Guest Editorial by Ernest A. Canning

The ACLU attorneys representing the petitioners in League of Women Voters of Minnesota v. Ritchie [PDF] (Ritchie), which is scheduled to be heard by the MN Supreme Court on July 17, 2012, have set forth powerful arguments why the Court should remove a polling place photo ID initiative from the November 2012 ballot.

The MN Constitution mandates that a ballot question must truthfully inform voters of what it is they are voting on. The ACLU, following the same format it applied when it successfully prevented a similar photo ID initiative from being placed on the November 2012 ballot in MO, sets forth specific examples of how the ballot question, as enacted by MN's GOP-controlled state legislature, falls well short of that standard.

The ACLU argument may well succeed before the MN Supreme Court. However, as reflected by polls suggesting nearly 80% of Minnesotans support the adoption of photo ID restrictions, there is a very real prospect that the ACLU's legal objections will neither be heard nor understood in the utterly deceived court of public opinion...

In completely related news...Yesterday, the NYTimes' statistical wunderkind Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight tweeted: "Our model currently projects ... an exact tie in Florida. #SignsOfMayanApocalypse".

Little wonder then that Florida's Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Sec. of State Ken Detzner are more than happy to blatantly mislead the public, the media and the federal court system, as The BRAD BLOG detailed exclusively last week, about their attempted purge of suspected "non-citizens" from the voting rolls.

And it's similarly no surprise that, as University of Florida political scientist and founder of ElectionSmith, Dr. Daniel A. Smith detailed on Friday, the "Failed Florida Secretary of State's Voter Purge" has, to date, earned a 98.4% failure rate in its initial list of 2,625 voters identified as "potential non-citizens."

That, of course, is if you take the Sec. of State's word for it that the 41 registered voters they claim to have confirmed as "non-citizens" actually are. (How many of them even knew they were registered or actually ever voted is another question.) To date, the state has provided no actual evidence to verify those 41 non-citizens voters they say they've identified. And given both Scott and Detzner's documented track record of blatant dishonesty, we see no reason to give either of them the benefit of the doubt.

Breaking from today's Irish Times...

To help put those costs in perspective, 55 million Euro --- the cost of the systems to the state of Ireland to date --- is about $69.5 million.

In this country, the U.S. wasted almost $4 billion (with a "b"), via the Help American Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, on the very same type of worthless, unreliable, easily hacked machines that the Irish are smart enough to get rid of entirely...

Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL-19) joined me live on today's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio to discuss two things:

1) Our exclusive from earlier this week on FL Gov. Rick Scott's voter purge/DHS database deception (an issue which Deutch has been raising hell about for several weeks) and 2) His OCCUPIED Amendment to get corporate money the hell out of our electoral system, particularly in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Montana's 100-year old anti-corruption law on Monday.

I was delighted to hear the Congressman was nearly as furious about both as I was. He also confirmed that nobody has been able to verify the "100 or so" alleged "non-citizens" that Scott says have been found on the rolls (out of 182,000 identified in the initial purge list and out of 11.2 million voters), and also that there are still three FL counties --- Lee, Collier and Bay --- where the Supervisors of Elections may still be carrying out the faulty and disenfranchising systematic purge.

My rant explaining Scott's scam kicks off the show, before Deutch then joins us. Then, Desi Doyen joins us with the latest Green News Report and we take a couple of quick amusing calls.

Oh, and though I mentioned it at the top of the show, I forgot to reiterate it again at the end of the show, so I'll do so now: FL Gov. Rick Scott, FL Secretary of State Ken Detzner and/or their spokesmen were invited to appear on the show to offer their response to our Monday exposé. They declined to even respond to the invitation.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

I was on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture yesterday to discuss The BRAD BLOG's special exclusive report on Monday in which counselor Canning and I detailed how Gov. Rick Scott (R) and the state of Florida is attempting to deceive the media, the public, and apparently even the federal court system about this year's attempted voter purge in the Sunshine State. The Dept. of Justice has filed suit alleging that the systematic removal of voters within 90 days before Florida's federal primary is a violation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

As documented in our investigative report, claims being made by Scott, his Sec. of State Ken Detzner and their surrogates in a recent media blitz, charging that the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security was purposely restricting them from access to a federal immigration database in order to keep the state from using it, appear to be baseless. FL had hoped to use the SAVE database to help purge some 182,000 "potential non-citizen" voters they claim are on the rolls.

