Our friend Jacob Soboroff, from the election reform site Why Tuesday, is asking folks to vote up his video question for Barack Obama, so that the question might be one of 10 asked of the presidential candidate during an MTV appearance scheduled for Monday (10/29) at 1:30pm ET.

To help ensure Obama gets asked the direct question on Election Reform, please click the green "thumbs up" icon just above Jacob's short video question here.

It'd be nice if the media began asking the candidates such questions about the one issue that underscores all others: What the hell do they plan to do about our crumbling electoral system?

More specifically, we'd love them to answer one question directly --- and hope that those of you out there attending their live events might bring a video camera and ask them directly!: "Do you support a paper ballot --- not a 'paper trail' or a 'paper record,' but a paper ballot, and one that is actually counted --- for every vote cast in America?"

But in the meantime, the question to Obama on MTV would be a step in the right direction. Please take 40 seconds to click the video link above and then click that green thumbs up button!

We note that his favorable/unfavorable rating among registered Democrats in this poll is currently at 46/29. That's better than than any of the others in the race (Clinton: 26/63 *43/41, Obama: 38/24, Edwards: 30/30)

Here are all the numbers from WBEN...

* UPDATE/ED NOTE 10/27/07: WBEN's favorable/unfavorable numbers for Clinton were incorrect, according to CBS's original numbers [PDF]. Gore still has the best favorable/unfavorable rating of all the Democratic candidates among all registered voters. However, WBEN's contention that Clinton's fave/unfave is at 26/63 is entirely wrong. It's 43/41, as we've now noted above. Their incorrect numbers on her, for that question, seem to be taken from an entirely different question in the poll. At least that's our best guess. Details on all of that now follow below...

"These remarks display a shameful lack of understanding and sensitivity that is unacceptable in the person charged with enforcing the nation’s laws against voting discrimination," Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) wrote in a question sent to Attorney General Nominee Michael Mukasey today concerning bizarre and objectionable comments made earlier this month by the DoJ's Civil Rights Division Voting Section chief, John Tanner.

Tanner, whose recent remarks at the National Latino Congresso in Los Angeles, as video-taped and first reported by The BRAD BLOG earlier this month, have sparked outrage, leading to calls for his firing last week by Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), this past Wednesday by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). Civil Rights groups have also called for Tanner to be canned in the wake of his remarks claiming that Photo ID restrictions at the polling do effect the elderly, and that that's a "shame." But, minorities needn't worry because "they don't become elderly. They die first."

"The Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division has failed miserably in its responsibility to enforce the Voting Rights Act during this Administration," Kennedy said in a statement quoted by TPM Muckraker. "The latest shameful revelations from the Section drive home the urgent need for the next Attorney General to install strong leadership to allow the Voting Section to return to its historic role in ensuring access to the ballot."

Kennedy's question to Mukasey, which TPM Muck has in full, ends with "If you are confirmed, will you review Mr. Tanner’s record and consider whether he should be replaced as head of the Voting Section?"

But for those paying very close attention to Mukasey's confirmation hearings last week, his position on the controversial Photo ID issue --- a concern since some 10 to 30 million legally registered voters, largely Democratic-leaning minorities and elderly, are believed not to have such IDs and would therefore be kept from voting --- was troubling.

We had to review the testimony several times, as given in answer to questions by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), to figure out where he fell on this issue. But a close reading reveals that, while Mukasey offered clear responses objecting to voter suppression issues such as misinformation concerning polling place location, he was far dodgier on the question of polling place Photo ID restrictions.

Close review of the transcript --- posted along with the video in full below --- reveals that Mukasey feels that overt disenfranchisement efforts via dirty tricks, such as misleading and/or threatening fliers and phone calls, definitely amounts to "flat-out fraud and pernicious fraud."

His feelings about disenfranchising Photo ID requirements, however, are far different...

"FEMA has truly learned the lessons of Katrina," writes Al Kamen at Washington Post today. "Even its handling of the media has improved dramatically. For example, as the California wildfires raged Tuesday, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, had a 1 p.m. news briefing."

The presser, he writes, was carried live on Fox "News", MSNBC and others and went very well...

Un. Believable.

"We were expecting the press to come," admitted Mike Widomski, FEMA's Deputy Director of Public Affairs and one of the first "reporters" to ask a question. "But," writes Kamen, "they didn't. So the staff played reporters for what on TV looked just like the real thing."

"If the worst thing that happens to me in this disaster is that we had staff in the chairs to ask questions that [Widomski claims] reporters had been asking all day," Widomski told Kamen, "trust me, I'll be happy."

The "worst thing"?! Hell, that one'll likely win you a Medal of Honor, Mike! "Be happy" indeed! And keep up the bad work!

Think Progress has video of Fox's coverage of FEMA's fake news conference.

UPDATE: White House apologizes. Says it'll never ever ever happen again...

UPDATE 10/28/07: We thought we were kidding with that "Medal of Honor" crack. But it looks like the guy who set up the phony presser has now been promoted! Details here...

UPDATE 10/29/07: Promotion planned has now been retracted. Details at same RAW STORY link as above.

Once again, the country's largest voting machine vendor, Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S), has failed in yet another state certification process, The BRAD BLOG has learned.

