstantiated claims of a "stolen election," turns out (surprise surprise) to be entirely false...

The Democrats, as usual, have only themselves to blame. But we're still happy to help both them and the Republicans if it means the voters might see their votes counted and counted accurately, no matter who will ultimately be declared the winner of any election. You're welcome, Republicans (and Democrats).

After years of Democrats refusing to use the f-word (fraud) or discussing concerns about the s-word (stolen) for elections, for fear of being declared conspiracy theorists and sore-losers by the Republicans, we'll note that Republicans have no such fears. They never did. And they are happy to don enormous and shiny tin-foil hats any time to claim any conspiracy they need to, regardless of the actual evidence (or lack thereof) to support their theory.

They will claim --- even at the highest official levels of their party --- that "Democrats are stealing the election," "stuff[ing] new ballots into the ballot box" and all other manner of unsubstantiated allegations, if they believe it might help their candidate "win." The voters be damned.

To that end, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has now gone so far as to set up a "Minnesota Recount" conspiracy theory blog. The site is devoted to the advancement of making and reposting unsubstantiated claims from around the wingnut 'sphere --- and that would include liar John Fund's Wall Street Journal --- that Al Franken and the Democrats are in the process of "stealing" the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota...

[Ed Note: Please "Reddit" this one up, as Republicans have been trying to down rate it over there!]

A devastating article on Sunday destroys the GOP's claims of "voter fraud" as a member of McCain's own (amusingly named) "Honest and Open Election Committee" has admitted that Republicans are unable to cite a single "documented instance of voting fraud that resulted from a phony registration form."

The admission underscores our bold and knowing assertion of same, back in the early days of this year's fake GOP ACORN "scandal", when such assertions weren't popular, as noted for history both here at The BRAD BLOG and at the UK's Guardian.

The fact-based comments were made despite the once-honorable Republican nominee's dangerously specious claims during the final Presidential debate, that the ginned-up "crisis" was "one of the greatest frauds in voter history" and was "maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

Looks like someone in his own campaign failed to get the memo. But it's not about facts, it's about fears, even ones that they themselves have created. As we've come to learn, that's more than good enough for the U.S. Supreme Court at least, and certainly for those attempting to keep you from being able to cast your legal vote...

Because I can use this now as much as you likely can...On Thursday night, The Daily Show's John Oliver slammed the GOP "ACORN Voter Fraud" phonies and the entire, obnoxious (and I believe very ill-advised) "community organizer" insult. Hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did! For the record, our special coverage page on the GOP's "ACORN 'Voter Fraud' Hoax" is right here...

My latest column at the UK's Guardian...On America's still dark, twisted soul...

After all these years, believe it or not, it was my first appearance on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! this morning. I was happy to appear along with my friend Harvey Wasserman of the great Columbus Free Press to discuss our many concerns about Election Day 2008, touch-screen vote-flipping, voter roll purging, and the woeful effort by the DNC and Obama Campaign to take steps to correct these enormous problems. So happy, in fact, that I almost didn't mind waking up at 4am to do the show. Almost. I hope you'll not mind the fuzzy webcam I had to use from my dark, pre-dawn cave this morning during my appearance.

The video follows in three parts, the text transcript is here...

Buffalo's alternative weekly, The Beast, today runs a pretty candid (okay, very candid) Q&A they did with me about a week or so ago, when I was rather angry. Kinda like today, or any other day within the past week (or month, or 4 years).

It's a pretty good interview, if I say so myself. And I'll be sure to keep it in my pocket next time some idiot (either Republican or Democratic) accuses me of being a "partisan."

And while I hate tooting my own horn, when has that ever stopped me before? So here's Al Uthman's intro to the Q&A:

The Q&A, in full, is right here...

Guest blogged by Steven Rosenfeld of AlterNet

Republican Party efforts to stop thousands of voters from casting meaningful ballots in 2008 because their registration information does not match government databases with high error rates was set back by legal rulings in Wisconsin, Ohio and Nevada on Thursday.

In Wisconsin, a judge threw out a lawsuit by the state Attorney General, who also is the McCain campaign co-chair. In Ohio and Nevada, each state's top election official issued an order or opinion rejecting such 'no-match' voter challenges.

While Republican officials criticized these moves, it appears that momentum is building against GOP efforts to use ambiguities in voter registration laws to challenge large numbers of 2008 voters...

[Ed Note: Please see the "IMPORTANT UPDATE" to this story at the bottom of this article. - BF]

Yesterday we reported the problems experienced at the Davidson County (Nashville), TN polls by Election Integrity filmmakers David and Patricia Earnhardt. Patricia, like so many others before, in so many elections past, saw her vote flip before her eyes on the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen system from her intended candidate, Barrack Obama, to the Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney.

Last week, we noted voter reports from two different WV counties, Putnam and Jackson, both counties where the same ES&S iVotronic touch-screen machines (which are notorious for flipping and losing thousands of votes and costing at least one Democratic U.S. House nominee her rightful seat) similarly flipped votes away from Democratic candidates.

Earlier today, John Gideon reported on ES&S iVotronics in SC which fail to include a number of races on the final review screen. In at least one county in that state, during the Republican Primary earlier this year, the machines had failed to even turn on at all, leading voters to scramble to find scraps of paper to vote on. ES&S is the nation's largest supplier of voting machines.

Now, finally --- and thankfully --- we have a report of voters experiencing votes flipping from the Republican candidate John McCain, to the Democratic candidate Barack Obama in a second TN county. Does this mean someone can actually take some action to get these machines the hell out of service now?!...

I've written both here and at the UK's Guardian to point out that not a single case of ACORN "voter fraud" has been shown anywhere despite the Republican's phony outrageous and MSM's knee-jerk reporting of it.

That changed on Friday (for about a minute) when the GOP and their always-reliable and incurious media echo chamber began trumpeting "undeniable proof that a significant number of fraudulent votes were cast in Democrat primary races for the New Mexico legislature as a result of ACORN’s voter registration fraud."

Knock us over with a feather, but those charges have now fallen apart as well...