"[C]oncerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes."

That's just one of the chilling revelations from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office's (GAO) 107-page report on the security of Election Voting Machines in America as just released moments ago. The report confirms many of the greatest concerns expressed by those who have called for Election Reform since the deeply flawed 2004 Presidential Election.

The report "analyzed over 80 recent and relevant reports related to the security and reliability of electronic voting systems." The results confirm a range of security vulnerabilities and violations in Electronic Voting Machines in recent elections and the accompanying systems used to administer elections in the United States of America. It goes on to say that the issues brought to the attention of the GAO by elected representatives, activists and other concerned citizens, "merit the focused attention of federal state and local authorities responsible for election administration."

The GAO report (download the complete report here [PDF]) was created in response to a request by several members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

A joint bi-partisan press release touting the findings of the report has just been issued by three Republican and three Democratic Congressmen including Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) and Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), Judiciary Committee Chair F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI), and Science Committee Chair Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) and Ranking Member Bart Gordon (D-TN).

While The BRAD BLOG is still perusing the details of the extensive report, some of the key findings are listed right on the front page:

Examples of Voting System Problems and Vulnerabilities.

Speaking about the GAO report in the joint press release, one congressman described it as "a wake up call."

Republican Rep. Boehlert said, "I wholeheartedly endorse the GAO recommendations, which underscore the need for the Election Assistance Commission and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to continue their work to establish standards and testing procedures for voting equipment. This work must move ahead on an ambitious schedule."

Democratic Rep. Gordon added, "The foundation of democracy rests upon the accuracy, integrity and security of our voting system"

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, a tireless champion for election reform and leading force behind the landmark report "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio 2004", has just blogged about the report.

He says the report "lends important credibility to the cause of election reform generally, and more specifically to requiring that every machine have a voter verified paper ballot that is used in election days audits and, if discrepancies are found in those audits, becomes the official record for the election."

"Despite the many official assurances that the problems of the past elections were isolated and few," Conyers writes, "the election system is indeed riddled with problems and flaws."

The "bottom line," says Conyers, is that until these matters are seriously addressed, and "significant security and controls" are put in place with our voting machines, "American citizens have no reason to have complete confidence in our democracy."

Conyers further enumerates a list of notable and troubling security shorcomings identified by the GAO:

The complete joint bi-partisan press release, issued by six U.S. House of Representative members, follows...

While the recent nomination of Hariet Miers for the Supreme Court by George W. Bush may have revealed more than a few cracks in the usually lockstepped Conservative Movement in America, Daniel Borchers has been calling out "fake Conservativism" --- as we refer here at The BRAD BLOG to those who use the tenets of the true Conservative Movement merely for cynical, opportunistic political gain --- for years.

Borchers' organization, Citizens for Principled Conservatism (CPC) is currently in-production of a documentary named The Truth About Ann which aims squarely at political and religious hypocrisy of Rightwing commentator and author, Ann Coulter.

As well, Borchers has created and released exclusively to BRAD BLOG, a PowerPoint presentation entitled "The Gospel of Ann".

The presentation, which we've converted into downloadable streaming video, excoriates the controversial Coulter's religious opportunism. It was inspired, according to Borchers, "by Ann Coulter's 'jaw-dropping' expression of faith in God, a faith which otherwise seems so empty in everything Coulter does."

Indeed, Coulter's "faith" may be as empty and phony as her self-proclaimed "conservative" beliefs. The presentation points out the recent TIME Magazine profile of Coulter which implies that she is a member of Redeemer Presbyterian, an evangelical Christian church in New York, and yet the ministry at the church never seems to have heard of her!

The Redeemer church, "whose non-political stance is well-known, disavows all hateful and hostile speech," according to Borchers' presentation, had to "Google" her name to figure out who she was! Apparently Coulter is not a member of that church at all!

The complete "Gospel of Ann" video, along with selected excerpts and screenshots is available at the end of this article.

The Truth About Ann, the documentary DVD currently in-production promises to "expose the extremist nature of Conservatism's preeminent diva and reigning political icon," according to a press release given to The BRAD BLOG by CPC. The film is said to examine "Coulter's worldview, and the extremist polemics used to promote it."

"Ann Coulter is mainstreaming extremism within the Conservative Movement," warns Borchers. "Coulter has hijacked a substantial segment of the Conservative Movement and is re-creating it in her image. Her 'New McCarthyism' is poisoning millions of minds."

The explosive "truth" about Coulter revealed in the documentary, according to the release, is that while she may be a "conservative icon," in actuality she is "not really a conservative!"

