Well Done, Brad and Desi!

Keep up the good work! I came here first..., pretty sure before 2004... Has it really only been five years?...

Anyway, after learning about the true nature of the 2000 Debacle, and hanging around BlackBoxVoting, I heard about BradBlog, and although it has at times been singularly depressing and maddening (not unlike reading The Nation), it seems we're finally making some headway. I've been on our town's Planning Board, and it's interesting to see how ignorance and complacency are a common theme through apparently every level of government, from town to state to federal, and even across different countries (although Europe still tends to "get it" a bit sooner than we do...).

Anyway, thanks for everything, and hopefully the coming four (eight?!) years will give you more happy news to investigate, and more time to rest and maintain your health, etc...

And many thanks to Desi, as well! I'm guessing Bradblog couldn't happen without you, at least in such good-natured form! (Make sure he keeps eating his veggies...)

Rock On.

Mac
Maynard, MA

I probably would have totally crashed and burned as opposed to being somewhat scorched in these last 8 years were it not for this place. Thanks all!

I remember back in 2004 I had some a close friend in my LD up here in WA (the fightin' 38th), who is a programmer and had the ear of the Snohomish County Auditor, and lobbied him fanatically on the dangers on DRE voting (we now have all-mail balloting as a result - better than DRE but the work continues). I was also working on the now late Andy Stephenson's bid for Sec of State (in fact we actually had two great candidates for SoS that year, the other being Laura Ruderman who has since disappeared - both candidates were opponents of electronic voting.) This was Bev Harris' breakthrough year with BBV also, and I know she'll remember Andy well. I think I was probably turned on to Brad early through Bev, who likely had a link on her site. Either that, or I was web searching on electronic voting. But it was way early, and for the last five years this has been pretty much the only place to find good info on voting machines, and it's the only place I consistenly am able to trust to get good analysis. And I'm completely with Ancient on the sentiment that BB has helped me get through the last five years. Probably 75% of the links that I pass on to others are Brad's.

Happy 5th anniversary Brad Blog!

I can't thank you enough for the work you do.

I will be throwing the few extra dollars I have today your way. Sorry it's not more.

Keep up the excellent work!

Of course, on our 5th Birthday, the database had to crash. Happy birthday to me. Working on fixing it...

Aw, would that you were only five, and could make the grownups fix your blog....

Maybe you can have your Happy Birthday tomorrow?

Hey Brad, your not just a pulitzer prize worthy blogger...but a technodefence team. Wow that's OUTSTANDING recapture work! From one great defence team/nation to another:

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=DkTflRQzCZg

http://hubblesite.org/ga...ion/pr2008040a/web_print

Happy Birthday Bro ~ Thanks for working so hard for us all. Peace and Bright Blessings.

Happy Anniversary.

This is a wonderful news source/aggressor. I recommend it it all the time.

Thank you

Congratulations Brad! Thanks for your ongoing search for the truth in helping maintain a healthy Democracy.

Congrats on your 5-year anniversary, Brad. Your blog is dependably engaging and insightful. I visit often.

Congratulations! Virtual drinks on Brad!

Many thanks and congratulations to you and to Desi, echoing Mac's guess about her importance to this project. (But french fries aren't a vegetable, as it turns out.)

I'd like to see Obama, who has already restored the letter p to the word 'president,' give us all a wood gift for your 5-year anniversary: paper ballots!

Here's to the ability for you and all of us to have more balanced lives as we continue the struggle for an actual democracy.

Congrats Brad. Just tonight, I wrote "Bradblog.com" on a napkin of a good man here in Nashville who was astounded at my stories of electile dysfunction. He wanted to know why he - a well read and important guy - had never heard of this and how he could get more info. I sent him the same place I send everybody on this issue...
I jumped in with your blog at the National Election Reform Conference in April of '05. Who knew I'd be dropping by almost every day since?
You are one of the major leaders of we patriots who have helped hold our country together...
And thanks Desi, too. Y'all do amazing work.

peace out,
shw

When Bradblog?
I am not sure when I jumped on. Must have been around the pinnacle of frustration with "electronic vote tabulation devices" in 2004 sometime.

Why Bradblog
1. Eternal vigilance.

Really if you give a crap about election integrity you've got two choices on this fucking planet. bradblog.com or blackboxvoting.org sure you can hit individual secretary of state programs or dealing with HAVA itself and try to fix the system that way. good luck. all I got was a canned fucking letter. They slip this shit in the backdoor when our attention is diverted, and the timing of legislation and new laws, they use as a weapon against us.

2. bradblog.com is an "open system" where all are allowed to post comments. Maybe you are banned now, but you were originally allowed to post.