But FL's claims (which is used to underscore a dark conspiracy the actions of the federal government are all being done to enhance President Obama's re-election prospects), are belied by documented email concessions from the FL Dept. of State's Asst. General Counsel Maria Matthews who acknowledged, as long ago as October of 2011, that the state simply didn't have the unique numeric identifiers required by DHS to check those "suspected non-citizens" against their immigration and citizenship database.

Here's my conversation with Hartmann last night about our story...

For more on all of the above, see our original investigative report, including email documentation from public records requests, etc., revealing Florida's attempted deception. We have now also added a Timeline page for the entire story right here.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: I will be discussing all of the above and more with Congressman Ted Deutch (D-FL-19) on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show today (Wednesday) at 6p ET/3p PT. You can listen live at http://KPFK.org/listen-live.html.

Props to CNN's Soledad O'Brien for her dogged attempt to get an actual answer from Romney's Senior Advisor (and former Commerce Secretary) Carlos Gutierrez as to whether the presumptive GOP nominee supports Arizona's controversial "papers please" law, in light of yesterday's SCOTUS ruling striking down most of the law, but allowing the most controversial part of it to stand (for now.)

If the rest of the media insisted on actual answers from politicians and their surrogates before moving on (talking to you David Gregory), we might actually move the ball forward occasionally.

For the record, Romney has previously called AZ's SB1070, the law that was largely struck down yesterday, a "model" for the nation. But I guess we all get to pretend he didn't for a while, as he tries to Etch-a-Sketch his way out of the extremist positions he staked out in hopes of winning the GOP primaries.

[Hat-tip TPM]

-Special Report by Brad Friedman and Ernest A. Canning, The BRAD BLOG

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), his recently appointed Secretary of State Ken Detzner (R), and their surrogates are attempting to deceive the media, the public, and possibly even the federal court system about their state's effort to use a federal immigration database as part of a state program that could result in the purge up to 182,000 registered voters who, the state says, are "potential non-citizens".

A review of public documents and internal emails obtained by The BRAD BLOG on the heels of a federal lawsuit filed against the state last week by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) --- charging that Florida's attempted purge of voter rolls violates federal law --- reveals that claims being repeatedly made by the Florida officials about both the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and DoJ are disingenuous at best.

Admissions made to DHS officials on at least two occasions, by a high-ranking attorney at the FL Dept. of State (FDOS), undermine the public assertions of both Scott and Detzner, who each claim that the federal government is purposely withholding access to a federal immigration database so that it cannot be used for scrubbing illegal voters off the state rolls.

The false allegation that the DHS has "refused" to provide access to the database, so as to prevent the state from lawfully removing illegally registered non-citizen voters, was also repeated in Florida's own federal complaint, which it recently filed against DHS.

In offering this deceptive claim, Scott and Detzner are knowingly inflaming an unsubstantiated conspiratorial scheme that the Obama Administration is working to keep illegal voters on the rolls in order to enhance the President's 2012 election prospects.

The first-hand evidence reviewed by The BRAD BLOG, obtained via public records requests under Florida's Sunshine Act, reveals that both Scott and Detzner are advancing the "refused access" canard --- echoed by both the Rightwing and non-Rightwing media --- in order to confuse the public and obscure the reality that the state's controversial purge could potentially disenfranchise thousands of perfectly legal citizen voters...

So, remember way back in the not-so-cold month of January when, on the night of the first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucuses the GOP announced Mitt Romney as the "winner"? And then, a couple of days later when, thanks to publicly counted hand-marked paper ballots used by the GOP for their own caucuses across the entire state, a Ron Paul supporter was able to come forward to point out that the GOP had reported inaccurate Caucus Night tallies on their website? And then, several weeks later when the GOP was forced to admit their previously reported tallies were indeed wrong, and the citizens who actually witnessed the counting on Caucus Night with their own eyes were right and that, in fact, Santorum, not Romney had actually received the most votes?

