NOTE FROM BRAD: On August 28, 2005, I was the first in the national media to interview U.S. Army Specialist Tomas Young at "Camp Casey" in Crawford, TX. He and his then wife Brie had come down from Kansas City on their honeymoon to support Cindy Sheehan, the "Gold Star Mom" who was famously demanding a meeting with George W. Bush. Tomas' unarmored vehicle had been ambushed in Sadr City, Iraq on the same day that Sheehan's son Casey was killed in the same city. The attack left Tomas paralyzed from the chest down.

Some years later, Tomas' story would be told on 60 Minutes, and then in a heart-wrenching 2007 documentary film, Body of War, by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro. (My interview on the ground at "Camp Casey" with Tomas and Brie is seen briefly in both. The full audio of my interview with them is posted in full at the bottom of this article, after Tomas' letter.)

The following open letter, which Tomas says is his "last", was originally published this week at TruthDig and republished in full here with their permission.

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all-the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans-my fellow veterans-whose future you stole...

Today on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show --- after breaking the news about the newly elected Pope --- I interviewed Eugene Iredale, attorney of the former San Diego ACORN worker Juan Carlos Vera who received a $100,000 settlement from Rightwing con-artist James O'Keefe last week. (Vera also received $50,000 from O'Keefe's former partner Hannah Giles in a separate settlement last summer.)

Vera's California Invasion of Privacy Act lawsuit, filed in 2010, stemmed from O'Keefe and Giles' surreptitious wiretapping of a "confidential" conversation with Vera. The conversation (during which Vera played along to learn about the duo's pretend plot to smuggle underage prostitutes into the country, so he could turn them in to law enforcement) was then deceptively edited for misleading use in the infamous ACORN "pimp" hoax tapes published by Andrew Breitbart and blatantly misreported by New York Times, et al.

Iredale discussed O'Keefe's illegalities at the center of the suit; why other ACORN workers hadn't similarly sued the three con-artists; why Breitbart was not included in Vera's suit; why he didn't also sue for defamation; whether these settlements can be seen as a "victory"; and much more.

In the second part of today's BradCast, I offered my opinion ranted a bit on Justice Antonin Scalia's obnoxious, not-conservative, not-constitutionalist, activist attempt to legislate from the bench on the landmark Voting Rights Act during a recent Supreme Court hearing on the Act's important and ground-breaking Section 5 provision...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

P.S. I invited O'Keefe to join today's show to offer his side of the story (live and not deceptively edited), but last night he seems to have decided he didn't "have the guts" to show up.

I'm prepping for my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show today, when I'll be joined by Eugene Iredale, the attorney for former San Diego ACORN worker Juan Carlos Vera who won a $100,000 settlement from federal criminal and professional liar James O'Keefe last week in an invasion of privacy lawsuit (and a $50,000 settlement from O'Keefe's former partner Hannah Giles last summer). You can listen live at 6pm ET / 3pm PT right here. [Update: Here's the interview...].

We will not be joined as well by O'Keefe himself, unfortunately, despite my invitations to him after his 'I'm the victim here!' tweets last week when news of the settlement broke. He had described media coverage of the settlement agreement as "lies and lies and more lies from journafascists" and attempted to taunt the media to "have the guts" to allow him to tell his side of the story. We took him up on that offer and invited him to appear on The BradCast today, live! Which is impossible to deceptively edit! (You're welcome, Jimmy!) But until late last night he didn't "have the guts" to even respond to my generous invitation.

After a second invite last night, however, I finally heard back from him...

The folks at Current TV's Viewpoint tell me host (and pal) John Fugelsang featured one of my Rand Paul-related tweets on the air Thursday night.

But more importantly, the point of that tweet seems to have made it into the heart of Fugelsang's rather brilliant --- and rhyming! --- Rand rant that same night. He stands with Rand...but not all of his plan...man...

