*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by Libby/CIA Leak Trial Correspondent Margie Burns

After sitting in on the Libby trial every other day and posting about it on BRAD BLOG, I had intended not to write further about the matter barring new developments. Unfortunately, the rightwing spin machine has launched a new campaign of misstatements that sound intentional.

So much for respecting authority, upholding the law, and appreciating honest hard work: now that a conscientious jury has rendered a verdict of guilty on four of five counts of perjury and obstructing justice for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the GOP noise machine is vilifying the prosecution and smarmily denying any wrongdoing, any at all, in the CIA leak.

So much for conservatism.

Well, bad sports are bad sports, anywhere on the political spectrum. Still, the brazen willingness of commentators subsidized by Rupert Murdoch or the Bradley Foundation to falsify every significant fact in the Libby matter, usually without having sat even one day in court for the trial, is pretty much typical of their work ethic and intellectual rigor.

Sunday morning's talk shows were representative. George F. Will and Torie Clarke on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos downplayed the CIA leak matter by saying the whole thing "all arose from one column" (Will), a column not very important at that (Clarke).

The right wing is trying hard to keep this one alive. But trial evidence and testimony have revealed that the attempt to "leak" "“ actually, plant "“ Mrs. Wilson's name with the media began BEFORE Wilson's column was published.

Wonder why GOP supporters of George W. Bush find that so uninteresting....

The Los Angeles Times continues to beg readers to cancel their subscriptions altogether.

Their latest plan: Dump the progressive, interesting, non-white comic strips.

Last week, the Times decided to dump both Candorville, whose strip we've been running here from time to time --- the only one, mind you, that we're aware of which dealt with the e-voting issue directly. La Cucaracha, the paper's only Latino-based strip (in LA!), was dumped at the same time.

The latter was re-instated after a flood of reader complaints. So far, no return of Candorville, however, the last African-American related strip of note in the once-great Los Angeles newspaper, now gutted by its conservative Chicago Tribune owners/rapists. The Trib also recently canceled the strip as well.

We've gotten to know Darrin Bell, the strip's creator, a bit over the last year or so. He sent The BRAD BLOG the following announcement a few days ago on the latest corporate-media idiocy, noting that though his strip has been dumped, "Blondie and Marmaduke are still safe" at the Times.

The only good news in the bargain: The world's unfunniest "comic strip," Mallard Fillmore, has been put out of our misery. Finally. A dead duck we can all be happy about.

"Without at least one of these two papers," Bell writes in regard to the cancellations at both the Times and the Trib, "Candorville can't continue to annoy the knuckledraggers in two of our most important cities, and the strip itself may not be long for this world."

He also asks that complaints be sent to readers.rep@latimes.com. We join him in that request, and are happy to post his note in full below...

A report from McLatchy Newspapers Saturday night has busted the thing wide open, placing Rove and the White House smack dab in the center of the scandal in which 8 U.S. Attorneys from the Dept. of Justice were canned. As if they weren't already.

While both the now-disgraced Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) have already admitted their own inappropriate intervention in the matter, the state's Republican Party Chair, Allen Weh, has now gone on record directly implicating Karl Rove.

Further, we learn that one of the points the NM Republicans were upset about was Iglesias's failure to move fast enough on a "voter fraud" investigation. However, the McClatchy report indicates (as usual) that it wasn't actually a "voter fraud" investigation, but rather a "voter registration fraud" investigation in question.

We'll add here, for those who hadn't noticed, Wilson was named the winner over her Democratic opponent Patricia Madrid last November by fewer than 800 votes. Since New Mexico's new automatic recount law didn't kick in until the first of this year, there was no recount. That, despite our own discussions with Madrid after the election and our encouragement that she ask for a recount on her own.

(We'll hope, at least, that she kept her "Madrid for Congress" signs around, since depending on how things shake out down here there could be a Special Election in the not-too-distant future as more details of both Wilson and Domenici's inappropriate pressure as applied to Iglesias continue to come out.)

Between last night's report placing Rove at the center of the controversy, and a follow-up later in the evening from AP, it appears, according to Talking Points Memo (who has been all over this story), that someone --- oh, let's say Rove, just for the fun of it --- "may have gotten to Weh." In AP's later coverage, Weh appears to be attempting to mitigate his original account of the Rove incident, suggesting it happened after the attorneys had already been canned.

