Yes, for all of you paraskavedekatriaphobiacs (fear of Friday the 13th) or triskaidekaphobiacs (fear of the number 13) today is Friday the 13th. But it’s nearly over so all will be well soon.

The Curry Co (New Mexico) Canvass Board approved the final election canvass from the June 4 election today. As a reminder, some memory cards used to transfer tallies from the ES&S op-scan machines to the central-tabulator were corrupted. The county election staff ran tapes from the machines and tallied those to get the final results. When a losing candidate, at the meeting, asked why the county did not rerun the paper ballots she was handed a schedule of how much it would cost her to request a recount. If state law does not allow New Mexico counties to recount ballots when there is an equipment failure then New Mexico law needs to be changed....

It's my final day of Guest Hosting this week for the syndicated Peter B. Collins Show! Can't think of any better day than Friday the 13th!

We've had a blast, so far. So please join us for one last outing, this week, being the media from within the mainstream belly of the beast. (Yes, we've been BradCasting out of the Clear Channel building, from the studios of KTLK AM1150 in Los Angeles.) We're back today from 3p - 6p PT (6p - 9p ET), and hope you'll join us by tuning in, streaming in, blogging in, throughout the show.

Scheduled guests for today (Friday) include...

ROBERT PARRY of Consortium News, formerly of AP and Newsweek and author of Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush; BERNIE ELLIS of Tennessee's Gathering to Save Our Democracy; a big old in-studio L.A. BLOGGER'S ROUNDTABLE (Tune in to see who shows up! I know I'll be there!); and of course, JOHN GIDEON with Daily Voting News and DESI DOYEN with the Green News Report! Plus YOUR calls, BRAD'S rants and much more!

Join us! Listen live on the air, or via the Internets, and call in with your questions at 888-5-PeterB (888-573-8372)! Or post your questions here in this Open Show Thread and I'll try to keep my eye on 'em while on the air!

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Thanks for a great week y'all! Especially to Peter for letting me sit in and ruin his show. I always enjoy doing so.

Audio archives from today's show. Commercials removed courtesy of the PBC affiliate, San Francisco's Green 960am!

HOUR 1: Breaking news on Tim Russert's death. Robert Parry on the Supreme Court and John McCain. Brad takes calls and rants, as he's wont to do. Download MP3 or listen online...

HOUR 2: Bernie Ellis (in-studio and fresh from the Playboy Mansion!) The "Green News Report" with Desi Doyen and Daily Voting News with John Gideon. Download MP3 or listen online...

HOUR 3: An in-studio L.A. Bloggerama Roundtable! With Howie Klein, Stephen Anderson, D.L. "Bear" Bruin and David Dayen. Download MP3 or listen online...

According to HuffPo, "Russert was in the tracking booth, recording a track, when he collapsed. He returned from Italy Thursday night. His wife, Maureen Orth, and son Luke, are still in Italy."

New York Times has more...

UPDATE: NBC confirms, has more...

Last week I reported in great detail that four out of the twelve votes I'd cast on my ballot on L.A. County's e-voting system, during California's state primary on June 3rd, were flipped to candidates that I hadn't voted for. The ES&S InkaVote Plus system printed my ballot incorrectly.

I was voting on the audio ballot voting system meant primarily for blind and visually-impaired voters. Had I not been able to inspect my ballot visually after it had printed --- for example, had I been blind --- I would never have known that I was about to cast votes for candidates that I had not selected.

Because the "disabled-accessible" e-voting system at my own precinct was not working, again, for the second election in a row, I was told I'd have to cast a provisional ballot on the "disabled-accessible" e-voting system at the other "precinct," in the same polling place, in the same room, as my own "precinct."

The machine had been down all day, and nobody had come out to replace or repair it, even though the county had been called early in the day and told about the problem. Last election, on Super Tuesday, the machine was also broken, and none of the poll workers would touch it, due to exposed wires.

This time, despite asking to vote in a specific party's open primary, I was given a non-partisan audio ballot to compound the fiasco when I tried to vote provisionally on the other "precinct's" e-voting system that was up and running, even though not a single voter had used it in either this, or the previous election.

The voting went smoothly enough --- even if it took 20 minutes to move through the short audio ballot, shorter than usual because it was a state primary, and because I wasn't allowed to vote in partisan races for some reason --- at least until it misprinted my selections, which I had confirmed as correct while actually moving through the audio selections.

