Blogged by Brad on the road...after 5 days offline, but not off the job (unfortunately)...

After a car breakdown in Kansas, in the middle of nowhere, literally, we're now $650 lighter, but back up and running and closer than ever to the West Coast. And what's the matter with Kansas? Nothing. The folks who helped us out of a jam were aces. With a few meetings over the next week between here and home, and some hot feature articles and other super-secret missions that I'm working on in the background, we'll be back no later than late next week. With much to come the following week.

In the meantime, here's a couple of quickies...

+ I'll be back on Peter B. Collins' show tonight in my usual weekly 5:20pm PT (8:20pm ET) slot to discuss the latest developements (and a few unpublished details) in the Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney election, the Busby/Bilbray matter, and anything else that comes to mind. Listen up online here or call in to say hello! We'd love to hear from you! 1-888-573-8372.

UPDATE: Peter B. called earlier after another guest had to drop at the last minute, so I went on about 15 minutes early. If you tried to tune in, but missed the first part of the interview --- including some previously unpublished details of Tom Feeney's beer-fueled election night flip out last Tuesday --- the interview is now archived here for your listening pleasure.

One section dropped out briefly from my recording, concerning the story I wrote for Hustler on Ray Lemme. Lemme was the man from the Florida Inspector General's office who was mysteriously found dead just prior to releasing the results of his "all the way to the top" report (as it was described by vote-rigging whistleblower turned congressional candidate, Clint Curtis) in a Valdosta, Georgia hotel room. That report, which was published in Hustler's September issue --- and warning: it contains some graphic crime scene photos --- is available in porn-free PDF format right here in case you missed it.

+ Watch PBS' NOW tonight (Friday) at 8:30pm ET for their report billed as "DOWN FOR THE COUNT: Will new voting machines cause an Election Day debacle? NOW takes an alarming look at the new systems in place, ready or not." If this quote from the now-resigned, formerly Bush-appointed first head of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission is any indication, it could be an ugly report: "We are no more certain today than we were in 2000 that we will not have an embarrassing moment and a tragic outcome in this year's election," Deforest Soaries, former Chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, told NOW. (Hat tip to Oregon Voting Rights Coalition for the heads-up! Check the NOW page for air times in your area.)

UPDATE: The PBS NOW report was tremendous. You can now watch the video here...

Still on the road. Somewhere in Oklahoma. Was sidelined by a surprise death in the family, necessitating an unplanned trip to Dallas for a funeral. So, aside from that, now a week behind my planned return to Los Angeles. Will be back next week... at some point... prior to Saturday the 16th when I'm hosting a huge Election Integrity event sponsored by SoCal Grassroots and VelvetRevolution.us with Gore Vidal, Maxine Waters, Debra Bowen and many others in Los Angeles! More details here....

Barely online last week, and may be off the grid entirely this week. Driving me crazy, especially with so much going on, but Guest Bloggers are doing great it looks like from my two minutes’ online (and hours on the phone!) to keep track. Must leave this motel right now!

Good luck to Clint Curtis tomorrow in Florida! Looks like the national PDA has now endorsed him as well! And Tom Feeney is as bizarre as usual (see this TPMCafe post, and watch for more here from WP or Gideon.) Suspect Feeney is up to dirty tricks? You betcha!

RIP Steve Irwin... and more as soon as I can get back onto the grid full time... which I now actually look forward to! Until then... rock on, Bradcorps!

Astute BRAD BLOG readers will recall my last bout with the far-right "conservative" Crane Durham on St. Louis' 97.1FM Talk on his ironically named "Nothing But Truth" radio show. Durham had invited me for his "Tuesday Night Fights" on the Fox News Radio affiliate station in my old hometown. And though I had thought the conversation would be about Electoral Integrity, it was instead about the war and whether or not Valerie Plame was indeed a covert CIA agent. Last time around we cleaned Crane's clock --- in both our own opinion, and that of all of his far-right listener/callers to boot! Even Durham himself, to his credit, admitted that he'd been bested. "I feel like Foreman after Ali," he would say after I hung up. Some fun radio here if you missed it the first time.

