The magical mystical media tour continues, but I am otherwise alive and well. Spent the bulk of yesterday being interviewed on camera by some documentary filmmakers. More on that at a later date, but that's just one of the matters that has kept me largely out of Bradville here for the last day or so.

We seem to be doing a decent job of getting the word out about the stories being reported here on The BRAD BLOG and the work on Velvet Revolution. (We hope to have more exciting info soon, btw, concerning VR's DV4D Campaign...and yes, more actual reporting here on BRAD BLOG!)

In the meanwhile, before we can get back up and rolling here at fullspeed, here's a link to Doug Basham's website where he's featuring the radio interview we did this morning during drive-time on his Las Vegas radio show. (Scroll down the page a bit until you see my picture and/or name). The interview is about an hour, but the killer opening that Doug put together at the top of the show rocks! We believe he may be the first person in the broadcast media to actually play clips of Clint Curtis' sworn testimony before members of the U.S. Judiciary Committee on the air! (The full video of that testimony has, of course, been available here at BRAD BLOG for months.)

We'll be back soon. In the meantime, feel free to use this as an open thread and/or chat about the most important issue of our day! No, not the thousands of dead Americans and Iraqi Civilians in Iraq. Not the White House's fake news media operation. Not the daily presence of a hooker within knife throwing distance of an American President. Not the Bankruptcy bill or the gutting of ANWR for six months of oil, or the fake crisis in Social Security, or an electoral system going down the drain...No, it's Congressional hearings on the use of steroids in baseball! Glad to know the Republicans controlling Congress are looking out for the American people...Unbelievable...Have at it.

About an hour or so with Mark Levine of Inside Scoop, D.C. Making noise inside the beltway (Hi Tom!) Some great calls and good discussion of the usual suspects (FeeneyGate, Velvet Revolution, Blogging and the Conservative bias in the Corporate Media, etc).

Mr. Levine is a swell host, and a hell of a nice guy (doesn't hurt that he's a big BRAD BLOG fan either!) Also, we were able to break the news about the David Cobb VR Endorsement live on his show since we received notification via email while we were rolling...

Best of all, he's popping for the bandwidth for today's archived show! Thanks, Mark!

Last week, in his endorsement of Velvet Revolution's "Divestiture for Democracy" Campaign, Congressman John Conyers, the ranking minority member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, said: "I applaud Velvet Revolution's actions and recommendations with regard to election machinery firms. I believe it is critical that we take every action we can to encourage these companies to help us restore our people's trust in our elections. I look forward to working with Velvet Revolution on this effort."

Today, Mr. Conyers kept his promise by joining with Congresswoman Maxine Waters in sending a letter to their congressional colleagues asking them to sign onto a letter to all nine of America's Voting Machine companies urging them to immediately implement the recommendations made by VR in the February 21, 2005 letter to the companies.

The letter to the companies, which they are asking colleagues to sign, restates the position that no government funding should be given to companies which do not voluntarily implement these standards!

From the Waters/Conyers letter to colleagues:

In their letter to the voting machine companies they state their position concerning the withholding of HAVA (Help America Vote Act) funding in no uncertain terms:

For the complete text of both the "Dear Colleague" letter and the letter to the Voting Machine Companies, please click here....

Earlier today, Green Party Presidential Candidate, David Cobb endorsed VR's DV4D Campaign with a letter sent to all nine companies, as well as a letter of support to VR.

Green Party Presidential Candidate David Cobb has today sent a letter the voting machine companies of America, urging them to stand with Velvet Revolution's campaign to restore integrity to our country's Electoral Process!

Cobb, along with the Libertarian Party's Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik, was responsible for the demanding a recount of Ohio's Presidential Election after thousands of documented irregularities began to emerge out of the state after the election.

A letter of support was also sent to yours truly as Co-Founder of VR.

Here is the text from Cobb's letter sent today to the leaders of all nine of America's major voting machine companies:

Please see this page for the letter sent to Brad Friedman.

We were on last week, and invited back for regular visits on Don Grady's Louisiana Live. We like Don.

About 18 minutes on the latest DeLay ethics chicanery, Velvet Revolution, and Conservative bias in the media: Streaming RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, or MP3 Download.

Tomorrow morning at 10am ET, the honorable John Conyers will issue a Resolution of Inquiry in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee forcing both Republicans and Democrats to go on the record with a vote as to whether they believe the White House should come clean concerning the credentialing of hooker cum fake White House journalist James Guckert (a/k/a Jeff Gannon).

RAW STORY has some inside skinny on the maneuver. AMERICAblog has the details on where you can watch online.

BRAD BLOG has Conyers' statement...

