To protest what Free Press investigative reporters describe as a "holiday burial for American Democracy" in the Buckeye State, Ohio divinity student and Columbus resident, Jonathan Meier is continuing his prayer vigil and hunger strike at the Ohio Statehouse despite heavy snow and brutally cold winter temperatures.

House Bill 3 has already passed the House and is about to be approved by the Republican-dominated Senate in the ground-zero snakepit of GOP political corruption otherwise known as Ohio.

Activist Meier, in a just-issued press release says "that his Christian faith calls him to 'constantly pursue social justice and illuminate social ills, and, often, this call requires personal sacrifice."

Free Press' Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman recently described the latest onslaught to democracy in Ohio, which Meier is protesting, this way:

Says Meier, "Most people don't realize that this legislation, if passed by the senate next week, would make it virtually impossible for homeless folks to vote, would make it virtually impossible for groups to register large numbers of voters, would eliminate oversight of voting machines, and would cancel our right to challenge election results."

He added, "Instead of addressing the long lines at the polls, instead of making it easier for people to register and to vote, Republican lawmakers put forward 424 pages of legislation that will set up roadblocks to our democracy. I, for one, do not trust a vote reform bill that is purely a partisan act."

Fitrakis and Wasserman put the Ohio legislation in context for the rest of the country, where similar bills are being explored by various Republican-controlled legislatures:

Richard Pryor, 1940 - 2005

The beloved 40 year-old Voting Right Acts, implemented by Lyndon B. Johnson after violence and death to Voting Rights activists in Selma, Alabama in 1965 has been all but gutted by the George W. Bush administration. The VRA celebrated it's 40th anniversary this summer, even as Bush's Department of Justice was destroying one of its most important measures by covert political caveat.

That gutting now appears to be becoming a still greater threat to our democracy as it is being institutionalized by recent policy changes which bar career Voting Rights staffers and attorneys in the DoJ from offering opinions on new laws that fall under the jurisdication of the VRA.

Two recent reports by Dan Eggen of the Washington Post revealed that Bush political appointees in the DoJ has overruled the recommendations of career staffers and attorneys in the Voting Rights division tasked with determining the legality of two separate laws sent to the department for "pre-approval" under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Section 5 requires that states with a history of discriminatory election practices --- like Texas and Georgia --- must receive pre-approval from the DoJ before implementing any changes to their voting systems. It prohibits "retrogressive" changes to voting laws, or laws that would bring harm to minority voters.

In the last several weeks Eggen has reported on remarkable memos leaked by DoJ staffers showing that they had recommended against approval of new laws both in Georgia, where the legislature had insituted a new Photo ID requirement at the polls, and in Texas, where then Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) had helped to redistrict the state to allow for more Republican representatives after the GOP gained control of the state house in 2002.

Georgia's law has since been ruled unconstitutional by two Federal Courts who deemed the law to be a "Jim Crow-era Poll Tax". Texas' law has resulted in 7 additional Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. The fallout from the DeLay led gerrymander of Texas districts has resulted in several indictments for DeLay and his cronies who helped force it through the legislature and allegedly conspired with the Republican National Committee to launder money in support of GOP candidates running for the new seats. The Texas law, which had been unanimously recommended against by 8 DoJ staffers, including the lead attorney in the Voting Rights Act division, still stands.

Today Eggen reports that such staff opinions are now completely banned in Bush's Department of "Justice"!

The one ray of hope that Eggen offers is that Sen. Arlen Spector (R-PA) is considering Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings...at least on the Texas redistricting case.

We often bristle when we hear those on the Left criticize the Bush Administration as Fascistic. It's simply too easy to ascribe to them the worst possible traits as a blunt political weapon. But if the issues discussed above don't send a shiver down the spine of every democracy-loving American it's either because they don't understand what's actually at stake --- and being dismantled in the process --- or they simply don't give a damn about this country's most important legacy to the world: A free and fair electoral system where all citizens are given an equal voice in the selection of our leaders...or at least a system as close to that as we can possibly muster.

Our Republic is in grave danger.

