Late last week, AOL News asked me to contribute an op-ed for their Election Eve coverage. That op-ed, which they've headlined "Cast Your Ballot Against Electronic Voting", is now posted here...

The upshot of its argument: If Republicans are set to take over the U.S. House, as predicted, and if they've suddenly found religion in regard to the dangers of electronic voting, as they seem to be asserting in North Carolina, in Nevada and in Texas, then it'll soon be their turn to take legislative action to once and for all ban the horrific, anti-democratic (small "d"), 100% unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems plaguing our nation before they are again used to pervert results of the 2012 Presidential Election --- just as they have every year since they've been introduced into our electoral system (by a majority Republican Congress, by the way, in 2002.)

Please check it out and leave some nice (or not so nice) comments there, as you see fit. Lot's of disinformed bumpkins seem to currently be weighing in. Please free to straighten them out. Politely.

Other pieces I've contributed elsewhere of late, in advance of tomorrow's election:
• For Salon: "The Faith-Based Vote"
• For Truthout: "Hacking Harry Reid (or, Sharron's Angle)"

As you might imagine this time of year, I've been doing a lot of media appearances around the country to discuss this year's elections. Most have been in regard to the failed e-voting systems used in early voting and on Election Day tomorrow. But NY's WBAI ran an excellent piece this morning, on which I appeared, to discuss the ongoing disaster that is the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision asserting, again, that corporations are the same as "people" and thus deserve the "free speech" right to spend as much as they want to affect the outcomes of U.S. elections.

My contribution to the segment is heard near the beginning, in the background description of what the case was, what it means, and what has happened since it was decided last January. A lot of interesting discussion follows thereafter.

Download MP3 (appx 40 mins), or listen online below...

• Ernest Hancock covered the Citizens United decision at The BRAD BLOG here...
• I wrote a piece on the same case, "The End of Democracy", for Hustler here...
• Velvet Revolution's StopTheChamber.org campaign has been trying for highlight concerns for nearly a year about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who is, perhaps, the number one recipient of millions in undisclosed corporate funds as now being spent to influence elections around the country this year --- in support of Republicans by a factor of 7 to 1, by the way --- in the wake of Citizens United. [Disclosure: The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VR.]

Please check out my new piece I filed today at Slate headlined "The Faith-Based Vote." As it's not necessarily about what some may think, I'll note their sub-title: "In many of Tuesday's closes races, states will use those same old, suspect voting machines."

The article details the 100% unverifiable voting systems which will be used to report the "winners" and "losers" of some of the closest and most-watched elections across the country next Tuesday.

Please feel free to leave comments there, Tweet it, Reddit it, Digg it, share it on Facebook and otherwise help them to feel good about carrying more such coverage. Thanks!

UPDATE 10/28/10: Dan Rather describes my Slate piece as "Fascinating (and scary)". Thank you, sir. And for your own similarly fascinating and scary work on these same issues.

After reports of ES&S touch-screen votes flipping away from Republicans, for a change, over the last several days in North Carolina and in Texas, reports are now coming in from Nevada about similar occurrences on that state's Sequoia touch-screens, just in time to underscore the importance of my story published today at Truthout, "Hacking Harry Reid (or Sharron's Angle)" arguing that one or both of the candidates locked in the Silver State Senate Standoff need to get to a court immediately, even though neither of them are likely to do so.

First, the reports of touch-screen troubles today in NV (which closely mirror the scores of reports in the same state that I detailed exclusively in 2008 as affecting Obama and the Democrats during early voting). This time, however, it's Republican voters charging trouble with touch-screens...

I'm no good at raising money for The BRAD BLOG - so let's see if I have any better luck helping out progressive filmmaker John Wellington Ennis to complete his newest documentary, Pay 2 Play: Democracy's High Stakes, covering the Supreme Court's Citizens United disaster and other related bastardizations of our democracy by the highest corporate bidder.

As his website describes the new film: "The cost of running for office makes candidates beg, borrow, and steal. PAY 2 PLAY shows how our elections encourage extortion, and how to stop it."

John is also the director of 2008's high-lariously informative Free For All: One Dude's Quest to Save Democracy (which features yours truly, but is brilliant nonetheless!)