3. bradblog.com is the opposite of moderation hell (ala 90% of the web), obviously illegal crap has to be deleted, but everyone is given free reign to completely destroy them self if desired. On the other hand, propaganda doesn't propagate from here with a broken feedback loop. ala corporate fascist news websites style--Story appears, unsubstantiated sources, Opinionated direction, Broken (overly moderated or too much registration personal shit/time involved to matter) Feedback loop.

What bradblog.com
I never had any problem with topics or articles here. If anything more could be here. For example how to fix the banking system. (my personal deal on that is that Karl Denninger is spot on--but hey your always welcome to figure out other ideas) It only worries me, in that if our financial system goes to crap with our government bailing everything out, so will our government go to crap when the marks are called, bonds are worth shit, China stops loaning and they no longer have anything left to operate. We can NOT let that happen. No more bailouts. We need 5000 FBI agents to track down and arrest these fuckwads.

I have come to the conclusion several things can bury the United States. Yeah the voting was the camel's nose under the tent, but the way we act and react with others on the planet--eg. war, our own intelligence whistle blowers (sibel), or our financial system could equally destroy us. The corruption in government has to go in all branches and agencies. Security clearances of fuck-up's need to be revoked early not late! This isn't all about how Grandma is on the no-fly list anymore. Fuck it, Grandma doesn't need to fly!!! I don't care about Grandma's problem I don't want corrupt people in our top secret networks. Yank their access, yank their security clearance, and let them prove they didn't commit crimes. Why are oath breakers still in there!? Get em out.

I won't say it's been all pleasant here. Everyone I know is sick of hearing this stuff, everyone I know is now stressed out about shit. Everyone. Next time all your friends gather, stand up and ask em. I doubt one will raise their hand saying they are not stressed.

Maybe that's why the fascist media airs so much entertainment. I've nothing against entertainment, I do it too.

i love your blog, Brad! i find i'm recommending it all the time as well. i continue to be informed & entertained by the intelligence & wit that you & your readers/ responders show here. luv u, luv your show, jacki

Hey, congrats. I'm coming up on four years, myself (1/30). It's always an informative experience coming here for the latest in electoral fraud. Here's to the next five years and beyond.

By coincidence, I also have a milestone today:

Assclowns of the Year #75: Diamond Jubilee/Inauguration Edition is up. The mother of all Assclowns edition, this is a year-long retrospective of the top 50 Assclowns of 2008. Persecuted for posterity:

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain, Sarah Palin, William Kristol, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin, Israel including some shocking surprising entries. And you won’t believe who #1 is (Now don’t go scrolling straight down to the bottom, read the whole list. You’ll be glad you did.)

CONGRATULATIONS!

I got here from Casablanca by way of Key West and the journey started with the snarky comment of a wingnut. A wingnut commentor on some blog couldn't come up with anything intelligent to say in opposition to your or Greg Palast's blog. Why you two were originally 'attached' in this commenter's mind I don't know but the remark came down to a personal attack based on your banner pictures. Srsly.

S/He said to effect that you two were obviously working out some personal issues with your blogs because your photo had a cigarette hanging at a rakish angle from your mouth and your head was tilted (!) and that Palast was wearing a hat and his head was tilted (!) This was some attempt to cast yourselves visually as serious journalists by using photos that had a noir symbolism like some old pulp magazine or book cover.

I kid you not. And S/He thought you and GP had personal issues to work out

That was a good enough review for me because I love the old pulp illos, noir cinema and Humphrey Bogart. Love. Of course the instant I read the wingnut comment casting you and GP as pulp-noir I had to instantly Google you and GP and check out your sites. Loved the photos. Been here ever since.

Yep. There it is and hey, dude, you asked.

I don't know when I first came here, but I have been more or less a regular reader and sometimes commenter for several months now.

As to why --- that's easy. I found myself frequently disgusted when I read many of the so-called liberal blogs. They never failed to disappoint.

When I read Brad's blogs, I found myself nodding and muttering "uh huh, yeah!" to most everything Brad wrote. I thought, this is the place for me! So I stayed. While I occasionally disagree, and have been argumentative at times, I do believe that here any thoughtful, reasonably intelligent voice will not be shut out. There is an honesty here that is about the blog and the bloggers as well as an honesty about the issues that hardly ever disappoints (nobody's perfect!) and that's definitely good enough for me. I'm here to stay and I'm glad you are here. I try to spread the word as best I can that the Brad Blog is the place to be.

Lottakatz (and the others) -

Thanks for the thoughts, kudos, and in this last instance, the great "hat-tip" story!

Wonder how many of those wingnuts have been my "best friends" after all, without even knowing it. If I can piss off a few more of 'em, we could really get readership up over here I guess!

Thanks for persevering for truth, and providing a serious forum for democracy, free thoughts & ideas. Great site. Good luck!

