This from a panel of today's Tom Tomorrow strip, titled "Too Much Crazy," depicting New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt "as a weasel"...

Much more crazy in the full strip.

The quote in the above panel is taken from the mindblowing emails Hoyt sent to me recently, as one of his reasons for not recommending the "paper of record" issue retractions for their repeatedly inaccurate and misreported coverage of the James O'Keefe/Andrew Breitbart ACORN video "pimp" hoax, as The BRAD BLOG has now been covering for weeks.

In addition to the absurd justifications that Hoyt (who can be emailed at Public@NYTimes.com) offered for refusing to responsibly recommend corrections, the paper's Senior Editor for Standards, Greg Brock, offered equally absurd reasons for standing by their reporting earlier, including O'Keefe's appearance on Fox News, "wearing what HE said was the same exact costume he wore to ACORN's offices."

"If there is a correction to be made, it seems it would start with Mr. O'Keefe himself. We believe him," Brock (who can be emailed at SeniorEditor@NYTimes.com) incredibly asserted via emails we posted here. "Therefore there is nothing for us to correct."

[Ed note: This blog item was originally published on 2/6/2010. I'm re-dating it to today, to let you know that my full Hustler article, sans graphics, has now been posted online at the LarryFlynt.com site.. Edmonds has now named names, but the media won't investigate. Why would that be? I look at the possibilities in my article. --- As well, the Mike Connell feature story in February's Maxim, mentioned below, is also now posted online. -BF]

You're welcome. My 2000+ word article on former FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds is now featured in the March 2010 edition of Hustler. Sorry, she's wearing all her clothes. Go buy it anyway.

The article brings the story of Edmonds, who was twice-gagged by the Bush Administration's outrageous use/abuse of the "States Secrets Privilege," fully up to date following her naming of names, finally, under oath, in remarkable testimony last summer. (Some of those names: Hastert, Burton, Blunt, Lantos, Schakowsky, Wolfowitz, Perle, Grossman, etc.)

Last night, I received this tweet from GOP propagandist, con-man, unapologetic hypocrite and liar Andrew Breitbart:

Poor Andy has had some trouble keeping his stories straight of late. But, in any case, the above tweet is just something to keep in mind in the days ahead. I suspect it may come in handy for future reference...

Is it possible that Thor Hearne, the rightwing operative attorney The BRAD BLOG has been following for years after we discovered him at the heart of a phony "non-partisan" GOP astroturf operation set up just after the 2004 election, calling itself the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), has finally seen the light?

Seems highly unlikely for the national general counsel of Bush/Cheney '04 Inc., who knowingly misled Congress on that point and many others. But perhaps after our years dogging him and detailing his lies and phony agenda working to keep legal (Democratic-leaning) citizens from being able to exercise their legal right to vote, he's gotten tired of being the poster boy for the Republican's anti-democracy campaign.

As detailed yesterday by Fired Up! Missouri, who appear to be as confused as we are...

Simon Worrall's piece from February's Maxim on the mysterious death of Bush/Rove/GOP IT guru Mike Connell is now available online.

As we noted in our detailed exclusive preview of the piece last month, the 3,500-word exposè by the British author and journalist is the closest thing to mainstream corporate media coverage that this story has received since Connell's death. Worrall offers a number of tantalizing facts and fresh interviews about the man whose companies and computers and websites were said to have been near the center of (among other under-investigated crimes) the alleged gaming of the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio. He has also been posting a series of short "Back Story" pieces on this feature article over on his own blog that you may find interesting as well.

Connell died when the single-engine aircraft he was piloting just prior to Christmas 2008 crashed in flames near Akron. The tragedy came just weeks after he was compelled by a federal judge to give a deposition in a long-standing 2004 federal election fraud lawsuit, on the heels of reports that Connell had been threatened by Rove to "take the fall" for whatever happened in '04. After Worrall's year-long investigation, he believes it's highly likely that Connell was, in fact, murdered.