Unfortunately, progressives are not shoveled barrels of free money as partisan scammers Andrew Breitbart, James O'Keefe, and the other liars and snake-oil salesmen on the Right are. Progressives actually have to beg for funds and then produce actual, truthful material in the bargain! That takes time, effort, and funding. So it's gonna take money to get money out of our politics once and for all! Please help. Ennis is doing his part, big time, so please help him out to finish the film if you can afford to toss in a few dollars!

If you need any more convincing, here's a slightly shortened version of an appearance I made at one of his fundraisers in Santa Monica last week [apologies for the echoey sound, it gets easier to see and hear as it goes forward!]...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives...]

We're back tonight to close out the week, filling in as guest-host on the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show, and it will be a helluva show (see details below!)

We'll be BradCasting LIVE, as usual, from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 9pm-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT). Please you'll join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! The LIVE chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG during the show, so come on by 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.)

So far scheduled for tonight's show...

• LIZZ WINSTEAD, Comedy Central's The Daily Show co-creator and former Air America host joins us to dish dirt on the upcoming 10/30/10 Stewart/Colbert D.C. Rallies, backstage at 'The Daily,' our insane election season, and maybe even "what happened in Vegas"...
• DR. DAVID JEFFERSON, Livermore National Laboratories computer scientist and cyber security expert and VerifiedVoting.org's Internet Voting expert with NEW UNREPORTED BOMBSHELLS on the already breath-taking D.C. Internet Vote Hack that we learned about earlier this week. Seriously. NEW BOMBSHELLS. Ds, Rs and everyone else should tune in for this. For rils.
• JOHN WELLINGTON ENNIS on his new documentary, Pay 2 Play: Democracy's High Stakes covering the Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United ruling and it's effect on "democracy."
• PLUS: News on Ann Coulter's voter fraud, how you think I should vote in November, and whatever else we all feel like covering from today's news with your calls at 877-520-1150 and tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates around the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.

Click here to jump into our LIVE Chat Room during the show. Or just see below!...

POST-SHOW UPDATE: The audio archives are all now posted below (and the chat room archives are posted below that, if your interested.) If you listen to nothing else, listen to the first hour, cuz it should rock the world of every American. Big time. (But the other hours were pretty good too, for completely different reasons). Enjoy!...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives...]

I'll be guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show tonight (and again tomorrow), and again we'll be BradCasting LIVE from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 9pm-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT). Please join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in!

The LIVE chat room, as ever, will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG during the show, so come on by 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.)

So far scheduled for tonight's show...

• VAN JONES, Former White House adviser on green jobs initiatives, award-winning environmentalist and human rights advocate and now American Progress Senior Fellow, on where those WH initiatives and Congressional climate and clean energy legislation now stand (or don't) in D.C.
• LAIRD MONAHAN, who walked across the U.S. with his brother and fellow Vietnam vet Robin to spotlight concerns about the Supreme Court's horrific Citizens United ruling allowing unregulated (and undisclosed) corporate campaign dollars in U.S. elections.
• ALLEN ST. PIERRE, Executive Director of NORML, on California's Prop 19 which, if passed in November, would regulate and largely legalize the sale and possession of marijuana in the state.
• PLUS: The D.C. Internet Vote hack, Ann Coulter's voter fraud, James O'Keefe's latest con and whatever else we all feel like covering from today's news with your calls at 877-520-1150 and tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates around the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.

Click here to jump into our LIVE Chat Room during the show. Or just see below!...

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Lots of good stuff on the show tonight, I think. You'll let me know, as usual. The audio archives are all now posted below (and the chat room archives are posted below that, if your interested.) Enjoy! I know I did!...

If you're anywhere near the L.A. area, I'd be delighted if you came by to say hello this Sunday at the 9th Annual West Hollywood Book Fair.

I'll be on a panel discussing "The Death & Life of American Journalism," along with fellow journalists Jason Leopold, Marc Cooper, Bill Carter, and Kathleen Sharp. I'm told I'll be able to sign DVDs of Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story afterward.

It should be an interesting and lively discussion, as moderated by Jason, and as described this way on the WHBF's website:

Our panel is 2:00pm - 3:00pm at the fair's "Current Events & Hot Topics Pavilion" in West Hollywood Park, 647 N. San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA. The event is FREE, there's lots of other stuff going on there as well, and you can get more info here...

Hope you can make it by!