Well, funny thing. Over the weekend, at the Iowa GOP State Convention, neither Santorum nor Romney was the winner. The winner of the state of Iowa --- at least the man who will have, by far, the most delegates representing him at the Republican National Convention in Tampa in August --- is Ron Paul. Thanks to Paul supporters turning out in droves at district, county and then the state convention, Paul will have 21 of the state's 25 delegates at the RNC in August. And Iowa is not the only state where that has been happening.

Last week while I was guest hosting the nationally-syndicated Mike Malloy Show, I interviewed Presidential historian, author and Ron Paul Campaign Senior Advisor Doug Wead about the fascinating strategy, and extraordinary, even violent push-back (see here and here for just two examples caught on video) from the GOP establishment against the Ronulans turning out in democratic support of their candidate at these conventions. And almost all of it seems to be quietly happening well below the MSM radar at GOP state convention after GOP state convention.

If you missed the interview last week, I ran the bulk of it again yesterday (slightly shortened) on my KPFK/Pacifica show here in Los Angeles. Afterwards a ton of callers phoned in --- from all sorts of political viewpoints --- in response.

Wead was coy in responding to my questions about what Paul's game is precisely, and he wouldn't answer directly when I pressed him (twice) as to whether Paul was still seeking the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination or something else entirely, but the conversation was often quite revealing --- particularly (and here I'm not quite sure Wead is reading Paul's supporters accurately), when he finally suggested that "the son also rises".

Give it a listen. I'd certainly welcome responses from all of you, Paul supporters or otherwise!

Download MP3 or listen online below [whole show, appx 58 mins]...

Perhaps we should call it the David Gregory Technique, since the dreadful Meet the Press host seems to use it, and little more, week in and week out during his usually useless interviews with public officials.

Here's how the David Gregory Technique works: Ask a public official for "your response to that charge?" Get that response. And then move on to the next question. No follow-up. No challenge. It's that simple. Just get their "response" on record --- like an in-person performance of the public official's already-published press release responding, either accurately or not, to the same issue.

Afterword, news consumers are no more informed or enlightened than before going in, other than to become familiar with the political talking points in play, whether they are based in fact or reality or not. Who knows?

Such was the treatment that Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) enjoyed last week from Michele Martin on the apparently ironically named TELL ME MORE program on National Public Radio concerning his spate of allegedly unlawful, attempted voter suppression programs in the Sunshine State. NBC's David Gregory couldn't have done it better himself...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Last week, after notifying the state of Florida of its intention to do so, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit [PDF], seeking to halt what Asst. U.S. Attorney General Thomas E. Perez described in his June 11, 2012 letter [PDF] to FL Sec. of State Ken Detzner (R), as "a new program for systematic voter removal, which may ultimately target more than 180,000 registered voters."

A longtime respected election official in the state went further, describing the attempted scrubbing of the rolls to be "un-American".

The lawsuit alleges that the ongoing, systematic voter removal program violates the provisions of the National Vote Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), which "expressly forbids such removal programs during the 90-day period before an election for Federal office."

The complaint seeks not only an immediate federal court injunction to stop the purge, but an order directing FL officials "to take all steps necessary to ensure that no registered voter identified as potentially ineligible based on the [faulty FL Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles] database and voter verification procedures...is removed from the voter rolls within 90 days of a primary or general election for Federal office."

The injunction may prove to be necessary only in three of the Sunshine State's 67 counties --- Lee, Collier and Bay --- where election officials have signaled they intend to continue the allegedly unlawful voter roll purge, even after the actions taken by the DOJ.

When interviewed last week by Brad Friedman on the nationally-syndicated Mike Malloy Show, Leon County (Tallahassee), FL's legendary Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho --- the man placed in charge of the aborted 2000 Florida Presidential recount --- explained the reasons why most of the Supervisors of Elections (both Democratic and Republican) in each of the state's 67 counties have now refused to carry out the state-ordered purge. He described the ongoing effort by the Governor and Sec. of State as "shameful."