The good folks at Right About Now have decided to immortalize a quote from this September, 2009 op-ed of mine detailing my call for pilot projects around the country to develop much-needed data and benchmarks for what we describe around here as "Democracy's Gold Standard": Hand-marked paper ballots, publicly counted by hand at the precinct on Election Night, with the public, all political parties and even video cameras rolling, and results posted at the precinct before ballots are moved anywhere...

You can click on the cool graphic to enlarge it if you have any trouble reading it. And, about that quote, I totally agree!

Unfortunately, the supposedly "non-partisan" commission being convened [PDF] at the behest of the President --- and being co-chaired by an incredibly partisan former "Swift Boat" GOP operative --- in order to "fix" some of the problems which reared their ugly heads again during the 2012 election, such as long lines, difficulty in registration or casting overseas absentees ballots, is not currently set to review the extraordinary problems (here's just one recent example) that our nation has with vote tabulation in this country, much less explore the need for fully public, fully transparent, fully citizen-overseeable election result tabulation in a nation that supposedly prides itself on government of the people, by the people and for the people.

On today's KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast we covered the State of the Union Address last night, with extended focus on the President's call for election form and his new "Presidential Commission on Election Administration" [PDF], to be questionably co-chaired by Swift Boat GOP attorney Ben Ginsberg. As we noted yesterday, color us dubious about all of that.

My guest in the first half-hour was Marcia Johnson-Blanco, Co-Director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and we also discussed their recent report on "Our Broken Voting Systems And How to Repair It", as well as the upcoming February 27th U.S. Supreme Court hearing in Shelby County v. Holder, challenging the Constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act's Section 5 protection of jurisdictions with a history of discrimination at the voting booth.

Suffice to say, she was more optimistic about all of the above than I was.

In most of the second half of the show, we focused on the many environmental issues raised in Obama's State of the Union with the Green News Report's Desi Doyen. I'm not sure who was more (or less) optimistic in that half of the show.

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

THIS) UC Irvine election law professor and nationally recognized expert Rick Hasen links today to our exclusive special report from Monday which called out the Fresno County, CA Registrar of Voters for illegally overcharging for the citizen-attempted oversight "recount" of last November's Prop 37 initiative (which would have required Genetically Modified Foods to be labeled as such.) As we reported in that investigative report, her actions effectively stopped the attempted "recount" dead in its tracks, highlighted the possibilities for abuse by a single election official and the county-by-county disparities in "recount" pricing.

Our report also puts the lie to the notion that paper ballots, secretly-tabulated by computers, are just fine because if there are any concerns about the results of elections, we can always just count them by hand later. As our report detailed: no, we can't.

When linking to our report today, Hasen added: "This calls for a legislative response." Of course, we concur and thank the professor for noticing.

THAT) We'll be discussing that report today on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast at 3pm PT, when I'll be joined by Tom Courbat, who helped lead the attempted Prop 37 "recount", and Dr. John Maa who helped advise the effort after he, himself, requested and paid for the first statewide initiative "recount" ever after last June's failed Prop 29 initiative (which would have added a $1-per-pack cigarette tax to fund cancer research). Unfortunately, Fresno's Registrar Brandi Orth declined my invitation to join us on the show today to explain her position, while CA Sec. of State Debra Bowen's office has so far failed to respond at all to several invitations to do so. I'll hope that changes between now and showtime. You can listen LIVE from 3p to 4p PT right here.

THE OTHER THING) I'd been so busy over the past week or three working on that report that I haven't really had much opportunity to enjoy the fact that The BRAD BLOG is now, officially, in our tenth year of trouble-making and muckraking. I was, however, able to take some time to discuss it, and reminisce a bit, with our friend Angie Coiro of In Deep Radio up in San Francisco. You can listen to that interview right here. Long-time BRAD BLOGGERS may particularly enjoy it.

Relatedly, though I made a fairly impassioned pitch for support of The BRAD BLOG in my 9th Anniversary posting, and offered a very cool premium for those who may wish to purchase it, I've had astoundingly few folks willing to contribute or purchase the premium. Given the thousands who read this site every day, it's disappointing to be able to count those who have answered my plea on two hands.

