It has been a couple weeks since we reminded all of our subscribers that voter registrations and voter registration data bases have been a huge problem during the primary elections. There is no reason to believe that they will not be a huge problem in November. One of the only ways to ensure a voter is registered is for that voter to check their registration. We recommend every voter check now and then check again just before the voter’s state registration closes before November. You can find out the date that your state is closing registration and who to check to ensure your registration is still HERE: ...

A Bush-appointed federal judge has found that White House aides, such as Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers (and even Karl Rove, though he wasn't a part of this court case, and so not named) must show up when called by Congress to testify:

The NYTimes report goes on to note that "The White House is almost certain to appeal the ruling."

Of course they are. Tick, tick, tick...

Huh? Did she seriously say that? Yes, she did. See the remarkable video at right for proof, along with Kucinich's response to her breath-taking comments.

Impeachment shouldn't be done, she continued, with two feet firmly planted in her Bizarro World, "unless you have the goods that this President committed a crime."

(Pardon us while we pick up our head from the floor...)

-- Brad Friedman

I had the opportunity to ask an important question of both the legendary Leon County (Tallahassee), FL, Supervisor of Elections, Ion Sancho, and Los Angeles County's no-longer-interim Registrar of Voters, Dean Logan, last week here in Los Angeles.

Readers of The BRAD BLOG will remember Logan from his poor showing, as acting Registrar, in the handling of L.A.'s Super Tuesday "Double Bubble" ballot debacle, in which at least 12,000 mostly-perfectly-countable votes from the Democratic Primary went completely uncounted, as well as his handling of the failure I encountered myself, in the more recent state primary in June, when four of my own votes were printed incorrectly by the county's ES&S electronic voting system.

Sancho was in town for press avails, in advance of the opening of Dorothy Fadiman's new documentary Stealing America: Vote-by-Vote (opening for week-long runs in NYC on Aug 1st, and in L.A. on Aug 15th - DISCLOSURE: I appear briefly in the film). Logan, to his credit, was kind enough to show up, with his deputy Peter McNamara, for a screening of the film held by PDA last Thursday.

After the screening, Sancho, a compelling presence in Fadiman's film, as he was in HBO's landmark 2006 documentary, Hacking Democracy, answered questions, and the activists in the crowd managed to shoehorn Logan onto the stage to speak to a number of local concerns as well.

I took the opportunity to ask a few questions of both men, as captured by Alan Breslauer, with answers, on the video posted at the end of this article.

Of most important note, I wanted to know if either of them would commit to a hand-count of ballots in a handful of precincts this November, on an experimental basis, on Election Night. The count, in such a "pilot program" as I described it, needn't be the official count, but could later be compared to the results as reported by both counties' optical-scanners, since both L.A. and Leon County use paper ballots for their non-disabled voters.

As I've advocated to a few other election officials in the past, hand-counting in this small, experimental way would help us all to begin to compile data about the effectiveness --- or even, lack thereof --- of transparent, polling-place based HCPB (Hand-Counted Paper Ballots) on Election Night, as many Election Integrity advocates have called for...

In today’s “Featured” article, Voter Action had this to say in opposition to S.3212, “The United States Congress should be investigating, not financing, the private companies that have sold the DRE systems to states and counties throughout the country. With more than 3 billion dollars at stake, the American people have the right to know whether these companies knowingly marketed a defective product, as some evidence now reveals. If, in fact, any of these companies engaged in deceptive practices in accessing public funds, they should be held accountable and states and counties should get their money back. Just as Congress needed to apply scrutiny to Big Tobacco, it is time for Congress to investigate the elections industry.” We agree with Voter Action and call on Congress to defeat S.3212 and any other legislation that “funds and encourages the continued use of this faulty voting equipment”....

Guest Blogged by DES...

From The Associated Press:

The White House's opinion that advisers cannot be compelled to testify does not address whether or not the witness is nonetheless required to appear in response to a subpoena. From Congress.

It remains to be seen whether Congressional Democrats will actually assert authority and re-establish parity as a co-equal branch of the federal government under the Constitution, or if this is just more sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Last February the full House voted to hold White House officials Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress. They have failed to enforce that vote, which passed 223 to 32, and AG Mukasey has said he would not enforce the House's contempt finding.

