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It's Up to You, New York: 'BradCast' 3/21/24
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Previous GNRs: 3/19/24 - 3/14/24 - Archives...
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Corporations 'Taking a Bazooka' to NLRB, Hoping to Declare it 'Unconstitutional': 'BradCast' 3/18/24
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Schumer Steps Up; Trump Associates Paid Biden 'Bribe' Liar $600k: 'BradCast' 3/14/24
Also: TikTok foolishness; NY hush-money trial delay?; Navarro must go to jail; Trump owes $400k for failed 'Steele Dossier' suit in UK...
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FL bans heat protections for workers; Methane leaks continue; GOP Project 2025 would ban Paris Agreement; PLUS: CA snowpack is back, but too late for salmon...
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How to Media Better and Other Smart Ideas:
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Press quietly resets weeks of misreporting on Biden; Suggestions for NYT; Stephanopoulos v. Mace; Also: Buck quits; RNC 'bloodbath'; WI's MAGA Speaker Recall...
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GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
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Criminal GOP Voter Registration Fraud Probe Expanding in VA
State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...

DOJ PROBE SOUGHT AFTER VA ARREST
Arrest of RNC/Sproul man caught destroying registration forms brings official calls for wider criminal probe from compromised VA AG Cuccinelli and U.S. AG Holder...

Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...

ALL TOGETHER: ROVE, SPROUL, KOCHS, RNC
His Super-PAC, his voter registration (fraud) firm & their 'Americans for Prosperity' are all based out of same top RNC legal office in Virginia...

LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
So much for the RNC's 'zero tolerance' policy, as discredited Republican registration fraud operative still hiring for dozens of GOP 'Get Out The Vote' campaigns...

'Fired' Sproul Group 'Cloned', Still Working for Republicans in At Least 10 States
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...

FINALLY: FOX ON GOP REG FRAUD SCANDAL
The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...

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CRIMINAL PROBE LAUNCHED INTO GOP VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL IN FL
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Another visit on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture with new news on several developing Election Integrity stories...

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State GOP fires Romney-tied registration firm after fraudulent forms found in Palm Beach; Firm hired 'at request of RNC' in FL, NC, VA, NV & CO...
The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...

By Brad Friedman on 5/19/2005 3:31pm PT  


"The audacity of some members to stand up and say, how dare you break this rule. It's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying 'I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city? It's mine.'" --- Future Ex-Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) on the floor of the U.S. Senate today, comparing Democrats to Adolf Hitler in regards to their interest of retaining the 214 year old Senate Fillibuster rules.

RAW STORY has the full quote.

Shadow TV has the video.

Atrios has the context (MoveOn.org has been under fire by the wingnuts for hosting an ad submitted by someone else to their "Bush In 60 Seconds" which compared Bush to Hitler, and which MoveOn.org immediately removed. The RNC has been hosting it and using it for months since then).

Atrios also points out this recent quote from Santorum:

"Senator Byrd's inappropriate remarks comparing his Republican colleagues with Nazis are inexcusable," Santorum said in a statement yesterday. "These comments lessen the credibility of the senator and the decorum of the Senate. He should retract his statement and ask for pardon."

Would you like some crow with that hubris, Senator?

Finally (though we suspect we'll be hearing more about all of this soon!), Blogenlust has still more on Republicans and their phony Hitler Outrage.




Freedom Fighting, Election Fraud Busting, Fearless Champion of Democracy Still Undefeated!
(Goldstein Rumored to Have Sex With Goats)
By Brad Friedman on 5/19/2005 11:33am PT  

Before we point out what a classic phony "conservative" Aaron Goldstein --- of the site which (apparently without irony) calls itself IntellectualConservative.com --- actually is, we must point out still more apparent lack of irony from the site which gives Goldstein a reason to feel as if he is part of the human race.

Proudly tagged on each article page on the site, in the top-left hottest piece of real estate, is this humble self-description:

We are the only site on the web devoted exclusively to intellectual conservatism. We find the most intriguing information and bring it together on one page for you.

An example of that "intellectual conservatism" on one page, we suppose, would be this item and graphic currently on their front page:

Okay. So now you know what kind of site we're dealing with here, and have a small idea of the "intellectually conservative" geniuses who publish there.

With that in mind, one of those geniuses is Aaron Goldstein, who seems to have drawn the short neo-con straw this week and so must put in his sad, all-too-tired duty into the Defending the Indefensible on Behalf of The Powers-That-Be beat.