The BRAD BLOG earned 2010 Project Censored award for "Excellence in Investigative Journalism" for our own coverage of the Connell story. Highlights of that coverage are linked below. (And P.S.: Our own feature article on the formerly-gagged FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, in the March issue of Hustler, is still currently on the stands!)...

[See bottom of article for explanation of asterisk in headline]

If you're not on Twitter (you can follow The BRAD BLOG antics here), you probably didn't get to enjoy last night's extraordinary Twitter Tantrum by wingnut propagandist Andrew Breitbart (follow him here) in the wake of terrific coverage by Max Blumenthal yesterday at Salon pulling together the indisputable dots of Breitbart employee/accused felon/fellow wingnut operative James O'Keefe's years-long racist obsessions.

O'Keefe, of course, is the guy who was recently arrested with three other GOP operatives (one, the son of the acting U.S. Attorney) in Louisiana for attempting to commit felonies in Democratic U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu's office, and who did not dress up as a pimp in his secretly taped, heavily-edited and over-dubbed ACORN hit videos, despite continuing false claims to the contrary by Breitbart (and the mainstream media that felt for it --- but more on that part soon.)

A few lowlights from Breitbart's hilarious rant last night were reposted at Sadly No under "Breitbart Twitter Meltdown Enters Fifth Frantic Hour." Yes, Andy actually went on that long, longer in fact, desperate sad tweet after desperate sad tweet, essentially shouting out any racist-like comment he could find by any Democrat as a way to say, I guess, that some Democrats have made racist comments, so he's happy to employ someone whose a real racist. Or something. Who knows?

The entire meltdown was colorfully characterized by @KevinKross: "lonely man, hotel room, curtains drawn, on floor, stained underwear, empty bottles, frantically twittering away on his phone."

But it's Andy's employment and support of O'Keefe which he needs to answer for at this point, as today Blumenthal followed up his article from yesterday with more on O'Keefe's disturbing pattern of racism and race-baiting. At the end he asks Breitbart directly: "Why are you paying and defending a racist?"

Good question. I'm sure he'll answer that one, right after he answers these. Which is to say, um, never. While he has time to attack me incoherently on Twitter, he apparently doesn't have time to answer to those questions which I emailed him directly many days ago...

Never thought I'd miss the 2000s, but if this week is any indication of what's to come, can we please roll back the clock?

Hundreds of thousands died in Haiti. Detainees were revealed to have been murdered in American custody at Gitmo. Democracy died again in Diebold's Massachusetts. A faint hope for reviving the death of the public's airwaves dies yet again as Air America dies. And the U.S. Supreme Court commits mass murder of everbody and everything else that had still been left teetering.

Worse. Week. Ever.

As it happened, I was previously scheduled to be a guest on Peter B. Collins' podcast yesterday to discuss MA. Suffice to say, the conversation ended up a bit broader, and a great deal darker.

If you'd like to listen, if you can stand to, it's now posted here...

The editors at the UK's Guardian asked me to ring in yesterday on "mavricky maverick" Sarah Palin's new gig at Fox "News". And so I did. A sample...

Among the nice things about about writing for the Guardian is the exceptionally dry English wit in the comments section --- at least when I'm lucky enough that a piece of mine gets posted in British primetime before the ugly American wingnuts show up to start hitting the comments button a few hours later.

As of now the piece has some 224 comments. The first hundred or so, before the Fox "News" trolls awoke across the pond are quite smart. Thereafter, they're also amusing, but in a different kind of way. Enjoy...

It's my final night guest hosting for the The Mike Malloy Show from Dallas' AM 1360 Rational Radio. It's almost their last night on the air too, unless an angel flies in to keep progressive radio on the public airwaves in a city that needs it as much or more than any!

We're on again from 9pm-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT) and, as last night, we'll be VIDEO WEBCASTING the entire show! Check back here just before showtime for the live video feed embedded below (if you can stand to look at me for three hours).