The Truth About Ann is currently scheduled for release in June of 2006 to coincide with the release of Coulter's next book.

Borchers is a lifelong conservative, and a Vietnam-era veteran with intelligence analyst experience, according to his bio. In the fall of 2001 he became "disenchanted by the hypocrisy and corruption which invaded the Conservative Movement." That disenchantment led to his founding of CPC after having founded the conservative newsletter Brother Watch back in 1996.

In 2002, while attending a Conservative Political Action Conference, Borchers was stunned when the organizers attempted to confiscate the press kits he was distributing --- with prior permission --- to conference attendees. The materials denounced Coulter's extremism.

His "clarion call for character in the Conservative Movement", as he describes the incident in "The Gospel of Ann", was "inconvenient...because Ann Coulter is their most notorious speaker."

Following the conference, Borchers wrote an essay on Coulter entitled "Columnist does conservatives a disservice." [PDF] It's posted along with others on CoulterWatch.com, a site he created that "promotes the proposition that Conservatism can only endure as a viable and vibrant movement if it maintains a commitment to the core character traits of honor and integrity, honesty and virtue."

He describes the essay as "calling upon conservatives to seek the higher ground and renounce the hypocritical excesses of Conservatism's reigning diva." From the essay:

His call seems to have fallen on deaf ears, as he regretfully adds in the presentation: "The conscience of the Conservative Movement still sleeps."

We were contacted by Borchers not long after a recent radio debate we participated in with Coulter (who, for one reason or another, decided to leave half way through the program). He asked if we'd mind being interviewed for his documentary. Always happy to learn that there is yet another intellectually honest conservative left in America --- a vanishing breed, as Borchers is working hard to point out --- we were more than pleased to oblige his request.

In exchange for our interview, completed last weekend, he shared information about the documentary, along with the exclusive look at his PowerPoint presentation with us.

In reviewing the presentation, Borchers wishes he'd gone back still further in exposing Coulter's assertions about Christianity. "From as early as 1998 to the present - that there are no liberal Christians. None. According to Coutler, all Christians - that is to say, all true Christians - are conservatives. I guess exit polls from the last election, showing a fairly even split among Christians, don't count," Borchers wrote to us via Email as we finished the conversion of the presentation to video format.

Indeed, exit polls don't count, as regular BRAD BLOG readers know all too well, at least in America. But we digress...

While Borcher's presentation, which asks "Is Ann Coulter a Heroine or a Heretic?" can be somewhat on the dry side, the hypocrisy of the "polemical rants" of Coulter the "hate monger" are priceless and build as the presentation gets rolling.

By way of example of just one of Coulter's rather Anti-Christian hate mongering, here she is from 1999: "If you don't hate Clinton and the people who labored to keep him in office, you don't love your country."

Or this from 2002: "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals by making them realize that they can be killed too."

Or this loving and very Christian chestnut from an appearance on Fox & Friends in 2004 prior to the election:

More than a few classic Coulter "flip-flops" are revealed in the presentation as well. In 2000, for example, Coulter denounced the Christian Right for "fascism", the next year vociferously proclaimed there is no Christian Right in America and then finally announced herself a member of the Christian Right the next.

Or decrying the slaughter of innocent civilians on 9/11, followed shortly thereafter with her defense of the "War on Terror" by declaiming: "We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities: we killed civiliians. That's war. And this is war."

Then there are her "flip-flops" concerning her moral pronouncements about sex and Bill Clinton, versus her very own personal sex life which would seem to betray her denouncement of that of others who don't happen to agree with her political point of view.

But it's her use, or rather misuse, of "faith" for apparent political expediency that seems to get under the skin of Borchers. He appropriately winces at Coulter's statement in January of this year: "Oh, it was so much fun this year, because saying 'Merry Christmas' is like saying 'Fuck you!' I've said it to everyone. You know, cab drivers, passing people on the street, whatever."

"Speaking the truth in love is a Christian imperative," says Borchers, "But both truth and love --- core Christian concepts --- are foreign to Ann Coulter."

The final credit slide in "The Gospel of Ann" says that the work is "dedicated to Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and the One who commands that we should be nice to people (as well as loving them as He loves)." And finally, a special thanks "to Ms. Ann Hart Coulter, whose words and conduct have necessitated" it.

###

Here is the entire "Gospel of Ann" presentation, converted to Windows Media Player Video.

Selected excerpts and screenshots from the presentation follow...

Guest blogged by David Edwards

Video in Windows Media format...
Video in QuickTime format...