At the same time, New York Times has now gone on record calling for the termination of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in the wake of this particular mess, and several other failures including his gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The key details from each of the various relevant stories follow, as well as our recommendation about who really needs to be fired at this point...

I'll be on Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio's Ring of Fire today (Saturday) on Air America. We did a pre-recorded interview earlier this week, discussing Rush Holt's Election Reform bill (HR 811) and the Democrats and their public-advocacy group supporters who have failed to ensure that the bill will ban dangerous, disenfranchising DRE/touch-screen voting systems. I believe it'll be a very good interview if the bulk of what we talked about makes the edit.

Tune in to the live stream at 5pm ET (2pm PT) or check your local listings for when RoF airs in your hood.

Otherwise, I'll try to capture it and update this item with an .MP3 afterwards.

UPDATE 3/11/07: I was able to listen to part of the pre-taped interview on RoF yesterday, and noted that they had to cut out some of the good stuff for time. I've requested a copy of the full un-edited interview from the producers, and have been told they'll likely be able to send it to me on Monday. I'll post that version of the interview here as soon as I get it from them.

Guest blogged by DES

...And what a week it was: The story that would not be ignored, the story that would not die, became a very big deal as the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby CIA Leak trail finally drew to a close. But it ain't over yet! The Oversight and Accountability portion of our program is just beginning. Be sure to stay tuned to Special Correspondent Margie Burns's in-depth analysis, exclusively for BRAD BLOG readers.

Plus there were oodles of opportunities to contemplate free speech and the First Amendment, courtesy of a judge in Kansas (what is the matter with Kansas, anyway?) and the ongoing fall-out from the "F-bomb" dropped by that sad clown of rightwing "comedy," Ann Coulter. Apparently impeachment is back on the table, and now a safe word for even a Republican to say out loud! That's free speech in action, folks! And.... oh, yeah --- a computer security scientist told the Senate some very not-nice things about those electronic touch-screen voting machines...do ya think they'll listen?

SUNDAY, March 3rd...

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Clint Curtis Documents Evidence of Widespread 2006 Florida Election Fraud
The Whistleblower Turned U.S. House Candidate Continues His for Fight for Election Integrity and His Federal Challenge to his 2006 Race with the Corrupt Tom Feeney
*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** By Guest Blogger Jim Cirile

MONDAY, March 4th...

BRAD BLOG Runs Judge-Censored Stories on Kansas City's Board of Public Utilities
In Support of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America...
Including 'The Pitch' Version of the Story in full, along with the Kansas City Star's version

TUESDAY, March 5th...

Hypocritical GOP Bloggers' Ann Coulter Condemnation of Convenience
'Conservative' Bloggers Call on CPAC to Exclude Ann Coulter, But Give Themselves a Pass for Enabling Her For Years
The Sad, Discredited Republican Clown's Long Documented History of Vile Hate Speech and Rhetoric Conveniently Ignored by Newly Converted 'Conservatives' Only Now Declaring 'the Age of Ann Has Passed'

NSWBC: FBI Whistleblowers Confirm Illegal Wiretaps of Government Officials
Out this morning from the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition...

William Weaver, NSWBC Senior Advisor: "Preservation of the balance of powers between the branches of government increasingly relies on information provided by whistleblowers, especially in the face of aggressive and expanding executive power."

LIBBY TRIAL: While Awaiting the Jury Verdict, Some Questions
Were Cheney, Bush and Their Top Aides Briefed on the Reports Revealing the Niger/Uranium/Iraq Deal Was Bogus?
What the Records from the CIA Briefing Books Might Show...
*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by Libby/CIA Leak Trial Correspondent Margie Burns

CHENEY CHIEF OF STAFF 'SCOOTER' LIBBY FOUND GUILTY IN FOUR OF FIVE COUNTS!
Two Counts of Perjury, One Each of Obstruction of Justice, Giving False Statements to the FBI
DETAILS FROM THE COURTHOUSE FROM BRAD BLOG LIBBY TRIAL CORRESPONDENT MARGIE BURNS...