Goldstein has apparently been assigned (why else would he show up with such a small dull knife to such a big boy's gunfight?) to try and knock HBO/NBC's Jim Lampley down a few pegs. He fails. Miserably. But he doesn't fail to retread every lame, fake conservative line, apology, distraction, distortion, misdirection, justification and deflection in the Karl Rove playbook! Attaboy, Aaron! Fox News should be calling any day now!

In truth, Goldstein's sad little shot at Lampley --- he of the mighty Election 2004 as "the biggest crime in the history of the nation" statement last week --- likely deserves to be ignored. But it's so much fun laughing at these Democracy Hating Conspiracy Theorists like Goldstein that sometimes we just can't help ourselves...Even if we must stoop to their lowered level of discourse in order to do it...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Pro-Bush Prof Argues Address Arranged by Political Director Rove 'Not a Political Event'...
By Brad Friedman on 5/18/2005 5:50pm PT  

According to the Grand Rapids Press, nearly 1000 students and professors from the conservative Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI are taking out a full-page ad to protest George W. Bush's commencement address appearance this Saturday.

The speaking engagement was requested and arranged by Bush's top political advisor Karl Rove who, according to NEWSWEEK, informed a College employee at a "Presidential" event back in March that "Bush was hoping to deliver a graduation speech in Michigan this year and asked if Calvin College, a small Christian school in Grand Rapids, might be a willing venue."

Ironically enough, The Press quotes the chair of the college's communcation arts and science department who gave his approval for the event as accusing the objecting students and professors of turning the appearance into a "political event."

The fact that the appearance was arranged by Bush's top political advisor, who was specifically looking for a venue in swing-state Michigan for Bush to speak at is apparently to be ignored.

Yesterday's Press described tomorrow's stinging full-page ad:

In a full-page advertisement that will run in The Press on Friday and a half-page ad to appear Saturday, Calvin students, staff and alumni voice their disappointment with Bush's graduation stop.

"By their deeds ye shall know them," reads the paid advertisement, quoting the Bible. "Your deeds, Mr. President --- neglecting the needy to coddle the rich, desecrating the environment, and misleading the country into war --- do not exemplify the faith we live by.

"Moreover, many of your supporters are using religion as a weapon to divide our nation and advance a narrow partisan agenda. ...We urge you not to use Calvin College as a platform to advance policies that violate the school's religious principles."

More than 750 alumni, students and staff have signed Friday's advertisement, while about 100 of Calvin's 300 faculty members put their names on the Saturday ad.

And in reply, The Press quotes the professor who defends the Bush appearance...

Calvin communication arts and sciences department chair Randall Bytwerk says Bush and his speechwriters know better than to turn a ceremony of occasion into a partisan political event. Bytwerk reviewed Bush's prior commencement talks and said none took a political tone.

He finds it unfortunate some staff have chosen to bring political tensions into play.

"They say they welcome his visit and promoting dialogue, but the way to do that is not to announce everything a person is doing wrong," Bytwerk said. "This brouhaha makes a political event out of what was not a political event.

While Bytwerk may like to believe that this weekend's political event "was not a political event", a report in this week's NEWSWEEK on Rove's political "thank you" tour would seem to suggest otherwise...

At a GOP fund-raiser last March, Michigan Rep. Vernon Ehlers was waiting for his turn to take a photo with President Bush when he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Karl Rove, White House deputy chief of staff and Bush's top political adviser. According to Ehlers, Rove told him Bush was hoping to deliver a graduation speech in Michigan this year and asked if Calvin College, a small Christian school in Grand Rapids, might be a willing venue.
...
Why Michigan? White House officials insist politics didn't play a role in sending Bush back to a state he narrowly lost in 2004. Yet Saturday will mark Bush's third visit to the Wolverine State this year. Less than six months into his second term, Bush has paid multiple visits to the hard-fought states of 2004—and he's not the only one. Since March, Rove has been out headlining fund-raisers and county GOP dinners in battleground states like Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin. Administration officials describe Rove's travels as a post-election "thank you" tour to reward Bush's supporters. But others say it's an attempt to shore up the GOP base and stoke enthusiasm for Bush's agenda as the 2006 midterm elections approach.

Nope. It's not a political event at all. And the "Clear Skies Initiative" will clear the air. And "No Child Left Behind" won't leave any children behind. And when the "Mission Accomplished" banner goes up, the mission will have been completely accomplished.

George W. Bush's Bizzarro World continues. We just have to live in it.

Yet even the good conservative Calvinist Christians of Grand Rapids are beginning to understand what an embarrassing figure this country currently has occupying the White House and misrepresenting our country to the world.

