Were you too busy last week to keep up with Part 1 and Part 2 of our blockbuster Mother Jones exclusives on the Koch Brothers' super secret (until now) Summer Seminar near Vail., Colorado, and the extraordinary audio we obtained and released, as recording inside of it?

If so, here's your chance to get caught up in one fell swoop!

I've been doing a lot of media interviews this week in support of the stories, all of them quite good. But the conversation with my friend, the great Peter B. Collins, is likely the most definitive, as we had a full, commercial-free hour, to discuss both parts of the story, play a bunch of clips from the "secret" speeches of Charles Koch, David Koch, NJ Gov. Chris Christie and Fox's Judge Andrew Napolitano, as well as discuss the background context and what it all means as we move forward into 2012.

Get caught up on all the key points of the "Secret Koch Tapes" stories by giving the PBC interview a listen over at his joint, or below...

Download MP3 or listen online here...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning
(With additional reporting and snark by Brad Friedman)

Maine's GOP Chairman, Charlie Webster, displayed a remarkable level of ignorance about the right of college students to register and vote in the Pine Tree State during a recent appearance on local radio, weeks after virtually everyone in the state has been trying to explain to him that he is off his nut.

Earlier this summer, Webster raised eyebrows (and more than a few laughs) when he brought the names of some 200 out-of-state college students to the ME Secretary of State, seeking an investigation for "voter fraud."

"I am convinced that my research proves that [voter] fraud is a problem, and I’ve only found the tip of the iceberg," Webster said during a press conference at the State House at the time, though he shared no evidence of any of the students having voted twice, or otherwise having illegally registered.

Webster's "research" began after a petition effort was launched seeking a "voter veto" ballot initiative to reverse a law recently passed by the Republican-led state legislature ending the state's 38-year-old practice of allowing for same-day voter registration. The new Maine law is just one of many new voter suppression efforts enacted by the GOP under the wholly unsupported guise of combating "voter fraud" in states across the nation over the past several months since the GOP took over many statehouses in the 2010 election.

The state's GOP chair has apparently never heard the old axiom about once you're in a hole, stop digging...

A few quick follow-up items, for now, in advance of tomorrow morning's Part 2, from Part 1 of my exclusive secret Koch tapes scoop at Mother Jones this morning which went very viral, very quickly today, as I figured it probably would.

• As I noted in UPDATE to my short stub story this morning linking over to the MoJo article, the Kochs finally decided to respond today, first to Jake Tapper at ABC News, after days of their refusing to give me a response --- even though I pressed them, multiple times in advance, for an explanation of Charles Koch's seeming comparison of "Saddam Hussein" to Barack Obama and the 2012 election as the "Mother of All Wars." See their response, and my response to it, in that UPDATE.

• CNN's Brian Todd did a decent report on the Situation Room today, in which I offer a quick comment...

• After years of appearing on Fox "News" and CNN, it was nice to finally be invited today to appear on MSNBC for the first time. Here's my appearance this evening on The Ed Show...

And just a few more quick points for now...

Those of you who follow The BRAD BLOG closely may know that I've been working in the background, for a number of weeks, on an exclusive series concerning the billionaire Koch Brothers, the co-owners of the nation's second largest private corporation, the oil and chemical conglomerate Koch Industries. They are also massive funders behind much of the Rightwing political disinformation machine. The articles, as I can now reveal, cover audio I've obtained as recorded from inside their super-secret, super-confidential, invitation-only Summer Seminar held in late June at the tony Ritz-Carlton Beaver Creek Resort near Vail, CO (seen above).

Among this year's attendees, in addition to hundreds of corporate baron billionaires and millionaires, were GOP public officials such as current Republican Presidential front-runner Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL).

It appears the brothers went to extraordinary measures, particularly on the first night of the event, to assure that none of the uninvited would ever know what went on inside or even who the first night's keynote speaker actually was.

Nonetheless, a few of their closely guarded secrets are about to spill out.

The first of my two articles in the series is finally published at Mother Jones today.

Part 1 focuses on the opening and closing remarks, as heard on tape, by billionaire brother Charles as he raises still more undisclosed political money and rallies his troops in advance of the 2012 Presidential election --- or "the mother of all wars" as he's heard describing it. On the first night, Charles welcomes his "great partners" to the event, alludes to President Obama as "Saddam Hussein" and proceeds to list --- by name --- those "partners" who have donated more than a million dollars to the Koch Foundation political causes over the past year. So much for the post-Citizens United "anonymity" that Koch exec Kevin Gentry, the emcee for both evening's dinners, informs patrons they can "help protect."