Mugshot and more at The Smoking Gun.

Guest blogged by David Edwards

NBC Video in Windows Media format...
NBC Video in QuickTime format...

NBC Today reports that Rove and Libby were "comparing notes about what they were hearing from reporters" before Novak first exposed CIA officer Valerie Plame's cover in an article on July 14, 2003.

Sources close to the investigation say Rove told Libby that he learned about Plame from Novak and Libby told Rove that he learned about Plame from Tim Russert. By process of elimination, we believe that this "source" is probably Rove's lawyer who is known to have leaked other information to the media.

The Associate Press reports that Libby's lawyer would not comment but fails to mention Rove's lawyer which probably means that he is the source for this leak:

Think Progress comes to a similar conclusion about leaks coming from Rove's lawyer noting that the White House official policy is not to comment on ongoing investigations.

So, why would Rove's lawyer leak information that contradicts testimony given by Judith Miller and Tim Russert?

We are also pleased to see that NBC is now being forced to report on Tim Russert's role. As Arianna Huffington notes, Russert has previously downplayed or neglected to report on his involvement in the scandal. A new article at the Booman Tribune closely examines the mystery behind Russert's silence and his connection with Libby.

UPDATE: AP is reporting that a GOP/White House effort to "blame the media" in the CIA leak case is not working. As new "leaks" reveal more details of the investigation, the White House's "unofficial" talking points become inoperative.

Details Coming Thursday...DEVELOPING...

As you can tell by the time stamp on this item, I'm up way too late, so please don't let the lack of description and analysis of the following two articles dissuade you from reading both of them.

Both are top-notch examples of quality journalism in America highlighting the fact that the fight for Election Reform in this country isn't over. Not by a long shot.

Miriam Raftery's extensive article, "MONKEY BUSINESS - A look at vote-counting mischief and the potential for more" in San Diego CityBEAT this week covers just about every base. From the recent disasters in that town's mayoral election, to Diebold's chicanery and their crappy, insecure, secret voting machines and software, to the Exit Polls, to the Warren County lockdown, to phony Ohio recount, to John Conyers, and yes, even Clint Curtis, about whom she says:

The article is a must read for the next jerk you come across who tells you that our election is just fine, both sides have been stealing elections forever, and that Democrats are just pissed because Kerry didn't win.

UPDATE: I'm told that CityBEAT editor David Rollin took some heat for running the article! Please send supportive email as you see fit to: davidr@sdcitybeat.com

Keep the article in your favorites file, along with James Renner's "Knocking the Vote - Diebold says its voting machines are bulletproof. Hackers say otherwise." just out from Cleveland's weekly SCENE.

It's also exhaustive, and oh, man...Diebold ain't gonna like that one at all.

And not just because it ends with a quote from Black Box Voting's Jim March, a Republican who was recently arrested while trying to view the tabulator screen in the recent Mayoral Election in San Diego. March is also the recipient of a multi-million dollar settlement after a suit he filed against Diebold in California. In reply to the reasons Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell gave to shareholders for the recent 15.6% plummet in Diebold stock prices, March makes no bones at all about his opinion of both O'Dell and Diebold: "These guys are liars, from top to bottom."

Enjoy the ride. I've gotta get some sleep...

As reports on the TreasonGate matter expectedly climb up the food chain from Rove and Libby to Dick Cheney, NY Daily News is reporting today that George W. Bush knew of Rove's involvement a full two years ago concerning the unprecedented outing by a White House of a covert CIA agent.

The Daily News story comes from their D.C. Bureau Chief, Thomas DeFrank, who --- as Josh Marshall points out --- has a unique relationship to senior Bushies as co-writer of James Baker's autobiography. Marshall suggests that because of that insider relationship "this article carries more weight than it would with another byline."

We're told that CNN is reporting --- to the surprise of absolutely nobody --- a denial by the White House of the entire story. We've yet to see the specifics of that denial, but we can well imagine it, and we've all learned that White House denials at this point are completely meaningless.

More newsworthy, however, is that David Corn points out that the Daily News report now seems to place Bush smack-dab in the middle of a classic "It's not the crime, it's the cover-up" scandal. You know, of the type that brought down Nixon and damn-near brought down Clinton:

See Corn's full story for the exchange.

For BRAD BLOG readers and those who have been able to see through the desperate smokescreens from the right none of this now comes as a surprise.

