Blogged by Brad from Houston...

I'll be kicking off a week and a half of Guest Hosting on the Peter B. Collins Show today from 3p-6p PT (6p-9p ET). We'll be broadcasting from the facilities of Pacifica's Houston station, KPFT.

Today's scheduled guests (subject to change/updates as warranted): Former CIA analyst and Valerie Plame classmate Larry C. Johnson of NoQuarter, Bob Geiger of BobGeiger.com, Larisa Alexandrovna of RAW STORY and at-Largely, Alison Parker of Human Rights Watch and in our first daily Election Integrity Hour, John Gideon of VotersUnite.org, Tom Courbat of Riverside County, CA's SAVE R VOTE, and attorney Gregory Luke on his recent court victory to hold a re-vote in Alameda County, CA.

Listen LIVE via: http://www.PeterBCollins.com (or an on air affiliate station)
Call in at: 1-888-5PeterB
Open thread discussion during the show: In Comments below...

POST-SHOW UPDATE/ARCHIVES...

HOUR 1: Featuring Bob Geiger on the Senate Iraq debate and Larry C. Johnson on the National Intelligence estimate and other intelligence chicanery...

HOUR 2: Featuring Larisa Alexandrovna on secret CIA prisons and Alison Parker on mandatory deportation laws.

HOUR 3: Election Integrity Hour! John Gideon on decisions coming to a head, Tom Courbat on the latest tomfoolery of the Riverside County, CA Board of Supervisors and Gregory Luke on last week's landmark Alameda County, CA court victory.

Blogged by Brad from somewhere in Texas...

Our long road trip continues. And who knows? At some point, we may even fit in a day or two off if we're lucky!

After heading from California to Arizona to New Mexico to Texas to Oklahoma to Arkansas to Mississippi to Alabama to Georgia to Tennessee to Kentucky to Missouri and then back down through Oklahoma, we now find ourselves somewhere in Texas, en route to Houston, where we will stay put for a couple of weeks.

Beginning on Wednesday, I'll be Guest Hosting the Peter B. Collins Show for a week and a half, Monday through Fridays from 3p - 6p PT (6p - 9p ET, or 5p - 8p CT on our Houston clock) and hope you'll tune in to one of Peter's affiliate stations, or via the Internet for whatever trouble-making we end up cooking up.

We'll be broadcasting each day out of the facilities of KPFT, as generously offered by the good folks of Houston's Pacifica Radio affiliate station there. We're very much looking forward to it, as we've not been on the air for such a long stint in quite a while. The last time would also have been out of Texas, during the Summer of 2005 from "Camp Casey," where we took the old BRAD SHOW on the road for our special "Operation Noble Cause" broadcasts from the middle of one damned hot cow pasture.

Ironically enough, it was some of the good folks from KPFT who helped us get on the air in a broadcasting miracle back in 2005 from on the ground at "Camp Casey." We're promised air conditioning this time, and perhaps even slightly shorter work days, but we'll see. Either way, I hope you'll both join us and spread the word. We're hoping to set aside the last hour of each show, each day, as our Election Integrity Hour. But now that we've left Kansas, things may change quickly around here.

We'll try to keep you up to date each day here at The BRAD BLOG with a list of guests and a LIVE open show thread during the broadcast, as well as take as many of your calls (1-888-5-PeterB) as we can, even while the BRAD BLOG Guest Bloggers (and I) keep on blogging here at the same time.

Should be fun. Hope you'll both tune in and stay tuned! More from Houston...

Blogged by Brad from Nashville after Escaping Atlanta...

"It's been a thriller," said the eponymous host of the Peter B. Collins Show as Friday's live radio debate wrapped up between myself and attorney Lawrence D. Norden, Chair of the NYU Brennan Center for Justice's Task Force on Voting System Security.

Norden made, in our spirited debate, what I believe to be some stunning admissions.

Complete "must listen" audio of the debate is available at the end of this article...

A former Los Angles newscaster turned progressive talk radio host, Bree Walker, will be purchasing Cindy Sheehan's 5-acre property near the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, The BRAD BLOG has learned.

Walker, currently a resident of San Diego, was previously a television news anchor in Los Angles and New York. She confirmed the news to us moments ago, in an exclusive interview, that she intends to keep the property "as a ground for freedom and peace" and is considering erecting a memorial there for troops killed in Iraq. She hopes to create a meditation garden on the grounds and to keep it open to the public.

"I'm cashing out my capitalist corporate stocks and buying into a legacy of peace," she told The BRAD BLOG moments ago. Sheehan will be selling the property for the same price she purchased it for so as not to be seen as profiting from the sale, Walker explained.