Luckily, after noticing that the e-voting system had printed my ballot incorrectly, I was allowed to VOID that ballot, and this time chose to vote on a regular, hand-marked paper ballot instead. My hand filled in the ballot far more accurately than the computer did.

That night, I alerted officials at the CA Sec. of State's office and L.A. County's acting Registrar of Voters, Dean Logan, about the problem, and the machines and ballots in question were isolated for testing. Whether someone who wasn't a loud, muckracking journalist, specializing in issues of election integrity, would have had that kind of quick service, I can't tell you.

Logan promised the machine would be tested, and the SoS office promised to follow the testing closely.

Earlier this week, Logan sent me an update via email, with photos, on what the investigation had so far found. The problem, Logan wrote, is being attributed to the "human error" of the poll workers who, he says, entered incorrect information into the e-voting system when setting up my ballot for me to vote.

Logan's complete email, detailing the findings of the cursory investigation to date, follows below, along with my email in response to it. As you'll see, the all-too de rigueur "human error" excuse does not sit well with me...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Voting systems are tested for federal certification by a “Voting Systems Test Lab” (VSTL) against the voting systems standards. So, one would expect, if a voting system fails to meet the standards it fails testing and cannot be certified. One would expect. However, the voting systems standards give the vendors and the VSTLs an out. B.5 of Appendix B of Volume II of the 2002 VSS and the 2005 VVSG says, “….any uncorrected deficiency that does not involve the loss or corruption of voting data shall not necessarily be cause for rejection.” A Premier voting system was recently recommended for certification by Systest, one of the VSTLs. In the test report Systest reported 79 discrepancies. 77 of those discrepancies were serious but fell within the B.5 “get out of jail free card.” Two of the 79 were serious discrepancies that report loss of data and are not covered by the “get out of jail free card.” Yet the system was recommended for certification and the EAC is considering following that recommendation. (See article immediately below)...

It's Day 3 of my Guest Hosting gig this week for the syndicated Peter B. Collins Show! Please join us for another rip-roaring adventure in radio and accountability-land!

We'll again be BradCasting live from the studios of KTLK AM1150 in Los Angeles from 3p - 6p PT (6p - 9p ET). Hope you'll tune in, call in, stream in, and blog in throughout the show.

Scheduled guests for today (Thursday) include...

FAIZ SHAKIR from the Center for American Progress; Military affairs correspondent SCOTT DICK; Former Asst. U.S. Attorney under Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, and author of United States V. George W. Bush et al., ELIZABETH DE LA VEGA; Voters Unite's ELLEN THEISEN; and of course, JOHN GIDEON with Daily Voting News and DESI DOYEN with the Green News Report! Plus YOUR calls, BRAD'S rants and much more!

Listen live on air, or via the Internets, and call in with your questions at 888-5-PeterB (888-573-8372)! Or post your questions here in this Open Show Thread and I'll try to keep my eye on 'em while on the air!

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Fun show today (if that's the right word for it).

Audio archives from today's show. Commercials removed courtesy of the PBC affiliate, San Francisco's Green 960am!

HOUR 1: Faiz Shakir on SCOTUS restoration of habeas corpus and Impeachment by Kucinich. Brad rants on both issues, with callers in second half. Download MP3 or listen online...

HOUR 2: Scott Dick on the latest military related issues. Plus, the "Green News Report" with Desi Doyen. Download MP3 or listen online...

HOUR 3: Elizabeth de la Vega on habeas corpus, Impeachment, unprecedented Bush corruption. Also John Gideon with Daily Voting News, Brad gets an explanation from the L.A. County Registrar's office for his flipped votes last week on L.A. County's e-voting system, and Ellen Theisen finds the error rate for Brad's ballot to be several million percent higher than that allowed by federal law. Download MP3 or listen online...

From the full story at Public Record...

We'll be talking about this, and other related issues, such as today's SCOTUS finding restoring Habeas Corpus and last week's Senate Intel Comm's "Phase II report" on Bush's (mis)use of pre-war intel, with former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega, author of United States V. George W. Bush et al., when I guest host the syndicated Peter B. Collins Show again later today (3p-6p PT, 6p-9p ET). Please tune in!