HAGEL: 'Before This is Over, You Might See Calls for his Impeachment'
The Republican Senator, Decorated Vietnam War Vet, Puts the I-Word 'Back on the Table' in Esquire Interview...

Democratic Judiciary Statement on Today's U.S. Attorney Firing Hearings
CONYERS: 'It is time to rein in this President and his Administration'
SàNCHEZ: 'DoJ acted behind closed doors to intimidate appointees...Had no effective oversight during previous majority'

Court of Appeals Overturns Kansas City Judge, UN-Censors Story on Alleged Violations by Public Utility Board
The First Amendment Wins Again...

WEDNESDAY, March 7th...

Libby Trial Ends, Reveals Clear-Cut Patterns
An Eyewitness 'Selective Memory' Postmortem...
*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by Libby/CIA Leak Trial Correspondent Margie Burns

THURSDAY, March 8th...

NEW GAO REPORT: Yet Another Confirmation That 'Security and Reliability Concerns' of Election Integrity Experts are 'Legitimate' (To Say the Least)
And Another Reminder That 'Problems with Recent Elections Resulted in Loss and Miscount of Votes'
And Another Reminder that the both the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) and the Mainstream Media Alike Have Utterly Failed in their Missions...

TRANSPARENCY: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Reports Out Four Good Bills
Chairman Henry Waxman Lets the Sunshine In
Bills the GOP Tried to Pass Against Clinton Now Resurrected With Bipartisan Support...
Guest Blogged by BRAD BLOG D.C. correspondent Margie Burns

Fitzgerald Invited, Plame Confirmed for Testimony at Congressional Hearings
Role of Cheney and Bush in CIA Leak Scandal to be Probed in Hearings...

FRIDAY, March 9th...

20 Voters File Complaint Alleging Touch-Screen Vote-Flipping in Montgomery County, OH
County's Election Director, Steve Harsman, Wholly Clueless...

AVI RUBIN: 'After Four Years of Study, I Now Believe that a DRE (touch-screen) with a VVPAT (paper-trail) is Not a Reasonable Voting System'
Johns Hopkins Professor, E-Voting Security Expert Goes on Record Against Electronic Ballots at Congressional Hearings on Election Integrity...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Retired Major General Paul D. Eaton took no prisoners tonight on Real Time with Bill Maher. Sadly, the General states that the problems at Walter Reed, which he blames on poor planning by the administration from the start, are the tip of the iceberg. An excellent companion piece is the General's NY Times Op-Ed, "Casualties of the Budget Wars" published Tuesday.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

To kick off his Latin American tour around Venezuela, George W. Bush sat down with CNN En Espanol's Juan Carlos Lopez. The purpose of the trip, other than trying to show Hugo Chavez who is boss, is Bush's desire to "remind people throughout our neighborhood that America cares about them". To hammer home the point, Bush explains that he brought with him "a message of hope". He also hopes that Latinos will realize how generous America is to our "neighborhood" and wants to see "the taxpayers" get more credit. The comment was eerily reminiscent of Bush's recent 60 Minutes interview where he questioned whether Iraqis had shown a "gratitude level significant enough" towards Americans. In Bush's defense, there does seem to be a disconnect between the number of times he states America is a "compassionate country" and the world seeing us that way.

CNN's Lopez also wanted to know how much compassion Bush intended to bestow upon Scooter Libby to which Bush gave the following surprising response:

After which, in a rare moment of Bush wearing his emotion on his sleeve, he added that the verdict made him "sad." But that was not the first time in the interview that Bush eloquently let his feelings be known, earlier having described his daughter Jenna as, "an accomplished (searching for words) woman." If nothing else, the man that would be king does have a way with words.

And still another complaint registered against DRE/touch-screen voting systems. It's Diebold's turn again this time. According to the Dayton Daily News...

The avalanche of these types of complaints and lawsuits is just beginning, people. Will Congress and Elections Officials figure it out any time soon?

In any case, it doesn't look like Montgomery County's Election Director, Steve Harsman, has joined the rest of us here in Reality Land yet.

Even after the story linked above detailed a member of the board of elections who "said the machine he used would not record his vote" properly, Harsman told the paper that "he believes most of the problems can be explained by voters unfamiliarity with the new machines, rather than equipment failure."