Walker is the host of the The Bree Walker Show on the Los Angeles Air America affiliate station KTLK AM1150 on Saturdays from 2-4pm PT.

Sheehan will appear in studio with Walker for the entirety of tomorrow's broadcast where, Walker says, she'll "give Cindy the check, and Cindy will give me the deed to the property."

She tells us that she'll be taking calls from listeners during tomorrow's show as she wants "listener input on what should be done with the land."

The BRAD BLOG's creator and publisher, Brad Friedman, is scheduled to appear on Walker's show Saturday as well, at 3:00pm PT, by phone.

Much more rolling still as the story continues to build on Thor Hearne and the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) scam that we've been covering since March of 2005 here at The BRAD BLOG.

Today NPR finally jumped into the game on the heels of last week's superb and detailed exposé of Hearne by Murray Waas at National Journal. (We've yet to cover that report, and some other ACVR items of late in detail, but we hope to soon).

I was contacted last week by NPR's Peter Overby and spoke to him on the record for about 30 minutes. Part of that interview was used in a report today on NPR's Morning Edition.

"One of the administration's staunchest advocates in the voter-fraud debate has simply disappeared," begins the report that details the ACVR's "short but busy life" and includes an interview with "Liberal blogger Brad Friedman [who] has been following the center since March 2005."

Overby was unable to get any of ACVR's formerly media-friendly spokesmen to speak to them on the record, and they report how the group seems to have scurried back underground since the U.S. Attorney purge scandal began to shine a spotlight on their vote-suppression activities and direct connections to the White House. NPR also notes purged NM US Attotrney David Iglesias's claims that ACVR "worked with the White House to forward allegations of voter fraud" and quotes Loyola election law professor Rick Hasen, who picked up on much of our reporting for his own widely-noted recent article on "The incredible, disappearing American Center for Voting Rights" as published last month by Slate.

Click below to listen to the NPR report in full, which is just over 4 minutes...

And again, we'll have much more on ACVR and Thor soon, as I was contacted today by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which ran a story on them today with references to "Some of Hearne's most vocal critics also are Web-based liberal blog sites, which several months ago began pointing to his ties to Blunt and a link to one of the fired U.S. attorneys — Bud Cummins of Arkansas."

Can't imagine which "Web-based liberal blog sites" they may be referring to, but, oh, wait...yes, we can. Post reporter Jo Mannies says Hearne complained about us by name, and though she wasn't able to contact me for comment before today's report, she hopes to have more on all of this tomorrow. And, most likely, so will we.

Until then, here's one of our initial reports connecting Thor to the Bud Cummins slice of the U.S. Attorney purge. It hardly takes a "Web-based liberal blog site" to connect the dots. But whatever they need to say is fine by us, as long as they bother to report it. At least it hasn't taken two and a half years this time.

For more information on the "non-partisan" tax-exempt ACVR "Voter Fraud" scam and the snakeoil salesmen who invented it, Bush/Cheney '04 National General Counsel Mark F. "Thor" Hearne, and RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke, please see BRAD BLOG's full Special Coverage of the "American Center for Voting Rights" at https://BradBlog.com/ACVR.

[UPDATE: The audio from the conference call is now available in full here, along with a two-minute preview. The folks at the Backbone Campaign tell me it was a great turnout, rivaled only by Noam Chomsky's conference call with the group. Not bad considering it was Memorial Day at that. Other conference calls from their Progressive Shadow Cabinet series are available here. Thanks to all who showed up, as well as the good folks at the Backbone Campaign!]

I'm the featured guest for a BackboneCampaign.org conference call on Monday night. Please join us if you can. You can email questions and RSVP in advance, or otherwise wait until the call to give me all the hell you like, if you prefer

Quick details follow, more are posted here at PDA.

RSVP for Monday's Conversation with Brad Friedman
On the Front Lines for Voting Rights & Election Integrity
CALL IN: Monday, May 28, 5:30pm PT (8:30pm ET)
RSVP TODAY.

Three ways to participate...

1. CONFERENCE CALL: First, RSVP by email with "Friedman" in the subject line so we can reserve a spot for you on the call. At the time of call, dial 1-(605) 990-0400, follow prompts, then enter access code 254273 followed by #. and/or
2. WEB RADIO: Voice of Vashon. To ask questions while you listen, you will need to RSVP for a password. which you will be sent when you RSVP Use it to log in at the live chat. and/or
3. E-MAIL: Click here to email your questions ahead of time.

Takin' it easy today (at least as far as you know) after a brutally exhausting and often dispiriting week. Whether or not that led to a different mood today during my weekly guest appearance on the Peter B. Collins Show I can't tell you.

