Guest Blogged by Howard Beale of Fired Up! Missouri...

Thor Hearne and his phony White House/GOP "American Center for Voting Rights" (ACVR) front group may be officially disbanded, but that simply means their still mysteriously-funded, tax-exempt scam to push for disenfranchising Photo ID restrictions at polling places around the country continues beneath the radar and by occasionally different names. Same anti-democracy thugs. Same money. A few less discredited (so far) names.

One of those names was front and center yesterday during a hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday, as the huckster Hearne could be heard faintly in the distance, still pulling the strings.

When the U.S. Senate's Committee on Rules and Administration held a hearing yesterday to discuss whether Photo ID Voting Laws lead to disenfranchisement, University of Missouri academic Jeffrey Milyo was among those who were present to give testimony.

The primary reason for Milyo's inclusion in the panel was his recent publication of a study purporting to show that restrictive photo ID voting laws had no adverse effect on voter turnout in 2006 elections in Indiana. Never mind that voter turnout is not necessarily indicative of whether or not voters were disenfranchised by such laws or not. More to the point, for the moment, while Milyo's testimony poured forth easily for the committee when he was talking about his contention that Photo ID laws do not disenfranchise voters, he became less erudite when the simple question arose of how his research had been funded.

There was good reason for his sudden hemming and hawing...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

The stated objective of the Bush administration's "surge" of troops into Iraq was to suppress the violence. Its unstated purpose was to get the occupation off the radar of the news networks in order to tamp down the war as a campaign issue against Republicans in this cycle. If it bleeds, it leads. Conversely, no blood, no coverage.

In that sense, the surge can be counted as one of Bush's rare successes. According to a new poll from Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, coverage of the Iraq occupation by television news was reduced to barely a blip last month:

Among the most annoying affectations of Tucker Carlson, the conservative host of MSNBC's afternoon gabfest, "Tucker," is his habit of feigning confusion by crinkling his nose, scrunching his brow and saying "I'm confused," before launching into a discourse about something a Democrat has done --- about which he is not really the least bit confused.

I wonder if he crinkled his nose like that and said, "I'm confused," when MNBC told him his show was canceled:

Blogged by Brad Friedman from Phoenix, AZ...

For all the Bush Administration and Republican Party's phony sturm and drang about a supposed epidemic of "voter fraud" at the polling place, the DoJ refused to offer a representative to testify at a Senate hearing today on the topic.

According to a statement from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who chaired the hearing this morning in the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, the DoJ refused to allow testimony from the William Welch, Chief of the Public Integrity Section, which has "responsibility for civil and criminal enforcement of such voter fraud to discuss what the Department has found and to help quantify the problem of voter fraud at the polls."

"Only after extensive back and forth between my staff and the Department," Feinstein says, "did they finally send a letter stating that at some future date they would provide an unspecified witness." The full press release, including her opening statement today, is posted at the end of this article.

"In the void left by the Justice Department," Feinstein said, former US Attorney David Iglesias was called as a witness today. As The BRAD BLOG reported in some detail when the hearing was announced several days ago, Iglesias was fired during the U.S. Attorney Purge after he'd refused to bring phony "voter fraud" charges despite pressure from both Republican operatives and elected officials alike.

It's little wonder the DoJ was not allowed to participate in the hearings, despite the well-funded White House and Republican efforts to use discredited "evidence" of "voter fraud" in order to require Photo ID restrictions at the polling place which would succeed in disenfranchising millions of legal, largely Democratic voters, who do not have such ID...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

And no, the first Muslim was not Sen. Barack Obama. It was Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.). Now there are two:

Ellison was sworn in on a copy of the Koran owned by Thomas Jefferson. No word yet if it will be used by Rep. Carson.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

You wouldn't know it by tuning into the Beltway pundits but there are actually two "big states" with primaries remaining in this cycle, not one --- if "big state" is defined as one of the top 10. Pennsylvania (sixth in population, with 12.2 million) votes on April 22, and North Carolina (ranked tenth, with 8 million) votes on May 6.