On the money, and out of the ballpark as usual, Congressman.

So much for that quaint old "Rule of Law" thing that Republicans used to care about (when they were out of power). Dirty, dirty, dirty boys. RAW STORY once again has the scoop on the rope pulling down Tom DeLay and now more and more of his friends with him.

We get the feeling this thing is just beginning...

That said, DeLay and friends are attempting to defend the fortress by cooking the rules in the House Ethics Committee. They've gone so far as to attempt to change the rule requiring that a congressman must "...conduct himself at all times in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House of Representatives." Of course they have.

Dems on the Ethics Committee are, so far, standing tough. But support from the people is paramount! Send an email to demand that legislators don't gut the House Ethics Rules!

UPDATE: Jesse Lee, the blogger of The Stakeholder is helping to up the ante on DeLay's plans for decapitating the ethics rules in order to keep himself out of trouble! See his post at DailyKos right away for more info!

I've been attempting to prepare a few answers (okay, alotta answers) to the many questions posted by readers on the recent story about the mysterious "suicide" case of Raymond Lemme. I've been working on getting further details, speaking with some folks "in the know", and trying to keep up with the now record number of comments left on that article (currently 722 of them as of this posting!) so that I can share with you which points I may be able to help clear up and which points I cannot. Yet.

At the same time, as you'll note at the top of the blog, I've been doing quite a few media appearances concerning both this story and Velvet Revolution's DV4D campaign. (Have you sent your Email to the Voting Machine Companies yet?!)

I'm attempting to wrestle with my personal interest of continuing to investigate and report on the FeeneyGate story and all its remarkable continuing twists and turns, and the need to get the story itself out there.

For the moment, I believe more than enough information has been compiled here over the last three months to merit getting it out there to a wider public. Even if that means my investigation/reporting on new information is a bit slower than I would like. I think the price is worth it, however, to help reach the broadest possible audience with this information.

So this is just a quick note to thank you for your patience at this point in the story, and I will have that promised follow-up to the Lemme piece (and more!) soon. It's just difficult to know how soon for the moment. There are also some other stories brewing...But more on that in due time.

Thanks again for all of your support in all of these matters. You guys make it all very much worth all of the hard work, long hours, lack of sleep and lack of salary! Democracy, as someone mentioned to me of late, is its own reward...

We're delighted that The New York Times has today decided to take notice of Blogcall.org, an organization created by Progressive Bloggers as a way to help see their real stories and real exposés find their way into a corporate media which now consistently slants to the Right.

It is, however, more than a bit disappointing to see that their article on same ends up --- but, of course --- slanting so much to the Right!

We should point out that we are mentioned in the piece by The Times' Jonathan D. Glater, that we were somewhat instrumental in the organization of Blogcall.org and that we were, in fact, the featured guest blogger on last week's call. (We discussed our three-and-a-half month Tom Feeney/Clint Curtis Vote-Rigging investigation and broke the news during the call of the Valdosta, GA police re-opening the related case of the mysterious suicide of Raymond Lemme. That conference call is archived here if you'd like to listen.)

While their online version of the article links to us, it also fails to link to Blogcall.org or even mention it by name.

But far more troubling, however, is that Glater spends well over half his ink discussing and quoting from Rightwing blogs and bloggers in his story!

Undiscussed in the article, the underlying point of Blogcall.org is to bring together the detailed investigative reporting of blogs such as this one with those in the MSM by demonstrating our willingness to take the tough unscreened questions about our work.

Unlike those on the Right, we are more than willing to face those tough questions from all sides concerning the reports which we offer. We don't find it necessary to stack the deck in such a way as to allow only "friendly" questions into the mix as the Right so often does. (Just ask those Americans who aren't allowed into townhall meeting with George W. Bush anymore or those reporters to whom Jeff Gannon/James Guckert simply won't reply or the thousands of Americans who have been permanently banned from posting at repugnant wingnut sites like FreeRepublic.com after simply daring to post a single comment there which doesn't dance in lockstep with "the party line".)

While we admit to having a personal fondness for Glater, having gotten to know him a bit over the last couple of weeks via phone and email interviews, we can't help but point to his article today as an ironic object lesson in how the MSM is simply stacked hard against the Left.

We can do little more than chalk it up to the pervasive reverse "Liberal" bias in the corporate media about which we chatted with Glater on the phone prior to publication of the article. It is clear that the wingnuts have these guys so terrified by their manipulative, cynical (and inaccurate) charges of "Liberal" bias that they are now simply willing to turn back-flips in order to make sure the Right is over-represented in any article that even touches on issues political.