UPDATE: A number of Calvin students have set up a Google discussion forum called "Our Commencement Is Not Your Platform", described as "A place to dialogue and organize for those opposed to George W. Bush commandeering Calvin's 2005 Commencement."




By Brad Friedman on 5/18/2005 2:49pm PT  

(In case you missed it, the U.S. Army missed its recruitment goal in April by 42%. Third straight month of missed recruitment goals. Have a feeling they may be lowering those goals soon.)




By Brad Friedman on 5/18/2005 12:27pm PT  

According to the LA Times...

City Clerk Frank Martinez used a different voting system, which meant few problems Tuesday with collecting ballots and counting votes.
...
In place of the InkaVote system, voters Tuesday were handed a simple paper ballot that listed each race or issue and required them to use a marker to fill in an oval next to their choices.

Imagine that.




Calls Oil-for-Food 'Scandal' the 'Mother of All Smokescreens'!
Stunning Testimony Reminscent of McCarthy Hearings!
By Brad Friedman on 5/17/2005 4:51pm PT  

Not since attorney Joseph Welch confronted the soon-to-fall Anti-Communist Crusader/Idealogue, Joseph McCarthy in 1954 with his now famous "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" testimony can we recall such a direct shaming of a Congressional Committee as that which took place earlier today in a Senate Subcommittee Hearing on the trumped-up U.N. Oil-for-Food "scandal". It's the scandal which Bush Lackeys and Fox & Friends have been flogging ever since it became apparent that there were no WMD in Iraq, and thus, no justification for this trumped-up war.

Also mirroring McCarthy's shameless use of the Senate for his Anti-Communist Witchhunts is the cavalier way by which the NeoCons and their sycophantic supporters are all-too-willing to destroy innocent lives with the stroke of an irresponsible pen or an out-and-out fallacious public statement in complete disregard for those whose lives and reputations they are smearing and defaming under false pretenses.

The hearings today, by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs investigation subcommittee, shamefully led by Democrat-turned-Republican Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, turned into a stunning embarrassment when British MP George Galloway gave his remarkable rebuttal to the unsubstantiated charges made against him by the Committee "investigating" the Oil-for-Food "scandal" which Galloway appropriately described as "the mother of all smoke-screens".

A video of a portion of the testimony is here (Streaming RealPlayer Broadband, Dial-up or Audio Only MP3). The full transcript (and we strongly recommend you read the entire thing to get the full impact of Galloway's statement!) is available via The Times of London.... Let me repeat the full transcript of George Galloway's statement to the U.S. Senate is here! Please read it!

For the attention-span impaired, however, here is Galloway's extraordinary closing statements:

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Haliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government.

Galloway didn't say the precise words, so we will...

To Senator Norm Coleman, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Rupert Murdoch, George W. Bush and All the Rest of you evil-doers:

You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?




By Brad Friedman on 5/17/2005 2:07pm PT  

Almost a full three weeks after the Chicago Tribune allowed their Public Editor, Don Wycliff, to write a foolish rebuttal to Robert Koehler's watershed column --- in which he said "the 2004 election was stolen, will someone please tell the media?" --- they have finally allowed Koehler a response by way of a letter in their hallowed pages.

It should be noted that the Trib never ran Koehler's original column, nor its followup, nor the original direct reply which Koehler wrote in response to Wycliff. In fact, the Tribune Media Services, in an unprecedented example of censorship at the organization, refused to allow Koehler's response to be published at all via the syndication service where Koehler has worked and published as editor and columnist for nearly a decade. A hastily compiled column crafted of letters that Koehler's received since the brouhaha began took its last minute place.

(We interviewed Koehler on our radio show a couple of weeks back discussing the spiking of that column. Here's the .MP3 archive of the interview, the Koehler interview begins at the :22 minute mark or so.)

In regards to the Trib finally allowing a response to Wycliff's article by anyone (they received hundreds of letters, only a single one of them was published, and that one didn't even speak to the 2004 election mess), Koehler wrote to us yesterday...

Amazing! After getting maybe 200 letters in response to Don Wycliff's column debunking the idea that there were any irregularities in the 2004 election, the Trib has actually printed a response to it. This is a far cry from actually covering the issue, but maybe it's a start. They felt enough pressure to realize they couldn't just make the issue go away by ignoring it.

You can read Koehler's letter in the Trib here.

We should also note that Don Wycliff finally answered our calls inviting him to give his side of the story on our radio show with a call from his secretary who informed us that "Don does not do radio."