The BRAD BLOG begs to respectfully disagree with Harsman. We believe most of the problems can instead be explained by Mr. Harsman's overfamiliarity with the bullshit he's been peddled by Diebold, in addition to a complete Election Director failure.

E-Voting - Game Over. We win. They lose. Move on. Get over it. The only question now is how long it takes them to get it and how many more elections jerks like Harsman are willing to see trashed (and how many voters he's willing to trash along the way.)

(Hat-tip BRAD BLOG commenter "A Concerned Citizen")

E-Voting expert, Johns Hopkins computer science and security professor, Avi Rubin, once again stated for the record, this time in his testimony before a House subcommittee hearing on "Ensuring the Integrity of Elections", that Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems --- with or without a paper trail --- are "not reasonable" for use in a democracy.

Period.

From his blog item Wednesday discussing his testimony (which also includes a link to his complete formal statement):

So between Rubin's beliefs, and those of most every other computer scientist I've heard from, why do we (meaning Congress and their public-advocacy group supporters such as PFAW, Common Cause, MoveOn, VoteTrustUSA and others) continue to play this DRE game???

It's madness...

Impeachment, it seems to us, gets closer to "the table" every day now. From Truthout:

Lest anyone think the buck stops in the Office of the Vice-President, however, it looks as if the not-insignificant evidentiary revelation concerning Cheney's hand-written note referring to "this Pres." may also be revisited by Congress.

Those two words were scratched out on Cheney's note, but were still clearly visible and discussed during trial testimony. Had they not been scratched out, Cheney's note would have read: "not going to protect one staffer & sacrifice the guy this Pres. asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others."

To be honest, we're amazed that detail was overlooked as much as it was when it originally appeared. According to Truthout:

See the complete Truthout report for much more detail...

Guest Blogged by BRAD BLOG's D.C. correspondent Margie Burns

Four good bills were reported out to the full U.S. House today by the Oversight and Reform Committee. Each has an excellent chance of being passed in the House, where some of the legislation has been passed before, and a pretty good chance of passing the Senate. The four bills share the aim of letting sunshine in on the workings of government.

I sat in on this morning's mark-up session in the House, and the results, so far, are very encouraging...

Whaddaya know? Yet another confirmation by the non-partisan GAO on Wednesday, in yet another sure-to-be-ignored report, that our voting systems across the country are a hellish patchwork of un-overseen technological mayhem and disaster. This latest is entitled "ELECTIONS: All Levels of Government Are Needed to Address Electronic Voting System Challenges" [PDF] and was presented at a Congressional oversight hearing yesterday on "Ensuring the Integrity of Elections."

But what are the chances that anyone will bother to notice either the report or the hearing? (We're talking to you, Mainstream Media!)

So far this article, and the one I've published over at ComputerWorld this morning, are the only ones to have done so.

My report opinion piece over there today offers details and analysis of that new report, and how it underscores --- yet again --- that our increasingly complicated system of voting in America would be immeasurably and immediately simplified by doing away with all dangerously disenfranchising, demonstrably unreliable, historically inaccurate, and easily hackable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems.

(Sidenote: If you haven't already, take action to demand that Rep. Rush Holt's new, but dangerous, Election Reform bill be amended to ban all DRE voting systems by emailing Congress here and calling your legislative members here!)

My CW article today also points to earlier ignored GAO reports --- covered only by The BRAD BLOG when they were released --- but again referred to in the latest GAO report and worth underscoring here again, since few noticed the first time. To wit:

Hello? [Thump-thump] Is this thing on?...

One last point to recommend my piece over there today: It offers fresh criticism of the EAC's latest woeful claim ("We can't decertify something we didn't certify"), and a related hint or two at an upcoming long-in-the-work investigative report we've been working on at The BRAD BLOG.

There's your tease. My full ComputerWorld article is here...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Continue reading "Broken by This War" at The Progressive...

Pounding on several deadlines at once, so for the moment, here's something to chew on...

References to Anna Nicole and Walter Reed on cable networks on March 2:

Courtesy of ThinkProgress, with more details here...

Discuss.

heheh...

(Hat-tip Josh Marshall, who claims he's "been assured that the creators are not connected to the Obama campaign.")