During my weekly gig this afternoon from 3-4p PT (6p-7p ET) on L.A.'s Pacifica Radio affiliate KPFK with Harrison, I'll be interviewing Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org about the "massive improprieties" she's been uncovering from the Shelby County (Memphis), TN, August 5th election. We detailed some of the alarming points coming out of that election, where ten candidates have now filed suit, a few weeks ago here, and Harris has a more recent update --- including on the "3,221 more votes than voters" discovered "in large Republican precincts" --- now posted here.

We'll also be discussing other recent Assaults on Democracy (see my piece earlier today for example). So I hope you'll tune in and/or call in!

KPFK is heard on air at 90.7 FM in L.A., on 98.7 FM in Santa Barbara and coast-to-coast and around the globe via KPFK.org where there are more live streaming options for ya. The call-in number is: 310-737-TALK.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Some disturbing information on the Memphis Mess from Harris on the show today. And a bit of an exclusive about the FAIL of one of the excuses given by Shelby County officials for the reason that thousands of voters were turned away from the polls, having been told they already voted (when they hadn't). That, and more on the GOP's freshly cranked up War on Voting.

I've edited out the news and traffic and other breaks for ya, to make it easier and quickier to listen to the bulk of the main content. Enjoy.

Download MP3, or listen online below [appx 28 mins]...

Beginning this afternoon I'll be sitting in with Harrison on Los Angeles' commercial-free Pacifica Radio affiliate KPFK on Wednesday afternoons from 3p to 4p PT (6p to 7p ET). I'll be in-studio with him most weeks for an hour of trouble-making and muck-raking and hope you'll tune in! We've got alotta muck to rake.

He's a busy guy, which you'll find out via his "Go Harrison!" website where you can also get a live streaming feed for the show.

KPFK is heard on air at 90.7 FM in the big L.A. market, on 98.7 FM in Santa Barbara and coast-to-coast and around the globe via KPFK.org where there are more live streaming options for ya. The call-in number is: 310-737-TALK. Feel free to give us a shout!

UPDATE 9/16/10: Here's the audio from my first outing with Harrison on KPFK yesterday.

MP3 Download or listen online below [appx 54 mins]...

Also, here's my appearance with Nicole Sandler on Radio Or Not this morning, in which we were able to focus on many more of the e-voting issues than we were able to get to on KPFK yesterday (as per Ernie's request).

MP3 Download or listen online below [appx 30 mins]...

New York's WBAI Evening News tracked me down while I was on the road in the sweltering wilds of SE Texas yesterday to discuss the story of the Rightwing cabal which had been revealed as having secretly and systematically worked to kill/bury/down-vote links to stories from The BRAD BLOG and other non-wingnut news sites before they could reach the front pages of major social aggregator networks like DIGG. See our coverage of this from Thursday.

One point I was able to make during the WBAI interview, which I didn't in the quick Thursday article, is that this episode illustrates, yet again, that even these Rightwingers recognize their own ideas are so weak they can't stand up to legitimate scrutiny on their own. The system must be gamed in hopes of giving them an edge in the public arena.

Moreover, if the Right is willing to sabotage social networking sites and willing to publish faked videos (see their ACORN "Pimp" Hoax videos, Shirley Sherrod video, etc.) in dishonest hopes of scoring political points, then why wouldn't they be similarly willing to steal elections whenever/however possible? That is, after all, the greatest prize and it's all for a greater purpose, right?

My interview on WBAI Evening News follows below. (My thanks to WBAI political reporter Rebecca Myles for sending me the audio while I was otherwise on the road and largely off the grid all day yesterday.)

MP3 Download or listen online below [appx. 8.5 mins]...

P.S. In a related note, Dave Johnson at "Seeing the Forest" reminds me that he pointed out last year how the same concerted Rightwing effort seems to go into gaming material at Wikipedia. I can also attest to that first-hand, as I've seen the "Brad Friedman" article over there defanged, tagged and even targeted for deletion by the same Right-leaning Wiki-administrator over and again throughout the years.

P.P.S. Billy Dennis, the "Peoria Pundit," picked up on our Thursday article, and offers some additional thoughts, along with this one at the end which I think is meant as a compliment :

We've largely been on the road, East-Bound and Down, from sweltering Vegas to sweltering Texas since last weekend's progressive "Netroots Nation" conference in Sin City, so haven't had much time to offer reflection and/or color beyond our post after the first day last week, including our interview with Markos Moulitsas and attempted interview with GOP "voter fraud" deceptionist John Fund.