We have no reason to doubt that's the truth. Nonetheless, if any of you good folks out there in Chicagoland happen to hear Mr. Wycliff on the radio, please do let us know won't you?

...CONTACTS...
Tribune Media Services Contact Page
Robert Koehler, Editor/Columnist/American Hero

Chicago Tribune Contact Page
Ann Marie Lipinski, Editor
R. Bruce Dold, Editorial Page Editor
James O'Shea, Managing Editor
N. Don Wycliff, Public Editor

UPDATE 5/18/05: Editor & Publisher, who has been doing a fine job of following the Koehler story, picks up on the latest story as well.




By Brad Friedman on 5/17/2005 12:59pm PT  

Josh Marshall gets the goods on the Republican plan to attempt to morph "Nuclear Option" into "Constitutional Option" via a Republican Senate Committee Talking Points Memo [PDF].

The GOP strategy for bamboozling the American People with linguistic tricks has been working quietly --- and working very effectively! --- for years. Now, however, that there is an actual opposition media (yes, that "Liberal Media" you've heard so much about is actually beginning to come into existance...even if it's out here, built from the ragtag blogosphere) one wonders how much longer they'll be able to get away with such tricks.

They were busted in the Schiavo case, and it looks like they're busted in the "Nuclear Option" case. For that, and many other reasons, it looks like the GOP Hucksters may be in more long and short term trouble than they realize yet.

That's just speculation on our part, of course. And yes, we're of the eternally optimistic sort still. But we believe we're seeing some signs written on the wall that The Force is not with the GOP these days. We believe we're seeing an Empire, if not yet crumbling, then beginning to show its potentially fatal cracks. Stay tuned...




Tom DeLay's Biggest Supporter!
One Good Tom Deserves Another! --- A BRAD BLOG Movement Salute!
By Brad Friedman on 5/16/2005 7:39pm PT  

"Tom DeLay is the most effective leader the House has seen in 50 years."

So said U.S. Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) of his very good friend, and mutual backscratcher, Tom DeLay (R-TX) outside of last week's exciting "Conservative Movement Salutes Tom DeLay" event!

And no wonder! Between all the cold, hold cash money that Feeney's received from DeLay, and all the money and voting support Feeney's given right back in return, it looks like the two Toms are birds of a feather! We certainly hope they're not jailbirds of a feather someday! Yee-Ouch! That certainly wouldn't be very helpful to the "Conservative" movement!

Feeney's been there for DeLay all along and nothing's gonna stop him now!

That's why Mr. Feeney was one of the few Congressmen willing to talk to reporters --- outloud, and right there in public yet! --- at the big "Salute to Delay" last week. That's why Feeney was more than happy to go on that important trip to play golf in Scotland with DeLay (apparently paid for by lobbyists)...Hell, they're even champs when it comes to redistricting their own states to help themselves get elected!

Is there anything these two can't do together when they set their minds to it?!

And just in case you weren't certain how close the two Toms actually are...The Public Campaign Action Fund was nice enough to recently compile a list of "DeLay Rankings" showing which Congressmen and women are closest to Tom DeLay and deepest inside of his pocket. And guess who came out on top of the entire U.S. House of Representatives?!

That's right! Our man, Feeney's #1! Waytago Tom! You've done it again!

(Thanks American Woman, Jaime, and Jesse of Stakeholder for their contributions to this salute!)

For more info on The BRAD BLOG's continuing investigative series on
The Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney/Yang Enterprises Vote-Rigging Scandal series, please see:
- A Quick Summary of the story so far. -
- An Index of all the Key Articles & Evidence in the series so far.



Everywhere!
Fighting for Democracy on Every Front! (Can we clone him?)
By Brad Friedman on 5/16/2005 1:20pm PT  

Late last week, the good John Conyers posted a fun (and very smart) piece headlined "The GOP's Attack On Voting Rights" over at TomPaine.com. Presumably his article was in reply to Russ Baker's attempt --- published the week before at TomPaine.com --- to tamp down the ever-growing cries of foul in Election 2004 and the need for true Electoral Reform in this country.

Election Reformers being no dolts and well used to subtle smoke-screens, trojan horses and deflections by now, quite a few enlightening letters to the editor were published over there as well last week in reply to Baker's article. Those letters also followed a quick reply/clarification/CYA column by TP's Executive Editor, Alexandra Walker.