The DOJ's 6/11/12 letter also responded to, and seemed to debunk, the claim made by FL that it had been denied access to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration database. The state, in its own lawsuit filed against the DHS last week, has cited lack of access to that database as their reason for using the less reliable state Dept. of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV) database for the basis of its voter purge.

The purge, to date, has identifies hundreds of perfectly legal citizen voters for removal from the rolls.

The state of FL, in its response to the DOJ, appears not to be offering the full facts about their attempt to use the DHS database and, as it turns out, Republican Gov. Rick Scott should, by now, be very well acquainted with the perils of voter purges based on inaccurate information...as an apparent victim of one such purge himself...

[Now UPDATE with audio archives below! Enjoy!]

It's the final night of our latest week-long stint filling in as guest host on the nationally-syndicated Mike Malloy Show (Mike returns Monday!) so we'll try to make it count, as we make noise one last time this week over your public airwaves, on the Internet (streaming links below) and on SiriusXM ch. 127!

We'll be BradCasting, LIVE from 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the globe from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight:

• OBAMA'S IMMIGRATION POLICY SURPRISE Today's surprise announcement that the President was ordering the Dept. of Homeland Security to stop deporting "DREAM ACT-eligible" immigrants (younger than 16 when brought here by their parents), has shaken up election year politics today and brought out the usual loons. But we'll talk about what may be the most important lesson from today's news.
• RICK PILTZ, formerly a Senior Associate in the Office of the Federal Climate Science Program, until resigning in 2005 as a whistleblower during the Bush Administration, charging that they were censoring global warming science from White House science reports. He went on to create ClimateScienceWatch.org and was arrested along with NASA's James Hansen while protesting against the Keystone XL pipeline at the White House in 2011. I was the first to do a full-length radio interview with Piltz, on my old weekend radio show, on June 18, 2005, just after he blew the whistle. This will be our first conversation since then!
• PLUS! Everything else we didn't get to this week and much more, as usual, along with your phone calls over your public airwaves at 877-520-1150 and your tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at our Sante Fe affiliate KTRC 1260, or our Minnesota affiliate KTNF 950 (use code 55447 when asked). Also, you should be able to listen live at WhiteRose Society if the radio gods are with us.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: I had a terrific week in for Mike! And we had another great show tonight. Thanks to Mike & Kathy for allowing us to take over the joint for a week, and thanks to all of you for listening! Mike returns Monday! Until then, audio archives are posted below, ad-free....cuz I love ya! Until we meet again...

[Now UPDATED with tonight's audio archives below!]

It's our penultimate (second to last!) day in our latest week-long sting filling to guest host the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show, as Mike and Kathy enjoy a much-deserved vacation. So we're making noise again tonight over your public airwaves, on the Internet (streaming links below) and on SiriusXM ch. 127!

Once again, we'll be BradCasting, LIVE from 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the globe from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight:

• SUE WILSON, media activist, director of Public Interest Pictures' Broadcast Blues, and a 22-year, award-winning veteran of broadcast journalism, and founder of the Media Action Center on how the "public airwaves" were used to "win" the WI recall election for Scott Walker, and what we the people can do about it.
• JOHN WELLINGTON ENNIS, Director of the upcoming documentary Pay2Play, Democracy's High Stakes and before that, 2008's Free For All: One Dude's Quest to Save Democracy on the increasingly insane effect of big, dark money on our electoral system in the post-Citizens United world.
• PLUS! Drumbeating Iran, Fossil fuel companies global warming woes, and much more, as usual, along with your phone calls over your public airwaves at 877-520-1150 and your tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at our Sante Fe affiliate KTRC 1260, or our Minnesota affiliate KTNF 950 (use code 55447 when asked). Also, you should be able to listen live at WhiteRose Society if the radio gods are with us.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: A surprisingly fun show tonight. Surprising (and fun) to me, at least. Hopefully you'll agree! The audio archives are all now posted below --- and ad-free, because we love you! Enjoy 'em, or your money back!...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below...]