If you'd like to use your public airwaves tonight --- before they disappear in Dallas --- the call-in number this week only will be: 800-277-1637, ext. 703. Our handy-dandy live chat room will be up and operating here during the show, along with the video feed, so jump into the conversation there as well! (We'll open it a few minutes before airtime, see down below.)

TONIGHT...

• Mis-reported/under-reported stories of the year and/or decade! (Gonna need more than three hours, I think!) My top stories and yours at 800-277-1637, ext. 703
• PLUS: We'll be checking in with some old friends along the way! Tune in to find out who they are!

Malloy's show is nationally syndicated on a number of air affiliates around the country, also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio streams here or here!

Click here to jump into our LIVE Chat Room during the show, hosted by Zen mistress "Agent 99". Or just see below!...

POST-SHOW UPDATE & AUDIO ARCHIVES: Thanks for a great week in Dallas, guys! The audio archives, rants and all, are now below, along with the archive from our live chat during the show. Enjoy! Happy New Year! And thanks to Mike and Kathy for allowing me to sit in once again. Always a pleasure and honor!...

I'm guest hosting the The Mike Malloy Show again tonight (through Wednesday), LIVE from AM 1360 Rational Radio in Dallas, from 9pm-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT). Please tune in!

The call-in number this week only, for access to your public airwaves is: 800-277-1637, ext. 703.

Our LIVE chat room will once again be up and operating here during the show, so jump into the conversation there as well! (We''ll open it a few minutes before airtime, see down below.)

So far scheduled for tonight...

• ANDY WORTHINGTON, blogger/journalist, historian, and author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 759 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison and filmmaker (with Polly Nash) of the new documentary, Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.
• CHARLES JOHNSON, founder and publisher of the formerly rightwing Little Green Footballs blog, (now estranged) co-founder of the still rightwing Pajamas Media, on why he left the Right, what the hell is wrong with the wingnuts, and how/if we can ever get back to political sanity in this country.
• PLUS: My rants, Karl Rove's newest divorce, your calls at 800-277-1637, ext. 703, and whatever else comes up along the way...

Malloy's show is nationally syndicated on a number of air affiliates around the country, also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio streams here or here!

Click here to jump into our LIVE Chat Room during the show, hosted by the ever-patient "Agent 99". Or just see below!...

POST-SHOW UPDATE & AUDIO ARCHIVES: Much cool to get the video stream working tonight for the first time for am1360! Sorry for the voice/picture delay in the first hour, but I think we finally got it fixed. Anyway, other than that, I believe it was another good show, and audio archives are now posted below! Chat room archives are posted below them for your replay pleasure...

I'll be guest hosting the The Mike Malloy Show tonight through Wednesday. This time around, I'll 'Bradcasting' LIVE from AM 1360 Rational Radio in Dallas, from 9pm-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT). Please tune in!

If you'd like to use your public airwaves tonight, the call-in number this week only will be: 800-277-1637, ext. 703.

Our handy-dandy live chat room will be up and operating here during the show, so jump into the conversation there as well! (We''ll open it a few minutes before airtime, see down below.)

So far scheduled for tonight...

• IGOR VOLSKY, of Center for American Progress, contributor to the book Howard Dean's Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform: How We Can Achieve Affordable Medical Care for Every American and Make Our Jobs Safer, on where the hell we are now in the ongoing fight for health care reform.
• FRANK SCHAEFFER, former rightwing fundamentalist leader, BRAD BLOG guest contributor, author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back and Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism) on America-hating Republicans, and his controversial case for Barack Obama.
• PLUS: My rants, your calls at 800-277-1637, ext. 703, and whatever we want to talk about at the end of this crazy year...

Malloy's show is nationally syndicated on a number of air affiliates around the country, also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio streams here or here!

Click here to jump into our LIVE Chat Room during the show, hosted by the ever-patient "Agent 99". Or just see below!...

POST-SHOW UPDATE & AUDIO ARCHIVES: "Explosive" fun from Texas! Audio archives of last night's show are now posted below (sorry for the delay, due to tech prob) and the archive of last night's chat room is posted below that. Enjoy! And see ya again tonight!...