Read the piece for yourself, and let us know what you think. And we more than welcome Mr. Glater's responses as well. Unlike one of the rightwing blogs noted in his article, we actually allow reader comments here. And unlike another rightwing site in the article (FreeRepublic) nobodies comments here are banned or deleted simply because we may not agree with them.

UPDATE: The re-printed, re-edited version of Glater's story over at the International Herald Tribune offers a far more appropriate, far less slanted take on the issue. Had the original Times piece been edited in that way, we likely would have had no problem with it.

43 minutes on GrrRadio with Grace and Rama Schneider for your listening pleasure (or displeasure as the case may be). Mostly on the FeeneyGate players of Clint Curtis, Raymond Lemme and Hai Lin "Henry the Spy" Nee, but we managed to fit in a bit of Joe Biden bashing for variety.

Pick a card...any card: Streaming RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, or MP3 Download.

HERO: Scott Ritter
Was right about compromised Iraqi weapons inspections during Clinton, was right about there being no WMD before the Iraq War and was right about Bush Administration lies to get us into it. Is he right about a cooked Iraqi election and war plans for Iran? Why should he stop speaking the truth now? RAW STORY's Larisa Alexandrovna has Part 1 of a 3-part interview with one helluva brave American patriot. UPDATE: Part 2 of the interview with Ritter on "Neo-con Brownshirts", fear as a political tool, and the disintigration of the CIA is now online here.

HEROES: EV1 Rescuers
For four weeks now, a small group of American heroes have stood vigil night and day outside of a General Motors Facility in Burbank, CA, attempting to stop GM from sending the last remaining vehicles from their now-cancelled non-polluting all-electronic EV1 line of cars to be crushed, literally, in an Arizona scrap heap. The small band of great American patriots who give a damn about our environment --- and who we haven't noticed receiving much coverage on Fox "News" --- have been braving torrential rains out here in their 24 hour-a-day attempt over the last months to get GM to allow them to buy the last of these cars before they're destroyed. We're certain these are just the type of folks willing to quietly make great sacrifices in their lives for the good of the world and their country, who cowardly chickenshit wingnuts who've never put their lives on the line for anything would label "America Haters". Kudos patriots! Give us a call if you need some thermoses of hot chocolate! And thank you!

HEROES: U.S. House Democrats
Specifically, Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV) and the other House Dems on the Ethics Committee who are standing tough for a change against the Republican bullies and backslappers. Mollohan, with a reputation for bi-partisanship is disallowing work on the committee to continue until the Republicans undo bogus new rules put in place (without consulting Dems) which make it easier for their GOP buddies to avoid the trouble DeLay has recently found himself in. With increasing frequency of late, thugs like DeLay and Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) seem to regard themselves above The Rule of Law. Thanks to a few Dems with the courage to stand up for what's right ('bout time!), perhaps the bad guys may actually be held accountable for once.

ZEROES: U.S. Senate Democrats
Specifically, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) and the other Dems who voted in favor of ending debate on the bogus "Debt Slavery Act" --- otherwise known as the Bankruptcy bill --- from steamrolling through the Senate at the behest of their high-rolling funders from the Credit Card lobby. Biden's vote is particularly disappointing as he had been, for us at least, one of the few remaining Dems in the Senate with any creds left. And this on top of refusing to sign onto a letter calling for an investigation in the Gannon/Guckert scandal after blowing smoke on Bill Maher's Real Time the week prior claiming "The Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate should be investigating it, the House Judiciary Committee should be investigating it. And if it were the other party in charge, it would be investigated." It seems you're full of shit, Joe, and this week you've succeeded in losing at least one potential vote of support for your '08 Prez bid. The other Senate Dems who, to quote Gannon/Guckert, "seem to have divorced themselves from reality" on this one, at least in regards to where their party is going with or without them: Byrd (D-WV), Carper (D-DE), Conrad (D-ND), Johnson (D-SD), Kohl (D-WI), Landrieu (D-LA), Lieberman (D-CT), Lincoln (D-AR), Nelson (D-FL), Nelson (D-NE), Pryor (D-AR), Salazar (D-CO) and Stabenow (D-MI). (BTW, see Talking Points Memo's Special Bankruptcy Bill Blog for excellent coverage on the fine points.)

ZEROES: The Bush Administration
Specifically...well, the entire Bush Administration...But to zero in on the Zeroes of note this week, let's focus on the jackasses responsible for bungling nearly every step of the post-War phase in Iraq and who managed to simply lose track of billions (with a "b") of American Tax Payer dollars via their completely incompetent boondoggle. Part of which is highlighted in this current investigation of the post-war chaos and the nobodies who were given enormous million dollar security contracts to guard the Baghdad Airport. Just one of the perks of being a favored friend of this decidedly non-Conservative adminstration? Being handed $2 million worth of $100 bills, signed off with a handwritten receipt and no legal requirement to be accountable for any of it. Who re-elected these guys anyway? We're certain you don't want our answer to that right now.