DISCLOSURE: The BRAD BLOG was consulted by Kucinich's office prior to his filing of Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush. We were asked to submit material as used in Article 28, "Tampering with Free and Fair Elections" and Article 29, "Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965".

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

During a segment on his radio show this morning, Bill O'Reilly reported from the alternate universe he lives in that the non-conservative radio network, Air America Radio, had "folded." (The audio clip is at the end of this article.)

The news, undoubtedly, came as a bit of a surprise to Thom Hartmann, whose successful live weekday radio program is syndicated by Air America Radio and runs in the same time slot as O'Reilly in many markets.

Contrary to O'Reilly's misinformation, The Thom Hartman Program likely even outpaces the Fox entertainer in listenership, as he told us this afternoon.

In response to our query, Hartmann told The BRAD BLOG that, while he didn't currently have access to O'Reilly's ratings for comparison, in a number of markets his show regularly beats Rush Limbaugh, who also broadcasts during the same hours. Limbaugh, in turn, regularly beats O'Reilly in listener numbers, Hartmann explained via email.

"I beat Limbaugh in Portland in the last [ratings] book," wrote Hartmann, who broadcasts out of Portland's KPOJ, "and in Seattle in the Fall '06 book...Limbaugh almost always beats O'Reilly, and I've beaten Limbaugh in multiple markets (2) over multiple years (3)."

Yesterday, as we reported, O'Reilly featured a segment on his Fox "News" television show declaring that Progressive activists calling for reform of the corporate stranglehold on mainstream media and the public airwaves were "fascists," "loons," "unstable people" and a "threat to the country." One of his guests, rightwing Republicanist Mary Katherine Hamm, charged that proponents of media reform, and those who oppose her and O'Reilly's minority fringe viewpoints, are "a group of people living in an alternative universe."

This morning, while arguing on The Radio Factor that it's a "bad strategy" for the GOP to attack Barack Obama's wife Michelle because it would "turn off independent voters" as needed by John McCain to win the Presidency, O'Reilly responded to a caller who disagreed with him by pointing to Air America as "the best example I can give you." He then proceeded to use wholly inaccurate information, describing Air America in the past tense, as if it no longer existed, in his "best example"...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Yesterday I spoke about what may be election fraud in the handling of absentee ballots in Bullock Co., Alabama. Today the District Attorney in Randolph Co. requested an investigation of absentee ballot handling in his county. An investigation is already being carried out in Potter Co. Absentee ballot mishandling appears to be the preferred means of election fraud in Alabama. Clearly this is something that bears our attention going into November.

It is no surprise at all that ES&S investigated problems on their machines used in Faulkner Co., Arkansas, and declared the whole problem was “human error.” However, there was an error in tabulating the votes. That error was not caused by the voter so that error is a violation of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 Section 301(a)(5).

The Secretary of State of Ohio has released a report on the 2008 Primary from last March. The media reports say the primary had some “bumps but went well overall.” In fact, the report ignores problems that even the Secretary described at the time as a “huge problem.” One has to wonder why election officials seem to think they can misrepresent the facts and not be called on it....

Looks like we're coming into rewards season at the White House for longtime Bush loyalists. Of course, we thought that's what the last seven year were about, but we digress.

Apparently, being named as a criminal co-conspirator in Articles of Impeachment is worthy of a prize from this particular White House, as Bush/Cheney '04 Inc.'s self-proclaimed "non-partisan" "longtime voting rights advocate" --- and not-self-proclaimed national champion GOP vote-suppressor Thor Hearne --- received yet another thank you gift from the White House today: A non-partisan appointment to a "non-partisan Commission" (according to the nationally renowned liar Thor) by George W. Bush.

Jo Mannies of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, one of the few reporters Thor will answer the phone for (other than those at "liberal media" outlets such as NYTimes, NPR, USA Today and again at USA Today) writes today, while failing to note Hearne's infamous entry into the history books on the floor of the U.S. House this week...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Two unsuccessful candidates for Bullock Co., Alabama, commissioner have requested that the state Attorney General investigate absentee vote irregularities in the June 3 election. Both candidates won by large margins at the polls. In both cases the candidates lost after an unusual number of absentee ballots were cast and the results were just the opposite. One of the winning candidates admitted that he and his family "helped" Bullock County residents apply for absentee ballots, but he claimed it was not done to "break any laws." One has to wonder how much money changed hands from candidate to voter.