It surprises people to learn that North Carolina is the tenth largest state despite the fact that this has been true for years, except for a brief drop to 11 recently when Georgia moved up while New Jersey was moving down. Georgia is now the ninth and New Jersey is eleventh.

While Hillary Clinton leads in Pennsylvania, early numbers from Rasmussen show Barack Obama with double digit lead in the Tar Heel state...

Ed Note: The BRAD BLOG's complete index of notable NM GOP/Heather Wilson "vote-buying" stories is available at https://BradBlog.com/NMVoteBuying.

Special to The BRAD BLOG by Dennis Domrzalski...

New Mexico Secretary of State Mary Herrera said her office is working closely and quickly with the state Attorney General's Office to finish the investigation into the state Republican Party's vote-buying scandal.

The agencies want the investigation completed before the state GOP's statewide convention on Saturday, Herrera said late Tuesday in an exclusive interview with this blog.

Herrera also said she was troubled by the allegations that the campaigns --- including Congresswoman Heather Wilson's U.S. Senate campaign --- had paid people to attend the Bernalillo County, NM GOP's ward conventions on Feb. 17 and vote for certain delegates.

"It's something new --- people being paid to get to conventions. I've never heard of it. I've been attending (Democratic Party) ward and state conventions since I've been 18 and I've never heard of anything like this. Now we have paying people to do it. It seems very odd," Herrera said during the face-to-face interview in Albuquerque.

New evidence emerged in the case that offers a reason why Wilson's campaign was suddenly forced to admit that they paid for at least five people to attend the conventions, after initially refusing to comment on the allegations of vote-buying at the Feb. 17 Bernalillo County GOP's ward conventions: A paper trail...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

One of Bush's top military leaders has resigned, purportedly because of a dispute over the administration's Iranian war policy:

Josh Marshall suggests Fallon was "too sane" for the Bush regime:

Democrats believe Fallon --- whose conflicts with the administration were covered in an Esquire article in this month's issue --- may have been pushed out in order to silence his criticism. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "I am concerned that the resignation of Admiral William J. Fallon, commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and a military leader with more than three decades of command experience, is yet another example that independence and the frank, open airing of experts' views are not welcomed in this Administration."

Guest Blogged by Dennis Domrzalski of f-brilliant...

After waiting nearly a week, the Albuquerque Journal on Sunday finally published a story about Laura MacCallum quitting her job as KKOB Radio's afternoon drive time anchor.

What a pathetic story it was, though. It shows why the blogosphere is daily becoming more powerful and why more and more people are turning away from traditional media sources for their news. The fact is, those traditional sources can't be trusted to tell us what's really going on, especially when it comes to their own industry.

MaCallum quit because KKOB News Director Pat Allen pulled her stories about allegations of vote buying at the recent sate Republican Party's pre-primary conventions. Allen caved after getting complaints from Heather Wilson's U.S. Senate campaign and from state Republican Party officials. (See BRAD BLOG's Special Coverage Page on the scandal here.)

The Journal's --- this newspaper is the largest media outlet in the state --- seven-paragraph story, buried on page B4, fails to mention that it was Wilson's campaign that did the complaining. It didn't go into detail about the vote-buying scandal, and it said nothing about Allen's memo to MacCallum that he didn't think the stories were valid because other media outlets and bloggers hadn't picked them up...

Blogged by Brad Friedman from the road...

We've been on the road for the last several days, so haven't been able to keep you up to date with some of the latest beats in the NM GOP/Rep. Heather Wilson "Vote-Buying" story, since our on-air audio interviews with some of the key players on Friday. (see our Special Coverage Page here for the full background.)

New Mexico journalist and TV host Dennis Domrzalski --- who broke the story in the blogosphere first, including the not-insignificant detail that coverage of the original allegations had been spiked by NM's largest news/talk radio outlet KKOB-AM 770, leading to the resignation of their award-winning news anchor, Laura MacCallum, who had originally both witnessed and aired the charges --- has been advancing it smartly over the last several days. As The BRAD BLOG reported exclusively in detail last week, KKOB's news director Pat Allen has been having a difficult time keeping his stories straight about why exactly he spiked the stories after the Wilson campaign contacted him to complain about them several times.