As I'm now in St. Louis myself for a few more days, Durham's peeps have invited me back for an in-studio mano-a-mano this time around. And so, I look forward to getting it on once again, this Tuesday night at 10pm PT (Midnight in St. Louis, Wed. 1am Eastern Time). Please feel free to tune-in online to see how things go. Should be fun. Will he best me this time? We'll see. I've been on the road for about a month, and thus, infrequently online in the bargain. So perhaps he'll have an advantage. He could use it.

Feel free to call-in to say hello (866-455-9797) if you wish. It'd be a nice change of pace from Crane's usual wingnut listeners!

Guest bloged by Winter Patriot

If you've never heard a nearly frozen voice coming out of your radio --- or better yet, coming out of a series of tubes --- your chance is coming soon.

Your humble and very cold blogger will be speaking with Peter B. Collins this afternoon, beginning at 5pm Pacific time (that's 8 Eastern, 7 Central, 6 Mountain, and so on). I'll be filling in for Brad (who usually visits with Peter on Friday afternoons) and talking about "the thwarted alleged British-Pakistani simultaneous airline bombing plot".

I've written four articles for The BRAD BLOG about this alleged plot since last Thursday; here are the links in case you missed them the first time:

If you're in (or near) Monterey, Sacramento, Eureka or Phoenix, you can listen via broadcast radio. Otherwise you'll have to tune in to a streaming "tube-cast". Either way, click here for more details.

Peter's shows are archived, so if you can't catch us live you will be able to do so later. I'll keep you posted on that. But if you can join us live, we'd love to hear from you. Give us a call at 888-5PeterB ... that's 888-573-8372. And have a good question ready!

UPDATE: An audio record of my talk with Peter is now available online. In consideration of those readers with slow connections, I've broken the segment up into three files. Each is about 6 megabytes and plays for about 6 minutes. I hope you'll be able to download them without difficulty; I'll check the comments thread in case anyone has trouble.

Here you go:

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Ginny Ross, one of our friends from the Election Defense Alliance, has posted the video of the beginning of the press conference from DemocracyFest last month in San Diego as the Busby/Bilbray election challenge (due to voting machine "sleepovers" with pollworkers) was just coming to light. Some of us have been anxious to see this ever since Ginny told us she was working on it. And rightly so. The video is a good one. Just click on the picture to see it.

For more on the press conference, please revisit Brad's post of July 18th.

You're more than welcome to disagree with me on this, but I'd say he did a fine job. Then again, what do I know? I'm partially frozen at the best of times.

Blogged by Brad on the Road from Minneapolis/St. Paul...

Just a quick personal blog item to touch base from out here on the road. I'm currently in St. Paul for just a few more moments. We drove up Friday (from St. Louis) to tape two episodes of John Forde's Mental Engineering for PBS. Not certain when these episodes will air (some time this fall, I believe) but I'll try to let you know when I find out.

I was honored to sit on a four-person panel with the brilliantly hysterical comedian Tom Rhodes, the delightful and smart media literacy professor Renee Hobbs from Temple University and the lovely and deviously clever actor Desi Doyen (DISCLOSURE: Desi is also my girlfriend)...

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

NOTE FROM BRAD: I'm still out on the road, will be for a while, and thus unable to check into the net with much frequency! Not getting all of my email either because of it, so my apologies. Thanks Dave for getting this up! More when I am able to check back in from a location with net access and enough time to get caught up-ish.

Just off the air from the Mike Malloy show. And yes, before I came on he did comment that when touched the screen of the Diebold voting machine he used to vote in today's Georgia primary, it was touching the ass of Satan. If you missed it, his interview with me follows. It was a lively one. We discussed trouble at the Georgia primaries, the Busby/Bilbray sleepover mess, Diebold skullduggery in the California Secretary of State's office, and all manners of democracy crumbling.

He asked me to stay over for an additional segment after the top of the hour, when we had a....skeptic call in from Sacramento who believes I'm "a phony." Which is always fun, of course. Glad to meet the critics. Enjoy...

-- Brad on Mike Malloy Show, 7/18/06 [MP3, appx 40 mins]

Also, I had meant to post this a couple of weeks ago, so will take the opportunity to do so now before I hit the road for the next bunch of weeks and may become scarcer than I'd like (but I really need a break. Big time. So please forgive me) This is audio from the Ed Schultz when NBC/HBO sports anchor Jim Lampley was sitting in for Schultz show a day or two after our Emergency Busby/Bilbray Townhall in San Diego. I'm on with him for just a quick few minutes, but he gave one of the kindest and most generous introductions I've ever received. Lampley is a terrific hero himself, and was kind enough to show up to support us at the San Diego event with his wife Bree Walker (whose new show in Los Angeles, I hope to be doing soon as well. Like Lamps, she's aces!)