Happy Anniversary y'all!

Here's to many more years of fighting the good fight!

I first came to BB about four years ago from a WhatReallyHappened.com story link.

I've always appreciated that fact that BradBlog always strives to get the factual evidence as accurately as possible.

Oh, by the way Brad, U.S. currency is not made from wood pulp, while it used to be cotton-based, nowadays I think they've switched to bullshit.

My primary endorsement for voting rights news has alway been BradBlog, and not just because it's quick and easy to remember.

DanD

A couple of days late sounds about right...

After commenting on some Freedom-to-Tinker.com articles on e-voting a google search turned up a few names on the subject. Of those, Bradblog and blackboxvoting turned into regularly checked resources... and regular habits to boot

Congratulations, Brad, blog and crew!

ps... waiting for more info on Obama's EI policies. Right now I'm sorta vacationing over at a NASA and space related blog... y'know an "Old man yells at clouds" sort of deal

since we're reminiscing and all...

anyone know what became of Dredd?

a) what brought you here originally

THE TRUTH!

Congratulations, Brad and Des! I first came here on the day after in 2004, as I frantically searched the Web for some element of truth about what was clearly a terrible fraud, and an act of reprehensible cowardice on the part of Mr. Heinz. I think I might have found a link at bbv, and the rest has been, as many fools might say, histrionics. Thanks for all you do, and, in addition to all that, thank you for helping me see a raison d'etre for this last, most difficult year in my life. Fretting about misplaced apostrophes kept me getting out of bed every morning Seriously, keep up the great work. Let's not rest until the stake has been firmly driven through the heart of the DRE hoax!

I came in on a link from HuffPo when it was brand new, in August 2005, before it turned into a blend of the AP and National Enquirer, giddy for having found someone on the case of the stolen 2004 election. Could not tear myself away since.

Soul Rebel, I saw him insulting and harassing Plunger at RawStory the other day.

And DanD has a marvelous point.

Congratulations and thanks for running such a great site!

a) what brought you here originally,

I had been concerned about voting issues since before the 2k election, and certainly following that period. I think I started reading here fairly early, certainly during the first year (before the 2004 election). I don't post much and if I did back then it was under a different alias and different IP.

b) why you kept coming back for more,

Voting issues/news as well as reports about things that SHOULD be covered by a responsible media, but usually aren't.

c) what your favorite/least favorite story/article was/is (feel free to share links if you like).

I always like the voting news stuff, thats what brought me here. I also like the stuff where you're just as apt to slam the dem leadership as the repugnants, for example this whole fiasco with Reid screwing up on the swearing in issue.

Let me state up-front that this is very rare here, but occasionally happens, I'll give some constructive criticism. One thing I DON'T like is when you cover the 'liberal' side of an issue and/or are taking the obviously 'liberal' viewpoint. Usually that just amounts to a snarky comment or something in one of your articles, but in my opinion it detracts from it. For example, during the Norm Coleman issue you've sarcastically put him down several times, and sometimes the sarcasm comes through but sometimes I get a glint that you're happy Franken is ahead even if theres some controversy over some remaining ballots. No, I don't care about Coleman, and I like Franken, but to be honest to the election integrity topic you really ought to at least cover some of Coleman's 'side' of the issue. For example, aren't 1600 provisional ballots something that SHOULD be counted? Shouldn't every (legitimate) vote be counted? What was wrong with those 1600 and is there no chance that they could ever be fairly counted? Those are some issues I have with that topic as an example.

Thanks again for having run such a great site for all this time, I love coming here.

Disillusioned -

Thanks for your thoughts (and kind words) as well as criticisms.

I think I've been quite fair in the Coleman/Franken todo --- critical of Franken, at times, and Reid's support of him, while also offering advice to both Coleman and Franken, and fighting for Coleman's right to have his proper, unprejudiced day in court. While I could (have) cover(ed) the merits of his lawsuit in more detail, I'd been on the road during the bulk of the pretrial stuff, and otherwise trying my best to ease up here a bit (under doctor's advice). And, ultimately, figure that as the trial moves forward, if some of his points are good ones, I'll be happy to cover them as they come up.

BTW, in regard to the 1600 rejected provisionals you mention (and, I'm not sure I actually recall them in this case) I also made the case very early on that ballots are too easily rejected, and the onus should be on the election officials to prove they are illegal, and, if so, bring charges for fraud. Eg. if a signature on a mail in ballot is found to not match a signature on file, that would be voter fraud, and should either trigger the opportunity for the voter to prove it was really his/her ballot, or charges should be brought.

In either case, honest criticism is always welcomed here. So I thank you, and any others, for that any time.

This is truth!

HBBB Thanks Brad

HBBB=(Happy Birthday BradBlog)