Conyers' piece uses a bunch of Harper's Index-like numbers to cut through the crap and outline the very real and very major assaults now being mounted by the Right against American freedom and democracy. Read the whole thing. Here's a couple grafs of particular note to BRAD BLOG readers...

22: The number of times the phrase "voter identification" or "voter ID" was said at the first Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform hearing on April 18, 2005. The mantra of Republicans is that dogs, dead people, and cartoon characters are allowed to cast fraudulent votes. Republicans are advancing that strict voter identification requirements are the means to eliminate such voter fraud and state legislators are passing voter identification legislation as fast as they can with little debate or delay. In recent months, Indiana and Georgia have enacted voter identification requirements that have been characterized as some of the most severe and unreasonable voter identification requirements in the country. Several other state legislatures have similar legislation pending. At this first Carter-Baker Commission hearing, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Barbara Arnwine told of the real-world consequences of these measures: More than 10 percent of eligible voters currently lack government-issued photo ID, and would be arbitrarily disenfranchised.

6: The number of days the American Center for Voting Rights, a new, "non-partisan," "voting rights" organization, had been in existence before it was called to testify by Republican members of Congress before a House Administration Committee hearing on March 22. The American Center for Voting Rights was formed by a lawyer for the Bush-Cheney campaign and the notoriously anti-voting rights Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, who described the group as a non-partisan, voting rights advocacy group. He testified and submitted a report on Ohio election irregularities, which highlighted the Mary Poppins Conspiracy in this country. If you haven't heard about it, the Mary Poppins Conspiracy consists of many, many ineligible voters—using the names Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Jive F. Turkey—fraudulently voting in elections.

Unfortunately for advocates of this conspiracy theory, a precinct has yet to report that a citizen by the name of Mary Poppins showed up on Election Day and voted. Searches for Dick Tracy votes and Jive F. Turkey votes have also come up empty.

UPDATE: Oliver T. Dawshed also delivers a helpful reply to Baker's article in his letter that was not published at TomPaine.com. Amongst the information in his rebuttal:

The journalistic deficiencies in Baker's article are capsulized in one simple observation. Mr. Baker assures us that the academics who believe the exit polls are insufficiently trained in the science of poll interpretation.

So, who are the paladins he trots out to defeat their arguments? Warren Mitofsky, whose company and future stand or fall on the work under discussion. A psychology graduate student who has written a children's book. A bachelor's level graduate with some graduate coursework in polling (and many years working as an employee of polling firms). And someone with no relevant credentials (but plenty of chutzpah), whose work ironically contradicts Baker's implied characterization of it, saying "Dr. Freeman is right in concluding that statistical explanations of the discrepancy of the discrepancy to date are inadequate."




Climbing Every Mountain.
By Brad Friedman on 5/16/2005 12:25pm PT  

It's our first full day back in the homeland trenches today after being on the road for the last month and a half. It's good to be back, especially as there have been so many things we've wanted to be able to work on over the past several weeks which have been nearly impossible to accomplish from the road. We look forward to getting back to the hardcore investigative grind very soon!

Along with the month and a half on the road doing various speaking engagements, important meetings and accomplishing other super-secret missions (fruits of which will appear later), someone decided to drop an opportunity to do a weekly radio show on us during that same period. All of which make a difficult job (keeping up with BRAD BLOG and Velvet Revolution duties on the fly) all the much more difficult.

So it's been both a fruitful period, and an extremely difficult --- and frequently frustrating --- one all at the same time.

It'll likely take some time to get caught up and fully back to speed here. (Even the month and a half worth of accumulated snail mail is a carbon-based mountain that needs climbing! Including a number of snail-mail donations --- thanks! --- which have yet to be processed!)

There are a number of items that we haven't been able to post over the last several days (at least) which are worthy of your attention. Some have been pointed to by the eagle-eyed BRAD BLOG commenters already, but several deserve a higher profile as full-fledged blog items in and of themselves. Several others we had hoped to discuss on the radio show last Saturday but had to dump due to lost time caused by technical problems. So we'll be posting some of those "catch-up" items shortly even if they are not quite as timely as we like to be here.

As well, there are several tasks at Velvet Revolution that need our immediate attention to boot. Concerning the "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign and other notable projects which haven't been able to receive the attention they require due to lack of both time and resources. So watch for some new information over there as we work to get caught up over there as well.

Oh, and it looks like Microsoft has made some internal changes to IE that has caused for some odd formatting to the blog in some cases. We'll need time to figure out how they messed things up, and what, if anything, we can do about it! Just what we needed right about now!