Last December, the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended finding Rove in contempt in a bi-partisan 12 to 7 vote, during which Republican Arlen Specter noted "we have no alternative," given Rove's snub of the subpoenas issued by the panel.

Despite the endorsement from even two Republicans on the committee, Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid has failed to bring the recommendation to the full Senate for a vote. Will Pelosi hold the House committee's endorsement (and the will of the American people, and the Rule of Law) in similar contempt?

UPDATE FROM BRAD: In addition to the Committee's finding of contempt, the resolution passed today also recommends an interesting additional course of action recommended for the House, as noted in the Resolution's markup memo [WORD] that we received from the House Judiciary this morning...

S.3212 is BAD legislation. The bill will be heard by the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration tomorrow at 10AM Eastern. Rather than ensure a paper ballot, or even a paper trail, this bill will allow more software or other verification schemes. This bill was clearly written with assistance from the voting machine industry and not the election integrity community. This bill must be stopped before it gets to the floor for a vote. Please call your Senators, especially if they are on the Rules Committee, and tell them NO on S.3212. See VerifiedVoting.Org for more detail on this BAD legislation....

Just minutes ago, the ground gently rattled and rolled a bit here at The BRAD BLOG World News Headquarters in Los Angeles for 15 seconds or so.

Wire services, TV and radio news responded within seconds to report a sizable 5.8 (later downgraded to 5.4) magnitude quake, centered some 28 miles east of downtown.

Don't have much more to offer for the moment, but wanted to report --- particularly for those who know we're back in L.A. --- that we're fine here. While the shake was noticeable, it was either far enough or deep enough (reports now say it was 7.6 miles down) that it didn't even much rattle the cupboards where we're located near Hollywood.

More later if we're able to offer any other notable developments...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

We reported earlier that a report from the Department of Justice Inspector General confirmed that Monica Goodling, the political hack installed by the GOP at the department, had in fact used an applicant's status as a "loyal Bushie" as a litmus test for DOJ employment.

Now comes confirmation of a rumor reported on NPR in April that the DOJ IG was also pursuing charges that Goodling had fired a US Attorney because Goodling suspected the woman was gay:

Via Knockville News Sentinel and RAW STORY:

In related news yesterday...The DoJ's Office of the Inspector General issued a 140-page report [PDF] finding that officials at the Bush Justice Department, including Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson, broke the law for years by screening job applicants for non-political career civil servant/civil rights jobs based on professed fealty to George W. Bush, sexual orientation, their political views on same-sex marriage and abortion, and Internet searches to determine if they might be "liberal Democrats," as opposed to "good Americans."

Violations of the Rule of Law by Bush's Justice Department include a less-qualified candidate being hired for a counter-terrorism job on the belief that the more-qualified candidate's wife was a Democrat, a career prosecutor kept from promotions on the belief that she was a lesbian, and the firing of the U.S. Attorney with whom she was falsely rumored to be having an affair.

The stain of those illegally hired and fired by the Bush DoJ's Rightwing Affirmative Action Program will continue to spread its toxins throughout the Justice Department and American legal system for years to come.

UPDATE: Jon Ponder has more on Goodling's anti-gay efforts on behalf of Team Bush.

Had this been a study showing liberal bias in the media, it would have been all over the place by now. But as the study offers evidence that it's McCain, not Obama, who has been given an edge by network media reporting since the start of the general election campaign, it seems we better help "catapult the propaganda" a bit.

Below is the beginning of David Knowles' coverage of the LA Times coverage of a new study from George Mason University's Center for Media and Public Affairs. The new study offers empirical evidence underscoring what most folks who honestly study the corporate media already know: Democrats get a far tougher time than do Republicans in the corporate mainstream media.

For those self-proclaimed "conservatives" who continue to buy into the nonsense of the "liberal media" canard (no matter the dearth of actual, hard, real-world evidence to substantiate it) please note this study does not come from one of those 'liberal elitist think-tanks.' Rather, it was led by a man hailed by "conservative" propagandists, such as Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck, for his previous studies on media bias. We have a feeling those same "conservatives" may accidentally not notice his latest study.

Take a look...