Back in July the question of "What did the President Know and When Did He Know it?" had already surfaced in such places as Washington Post and even from David Gergen, advisor to three different Republican Presidents. This was the exchange we quoted from Gergen on July 24 (Windows Media Video version here):

And now it's beginning to look like Gergen may have been exactly right...

Um...DEVELOPING...We'd say...

UPDATE: Arianna tracks the food chain as it moves out sideways to John Bolton. Perhaps the real question should be: Who wasn't involved in either the crime or the cover-up in this White House?!

FURTHER SOMEWHAT RELATED UPDATE: The Dems make an interesting point concerning a story from AP today reporting that:

The perfectly appropriate question the DNC is asking:

STILL FURTHER UPDATE: Reuters reports on inquiry by Democrats into what Bush knew and when he knew it.

P.S. Additional red meat to be completely ignored by wingnuts: Warrant Issued for DeLay's Arrest

Guest blogged by David Edwards

Streaming Video in Real Media format
Video in Windows Media format

UPDATE FROM BRAD: Just jumping in to say that "Colbert Report" is the most brilliant fucking thing I have perhaps ever seen on television. Be sure to catch it when you can! Hopefully David will keep us well-fed with clips here! C&L has a great one from the premiere on Monday if you didn't catch it.

C&L also has O'Reilly on Jon Stewart last night as well in case you missed it.

I was asked today on my weekly appearance on Don Grady's Louisiana Live whether or not a sitting Vice President could be indicted. As far as I knew, the answer was yes.

Dan Froomkin of WaPo's excellent White House Briefing has a few nuggets on precisely that...and a reminder for those old "Rule of Law" Republicans...

What goes around comes around, wingnuts...

A federal judge has just issued an injunction to keep the new Photo ID requirements at polling places in the state of Georgia from moving forward. As reported many times on The BRAD BLOG, the requirement for photo ID at the polls would disenfranchise anywhere from 10 to 20 million Americans who do not have driver licenses --- mainly the elderly, minorities, the poor and other urban dwellers.

The call for Photo ID at the polling place is the latest attempt by Republicans who hope to further disenfranchise Democratic-leaning voters across the country. The effort has been pushed hard by the self-declared "non-partisan" phony GOP "voting rights" group calling themselves the American Center for Voting Rights and was called for by the shameful Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission, which was led by disenfranchisement expert and Bush family crony James A. Baker along with high-level GOP operatives from the ACVR.

This just in from AP...

In a news release just issued to The BRAD BLOG, Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), ranking minority member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, lauded the decision to stop what he referred to as "a modern day poll tax."

Says Conyers in the release: "Truth be told, the issue should have never reached this point - the Georgia Legislature should never have passed this modern day poll tax, the Governor should not have signed it, and the Justice Department should have intervened to stop it. That is why 21 Members and I asked the Department to prevent this law from taking effect."

The full press release from Conyers office follows...

In an extremely detailed 2891-word page one Washington Post report today by James V. Grimaldi and Susan Schmidt, Congressman Bob Ney (R-OH) is tied to at least four different aspects of ongoing probes being carried out by criminal investigators looking into the corruption of GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom Delay --- both of whom have been indicted recently on charges relating to the various investigations.

Ney has not yet been indicted, but the WaPo exposé ties him to several different scandals including the SunCruz casino boat fraud/murder investigation (for which Abramoff has recently been indicted), several illegally funded overseas vacations, support of Indian gaming in apparent trade for favors received in the form of cash contributions and other gifts from Abramoff and --- yes --- the apparent "fixing" of an election administered by Ney of telecommunications companies to determine who would receive a large contract at the U.S. Capital building.

Ney is chairman of the powerful U.S. House Administration Committee. BRAD BLOG readers will remember Ney's committee as holding a "show hearing" earlier this year on "Election Irregularities in Ohio" during the 2004 Presidential Election. That hearing, which attempted to whitewash the thousands of troubling reports calling the Ohio election into question, called just one witness from a "voting rights" group. That witness turned out to be Mark F. "Thor" Hearne of the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), self-described "non-partisan" organization which had appeared out of the blue just days prior to the hearing. Hearne, identified himself in the hearings as a "long time voting rights advocate", but failed to mention that he was actually the National General Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. The other "non-partisan" founder of ACVR was Jim Dyke, former RNC Communcations Director, and recently installed White House spokesman for Dick Cheney.

(BRAD BLOG's full special coverage of ACVR, the so-called "non-partisan" GOP front group masquerading as a "voting rights" organization, can be found here.)

The WaPo story reports that Ney is currently "under investigation by Florida federal prosecutors looking into Abramoff's acquisition of SunCruz, according to sources familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity."