The full audio and text transcript of Charles' opening and closing remarks are posted here.

Today's article also details remarks, several rather noteworthy I think, made by the Kochs' closing night speaker, Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox "News." The Fox host tells the crowd of corporate titans, among other things: how he got his job at Fox (it had to do with the FL 2000 Presidential election debacle, he claims); how he "sometimes" gets in "a little bit of trouble at Fox" when he's too tough on Republicans, and; what he believes the Second Amendment to the Constitution is really for. You'll have to read the article and/or the Napolitano transcript excerpts for the full details.

Finally, today's report at Mother Jones describes some of the extraordinary security measures taken by the Kochs to try and ensure that nobody outside the dinner pavilion at the Beaver Creek Resort in Bachelor Gulch would ever know the identity of the GOP public official who delivered the keynote address on opening night. To this day, neither the official's own constituents nor his own local media seem to have any idea that he'd ever even left the state to pal around with the Kochs, much less offer their opening night's headline address.

In tomorrow's report, we'll reveal the identity of that headliner and detail his stem-winder of a keynote! But for now...

• Part 1 of my exclusive report at Mother Jones...
• Complete audio & transcripts of Charles Koch's opening & closing remarks...
• Transcript excerpts from Judge Andrew Napolitano's closing night speech...

Enjoy!

UPDATE 3:56pm PT: Has been a busy day over her for some reason. CNN's just aired a not-bad story on the above (including a quick appearance by yours truly), and I'll be on MSNBC's The Ed Show tonight, late in the 10p ET / 7p PT hour. Ironically, I've been on Fox and CNN many times in the past. This will be my first appearance ever on MSNBC. Go figure.

After trying for days to get comment from the Koch's on Charles' "We have Saddam Hussein, this is the Mother of All Wars we've got in the next 18 months" remark, they've finally decided to respond now that the story is out and not, um, reflecting very well on them, it seems...

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

While Brad Friedman recently exposed Matthew Vadum to be but the latest in a long line of fraudulent right-wing propagandists who flat-out lie about "voter fraud" as part of the billionaire-funded assault on the right of the those who would be inclined to vote against the GOP, no one could have done more to demolish Vadum's credibility than Matthew Vadum.

"Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote?," asks Vadum in the latest of his series of wingnut welfare op-eds/commercials for his laughable new anti-ACORN book:

In claiming that the poor are but a "burden" on society and that registering the poor to vote is "like handing out burglary tools to criminals," who seek "to help themselves to others money," Vadum not only advanced long-discredited hard-right ideological beliefs but revealed the abhorrence that the billionaire class and its paid-for propagandists have for democracy, itself...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

In an Aug. 29, 2011 letter, T. Christian Herren, Jr., Chief of the Obama DOJ's Civil Rights Division, not only demanded that South Carolina, within 60 days, provide additional information about its recently enacted polling place photo ID restriction law, but stated that if SC failed to provide a timely "response...the [U.S.] Attorney General may object to the proposed changes consistent with the burden of proof placed upon the submitting authority."

Herren noted that SC has the "burden of demonstrating" that the new polling place photo ID law was neither enacted "for a discriminatory purpose nor will have a retrogressive effect."

SC's Republican Attorney General, Alan Wilson, in an apparent recognition that pre-clearance is likely to be denied, told those in attendance at a GOP fundraiser that he had "no faith" that the DOJ "will do the right thing." He vowed to litigate the matter "up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary."

As The BRAD BLOG previously reported, on Aug. 5 the ACLU submitted a 15-page letter to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking a denial of pre-clearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of South Carolina’s polling place photo ID restriction law. The letter argues that proponents’ unsubstantiated claims of "voter fraud" were but a pretext for unlawful discrimination and that statistics suggest that the new law would operate as an illegal poll tax, especially for the disproportionate number of African Americans who live below the federal poverty level in the state.

Last Friday, SC's Senate Democrats weighed in as well, asking the DOJ to deny pre-clearance for what they contend is the nation's harshest polling place ID restrictions, which could potentially disenfranchise, for example, someone whose driver's license has been suspended.