I'll be appearing for a Q&A in St. Louis on Tuesday (12/15 @ 7:30pm), after a screening of Patty Sharaf's award-winning documentary, Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story featuring both myself, and our reporting here at The BRAD BLOG on the Republican computer programmer turned vote-rigging whistleblower.

The screening is part of the traveling Burning Fuse Film Festival which hits Webster University's Film Series this week. Murder, Spies... will screen Tuesday, December 15 @ 7:30 in St. Louis at Webster's Winifred Moore Auditorium, 470 E. Lockwood, Webster Groves, MO, Directions/Map, More info: 314-968-7487.

Hope you'll stop by and say hello! Here's a flier [PDF] if you're in the hood and feel like helping to spread the word!

(NOTE: If you're not near St. Louis, or even if you are, but would like to support our work, we are still offering DVDs of the film, as signed by both myself and Sharaf, as premiums to supporters of The BRAD BLOG. We enjoy no corporate or foundational funding, so we appreciate whatever you are able to offer to help us continue our work. See this item for details...)

My latest special to the Right-leaning Gouverneur Times of Upstate NY details multiple "urgent" warnings that state and federal officials received over the last year from multiple election advocacy groups concerning the dangers and pitfalls of the state's e-voting pilot program which came crashing down on voters during the recent NY-23 Special Election for the U.S. House.

They were warned, over and over and over again, about the dangers of using uncertified e-voting systems in real live elections, yet, despite the concerns expressed by experts about using real voters "as guinea pigs," it appears officials took no action in response.

Here's my exclusive over there...

I've covered the problems and failures in NY-23's recent Special Election for U.S. House in a number of previous articles here at The BRAD BLOG, detailing some of the early problems with results as they emerged, pointing out that, thanks to Republican precedent in 2006, it now no longer really matters whom the actual voters may have voted for, but arguing that a full manual hand-count of paper ballots would be appropriate nonetheless.

Over the holiday weekend, the good Richard Hayes Phillips --- author of the book Witness to a Crime, in which he painstakingly detailed, ballot by ballot, the scandal which was the Ohio 2004 Presidential Election --- reported on some curious numbers he's now found in that election, over at the right-leaning Gouverneur Times. As luck would have it, Richard is a resident of NY-23 himself, and seems to be finding that both "impossible" and then many more "improbable" tallies were certified, as NY tested its Seqouia/Dominion e-voting systems on live voters, in a real, live election, for the first time earlier this month.

Both of his pieces are worth a quick read over there.

And now, the Gouverneur Times has asked me to put together a bit of a "backgrounder" for them on all of these e-voting nightmares, and how they pertain to NY-23, since it seems that right-wingers, for some odd reason, are somewhat lacking (up until now anyway) in real information on just how dangerously insane our privatized system of e-voting in public elections has become. Too much time spent being fooled by ACORN-conspiracists like Andrew Breitbart and Fox "News," I guess.

My piece for them, "NY-23, Sequoia and the Private Corporate Takeover of Your Once-Public Democracy," as written over the weekend, following the latest in a string of embarrassing "concessions" and "un-concessions" by the Conservative Party's Doug Hoffman, is now their front page lead story if you (or Breitbart) care to give it a look.

My latest piece at the Guardian today, as written under the auspices of the Commonweal Institute (where I am a Fellow),seems to have stirred up the Tea Baggery on both sides of the pond.

I always love the commenters on columns I do at the Guardian. My favorite exchange there so far this morning begins with commenter "Zounds" objecting to my points with: "Active discourse also requires a wider range of intellectual influences than all the American news channels offer."

To which "jcpenny", apparently an American, replied: "I've never seen British Tellie to provide the variety the American Tellie does. Perhaps our forebarers had a reason for leaving?"

To which "Zounds" replied hilariously in turn: "I believe the lack of variety on British TV was indeed the primary reason the Pilgrim Fathers gave."

:-) Add your own two cents and read the full column here...