If you've gotten anything of value from this site over the years, please consider supporting us with a donation, so we can try to make it through year number 10. We are truly reader supporter (that means you), and do not rely on foundational or corporate support. You are the only thing that gives us a chance to keep going. Please consider donating a little something, if you can.

I am extremely proud that The BRAD BLOG is now a part of Pacifica Radio's nearly 65-year legacy, as highlighted in the new, very cool video above.

My own show, The BradCast, airs on Pacifica's Los Angeles affiliate, KPFK 90.7 FM on Wednesdays at 3pm PT, and it's an honor that our broadcasts are now part of Pacifica's long and crucial legacy of broadcasting in the public interest over our public airwaves.

Archives of the The BradCast are available at KPFK here, or via RSS feed, and even on both the Stitcher Radio and TuneIn apps on your favorite smart device.

You can peruse and help preserve Pacifica's incredibly rich and historical audio archives at PacificaRadioArchives.org

Yesterday, a Virginia State Senate committee killed a GOP plan to completely revamp the state's "winner-take-all" electoral vote system despite a last minute change to the bill by its sponsor in hopes of making it more palatable. The original scheme would have awarded electoral votes by Congressional district instead of "winner-take-all". Had that plan been in place in 2012, Mitt Romney would have been awarded 9 electoral votes to Obama's 4, despite the President winning the popular vote in the state by some 150,000 votes and being awarded all 13 of the VA's electoral votes.

The bill's author, Republican Sen. Charles W. "Bill" Carrico, tweaked the bill at the last minute, so that electoral votes would be awarded proportionally, based on the popular vote, rather than by Congressional district. It didn't help. The scheme was defeated in committee by a bi-partisan vote of 11 to 4.

Before that scheme was killed in the VA Senate on Tuesday, I appeared on The David Pakman Show, via Skype, to discuss that and related issues, including the impending U.S. Supreme Court threat to the very important Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act...

Once again, I had the privilege of guest co-hosting The Young Turks live streaming show on Thursday, alongside fellow guest co-hosts, John Iadorola, host of TYT University and The Common Room on The TYT Network, and Lissette Padilla of 'On the Street' interviews from The Lip.TV.

From last week's Senate filibuster FAIL to some important new green news (U.N. mercury treaty, new BPA finding) to women in combat to the latest bizarre naked-masterbating-pooping-vaccuum-cleaner-assaulting-drug-addicted home intruder crime story out of Florida, among other things. We covered quite a few hot topics. A few of the short video clips on those stories and others from Thursday's show are now posted below. Enjoy!...

(P.S. I'll be back in to guest host this coming Thursday as well! You can watch that full stream LIVE as it happens, from 10pm-11pm ET, on YouTube here.)

On today's BradCast on Pacifica Radio's KPFK here in Los Angeles, we focused on the climate remarks in President Obama's Second Inaugural address which, frankly, seem to have stunned even the most seasoned environmental reporters.

We were joined by Bill Clinton's former acting Assistant Secretary of Energy Joe Romm, who is now the editor of the indispensable ClimateProgress.org and author of Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga.

We discussed, among other issues, Romm's encouraging speculation on whether or not Obama and the State Dept. (with John Kerry as its likely new head) will approve the Keystone XL pipeline or not, and what the horrifying consequences are likely to be if they do.

That, and much more (including a bit of other news, some great listener phone calls and the Green News Report's Desi Doyen), all follow.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

P.S. Remember, I don't post all of the BradCasts here. But you can subscribe to the RSS feed here, or listen to the archive anytime on your mobile device with either the Stitcher Radio app or the TuneIn app, both of which carry the show.

P.S.S. Also still interested in creating a logo for The BradCast. So if you got logo-makin' chops and wanna give it a crack, drop me a line!

On today's The BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio here in Los Angeles, we dealt with, what, if anything, will now be done in the wake of the latest mass shootings in Newtown, CT, and if the lies and propaganda and bullying of the NRA will finally be overcome --- or not.