Either way, as Guest Hosted today by our friend Tony Trupiano, we covered a few things I haven't gotten to speak much about lately, and also received an important good news update from caller "Chris in Salinas." Turns out action taken by Chris over the past week, after finding something troubling in a recent special election in Monterey County, CA, has led to a happy conclusion that will effect all voters in Monterey, and perhaps across this entire state.

That story --- and much else of what we chatted about on the show --- again, underscores the need for citizens to take control of their democracy because it will not be either the media or the government who restores our country. It will be you.

Enjoy...

-- Brad on PBC (Guest Host Tony Trupiano), 5/25/07 [MP3, appx 50 mins]

UPDATE: "Chris from Salinas" writes in to comments below with more details on precisely what happened in Monterey County, the action he took, and the changes that were made because of. Useful if you haven't been able to listen to the audio above (which I still recommend, in any case).

Have gotten all bollixed up here late in the week on a number of stories and tips and deadlines that I'm working on concurrently. So posting has been light for a day or so (you're welcome --- to those who might be thankful for that! )

Anyway, Peter B. Collins is on a getaway vacation this weekend, so I won't be doing my normal Friday hour with him, but apparently he's not on that much of a vacation because he stepped in to Guest Host a couple of hours of Thom Hartmann's Air America show this morning.

Since I haven't posted many radio appearances here of late, and since throngs of adoring fans would otherwise have their weekend utterly destroyed without their usual PBC Bradcast to kick it off, I figure I'll post this quick Hartmann hit with PBC from this morning.

8 rough and tumble minutes from Ann Coulter's voter fraud to Florida's new paper ballots to Rush Holt's HR811 and a little bit of Thor Hearne thrown in for flavor, all over the national Air America airwaves...who could use much more of the above if you ask me...

-- Brad on Thom Hartmann Program, Guest Hosted by PBC, 5/4/07 [MP3, 8 minutes]

Otherwise, consider this an Open Thread if ya like...

I recently interviewed whistleblower Stephen Heller, while guest hosting Cynthia Black's Action Point on Air America/Nova M Pheonix.

It was Heller's first live broadcast interview and his wife Michelle Gregory also joined us for a bit. A documentary film crew was on hand to capture the event.

Heller is the Los Angeles actor who stole incriminating documents while working as a temp at Diebold's powerful law firm Jones Day and turned them over to Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org who, in turn, gave them to Ian Hoffman at the Oakland Tribune where many of them were published. The documents showed that Diebold had illegally installed uncertified hardware and software in California during the 2004 primary, which led to the decertification of their touch-screen DRE voting systems in the state.

Incredibly, Heller was many years later --- notably, long after the 2004 Election --- charged with three felony counts. He eventually pled guilty in a deal to one of the charges, as he discussed during our interview, to protect his family. As well, he was given the assurance that he'd serve no jail time and the charges would likely be removed entirely from his record after a year or so.

The complete audio and text transcript of the half hour interview is now posted here.

Here's just a few of the highlights from Heller's first live interview:

On why he took the documents in the first place...

On the privatization of our public election system...

On not being able to talk while he was under indictment:

On whether he believes himself to be a whistleblower:

On the legitimacy of Diebold elections and George W. Bush...

All of that, plus what happened when police raided his home, why it took so long for charges to be brought, his wife Michelle's plan to write a book on the life of a wife of a whistleblower (check the full interview to learn the planned title ) and much more.

We'll soon be publishing a guest blog from Heller here at The BRAD BLOG, on whistleblowing and why those thinking about doing it, should.

The complete 3/25/07 interview with Stephen Heller, both the audio and text transcript, is now posted here...

I'll be sitting in again this week as Guest Host on Sunday for the good Cynthia Black Nova M and Air America Phoenix' Action Point with Cynthia Black on 1480am KPHX.

This week, we'll have a live broadcast exclusive first as Diebold document whistleblower Stephen Heller will be LIVE in studio to be interviewed on air for the first time! We'll also take your calls! As well, CODEPINK's Jodie Evans will join us to discuss the Democrats courageous Iraq Policy, or lack thereof. Don't miss it! More details follow...

If you missed our coverage of the concerns about the positions on Election Reform by People for the American Way (PFAW), including their advocacy of dangerous touch-screen DRE voting systems which originally ran here a couple of days ago, you've got another chance. AlterNet is now running the article from their front page today under the title "An Opposing View on the Progressive Voting Machines Debate."

As with the original, it includes the links to the audio and transcripts of both PFAW Executive Director Ralph Neas's and my appearances on Ring of Fire with RFK Jr. and Mike Papantonio, so you can decide what's going on here for yourself.