It's hump day on the Mike Malloy Show, where we're sitting in as guest host all week for the vacation Mike over your public airwaves, on the Internet (streaming links below) and on SiriusXM ch. 127!

Once again tonight, we'll be BradCasting, LIVE from 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the globe from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight (so far):

• DOUG WEAD, Presidential historian, NYTimes best-selling author and Senior Advisor to Ron Paul on the extraordinary attacks (literally) by the GOP establishment against Paul supporters at county and state conventions and on what could turn out to be a very interesting turn of events at this year's Republican National Convention in Tampa! (One that the MSM doesn't seem to be much noticing yet!)
• TRENT LANGE, President of the California Clean Money Campaign, and their effort to curb the effects of big secret money in politics with AB 1648, the California DISCLOSE Act.
• PLUS! Much more, along with your phone calls over your public airwaves at 877-520-1150 and your tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at our Sante Fe affiliate KTRC 1260, or our Minnesota affiliate KTNF 950 (use code 55447 when asked). Also, you should be able to listen live at WhiteRose Society if the radio gods are with us.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: A kinder, gentler show tonight...after last night's eruption... or not. You can decide for yourself with the commercial-free audio archives which are now posted below! I think you'll enjoy them!...

Last night, The Daily Show destroyed --- destroyed --- Florida Gov. Rick Scott and all of his recent voter suppression schemes in the Sunshine State: onerous restrictions on registration, early voting and his recent attempted voter roll purging in a two-part slam. Here's PART 1...

As a bonus in the must-see PART 2 of this piece, wherein correspondent John Oliver travels down to Florida, you'll also get a few moments which highlight Republican mercenary, hack for hire and esteemed "voter fraud" fraudster (and well-paid liar) John Fund for the dangerous mope that he is...

Two of the best lines from the above: 1) Oliver says to Fund after he claims we must stop voter fraud that we don't know is happening but could be happening: "So voter fraud statistics are limited only as much as your imagination?" 2) Oliver's last line of the piece: The alleged voter fraud scourge "hasn't happened, and it won't happen, and that is why it must be stopped!"

For a more serious take on the latest nightmare(s) for voters in Florida, here's my interview from last night on the Malloy Show (which I was guest hosting) with the great Leon County, FL Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho. He notes that between this and the failure of the e-voting system, "we are playing with fire"...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

And if, after listening, you're looking for that "righteous rant" I promised near the end of the above interview, which surprised me as much as anybody, it's in the very first segment of this subsequent final hour of last night's show:

Download MP3 or listen online below...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below!]

Mike's off this week, so we're back as guest host for the nationally-syndicated Mike Malloy Show ever night this week, over your public airwaves, on the Internet (streaming links below) and on SiriusXM ch. 127!

As usual, we'll be BradCasting, LIVE from 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the globe from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight:

• ION SANCHO, Leon County, FL's legendary Supervisor of Elections (the one who was placed in charge of the 2000 Presidential "Recount") on Gov. Rick Scott's latest attempted voter purge, the DoJ challenge against it, new election and registration rules in the Sunshine State and much more that you need to know about in the key swing state before this year's Presidential Election!
• JOHN TOMASIC, journalist for The Colorado Independent on the state's new law which, incredibly, exempts ballots from public records requests, so they are no longer accessible for citizen oversight!
• PLUS! The latest news on a possible recount in the WI recalls, Desi Doyen with the Green News Report and much much more as usual! Along with your phone calls over your public airwaves at 877-520-1150 and your tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at our Sante Fe affiliate KTRC 1260, or our Minnesota affiliate KTNF 950 (use code 55447 when asked). Also, you should be able to listen live at WhiteRose Society if the radio gods are with us.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Today's show includes one seriously righteous rant. I thnk i dang near busted a vessel. But, as you'll see if you listen to the commercial-free archives below, I had little choice. You'll probably enjoy it. (Sickos!) Listen to the entire show now below...and I'll see ya here same Brad Time, same Brad Station tomorrow night!...