While denial of pre-clearance due to the retrogressive effect of photo ID restrictions in SC would be a positive step, it will not serve to protect democracy and the sanctity of the vote in other jurisdictions not subject to pre-clearance under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

As described by John Nichols in The Nation (see video below), and again by Ari Berman in Rolling Stone --- as we detailed yesterday --- state-after-state across the nation has come under a well-coordinated assault by the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and GOP legislators bent on rigging electoral outcome as part of their war on the middle class...

I was joined today by The Nation's Ari Berman on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show to discuss his new article today in Rolling Stone on "The GOP War on Voting". See my report on his article from earlier in the day right here.

This was an important discussion about an important article about one of the most important issues to directly effect the outcome of virtually every election in the nation in 2012. None of that, apparently, given what the rest of the MSM decided to cover today, is any where near as important as whether John Boehner will allow the President to speak to a joint session of Congress on Sept 7th or or whether it'll have to be on Sept 8th, and whether Christine O'Donnell or Sarah Palin will appear at a "Tea Party" event this weekend in Iowa.

And you wonder why we're in the mess we're in.

My conversation on "The GOP War on Voting" with Ari Berman today follows...

Download MP3 or listen online here [appx 27 mins]...

[NOTE: Ari Berman, author of the article discussed below, joined me on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show today. That interview is now posted here. - BF]

While readers of The BRAD BLOG may be familiar with many of the items covered in Ari Berman's fine new article "The GOP War on Voting" at Rolling Stone today (and in its Sept 15, 2011 issue on newsstands), it's great to have a summary of all of the latest state-based assaults on voting rights instituted to date, in the wake of last year's Republican wave election, all in one place.

Berman covers all of these and more in his piece on the "unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008," described by one civil rights advocate as "the most significant setback to voting rights in this country in a century"...

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

The League of Women Voters in Wisconsin announced it will file a lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court charging that the Badger State's newly-enacted polling place photo ID restriction law violates the state's Constitution.

From a strictly legal perspective, the decision by the League's attorney Lester Pines to challenge the new photo ID law pursuant to the state's Constitution is significant.

Under Equal Protection analysis, any impartial jurist would readily understand that the statute does not meet the heightened scrutiny that accompanies the fact that, under the WI Constitution, voting is deemed a "fundamental right."

While certain exclusions are allowed in the Constitution, such as laws which exclude felons or those whom the state deems "mentally incompetent," the language explicitly notes that "every United States citizen age 18 or older who is a resident" of Wisconsin may cast a vote.

But therein lies the rub. Absent the removal of Justice David Prosser in connection with the allegations that he choked Justice Ann Walsh-Bradley, as is currently being investigated by a special prosecutor, the League's constitutional challenge will run smack dab into a WI Supreme Court that sports a 4-3 majority of partisan ideologues in robes...

See ThinkProgress for more detail on this, but I just wanted to flag this moment as I find it exceedingly creepy, and suspect this is more often than not the way these things happen. The quick handshake, wink, nod and walk away --- Bank of America, in the form of a top national executive, pledges the corporation's fealty to a Presidential candidate.

No need to discuss what the quid pro quo will be. No need for Perry to even acknowledge it out loud. It's just a 5 second investment by BofA almost certain to pay off should Perry be victorious. Really creepy...

But, ya know, what's the big deal? As Gov. Rick Perry's current main competitor for the GOP Presidential nomination, Gov. Mitt Romney explained recently, "Corporations are people, my friend."

The Jones County, Mississippi, slogan is "A Great Place to Live." While this may or may not be true, and I've never been there, it's clearly not a great place to vote. At least if voting in a way that is verifiably accurate for the citizenry is something one might care about. A remarkable statement by the county's Circuit Clerk, and a unanimous decision in support of it by the County's Board of Supervisors this week, has made that as clear as can be.

You may recall that just last week, e-voting system failures --- such as e-voting machines that wouldn't start up at all and votes that were counted twice --- led to chaos and uncertain results in Mississippi's state primaries, leading one official to declare days afterward, as they were all struggling to sort out results of several close elections: "At this point there is no election...Everyone is baffled."