Guest blogged by David Edwards

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This morning on the NBC Today Show, Chris Matthews acknowledged that falling gas prices have given the president a small bump in the polls. Matthews said that the trend in approval ratings since 9/11 is downward and that trend will continue due to problems with the Administration's Iraq policy.

President Bush's recent speeches win the argument that "We cannot leave Iraq now" but it also reinforces the perception that "we are never leaving Iraq". In fact, Matthews said, he had never heard the president say that we would eventually pull all the troops out of Iraq. It is no secret that the neocons have long wanted to use permanent military power to protect our "interests in Iraq" and to eventually become the dominate military power in the Middle East.

The unspoken policy of unending military influence in Iraq offers Americans no "light at the end of the tunnel", Matthews said.

Democrats have been largely divided on the future of the Iraq war. Matthews predicted that Harry Reid would attempt to show that most Democrats are coalesced behind a moderate pseudo-policy. Senator Reid and other Democrats will suggest a "timetable" that draws down troops based on measurable progress without imposing an actual timeline. Matthews thinks that it could take a year or longer to put enough pressure on the administration before they would accept concrete definitions of success tied to troop redeployments.

Matthews said that both sides should join the debate on whether or not there will be total troop withdrawal from Iraq.

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Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Sequoia's parent company, Smartmatic got caught providing a Venezuelan customer with a gift of two days in a Boca Raton, FL resort. Smartmatic spokesman Mitch Stroller confirmed the company initially paid the bill but said Rodríguez later reimbursed all the money to Smartmatic. He declined to provide proof of the reimbursement or to say when the money was paid back. Uh huh! Activists speak out in Connecticut and act out in Pennsylvania. And the Wisconsin legislature unanimously sends a vvpat bill to the governor....

Guest blogged by David Edwards

Senator Joe Lieberman said he had breakfast with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General Pace. Lieberman denied rumors that he has plans to replace Rumsfeld as the Secretary of Defense.

According to an AP report, the Pentagon claims that the breakfast meeting was called so that Lieberman could share his impressions of Iraq with Rumsfeld and General Pace.

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Guest blogged by David Edwards

Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report continued his role as a warrior against the "secular cabal" that is trying to destroy Christmas. On an earlier show, Colbert had followed the lead of Bill O'Reilly, speaking out against the silent discrimination of Christmas.

Colbert starts a new battlefront against the "War on Christmas" by declaring his "Campaign Against Humbuggery"...

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ALSO: Check out The Daily Show's response to Bill O'Reilly's attack and don't miss The BRAD BLOG's exclusive full report on O'Reilly's phony and misleading "war on Christmas".

Special to BRAD BLOG by BTC News White House Correspondent Eric Brewer

There have been some interesting recent developments in the CIA's Italian kidnapping caper...

Less than 16 hours after Bob Harris posted about Bill O'Reilly's disingenuousness on his own website, his crew made the obligatory attempt to send yet more evidence of their own hypocrisy down the memory hole...Harris made sure that didn't happen...

(Previously, the Fox "News" website was caught off guard as well, and had to scramble to change the ads for "Holiday Ornaments" in the Fox "Holiday Store" in order to meet the new stringent requirements for their hilarious-were-it-not-so-pathetically-transparent "War on Christmas". Nah, on second though, it is simply hilarious! Happy Holidays!)

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today it was announced that a suit is being brought in North Carolina against the certification of three voting systems in apparent violation of state law. Also, Diebold may be sued in a securities fraud law suit. In Florida a friend of the family and Bush donor has joined the long list of cronies to be given jobs; this time Secretary of State. And on the national scene, Rep. Rush Holt has introduced a bill to stop voter intimidation....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.org

We are on the verge of seeing just how "Immaculate" was the https://bradblog.com/archives/00002105.htm\"> "Immaculate Certification" of Diebold, and other voting systems, in North Carolina.

Just as a reminder, the courts found that Diebold would have to follow state law and provide their source code for inspection just like the rest of the vendors. Diebold then said that they would not comply so they were going to go home and not be a part of the selection process in the state.