That story, and today's other notable voting news items, all linked below...

It's Day 2 of this week's Guest Hosting adventure on the syndicated Peter B. Collins Show and it should be another fun one, even as we hope to have yesterday's technical glitch, which disallowed us from taking callers, all worked out.

So while PBC enjoys his time off, we'll again be BradCasting live from the studios of KTLK AM1150 in Los Angeles from 3p - 6p PT (6p - 9p ET). Hope you'll tune in, call in, stream in, and blog in throughout the show.

My scheduled guests so far today (Tuesday) include...

• RON PRENTICE, CEO of the California Family Council. He's working with the "Protect Marriage Coalition" to sponsor the "California Marriage Protection Act" [PDF] ballot initiative this November, which would amend the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage here.

• GREG MITCHELL, editor of Editor & Publisher and author of the new book So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, The Pundits --- and the President --- Failed on Iraq .
• JASON LEOPOLD, Peter's regular weekly guest, investigative journalist and creator of The Public Record, joins us to discuss Scott McClellan's planned testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Impeachment, Jack Abramoff, and whatever else comes up.
• ELLEN BRODSKY, citizen Election Integrity advocate founder of the Broward Election Reform Coalition and a member of the Florida Fair Elections Coalition. Ellen is stepping up to run this year for Supervisor of Elections in Broward County, Florida.
• Plus Daily Voting News with JOHN GIDEON, a Green News Report from DESI DOYEN, YOUR calls, and much more!

Listen live on air, or via the Internets, and call in with your questions at 888-5-PeterB (888-573-8372)! Or post your questions here in this Open Show Thread and I'll try to keep my eye on 'em while on the air!

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Audio archives from today's show. Commercials removed courtesy of the PBC affiliate, San Francisco's Green 960am!

HOUR 1: Brad riffs on Impeachment, then goes round and round with Ron Prentice on same-sex marriage and constitutional amendments for same in California. Download MP3 or listen online...

HOUR 2: Desi Doyen's "Green News Report" and Greg Mitchell on corporate media failure. Download MP3 or listen online...

HOUR 3: Jason Leopold on Impeachment, Abramoff, McClellan, and GOP corruption. Daily Voting News w/John Gideon, and Ellen Brodsky on running for Election Supervisor in Broward County, FL Download MP3 or listen online...

Black is white. Up is down. And it's those calling for media reform who are "fascists" and "pose a danger" to this country according to Fox "News" entertainer clown Bill O'Reilly. Yes, that's what he claimed during the coverage of last weekend's National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis.

Happily, O'Reilly was able to find two "Fair and Balanced" guests, rightwing pawn Mary Katherine Hamm of Townhall.com and Fox's own "non-Rightwinger" Juan Williams (who has, clearly, enjoyed his fill of delicious Republicanist-flavored Fox "News" kool-aid over the years) to agree with him. Go figure.

There is more to comment on in this clip, than I possibly can, and still have time to prepare for guest hosting the Peter B. Collins' radio show again later today. But I hope to speak more about this on air with one of my scheduled guests, Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher, author of the new book, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, The Pundits --- and the President --- Failed on Iraq ...

BTW, contrary to O'Reilly's and guests' claims that those of us who favor corporate media reform wish to shut out "Conservative" voices, when I guest host I regularly try to include such voices, as on today's show, for example, when one of my first guests will be Ron Prentice of the California Family Council and the "Protect Marriage Coalition." His group is sponsoring the "California Marriage Protection Act" [PDF] ballot initiative this November, which would amend the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage here. I look forward to the conversation on the air later today.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

State and local primary elections are still ongoing around the country. Tomorrow we have elections in South Carolina, North Dakota, Virginia, and Maine, with early voting beginning for the Utah primary.

Due directly to the failure of the voting system in Faulkner Co., Arkansas, to accurately tabulate votes, citizens will have a ‘town hall’ meeting in Conway to discuss the failures of the system and what steps they can take to force the county and state to fix the system. One suggestion: a formal HAVA complaint for violation of Section 301(a)(5). (See HAVA Section 402(a)(2))...