Against that backdrop then, behold what Jones County, MS, Circuit Clerk Bart Gavin is now calling for --- and receiving unanimous approval from the Jones County Board of Supervisors for(!) --- as irresponsibly reported without even a hint of fact-checking by Laurel Leader-Call reporter Charlotte Graham under the laughably misleading headline, "Improving the voting process" [emphasis added]...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Yesterday, The Post & Courier of Charleston, South Carolina reported that a local "Council of Governments [COG] approved a resolution...asking for the state to audit how its voting machines are working."

The "machines" are the 100% unverifiable ES&S iVotronic touch-screen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems.

The Post & Courier not only mentions the fact that state election officials insist that the "iVotronic machines reliably tally votes," but buys into the canard that "increased skepticism" is based upon [emphasis added] "human errors made during last year's elections." It adds that the COG resolution expressed "a concern [that the] voting machines...do not incorporate a 'paper trail' that could facilitate unequivocal confirmation of election results."

If there is any state in the nation that should realize that casting a vote on the ES&S iVotronic amounts to an exercise in blind-faith, with or without a so-called "Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail" (VVPAT), it would be South Carolina...

I'm not sure what's more obnoxious, the way the Republican Party itself ignores and belittles their own 2012 Presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul --- who reportedly finished a very close second to Rep. Michele Bachmann, who is receiving tons of attention, in the hopelessly gamed Iowa Straw Poll over the weekend --- or the way the mainstream corporate media ignores and belittles him.

I suppose if Paul wasn't belittled by these jerks he'd get no media attention whatsoever.

No matter your personal or political feelings about Paul, the way he is treated by the establishment elite, the way they, not voters determine who will or won't be a "viable" candidate, is appalling in my opinion.

Jon Stewart, appropriately, let 'em all have it for that last night, asking incredulously: "How did libertarian Ron Paul become the 13th floor in a hotel?!"...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Neither the recent claim made by anonymous hacker, Abhaxas, that he/she had hacked into Florida's e-voting database nor the efforts by FL election officials to minimize the breach of its system comes as a surprise to The BRAD BLOG.

In fact, minimization of the vulnerability following the reported hack calls to mind what Roger G. Johnston, Ph.D of the Argonne National Laboratory describes as the Arrogance Maxim:

One would think that Abhaxas had Johnson's Arrogance Maxim in mind. As reported by Doug Chapin of the University of MN, the anonymous hacktivist responded to the official denials by hacking into the FL voting system a second time; posting "a directory listing of the Florida database with the (sarcastic) observation 'Glad you cleaned up, pretty secure now guys'."

As an encore, Abhaxas then hacked into Montana's government website, where he/she exposed 16 databases.

While Chapin acknowledges the vulnerability exposed by the hack, once again, as is his habit over the years, Chapin draws the entirely wrong lessons in pointing to the need for better training and security procedures...

So, this guy is the front-runner for the 2012 Republican nomination for President of the United States?...

TPM has more context, etc., and you can decide for yourself whether Romney was echoing the absurd Citizens United line there (that corporations are Constitutionally entitled to the same rights as human beings), or whether he was trying to say that what is good for corporations is good for the people who own and/or benefit from them.

But what strikes me is that Romney appears quite flustered and weak in that exchange. The entire tussle, with a few hecklers at the Iowa State Fair serves to make him appear profoundly unPresidential, when appearing Presidential is one of the few things he can be good at...at times. Perhaps Mittens oughta stay away from state fairs...and campaign appearances where actual people get to ask questions and stuff...for a while.

One thing is for certain though. Fairly or unfairly, that comment is likely to haunt him for a long time to come. I suspect it will become a landmark moment in Romney's political trajectory frankly. That view seems to be shared by both Rachel Maddow, who points out this isn't the first such awkward campaign appearance by Mitt, and by Stephen Colbert as well, who says Romney's "historic" statement yesterday makes him "this generations civil rights champion --- a Dr. Martin Luther, Inc., if you will." (Videos of their takes below.)

Nonetheless, for the moment, even after last night's very lively and entertaining Iowa GOP Debate on Fox "News" (a few, if not all, of the high/lowlights of what TPM describes as 'GOP Fight Night' here), Mitt still remains the man to beat --- though that's not saying much, given the current Republican field a full 15 months away from next year's Presidential election.

Maddow and Colbert video takes on Romney's "Corporations are people, my friend" comment follow...