ZEROES: ABC Television Network Execs
The good ol' boys at the top of the corporate media structure were apparently just looking out for their own this week when they axed references to Fox "News" and Bill O'Reilly from a Boston Legal episode which highlighted a school principal who blocked the Propaganda Net from the school's televisions because he felt it to be biased hate speech. All references to Fox "News" and O'Reilly were removed at the request of the ABC censors who, apparently, were too cowardly to face the predictable wrath of Rupert Murdoch's marching band of brownshirts. No doubt they'd have unleashed their fake outrage upon any American network to dare suggest that the Masters at Propaganda Central may not have quite as much of the American Spirit as they pretend. Thanks to ABC, the lock-stepping ditto-heads can focus their "American" hatred elsewhere this week.

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

The AP version of the same story, by the way, quotes one Republican with the audacity to say: [emphasis added]

Is that really your "intention", Senator? If so, we hope you'll endorse Velvet Revolution's "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign immediately, sir. Please feel free to email us with your intention to do so or if you'd like further information on how we can really take steps to avoid "voter irregularities".

By the way, the voters weren't irregular at all. We haven't heard of too many "lawsuits" against voters for committing fraud, have you? And we've heard of not a single instance where a photo ID would have changed a damn thing beyond continuing to supress the minority vote.

The election, on the other hand, sir, was marred beyond a shadow of legitimacy thanks to the way lawmakers like you determined the votes of the people would be "counted". Jerk.

It's always worth taking notice whenever we find ourselves in agreement with actual Conservative, Pat Buchanan (as opposed to those fake Conservatives who make up the bulk of the Bushville Faction, the great majority of whom haven't a clue what the word "Conservative" actually means).

Yes, he's also a bigot. But Buchanan has been a correct and vocal critic against Bush's War on Iraq in the past, and this week in his American Conservative magazine, he provides a smart antidote to the knee-jerk series of pro-Bush P.R. articles we've seen over the past week or so from the supposedly "Liberal" media. Of course, those folks couldn't wait more than an hour after a single Anti-Syria demonstration last week in Lebanon to declare "Bush was right!" (Yes, Newsweek, we're talking to you...you might have waited an hour or so for the even bigger Pro-Syria, Anti-America demonstrations that followed just a minute or so later before slobbering all over the Bush administration to demonstrate your we're-not-the-Liberal-media creds in your absurd coverpage splash this week.)

Anway...Buchanan provides a Reality Check on the State of the Empire to counter-balance the administration's effective P.R. work aided and abetted by that not-so-Liberal-after-all media over the past week. Here's the money...and the reality which doesn't get nearly the amount of Newsweek Cover time...

Other than that...how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

Yesterday morning Air America's Unfiltered program discussed the latest wrinkles in the Clint Curtis/Raymond Lemme revelations reported here earlier this week. It was a quick hit. Just a few minutes during a short segment on some recent news items with host Rachel Maddow and her guest, Isaac Davey Aaronson (we hope that's how it's spelled!).

A few points in the story were bungled and they missed one big one (the photos that didn't exist!), but they mentioned BRAD BLOG enough times that we're more than willing to overlook any innocent transgressions on their part. (Never let it be said we aren't generous!)

The clip is short enough that even dial-uppers should be able to give it a quick listen.
About 3.5 minutes: Streaming RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, or MP3 Download.

By the way, we'd be happy to guest on Unfiltered to give 'em the unbungled skinny if they'll have us. Feel free to suggest it to them!

(Thanks to eagle-eared BRAD BLOG friend, Jaime, for catching it, and letting us know! And thanks to Air America Radio Place for making AAR archives available! We've heard tell of many BRAD BLOG mentions on AAR in the past, but never knew where to go back and hunt 'em down until now! Free BRAD BLOG T-Shirt to the next BRAD BLOG reader who catches another BRAD BLOG cite on AAR!...If we should ever have BRAD BLOG T-Shirts that is...And while you're at it, ask Randi Rhodes to have us on as well!...And Al Franken...And all the rest!...Let's go, people! I can't do everything around here!)

While Mr. Big Shot is out doing media interviews and just oooh sooo busy and oooh sooo important that he couldn't possibly find time to blog...you can make noise without him in this Open Thread...

(P.S. Mr. Big Shot hopes to catch up with a few items over the weekend!)