Blogged by Brad from Phoenix, AZ...

Enjoy that one? If so, be sure to check out this modern satirical classic from The Onion, as posted a week or two ago!

(Hat-tip Philip Shropshire...)

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The Colorado media are beginning to pick up on something we have been saying for awhile. Secretary of State Coffman cannot seem to make up his mind on anything. He was for decertifying almost every voting system in the state; then he recertified them ignoring the reports that led him to do the decertification in the first place; then he was for paper ballot voting and now he is against paper ballots.

VotersUnite is going to mention the following over and over again. Please verify your voter registration. Voter rolls are being scrubbed across the nation. New data bases are being put into use and may not be totally accurate. The only way you will be assured of being able to vote in November is to ensure you are on the voter rolls....

I'm in Phoenix tonight to appear at a Q&A, along with filmmaker David Earnhardt, following a screening of Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections.

The event is sponsored by KPHX 1480 and will be hosted by their own Cynthia Black of ActionPoint. If you're within spitting distance of Scottsdale/Phoenix, come on by and spit on us at 7:15pm @ Harkins Camelview 5 in Scottsdale. More details and advanced tickets right here...

(As ever, we're on our own dime, so if you can help with gas money we'll take it! Here's our latest cool fundraiser premium offers which include a copy of the Uncounted DVD, signed by the filmmaker, for folks who contribute $50 or more!)

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 John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It appears that not many officials in New Jersey believe Sequoia’s explanation of the problem 6 counties found following the state’s primary on Super Tuesday. Sequoia has attempted to blame the poll workers for a problem where, on some machines, the internal paper memory does not match the internal memory, and neither match the facts from the poll books. The issue is with how many votes were cast for each party and not vote totals for candidates. Election officials have questioned Sequoia’s theory. Now a large association of state constitutional officers has voted unanimously to demand an investigation. Machines will be shipped to Ed Felten at Princeton University for possible inspection. Our gratitude is given to those state officials in New Jersey who have questioned the excuse that it is the poll workers or the voters who are at fault. The vendors almost never accept responsibility. One vendor may now have their excuse proven to be wrong.

VotersUnite encourages all voters to check their registration and ensure they are still on the voting rolls and that all of their information is current. It should only take a few minutes and may save your ability to vote in November....

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 John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Another good reason that a mail-in primary do-over cannot happen in Florida? It is against the law. State law only allows referendums to be on a mail ballots and doesn’t allow for candidates to be named on ballots via stamp and carrier. An executive order or a law change would be needed to allow the presidential primary to be recast.

On top of today’s Mississippi primary we also had a special election for Indiana’s 7th CD and municipal elections in Florida.

Today the Iowa senate approved a bill (47-1) that will change the state to a paper ballot and op-scan state from one that had a mix of optical-scan and DRE counties. The bill now goes to the House where it is expected to pass. ...

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...