Domrzalski will have a guest blog for us here shortly on the latest latest, but to quickly catch you up with notable developments over the last several days...

I'll be appearing at a Q&A, along with filmmaker David Earnhardt, after a screening of Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections tonight in Tucson, AZ. As an added bonus, I'm told the blogging fools of Drinking Liberally Tucson will also be gathering after all of that to keep the party going.

If you're anywhere in the hood, please come on by, see a great film, and say hello! Screening begins at 7:30pm at the Loft Cinema , 3233 E Speedway Blvd. in Tucson. More details here....

I'll be in Phoenix/Scottsdale on Thursday night for another such screening and Q&A, this one sponsored by KPHX 1480/NovaM and hosted by ActionPoint's lovely Cynthia Black. Details on the Phoenix screening (7:15pm @ Harkins Camelview 5 in Scottsdale) right here...

(Gas is expensive these days. So our BRAD BLOG fundraiser continues. Please help support our work, and receive your own collector's edition copy of the Uncounted DVD, signed by filmmaker Earnhardt, as thanks! Just Donate $50 or more online right here! To do it via snail mail, see the address in the blue form on the right side of this page.)

Blogged by Brad from the road...

The report is music to our ears, and far too long in coming. From today's Tampa Tribune...

Hillsborough County's Supervisor of Elections, Buddy Johnson, offers the best use of the machines --- he says in the article that "he wanted to donate one to the county's history museum" --- but beware, while some are to be scrapped, some of these bad machines may show up at an election near you...

We shall drift off to bed tonight, imagining the sweet, sweet sound of touch-screen voting machines being "mashed into bits." We never thought we'd say it, but: Thank you, Florida.

Blogged by Brad Friedman from the road...

The insidious nexus between phony GOP charges of "voter fraud" and the U.S. Attorney Purge scandal will finally be explored in a Senate Hearing on "In-Person Voter Fraud: Myth and Trigger for Disenfranchisement?" this Wednesday in Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-CA) Rules Committee. The complete witness list and press release from Feinstein's office, announcing the hearings, is posted at the end of this article.

Witnesses will include, among others, former NM U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, believed to have been fired for his unwillingness to bring phony voter fraud charges in the state despite pressure from folks such as Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM), and a representative of Republican operative Thor Hearne's now-defunct "American Center for Voting Rights," (ACVR) which The BRAD BLOG originally outed as a White House/GOP front group in a long series of investigative reports dating back to 2005, which began just after the supposedly non-partisan group (co-founded by two very high level White House/GOP operatives) first appeared on the scene...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

The BRAD BLOG's own Brad Friedman and other Election Integrity advocates spoke at the historic Joint Informational Hearing Discussion Of Problems Faced By Voters At The 2008 Presidential Primary Election held in Los Angeles on Friday (Brad covered one aspect of the hearing on the L.A. County "Double Bubble" ballot debacle quickly last week; our full body of coverage on the matter is posted here). However, Brad almost did not get a chance to say his piece as the Sergeant-at-Arms almost tossed him out of the hearing on multiple occasions for applauding (video below, 2:20):

Despite his "disruptive" antics, Brad was eventually allowed to speak to the panel about the Los Angeles County "Double Bubble" problem (video below, 2:23)

More video from the Election Integrity advocates' testimony at last week's hearings follows below...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

New York's Democratic Gov. Elitot Spitzer has told his top aides that he is involved in a prostitution ring that has been exposed in Washington:

The governor's travel records appear to confirm that he was in the capital when one of the federal prosecutor's male suspects met with a prostitute from the ring.

Should Spitzer step down, he would be replaced by Lt. Gov. David A. Patterson, a Democrat from Manhattan. Patterson is the first African American elected lieutenant governor of New York, and would be the state's first black governor. He is also legally blind.