Thanks for your continuing support and patience as we crank back up to full speed over the next week or two. Slowly, but surely, we'll get there. So much corruption, so much progress made fighting it, but so little time, "staff" and resources to get it all out here into the sunlight where it needs to be. Nonetheless, onward and upward...as best and as quickly as we can.

And thanks again, as well, to Winter Patriot for his diligence in keeping things rolling here when we were not able to! We're glad to hear that he is just fine and was simply unavailable to run Saturday's Night's BRAD SHOW Open Thread. Apparently he told us in advance, but that news seemingly was one of too many things which dropped through the cracks. The BRAD BLOG "staff" has been fully reprimanded for their failure do note that in advance, and a top-to-bottom review of such policies here will be conducted shortly by the FBI's former-director Robert Mueller, Jeff Gannon, Judith Miller and the entire NEWSWEEK Editorial Board to ensure such failures never occur again.




By Brad Friedman on 5/14/2005 4:56pm PT  

Looks like we made it! Winter Patriot? Where are you?




The House of Cards Begins to Teeter...
By Brad Friedman on 5/13/2005 4:30pm PT  

RAW STORY has the complete letter signed by 51 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. It begins like this:

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

We are writing to request that you appoint a special counsel to investigate whether high-ranking officials within the Bush Administration violated the War Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. 2441, or the Anti-Torture Act, 18 U.S.C. 2340 by allowing the use of torture techniques banned by domestic and international law at recognized and secret detention sites in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.

We don't care what the MSM does (or doesn't) report. The drumbeat will not stop. The truth is on our side. Truth always wins out over lies. Eventually. Stay tuned...




Numbers on E-Vote Machines Cannot Be Checked or Verified!
By Brad Friedman on 5/13/2005 12:07pm PT  

Just one of several stories from the past week that we're only now getting time to link up (having been furiously driving across country over the past week).

This one from Miami-Herald:

Discrepancies found in votes, signatures

A study on the November general election shows thousands of discrepancies between the number of votes cast and signatures collected by poll workers at the end of the day.

A study by a member of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition found frequent discrepancies between the number of votes cast and signatures collected by poll workers in the November general election.

The study, expected to be released next week, found that workers at dozens of polling places submitted counts of signatures to elections officials that did not match the number of votes recorded on the touch-screen machines.
...
[b]ecause the iVotronic touch-screen machines do not use paper ballots, elections officials may never know for sure --- highlighting a continuing issue with the machines.

''I think it's significant that we can't be sure that things can't be counted, compared and investigated all the time,'' said the study's author and University fo Miami Professor Martha Mahoney, who also is a member of the coalition.

The news comes weeks after Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan resigned amid revelations that human error led to the county's iVotronic touch-screen machines tossing out hundreds of votes. The $24.5 million machines have become such an issue that the county manager has asked the elections department to advise him on whether to keep them.

The study's findings were a surprise for the elections department, which had considered the November election a success.
...
The study found that there were 5,917 cases where there were more votes than signatures.
...
In at least one case, the problem appears to have been the machine. At precinct 816, the Church of the Ascension, the number of signatures was 945, a figure verified on the machine. But the number of reported votes that day was 1,116.

After testing the machine, its maker, Election Systems & Software, told the state Division of Elections that an internal memory bank failed but the votes were recorded.

ES&S and their "computer glitches" strike again.

Any of you political and MSM ostriches out there realize this is a story yet?




LIVE from the Left Coast!
By Brad Friedman on 5/13/2005 11:39am PT  

Made it back (finally!) to the Left Coast! Safe and sound! And it looks like we've found a studio for this weekend's show! So, barring any surprises between now and Saturday 7pm ET (4pm PT), we'll be up and on the air with another exciting LIVE episode of The BRAD SHOW via RAW RADIO!

GUESTS CURRENTLY TO INCLUDE:

  • HBO/NBC's JIM LAMPLEY on his Huffington Post firefight after blogging that Election 2004 was "the biggest crime in the history of the nation"!
  • Judicial Watch's CHRIS FARRELL on the Cheney Energy Task Force lawsuit!
  • Two OHIO RECOUNT WHISTLEBLOWERS from Clermont County!
  • Marine Sgt. RICHARD MEEHAN on tour of duty in Iraq where he lost three fingers in an unarmored humvee
  • BOB FERTIK of Democrats.com reporting in from the National Media Reform Conference in St. Louis!
  • As always, subject to change as events warrant...

    Please plan on tuning in LIVE Saturday Evening! And tell a few friends while you're at it! We need you all to spread the word high and low!




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