So allow me to associate myself with the Jeanne "AKMukraker" Devon's fairly comprehensive coverage, which includes some great photos (several of yours truly, but other than that…), videos, charts and speeches of note from the three-day gathering of progressive bloggers and journalists. As Jeanne, she of the great Alaska blog The Mudflats was largely responsible for tricking me into, talking me into, convincing me to stop by the conference --- as I've never gotten to one of these Progressive Confabs in years past --- it's only appropriate I should send you back her way for her fish-out-of-water (Alaskan Salmon out of Prince William Sound?) overview, which includes not only a plastic moose and convincingly real cleavage, but also pink phalluses, Amy Goodman, Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Al Franken and my new BFF Lizz Winstead…not necessarily in order of importance…

And, and here's one photo Jeanne didn't include in her post for some reason --- featuring (from left) Alaskan blogger and radio talker Shannyn Moore, Truthout reporter/editor Jason Leopold, and Jeanne herself --- though I tweeted it as it happened late one night, titling it appropriately enough: "Three Sheets to The Rio"....

-- Brad Friedman, from "Netroots Nation" in Las Vegas...

They keep pulling me back in. Had planned some travel and time off beginning this week, but the good Jeanne Devon (aka "AKMuckraker" of The Mudflats) tricked me into talked me into stopping by Netroots Nation, being held in Vegas this week, on my way outta Dodge. As Sin City was largely on our route outta town, and as I don't get many any opportunities to see the Alaska folks like her, Shannyn Moore, and dozens of others from around the country who I've known for years, but have never met in person, I figured why not stop in and both cover it a bit, and say hello to 'em all.

Have been doing so, and reporting some of it in various spurts via Twitter over the last 24. As I can get caught up over the next few days (the conference is ongoing through the weekend), I'll try to bring what I can here as well, as merited and/or newsworthy and/or amusing and/or interesting.

But after a late late night at Rio's Pai Gow tables with Jeanne, Shannyn, Mike Rogers of RAW STORY and BlogActive (he the "outer" of Larry Craig, and arguably my "blog father" as one of the earliest blogger supporters of this site) as well as various and sundry other progressive trouble makers, muckrakers and decidedly not professional gamblers, I'll have to start slow.

For the moment then, a quick recap of impressions, photos --- and even some news of sorts --- from yesterday, which included an unscheduled, somewhat hard-hitting radio interview with Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas on Nicole Sandler's Show (audio below) and some 30 minutes of my attempting to get answers --- on anything --- from the less-than-respectable rightwing "voter fraud" deceptionist John Fund of Wall Street Journal, Fox "News," and all places wingnut...

The Tea Party Express has been expelled from the National Tea Party Federation, an umbrella group of Tea Parties, in a disturbing incident of Tea Party on Tea Party non-violence.

The weekend expulsion came in response to a so-called satirical letter written to Abraham Lincoln by Tea Party Express spokesman and Rightwing talk show host, Mark Williams.

The letter in question begins: "Dear Mr. Lincoln, We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!"

The National Tea Party Federation had called on the Tea Party Express to remove Williams as spokesperson. They didn't. So they're out. Whatever "out" means to these folks. Tea Party poopers!

Williams is also the Rightwing clown who recently called on citizens to defraud the government's $20 billion BP Fund, as The BRAD BLOG reported earlier this month. Some "conservative," eh?

Williams' high-larious "parody letter" (as he later called it when he took it off his site) was, itself, in response to the NAACP's recent resolution, condemning "racist elements" within the Tea Party. Geez, what racist elements?!...

It's been explained to me that one of the reasons we have such a difficult time selling ads on this blog --- or receiving donations (Serious hint there, people! Please? Thanks!) --- is that I'm reliably unreliable when it comes to supporting any particular political party.

This, of course, makes me toxic to most of the partisans out there, in what has become an insanely partisan world. (It also makes it very difficult to pay the rent, so see shameless plea above.)

In any case, I'm now I'm more toxic than ever, as the following short animated video proves!

The video below has just been released by the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition, and I was honored to give voice to all of the different male cartoon characters you'll see. Yes, they're all actually me! Toxic, but hopefully amusing. Just like this blog. Enjoy and spread the word!...

For more info on all of these lovable toxins, click here...

(And I was serious about the terrible lack of donations. Could really use the support! And you know I hates askin'! If you can help, I promise much more relentless toxicity from this blog in the foreseeable future!)