We covered this morning's announcement that President Obama is naming Vice President Biden to head a task force with recommendations for new gun safety regulations due by January; the fact that the vast majority of NRA members call for many such regulations (even as their con-men leadership do not); and whether this moment --- and the change in positions by people like Republican Joe Scarborough and maybe even the NRA themselves) might finally become a tipping point in returning sanity to our out of control gun laws, or lack thereof, in this country.

Desi Doyen joins us for a brief history of how the NRA changed in 1977 from a 100-year old gun safety organization, to a Republican political operation, as well as for the latest Green News Report.

Plus, we got to a lot of phone callers with opinions on all of this, including an NRA member who says he'll be quitting the group; an NRA instructor who says we're absolutely right about what the NRA has become; a caller disagrees that any more gun laws are needed, because it would "allow the wolf in the door", or some such; and even a surprise call from our pal, the great progressive trouble-maker Cliff Schecter. Enjoy!

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

P.S. The BradCast is now carried on the free TuneIn mobile app as well as on the Stitcher Radio app. It's also available via RSS here --- since we don't always get around to posting every episode ourselves here.

Offered today as a brief respite, of sorts, from the all-too-real events of the last several days...

I had great fun as a panelist, once again, on The Young Turks' show, The Point early last week. My fellow panelists included the hilarious and whip-smart comedian Lee Camp, broadcaster Mark Thompson, and TYT co-host Ana Kasparian, with an assist from video contributors Thom Hartmann and Naomi Klein.

We taped the discussion on 12/12/12, prior to the horrific events in Newtown, CT. Obviously, the topics we covered weren't nearly as serious (unless you consider the coming apocalypse to be serious). We discuss the Mayan Apocalypse Myth, over-population, 'disaster progressivism', and the myriad ways the world could end, both real and imagined ... and of course, the famous Doomsday Preppers of history. From Lee's 'obesity exchange program' to 'redneck paradise', we also dissect whether it's "politicizing tragedy" or "learning from experience" by responding, politically, to tragic events like Hurricane Sandy and the Aurora movie theater shooting (about :30 mins in).

Please 'like' it and share it among your peeps and tweeps! And please feel free to share your thoughts and how you'll be celebrating 'Apocalypse Day' on Dec. 21st in comments below...

There's a reason why most Republican wingnuts don't venture outside of the safe confines of Fox "News" or other venues where they won't have to face actual, reality-based information and questions from outside of their comfortable, fact-free bubble.

My conversation on air Thursday with RW "voter fraud" fraudster, commie-hunter, and fact-challenged Fox fave David Horowitz illustrated that point with crystal clarity once again. The result wasn't pretty. At least for him.

When asked for actual facts to back up his extraordinary claims about "Democratic voter fraud" --- specifically, that caretakers at his brother-in-law's residential care facility "committed fraud" by helping the brother-in-law, and purportedly sixty others at the home, to vote --- Horowitz had nothing.

He was, however, able to call me a "communist wanna be", a "liar" and an "extreme partisan" for having displayed the temerity to ask him for such facts. He was even able to pile on top of all of that by claiming (falsely) that I'd called him all sorts of names and even that I had accused him of committing fraud!

That's why these guys don't leave the Fox Fantasy World bubble.

As I say, it wasn't pretty. But the audio of yesterday's radio "interview", and the background on what happened, all follows below. I think you may enjoy it...

On my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show today we covered quite a bit of ground.

From Republican admissions about the most obvious story in the world (that the Florida GOP was attempting to suppress the vote this year), to the debate over filibuster reform in the U.S. Senate, and whether it should be mended, ended, or none of the above, with David Swanson (his vote: end it!), to the latest Green News Report and a remarkable piece of audio tape from a (now former?) Bill O'Reilly fan who saw the new documentary Chasing Ice and is pissed that she's been so misled by O'Reilly and Fox "News" about climate change for so many years...

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