Then, the North Carolina State Board of Elections decided that they would treat all of the vendors the same and they decided they would let them all ignore state elections laws. The advisor to the State Board is Keith Long, who until recently was an employee of Diebold. Of course that made Diebold happy and they accepted the invitation to be certified by the state.

Thus, the "Immaculate Certification".

Now, in steps the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) who today announced that they were filing suit against the North Carolina Board of Elections and the North Carolina Office of Information Technology Services on behalf of voting integrity advocate and occassional BRAD BLOG commenter Joyce McCloy, asking that the Superior Court void the recent illegal certification of three electronic voting systems.

In a Media Release EFF attorney, Matt Zimmerman says, "This is about the rule of law. The Board of Elections has simply ignored its mandatory obligations under North Carolina election law. This statute was enacted to require election officials to investigate the quality and security of voting systems before approval, and only approve those that are safe and secure. By certifying without a full review of all relevant code, the Board of Elections has now opened the door for North Carolina counties to purchase untested and potentially insecure voting equipment."

Guest blogged by David Edwards

As BRAD BLOG reported earlier, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart slammed Fox News and Bill O'Reilly for hyping the divisive myth that Christians in the U.S. are being persecuted. O'Reilly is just one of the Fox anchors claiming that the Christmas holiday is under seige by an evil secular conspiracy --- but he may be the lyin'ist!

Stewart asked Samantha Bee to help fact-check O'Reilly's "reporting"...

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UPDATE FROM BRAD: Here's our original report in which we discovered the true meaning of Christmas: Lying about comedy shows to prop up yourself, your sad little agenda, and your phony little "War on Christmas"...Oh, and find a Jew to make stuff up about America while you're at it.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Though there were articles a couple of months ago about a potential securities fraud lawsuit against Diebold, http://www.velvetrevolution.us\">VelvetRevolution has assisted in bringing the suit along. Today there was a renewed and expanded announcement about the status of the suit. Two court cases that have been ongoing for a year or more are back in the news again. The Congressman Wexler suit in Florida and the case brought by Linda Soubirous in Riverside Co., CA. are back in court. ...

The BRAD BLOG has received exclusive detailed information about a developing potential class action securities litigation against Diebold, Inc. (stock symbol: DBD). The class for the suit will involve shareholders who purchased or owned stock in the Ohio-based company any time from October 22, 2003 through September 21, 2005.

Though we are not at liberty at this time to discuss the specifics of the potential litigation and the causes of action in the complaint being compiled, The BRAD BLOG has learned that the class action lawsuit, currently being drawn up, will involve securities fraud violations and other troubling matters for the controversial company, its CEO as well as current and former members of its Board of Directors.

VelvetRevolution.us (an organization co-founded by BRAD BLOG managing editor, Brad Friedman) is seeking additional individuals and groups who may qualify as plaintiffs in the specified class. Those who owned or purchased Diebold stock, or mutual funds which carried Diebold during the period mentioned, are asked to contact LawSuit@VelvetRevolution.us where information submitted may be turned over to attorneys for possible addition to the plaintiff class.

Union groups who own or owned shares of Diebold or mutual funds which invest in the company are specifically urged to contact VR about joining the class action.

The mutual funds which are most heavily invested in Diebold are listed here. Information on "Insider Transactions" is listed here.

Diebold, Inc. is the controversial Voting Machine and ATM manufacturer who was recently compared to Enron by an anonymous company insider The BRAD BLOG dubbed "DIEB-THROAT" in a series of exclusive reports. The Internet news site, RAW STORY ran a new exclusive interview with DIEB-THROAT yesterday revealing additional details on the inner-workings of the company and potential legal issues they may face.

Shortly after our first report on DIEB-THROAT, Diebold's stock price plummeted some 15.5%. The company attributed their troubles at the time to shortfalls in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and on the same day announced the resignation of their chief operating officer (COO) and President, Eric C. Evans. Our source, DIEB-THROAT, challenged the company's response to the falling stock prices in the wake of lower than expected earnings by suggestion that "Using Hurricane Katrina is a poor excuse for bad products - the last time this kind of deception occurred it was called Enron."

Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell has come under harsh criticism for his statement to Republican fundraisers that Diebold he (see explanation for correction below) was committed to delivering the electoral vote of the state of Ohio to George W. Bush prior to the 2004 Presidential Election. O'Dell was part of Bush's "Rangers and Pioneers," a group of individuals who had raised at least $100,000 each for Bush/Cheney's 2004 re-election campaign.

As well, the company has been facing other mounting troubles, legal and in the court of public opinion, over their implementation of software, hardware and various Elections Systems contracts around the United States as has been reported in have charged the company may be in violation of a court order stemming from that agreement. In North Carolina, Diebold recently lost an attempt in the court system to receive exemption from parts of a state law requiring the escrow of their voting system's software source code. They were certified anyway the next day in North Carolina, and some activists have questioned whether or not the certification was done according to state law and whether or not new legal proceedings may be launched there. And in California, a debate rages on concerning the possible re-certification of Diebold's touch-screen voting machines here after some 20% of their machines failed in a recent mock election test.

According to internal "Privileged and Confidential" documents of "Attorney Work Product" originally obtained and reported by Ian Hoffman of The Oakland Tribune in 2004, an estimate of legal costs in California for the Voting Machine giant was pegged by their attorneys at $535,000 - $925,000 for just a single two month period in order to fight mounting legal troubles in the state. Diebold's law firm, Jones Day fought in Los Angeles County Superior Court to keep those leaked memos from being further circulated.

The document estimating legal expenses [PDF] lists costs in regard to the Qui Tam Action filed (and eventually settled) by election watchdogs at BlackBoxVoting.org, the costs for fighting "Criminal Exposure" such as "legal analysis of potential criminal violations" and "White collar criminal law attorney pre-grand jury investigative advice" and even costs to the firm to "Monitor selected Web sites to gain key intelligence."

Concerning the potential of a new lawsuit against the company, DIEB-THROAT is not surprised, and expressed hopes to The BRAD BLOG in a recent email that some good may come from the possibilities of upcoming litigation:

"The denial of every documented problem with Diebold's voting system was bound to unravel sooner or later. I am not surprised that such a lawsuit has developed [as] the company consistently offered Wall Street deceptive information. Perhaps with the help of few patriotic plaintiffs our nation will be saved from Diebold's corporate takeover of our right to vote - and have that vote counted free from corporate and political influence."

The BRAD BLOG will, of course, continue to follow this story as it develops...

UPDATE 12/12/05: Diebold CEO, Walden O'Dell resigns in wake of imminent fraud litigation! MUCH MORE...

CORRECTION: A reader correctly pointed out that O'Dell promised that he, not necessarily his company, Diebold, as we originally reported, was committed to delivering the state of Ohio to George W. Bush in the 2004 election in his now-infamous fundraising letter to Republicans. More details here on that letter, here....

Sources tell The BRAD BLOG that The Daily Show on Comedy Central will be running an item tonight on self-proclaimed satirical journalist Bill O'Reilly's use of a year-old video clip to support his phony "War on Christmas" as originally reported here on Sunday.

Our report was picked up by MediaMatters.org yesterday. We had reported on O'Reilly's use of the clip in his "Talking Points Memo" segment on Fox "News'" The O'Reilly Factor program last Friday and Media Matters added that O'Reilly had also run the same clip by Daily Show "correspondent" Samantha Bee audio-only on his Radio Factor show earlier that day where he misleadingly introduced it as "what happenened there last night" on Comedy Central.

BRAD BLOG's original report has the video and discusses O'Reilly's phony use of the clip to shore up momentum in his imaginery "War on Christmas". The video clip clearly shows a calendar for 2004 behind Bee who is also currently very pregnant --- which she wasn't in the clip. As well, Media Matters confirmed our report that the segment had not been played on The Daily Show at any time during the previous week contrary to O'Reilly's assertion.

UPDATE: The Daily did, in fact, run a piece on this as we predicted. A very funny one. The clip is now available right here...