-- Brad on Ed Schultz Show, Guest Host Jim Lampley, 6/30/06 [MP3, appx 5 mins]

That's from Miriam Raftery's RAW STORY coverage of the Saturday Night events in San Diego at the DemocracyFest. But I was there, and that's what Dean said --- echoing, in part, the DNC Voting Rights Institute statement on the Busby/Bilbray election fiasco issued the day before --- to the appreciative acclaim of thousands at the open air theater concert/event Saturday night. Audience members spotted with "No Sleepovers" signs were picked up on the big video screens next to the stage.

I was just happy the night had cooled and, for me anyway, things had finally calmed down a bit after a non-stop day of speechifying, meeting, educating, rabble-rousing and other exhilirations as the sunshine at San Diego State University must have pushed the mercury towards the 100 mark.

Raftery's got a photo of yours truly at our press conference (more photos of all below) in her article, along with other details that I'm relieved she covered, because I'm still too exhausted and running behind (checking the clock, it's 4:04am right now) and playing catch up to hit everything by myself. I'm hoping we'll be able to get some of the local TV News coverage of the press conference from the local stations posted here, but I've gotta hit the road (I hope!) tomorrow and then do Mike Malloy's show from lord only knows where...I need a break. I'm gonna get one. If it kills me.

Anyway, let's play catch-up a bit. Some notes on the weekend --- that I wasn't able to log on and cover here for BRAD BLOG while I was in the very middle of it all --- including comments from Sen. Debra Bowen, Francine Busby, and other photos and personal thoughts on the last 24 to 72...

(NOTE: RAW STORY is now running an article on Howard Dean's comments at DemFest and our Press Conference there, both on Saturday.)

Have finally made it out of San Diego, back to Los Angeles, where hopefully, I'll be leaving again soon to take whatever form of occassionally working, occassionally vacating vacation that I am able to pull off over the next month while all of these things are going on....

It's been a whirlwind past 48 hours or so, and I've hardly been able to catch my breath, much less log onto the net at all for the most part since 7am on Saturday. So I've got a lot of catchup to do. More notably, I've got a lot to catch you up on from news of a late and last-minute press conference on the latest Busby/Bilbray CA50 stuff that we held Saturday evening at DemocracyFest just prior to the big open air concert event (featuring Al Franken, Howard Dean, Marc Maron, Paul Hackett, Maxine Waters and many others) to various bits and pieces that I hope to share from meetings and conversations and such from the last several days of DemFest and beyond.

I'll share some news and comments from Sen. Debra Bowen (with whom I sat on a panel discussion Saturday in the big room at DemFest) and Francine Busby (with whom I was able to have a number of private conversations) and Howard Dean who spoke about the Busby/Bilbray CA50 voting machine "sleepovers" during that big Saturday night event. And probably more.

Need some time to get caught up over the next few hours, and hope to have comments here soon.

The hastily compiled media advisory, sent out in the hectic and heated hours before Saturday's Press Conference is below. Portions of it were, I'm told, carried by San Diego's Channel 9 and 10 --- one of them the local ABC affiliate --- including (I think) some one-on-one comments from yours truly. The local Air America Affiliate, KLSD 1360am also played portions of the conference on Sunday morning. Anyway...pardon my exhaustion, and my inability to communicate much at all until now, and stand by for more when I can get caught up a bit...somehow...

Not much time for comment, so here's my interview from over the weekend on Air America's Ring of Fire with Robert F. Kennedy & Mike Papantonio. I'm sure you guys will have plenty to comment on. We discussed Busby/Bilbray, Diebold, and the DNC/DCCC fears about jumping into the fight for electoral integrity and taking on these god-forsaken awful e-voting machines.

More on all soon. Plenty to say and write, but little time to say it or write it for now...

-- Brad on Ring of Fire, 7/8/06 [MP3, Appx. 15 minutes]

UPDATE: Forgot to add, reliable sources tell me that Catherine Crier of CourtTV's Crier Live --- who filed an extraordinary video editorial recently on the dangers of E-Voting --- will be covering Busby/Bilbray, Clint Curtis and the NH/White House Phone-Jamming convictions tomorrow night (Tuesday) at 5pm ET/PT!

