According to a transcript of a radio appearance this week by former Senator Norm Coleman's attorney, Joe Friedberg, the Republican will most likely lose his election contest against Al Franken for the U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota.

Hotline's Jennifer Skalka quotes Friedberg as conceding that Coleman will "probably" lose when the 3-judge panel currently deliberating the case, which both sides rested last week, announce their verdict.

"I think it's probably correct that Franken will still be ahead and probably by a little bit more," Friedberg admitted, after announcing that he was "done" with the case.

The Democratic challenger, and now apparent Senator-elect Franken was certified by the bi-partisan state canvassing board to have received 225 more votes than Coleman, out of some 2.9 million cast, at the end of the painstaking, transparent, post-election hand-count of all of the states paper ballots. During the course of Coleman's election contest, which followed that hand-count, Franken gained another 50 or so votes after it was determined that a number of legally cast absentee ballots were inappropriately rejected by election officials.

The 3-judge election contest panel may reach their verdict at any time. Among their decisions is expected to be a finding on whether another 2000 or so rejected absentee-ballots, submitted for consideration by both Coleman and Franken, were "legally cast" and if their results should be added to the final totals. Even so, statistics mavens --- and results of already-counted absentee ballots --- suggest that Coleman will likely have a difficult time closing the gap against Franken, even if all of those currently-uncounted ballots are counted and added to the totals.

Coleman's lead attorney, Friedberg, would now seem to be admitting that and hanging any last hopes he may have on "a constitutional argument, and it's an argument suitable for the Minnesota Supreme Court, not for the trial court."

Our previous coverage of the Coleman/Franken election contest, is indexed here.

The short transcript, posted by Hotline, from Wednesday's interview with Friedberg on KFAN's Dan Barreiro Show, hosted by fill-in Ron Rosenbaum, follows below...

Last year's Media Reform Conference with the theme "Have the Media Undermined Our Democracy?" at which I spoke, was pretty memorable. That one featured an FCC commissioner and then-Rep., now-Labor Secretary Hilda Solis (D-CA) on the panel. Here's some video and a transcript of my remarks last year.

This year, I've been invited back (book-keeping error, no doubt) and the focus will be on local media, though I'll likely be paraphrasing Tip O'Neill to make the case that 'all media is now local'.

This year's speakers include Domonique DiPrima, Tanya Acker, Mario Solis-March, Linda Milazzo, Anthony Samad and myself. Which one of us will be named Secretary of HUD next year? Who knows! But hey, it could happen!

If you're in the area, please stop on by and say hello!

"Local Media for Social Change: A Southern California Regional Summit", Saturday, March 21, 11:00am, Occidental College, Norris Hall of Chemistry, Los Angeles (Map/directions | Details/registration | Event flyer [PDF])

[Now updated at bottom with details from the indictments.]

Those of us who have demanded transparent voting systems because we understand that only the ability for complete citizen oversight and transparency can effectively counter those who would game elections, have been disingenuously criticized over the years as somehow questioning the integrity of the hard-working, honest election officials out there.

The fact is, those who know anything about computer security understand that it is the insiders who are, by far, the greatest threat to security on such systems, as even the phony, GOP-operative-created Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission determined in its final report: "There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries."

The best election officials in the country, however, will underscore that point, and agree that there is no reason any citizen should ever have to simply "trust" them.

Over the years, we've detailed the arrests and other unsavory behavior of many of the not-so-good election officials who, we were told, should simply have been trusted (our "favorite" has always been the case of Monterey CA's Tony Anchundo, who told us on air we should "trust" him, just a month or two before being arrested on 43 counts).

Well, now we've got a whole passel of still more crooked officials to add to the list. Moreover: The Kentucky officials arrested and indicted today, "including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers" of Clay County, have been charged with "chang[ing] votes at the voting machine" and showing others how to do it!

Hello?!...

More bad news for a voting machine vendor. This time the California Secretary of State's office has announced that they have settled their lawsuit against ES&S. It was back in 2007 that the state discovered that ES&S had ignored state laws and sold uncertified voting machines to some counties as if they were certified. CA filed a $15 million lawsuit against the company, and now ES&S has agreed to provide $3.2 M to the state's coffers by way of settling the suit.

Will it make any difference in the long run? Probably not. ES&S will continue their past bad business practices and many of their customers will continue thinking they only have the choice provided by ES&S....

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IN TODAY'S REPORT: Whatever happened to "DRILL, BABY, DRILL!"???; Cities help homeowners go solar & make cash; PLUS: Sarah Palin's new war on wildlife! All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, baby, comments? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived for your drilling pleasure at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

Info/links on stuff we talked about on today's episode, plus MORE green news, all follows below...

Guest blogged by Brad Jacobson of MediaBloodhound

Part of the reason I've been off the radar for so long --- my latest investigative report for RAW STORY:

Federal agencies were involved in the decision to raid the office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in Nevada last October, just weeks before Election Day, the offices of Nevada's Secretary of State and Attorney General say.