As reported in today’s “Featured” article problems encountered during New York State’s tough certification testing have caused the timeline for the 2009 rollout of state’s new voting machines to slip. Now the State Board of Elections has notified the Court that it will not be possible to complete testing on schedule and deploy the new machines in time for the September 2009 primary, as the Court has ordered. Why has this happened? Bo Lipari, the author of the blog, reports that the State Board of Elections has stated, “In the July 24, 2008 weekly status meeting SysTest announced that the vendors were not ready for testing at this point in time due to various issues, among them: documentation issues, testing machines supplied which did not function, lacked hard drives and or USB ports and therefore could not be tested.” Is it any surprise that the vendors, ES&S and Sequoia, are not ready for testing? In what other industry would a contractor come to a state, in hopes of making hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, with a product that was not ready to be tested? ...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Prospects are so bad for Republicans in the Senate that Sen. Mitch McConnell, their embattled leader, has given them free reign to vote against the party and, certainly, their unpopular president, if it will help them save their seats in November.

In stark contrast, Republicans in the House are apparently determined to follow Bush in lockstep over the cliff (to mix multiple metaphors), or at least that's the impression they gave at the impeachment hearing last Friday --- which was officially titled "Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitation" --- when GOP Judiciary Committee members put on a show of the sort of blind loyalty to George Bush that put their party in its dire predicament in the first place.

One by one, these pols --- all of them the sort of Republicans who give white guys a bad name --- took turns lashing out at the proceedings and trying to spin Bush's crimes as insignificant and morally relative to other president's misdeeds. At worst, it was a disgusting display of complicit politicians trying to save their own skins by fending off any pursuit of justice for Bush. At best, they came off a bit comically, like vampires in movies clawing and snarling at sunlight just seconds before they meet their doom.

Speaking of horror, a prime example of growling and back-biting --- not to mention outright lying on the record --- was the performance of Rep. Steve King of Iowa (who is not related to the novelist Stephen King).

Desperation is again setting in for Bill Kristol. The headline of the neo-con's column today --- he's now shamefully employed by the New York Times --- cuts directly to the chase and speaks volumes, while neatly summarizing years of the Republicans' only actual campaign agenda. All, in three words.

The headline: "Be Afraid. Please."

There it is, in a very polite nutshell. Look for more of that --- much, though likely less polite --- between here and November. It's about all they have.

The rest of his column is largely irrelevant (as he should have become, long ago) and is yet another sad waste of precious NYTimes ink. But the admission inherent in the headline is about as telling as you'll ever find.

“On June 26, 2008, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Senator Robert Bennett (R-UT) introduced the Bipartisan Electronic Voting Reform Act (S. 3212). The press release accompanying the introduction of S. 3212 observes “the ability to ensure there is an accurate, reliable and transparent method for Americans to cast and count votes is fundamental to our democratic process.” Unfortunately, S.3212 falls far short of ensuring accuracy, reliability, and transparency in our elections and is likely to do more harm than good.

“The bill contains some generally commendable provisions relating to election security (Section 4), voting system testing and certification (Section 5), and ballot layout design (Section 10), but the positive aspects of these provisions are outweighed by the problems created by many of the other sections of this bill. Despite its worthy motivations, the bill fails to carry out its objective.”

Thus begins the review of S.3212 by VerifiedVoting. We agree with these statements and the conclusions of VerifiedVoting. This bill gets a hearing this Wed., 30 July in the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. It needs to be defeated....

So we learned last week that new information concerning Republican high-tech guru Mike Connell's alleged participation in computer-aided fraud from Florida to Ohio to the Swiftboaters to RNC headquarters to Congress has helped lead Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck to reignite a long-standing federal lawsuit concerning Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election.

We learned this week that Connell may have been threatened by Karl Rove should the GOP's "high IQ Forrest Gump" --- so described for his uncanny ability to be found "at the scene of every [GOP] crime" --- fail to "take the fall" for election fraud in Ohio, according to a letter sent by Arnebeck to AG Michael Mukasey asking for Connell's protection.

But who exactly is this exceptionally successful, yet largely-below-the-radar-until-now Republican operative?

The following clip (appx 6:45 mins) from the new documentary film, FREE FOR ALL! (downloadable in full, free for all, at www.freeforall.tv) by filmmaker John Ennis, gives us a small taste of who Connell is, and how he fits into the big picture.

BRAD BLOG readers will likely recognize a few faces here. Please enjoy...