I was in studio today with Marc Maron of Air America. First time on his show. A good guy (who got screwed by Air America, btw, when they dumped him from their national morning show.)

I thought I'd take the opportunity, while on Air America's air, to beat up a li'l on Air America, and Al Franken specifically, for not touching any of this Election Reform stuff.

That, Ann Coulter, and a few other rants in a very fast paced 12-minute appearance which I think you'll enjoy...

-- Brad on The Marc Maron Show [MP3]

I'm speaking on Election Reform issues to the Culver City Democratic Club tonight at 8pm. Their site, www.CCDemClub.org has been hacked this morning in the bargain.

Joining me will be Arlene Pinzler from California Sen. Debra Bowen's office. Bowen is running for CA Sec. of State and must be supported, by the way! Her opponent in the Democratic primary, Deborah Ortiz, told the Sacramento Bee yesterday, incredibly, that she's satisfied with McPherson's certification of Diebold machines in the state and thinks "they're adequate to get us through the June 6 elections."

That is not a woman who belongs in the SoS office! Or even near it!

I any case, since details for tonight's event are no longer available at the Culver City Dem's site (but alot of hate-speech from hackers claiming to be representing Turkish Muslims is), here are the details. If you're in Southern California area, please stop by and say hello! And a note to Republicans: Happy to come on by and speak to your groups, too! Just let me know!

Culver City Democratic Club, 8pm (other business begins at 7pm)
Veteran's Memorial Building, Rotunda Room
4117 Overland Ave. (SW corner of Culver Blvd.)

Now I just have to find time to put something worthwhile together to speak about!

"Obsessively?" Me? (He says as he writes this at 4:39am) Well, maybe. But someone's gotta.

So begins the editor's intro to a piece I was invited to submit to the Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism's Watchdog site. The invitation came from Deputy Editor, and Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin, so I was honored to accept.

I was asked to submit questions for mainstream media folks to ask of Elections Officials about our current Electoral Train Wreck-in-Progress in hopes that someone in the MSM might actually do so. These are the tough questions which, frankly, ought to be asked of every damn Election Official in the country by every damn responsbile media person.

Several questions were edited out by Dan before posting for reasons that I don't completely understand. But as I consider him one of the good guys (who occassionally even links to BRAD BLOG from his WaPo page) I won't hold it against him.

So here's the piece as posted at Nieman Watchdog. (Including a swell pic of yours truly!)

And for the hard-cord Election Reform junkies, read on for the extra bonus questions which didn't make the cut. Who knows? Maybe someone in the MSM may one day want to know what they completely failed to ask about...

It's been a looong day. Up at 7am in a strange city, meetings all morning, a drive across the state to do an hour of radio in Sacramento in studio with the delightful Christine Craft, another hundred or so miles down the road towards home with an hour and a half long conference call at 75mph, before a motel stop finally at 10:15pm and a phone-in radio appearance on Crane Durham's rather ironically named, "Nothing But Truth" radio program broadcast out of my old hometown of St. Louis.

Exhausted but ready to discuss matters of Election Reform and Integrity, which I can speak about, at this point, in my sleep (and sometimes do).

But Crane wanted to talk about something else --- the War on Iraq --- during my first appearance on his show. What I didn't know, was that apparently tonight was "Tuesday Night Fights" on Crane's show, when he invites a guest on who he perceives will disagree with him. Tonight, he found one in spades.

-- Have a listen [MP3] (We might suggest it'll be worth it.)

"I feel like Foreman after Ali," the host would say later after I'd left..and most of his usually supportive callers agreed he had lost. Except for the one who said Crane delivered a "coop de grace" (pronounced as spelled).

-- Follow-up callers after I left [MP3] (Also worth a listen. Broken link now fixed.)

To Crane's credit, he admitted defeat. "The decision's been made, and I lost that debate," he said graciously to the callers who hated to agree with him. He is, therewith, the first wingnut, perhaps in recorded history, to have admitted to defeat --- out loud. For his graciousness in that regard, we give him many props.

He invited me back after the show to return on another night, heavily promoted, for a full two hours. He'll need it.