The allegations raise questions of whether politics played a part in the raid and calls into question assertions by the US Attorney's office that they were uninvolved. Federal guidelines instruct agencies investigating election fraud to avoid action that might impact the elective process.

Bob Walsh, a spokesman for Nevada's Secretary of State, and Edie Cartwright, a spokeswoman for Nevada's Attorney General, said that not only were the Nevada US Attorney's Office and the FBI involved in investigating Nevada ACORN on allegations of voter registration fraud but that all four agencies jointly made the decision to conduct the raid. Both the investigation and the raid were conducted as part of the joint federal-state Election Integrity Task Force announced last July, the spokespersons said.

I guess I'm just in the minority here, but I'm having a bit of trouble getting exercised about $165 million (just to put that into perspective, the movie sequel The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian had a budget of $200 million) in bonuses to AIG employees.

Yeah, it's a shame that approximately one-tenth of one-percent of the $144 billion made available to the company by the federal government in bailout monies went to such bonuses, but where is all the furor from public officials, media outlets and bloggers --- from both Right and Left --- over the 12 billions of dollars (with a "b") sent over to Iraq as pallets of cash (literally, shrink-wrapped $100 bills), which then simply disappeared into that trillion (with a "t") dollar rat hole without accounting or explanation?

Where is the outrage and accountability there? Nowhere.

How about the $4 billion (with a "b") that went to the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 to purchase privately made electronic voting systems which don't work and don't meet the federal standards it was claimed that they did?

It's curious, but not particularly surprising by now, the stuff that folks in Congress get selectively pissed off about, the stuff that media (both mainstream and blogosphere) go selectively wall-to-wall over, versus the stuff they don't.

You'll pardon me if I'm not particularly moved much at all by the latest round of AIG sturm-und-drang, hand-wringing, navel-gazing, finger-pointing and speechifying. Oh, and about the still-free bin Laden, and the still-free anthrax killer...well, don't get me started. Guess those things don't much matter.

Guest Blogged by Mitch Trachtenberg, with Brad Friedman

Even the audit log system on current versions of Premier Election Solutions' (formerly Diebold's) electronic voting and tabulating systems --- used in some 34 states across the nation --- fail to record the wholesale deletion of ballots. Even when ballots are deleted on the same day as an election. That's the shocking admission heard today from Justin Bales, Premier's Western Region manager, at a State of California public hearing on the possible decertification of Diebold/Premier's tabulator system, GEMS v. 1.18.19.

An election system's audit logs are meant to record all activity during the system's actual counting of ballots, so that later examiners may determine, with certainty, whether any fraudulent or mistaken activity had occurred during the count. Diebold's software fails to do that, as has recently been discovered by Election Integrity advocates in Humboldt County, CA, and then confirmed by the CA Secretary of State. The flaws, built into the system for more than a decade, are in serious violation of federal voting system certification standards.

The problems may lead to decertification of the company's voting systems, as well as an examination of voting systems made by other companies to determine if they too may have been able to sneak such violations past both federal and state testers...

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IN TODAY'S REPORT: We're not just "wearin' the green", we're bein' it!; The "Filthy Fifteen" list is out, is your state on it?; Australia declares a natural disaster after an oil spill!; PLUS: RNC Chair Michael Steele joins the Flat Earth Society! All that and more in today's Green News Report!

What are your thoughts on today's conversation about the RNC? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here in comments. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

Info/links on stuff we talked about on today's episode, plus MORE green news, all follows below...

I wanted to offer an update on the Peter B. Collins situation, that I detailed last Friday following Peter's announcement that he would be leaving the air after this Friday's program due to the difficult time he has been having in continuing to self-finance and self-syndicate his daily, live radio show in this economic climate, and under the rigid Progressives-need-not-apply rightwing corporate control of our public airwaves. [Disclosure: I am a regular weekly guest and occasional fill-in host for PBC, just to get that out of the way.]

Following last Friday's announcement on his show, some of the audio of which we posted with last week's article, a number of listeners have been working to help determine if sustainable funding could be raised to keep PBC on the air. I've been in close touch with Peter, both before his announcement last week, and since then. I have, of course, offered any help I might be able to provide, but what can feasibly done has been difficult to determine.

He noted during last week's show that his monthly costs are just over $5000 to stay on the air, and that while a miracle could happen to help keep him on the air, stations had been notified, and the outlook wasn't good.

Folks have asked me what can be done, and I've been doing my best to try and figure that out, while respecting both listeners' feelings (and the avoidance of building up hopes, only to see them dashed) and Peter's concerns, which are similar. But I'll take the liberty of trying to share some of his feelings here, many of which he's now shared himself publicly in a blog item he posted at his website over the weekend, and then during today's program (selected audio from which I'll post at the end of this article) in response to a number of callers rallying to see what they can do to help keep him on the air...

Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher dropped me a note over the weekend to inquire if I'd heard anything about a company called Universal Identification Solutions (UIS) who was to be announcing the results of El Salvador's presidential elections over the weekend. A bunch of election observers down there had been "suddenly" informed that the company would be responsible for election night reporting, yet nobody had heard of them, and their website was "really sketchy and vague" at best, as Jane noted.

"Sketchy and vague" is right...

Wow, does the dishonesty never end at Fox "News"? Well, we all know the answer to that one, but as Ben Dimiero at Media Matters noted in email, "this is ridiculous, even by Fox News standards".

In a package with Martha MacCallum on Fox's Live Desk today, suggesting that Administration officials who once criticized John McCain's assertion that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" have now changed their tune, they played some clips purported to be from "recent interviews this weekend." Included in those clips, is Joe Biden declaring "the fundamentals of the economy are strong." (Video at bottom of this article.)

Trouble is a) Biden's statement was six months ago, when he was on the campaign trail and b) it was taken completely out of context, as Biden was quoting McCain's statement which he was in the process of criticizing!

Biden's actual in-context statement to a campaign rally in September 2008 was...

Just another Fox "News" typo, no doubt...

...Just like all of the other ones before it (examples: here and here and here).

The Peter B. Collins Show will come to an end, as of next Friday, according to an announcement by Collins on today's broadcast. After nearly five years on the air, the economic climate, and the stranglehold of rightwing corporate control over the public's airwaves has made it impossible for him to continue.

We've been a regular weekly guest, as well as an occasional fill-in host, for Peter since not long after he first began broadcasting his syndicated show, first heard on Monterey, California's KRXA 540am and, until next Friday, on stations in San Francisco, Eureka, CA, Portland, OR, Seattle, WA, Missoula, MT and on the Internet. His call to us earlier today with the news, a few hours prior to our weekly scheduled appearance during the final hour each Friday, was heartbreaking, but hardly surprising in today's climate for nearly everyone but the vast majority of rightwing whackjob radio hosts propped up by rightwing corporate interests.

After a quick segment, during our appearance on today's show, discussing a number of this week's developments in elections issues, we turned to the matter of his leaving the air, and our belief that the playing field is indisputably rigged against non-rightwing talk radio. It's not a matter of "Progressive Talk" having failed in America, it's a matter of progressives, to this day, not having been given a level playing field on which to compete. Period.

See the bottom of this article for the audio of today's hour, including Peter's announcement (and his very kind "emphatic endorsement" of us to take over the still-available 3p-6p PT daily timeslot on San Francisco's Green 960.)

As our friend and progressive talker Thom Hartmann pointed out on his show this morning, Stephanie Miller, another friend and progressive radio host, noted that she's syndicated on some 60 affiliates from 9 to Noon ET each weekday, while rightwing whack-job Laura Ingraham is on some 300 stations during that same time slot. Yet, Hartmann noted, Miller beats Ingraham in almost every single market where they air at the same time. Does that sound like fair competition, or that "Progressive Talk" has failed? We haven't failed, corporate America, however, has failed you.

More details on all of that, in the audio of today's hour posted below. It should also be noted, by the way, that PBC mentioned he'd be open to the idea of an angel from heaven dropping in to help meet his $5000 monthly nut. If someone could do so, a long shot we both realize, then one of the nation's most intelligent, informative, insightful, entertaining and important progressive voices would likely be able to stay on the public airwaves, where he belongs...

This was the most remarkable, and enlightening conversation I've seen on television in lord knows how long. Probably since Stewart's last landmark take-down of corporate broadcast media failure in 2004. The conversation here with CNBC's Jim Cramer --- unprecedented over three segments of last night's The Daily Show --- was simply remarkable.

Please take the time to watch this in full, and wonder again why it is that it's a "comic" on a satirical news show who has become America's most out-spoken, most articulate leader on these crucial issues of survival for our nation...

My take-way, though it was never spoken to directly, is that business news and business journalism --- right now more than ever --- must be about real reporting, and real accountability on behalf of the people, as opposed to simply cheerleading on behalf of the business community, as it has been for so long now

Stewart is also owed a great thanks here, in that I believe this may be (or should be) a landmark moment in discussion of this issue. Just as his remarkable October 2004 take-down of Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala on CNN's Crossfire (taken out of our misery shortly thereafter), essentially for the same reason --- using valuable broadcast time to perpetuate blood-sport and/or cheerleading, instead of actual news reporting in the public's interest --- I hope his no-holds-barred conversation with Cramer will lead to a similar re-thinking of the role of broadcast business journalism.

Stewart's similarly stunning October 15th, 2004 appearance on CNN's Crossfire is re-posted below for your convenience, the video, and highlights from the text transcript were originally posted here...