Excerpts from the full WaPo report follow...

{Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org}

The CEO of Smartmatic Inc., Antonio Mujica, has been denied a tourist visa by the US embassy and will not be allowed to return to the United States according to a recent report in VCRISIS, a Venezuelan news source.

Smartmatic Inc. is the Florida-registered, Venezuelan-owned parent corporation of Sequoia Voting Systems, one of the leading voting machine companies in the US. Its ownership has also been tied to Hugo Chavez and other shadowy multi-national organizations.

No reason is given for denying renewal of Mujica's visa in the VCRISIS article which describes an agitated confrontation with US Embassy officials. According to the story, Mujica "argued that he was legal, that he had an important company in the USA and that he had to travel with urgency to that country."

Sequoia Voting Systems was recently purchased by Smartmatic from a UK firm for $16 million. The surprisingly small sale price has brought into question the stability of Sequoia Voting Systems, which would seemingly stand ready to make millions of dollars in sales of voting systems around the United States as money from the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) continues to pour out to counties and states. However, the company's ability to provide technical support to their customers has now come into question as this blogger was recently told by a high level official at a competing American-owned voting machine company.

Sequoia is also involved in a lawsuit filed by attorney Paul Lehto in Snohomish County, Washington. The suit calls for the county's contract to be voided with the company due to the proprietary "trade secret" software used by the company. Lehto has published a report detailing a number of disturbing irregularities found in Snohomish's general election last November.

The Smartmatic company slogan is "All Things Connected". Setting aside whether all things being connected in an election system is a good thing (it isn't), their website has the following text on the front page:

The irony here...and now...of course, is that the entire situation demonstrates how utterly dysfunctional the election administration in America has become. While US law allows a Venezuelan man to control the secret counting of America's votes, the US State Department doesn't consider him fit to enter the country, even temporarily.

Further pointing out the absurdity of it all, in a media release published earlier today at VoteTrustUSA, Ellen Theisen, Executive Director of VotersUnite.Org says, "It's ironic that when we take vote-counting to Iraq, we take it in the form of paper ballots deposited into clear plastic ballot boxes, but in our own country, vote-counting is in the form of electronic ballots and secret software controlled by a man our government has declared ineligible to set foot in the country."

Just another day in the decline of American democracy...

(Ed note: Is it us, or does that woman in the red sweater there look suspiciously like someone we know? Just asking.)

According to our friends at RAW STORY, the plans that Armed Forces Radio had to add the progressive Ed Schultz Show to its current "Conservative"-only line up of talk shows has been changed as of this morning...

Read RAW's whole story to find out the possible reason for the military's flip-flop and last minute decision to NOT stay the course...

So I'm driving to an important appointment yesterday, to which I'm late, when I hear Tammy Bruce on TalkRadio 790 KABC, the powerful ABC station out here in Los Angeles, out and out lying to her listeners.

She's telling them that Valerie Plame/Wilson was not a covert CIA agent. That she couldn't have been because "she drove to work every day at the CIA building." That she was nothing more than a bureaucrat with a desk job at the CIA and so she was never outed.

Never mind that the CIA themselves requested the current Dept. of Justice investigation into the outing of one of their agents, or the myriad CIA officials who have testified that indeed she was very much a covert agent.

Furthermore, the former "liberal" turned...whatever she's turned...also instructs her listeners that Plame/Wilson could not have been covert because she posed in photographs with her husband Joe Wilson months before she was ever mentioned in the press by Bob Novak.

Needless to say by now, for anyone with a nickel's worth of information on the matter, Bruce was horrifically wrong on both accounts. (For just a partial refutation, since my time is short today, from a CIA classmate of Plame/Wilson's, you can read this.) And since Bruce was asking for folks to call in with their opinion on the matter, I did.

While driving, I got through right away to the show via my cell phone. Her producer asked what I was calling about. I identified myself as "Brad Friedman from The BRAD BLOG," and mentioned that "Tammy is completely misinforming her listeners about the Plame affair. That I'd be happy to correct the record having spoken to both Joe Wilson and others at the CIA on these matters, and I'd be happy to give her the real information about what's going on."

Her producer puts me on hold for a minute, and comes back to say, "Please send Tammy some email at TammyBruce@KABC.com and you can give her your thoughts."

I say: "Well, I'm in the car driving right now, so I can't email her."

She says: "You can send her email anytime..."

I say: "Wait, are you not going to put me on the air to talk to her to correct the record?"

She says: "Right."

I say: "Why not?"