And if it wasn't 100% clear in the article originally, PFAW does not have the same position as some of the other groups (like Common Cause, VoteTrustUSA, MoveOn, etc.), who are generally opposed to DRE use, but have been afraid (for political reasons, legitimately or not) to support a ban.

PFAW, to the contrary, is actually advocating the use of DREs in their position and arguments to back it up.

I'm happy to run a response from Ralph or PFAW if they'd like to contact me in order to clarify anything they feel I've misrepresented. That was not my purpose. Similarly, my purpose was not to attack them, but to discuss openly what I see as a very troubling position that I spent much time trying to figure out --- and work out --- privately, before Ralph's public interview on RoF made it necessary for me to respond in kind to help clarify what seems to be going on here...

The Saturday before last I was interviewed on Air America's Ring of Fire with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio concerning my call for the Election Reform Bill (HR811) by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) to be amended to include a full ban on Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems.

The interview was pre-taped, and an edited-for-time version was aired. The complete, unedited version of that 15 minute interview, along with a text-transcript is now posted here.

This past Saturday, Ralph Neas, the president of People for the American Way (PFAW), one of the groups supporting the Holt Bill as is, and fighting against a ban on DRE voting systems, was interviewed on Ring of Fire. I had been critical of PFAW's unwaivering support of the bill during my interview the week before (as I have been in many articles here and elsewhere), so Bobby Kennedy asked Neas, a number of times, to answer directly to some of my criticisms.

The audio of that interview as well as a text-transcript, is also now posted here.

Now before I get to a huge number of concerns about the Neas interview and what I see as the dangerous PFAW position, and not to stack the deck (but I will anyway), Papantonio concluded his interview with me as follows, which I then promised to quote on the blog, so here it is...

I'll be sitting in as Guest Host for the good Cynthia Black this Sunday on Nova M / Air America Phoenix' Action Point with Cynthia Black on 1480am KPHX.

I hope those of you in Phoenix and not in Phoenix will find a moment to listen in. Should be a good show.

Scheduled Guests include...

• Noel Runyan, an expert on technologies for the blind and author of the new study "Improving Access to Voting" as well as a recent open statement signed by more than twenty blind and disabled voting advocates calling for "an immediate ban" on Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, often called touch-screen) voting systems.

• Eric Boehlert, a Huffington Post blogger and senior Fellow at the media watchdog organization Media Matters, on their new report "If It's Sunday, It's Still Conservative," countering the myth of the "liberal media" on the Sunday morning political talk shows

Listen up online right here on Sunday @ 12noon PT (3pm ET)
And call in with your questions/comments at: 800-989-1480

AlterNet's front page today is featuring a fresh version of my story from last week on the false dichotomies being forwarded by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and the supporters of his Election Reform bill, HR 811 [PDF], as written. It outlines the unsupported talking points and disingenuous arguments being made to prop up the failings of the bill (most notably, its failure to ban DREs) by Holt's office as well as his public-advocacy group supporters like PFAW, Common Cause, MoveOn, VoteTrustUSA, etc...

The original BRAD BLOG version was here. The updated Alternet version (including a bit more background on the brouhaha for newbies is here: "False Choices in the Debate on Voting Technology"

I've also now set up a new "Special Coverage" page for the Holt Bill Debate here: www.BradBlog.com/Holt. It includes the most notable BRAD BLOG stories since the bill dropped, as well as essential articles and calls to action elsewhere. I hope it'll be a useful source. It's also always available from the red "Special Coverage" box in the right sidebar.

Also related...A new "Anti-DRE Talking Points" document from VotersUnite.org (HTML version with links & grafs..., 2-Page PDF version...) features simple bullet-points on why DRE/touch-screen voting systems must be banned and the urgent need to reform the Holt bill to ensure it. Both versions of that doc are also linked from the new Holt Special Coverage page.

Was on Air America's Politically Direct with David Bender last night responding, in part, to Rep. Rush Holt, who was a guest on the show himself last week. (Interestingly enough, the show is sponsored by our friends at People for the American Way - PFAW.)

We spoke about the Holt Bill (good and bad), the Democrats (good and bad), and much more on the entirety of Election Integrity in an exceedingly jam-packed 20 minutes full of info (it was tape delayed out here in Los Angeles, so I got to listen to me while falling asleep...you can hear the coffee kick in about 4 or 5 minutes into the interview. )

Thanks to David for the overly generous description as "The Paul Revere of the Election Integrity Movement"...But I'll take whatever I can get! As he said, "One if by land, two if by sea, three if by Brad!"...

-- Brad on Politically Direct, 2/21/06 [MP3, 20 mins minutes]