In a letter faxed to the company yesterday, Colorado's Secretary of State Mike Coffman informed the Omaha, Nebraska, company that the state has suspended the certification process of ES&S's voting systems due to a failure to provide required documentation and other materials needed to complete testing. That, after several previous deadline extensions had been granted.

"[T]here is a history of coordination issues with your company," Coffman wrote to ES&S's Vice President of Certification, Steve Pearson, in the two-page letter, before detailing a litany of problems they've had with the company throughout the testing period.

"Those issues include the following: changing project managers multiple times since April, providing incorrect programming of required databases for testing, providing incorrect ballots for testing, failing to provide required documentation of Federal testing, and test failures requiring extensive machine servicing," wrote Coffman.

The complete letter is posted at the end of this article.

The testing of Colorado's systems comes after all of the state's voting systems were decertified by a state judge just prior to last year's November election. In the 2006 lawsuit, brought by legal e-voting watchdog VoterAction.org on behalf of several Colorado voters, the judge found that the state's certification process amounted to little more than opening the box, checking for manuals, turning the system on and off and stamping it as good-to-go.

As the finding in the lawsuit came just prior to the November general election, the state's e-voting systems were allowed for use one more time before all such systems were automatically decertified, to allow the testing process to begin again afterwards --- legitimately this time.

Since then, all of the companies whose systems are being tested in the state have delayed in turning over needed materials, prompting speculation from e-voting critics that, with elections pending, they may be purposely delaying the process in hopes of running out the clock.

But similar failures by ES&S to cooperate with state officials around the country have now become legion.

The latest mess in Colorado echoes closely similar problems with the company as seen in other states over the last year. Just a brief sampling of some of those extraordinary failures include...

Given our previous vid, smashing up Dems, it seems only fair to offer another smashing up the Republicanists. We're nothing if not fair and balanced, after all. This one's pretty brilliant and hysterical...And you can even sing along!...

(Safe for work? We report, you decide...)

P.S. On the rare occassions these days when we see those magnetic "Support the Troops" ribbons on cars and/or SUVs in parking lots, we've frequently pondered (not saying we've actually done it or not) removing them and re-applying them on the same cars' gas tank covers. Might get the owners thinking. You might wish to ponder same. Just sayin'.

(Via The Daily Background...via Open Left.)

Given yesterday's comments from Russ Feingold on the 5th anniversary of Bush signing Congress's Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, and given their rolling over yesterday for yet another Bush federal judge nomination, and given...um...everything else they continue to roll over for, we thought the following animated video might be useful...

(click the graphic to play)

Never fear...One coming up shortly for the Loser Republicanists as well! UPDATE: That one is now posted here.

(Hat-tip to BRAD BLOG Toon Sherpa, Pokey Anderson)

Feingold on the 5th anniversary of Bush's signing of Congressional authorization for use of military force in Iraq:

“I will not stand idly by while this mistaken war continues. I will continue working to end this war and bring our troops home, and I will continue looking in the days and weeks ahead for opportunities to debate and vote on ending the war – this year, and, if necessary, next as well. My colleagues may complain, they may be inconvenienced, they may prefer to focus on other matters. But this Congress has no greater priority than making right the mistake it made five years ago when it authorized this misguided war.”

The chairman of the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), says that the DoJ's Voting Section chief, John Tanner, should be fired in light of recent controversial comments made at a panel discussion at the National Latino Congresso in Los Angeles as first video taped and reported by The BRAD BLOG.

Nadler is now the second elected official to publicly call for the removal of Tanner from his post. Senator Barack Obama, and civil rights groups such as Advancement Project, have recently made the same demand.

"He should certainly be fired, obviously," Nadler told Democracy Now's Amy Goodman this morning when asked about Tanner's comments admitting that while it was a "shame" that elderly voters would be disenfranchised by restrictive Photo ID laws he'd approved on behalf of the DoJ, minorities actually benefit from such laws because "they don't become elderly. They die first."

Nadler went on to explain the reasons why he feels that Tanner and a "few others" have "perverted the Justice Department."

The video and complete text transcript of the interview with Nadler's comments in regard to Tanner are posted at the end of this article.

As well, new allegations of financial improprieties by one of Tanner's immediate subordinates have surfaced this morning in the Washington Post. Questionable travel by the Voting Section's acting deputy director is now being investigated by the DoJ's Office of Professional Responsibility.

The travel in question, a DoJ source tells The BRAD BLOG this morning, "could not have occurred without Tanner's approval."

"Obviously, someone who has such prejudices has no business heading the Voting Rights section or any other branch of the government and certainly not being on the Federal Voting Commission, which is supposed to enforce our election laws and our voting rights laws," Nadler continued in the interview today...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review

Special to The BRAD BLOG by Miriam Raftery from San Diego, CA

“It’s like Armageddon,” Jill Michaels said, after watching her home burn to the ground in the Harris fire. In the early hours of the worst fire in California history, the Michaels family received no evacuation warning and found exit routes blocked, forcing them to turn back to their home in Potrero. Now, the Michaels are among half a million evacuees who have fled four raging wildfires, the worst fire disaster in California history. Worse even than the 2003 Cedar fire, which until now held that shameful record.

San Diego County now has more refugees than New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. While reported loss of life thus far remains low, hundreds of thousands of acres have been scorched and countless people will soon return home--only to find themselves homeless.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and local officials have made media appearances claiming credit for swiftly responding to the disaster. “There is much more equipment available, more manpower is available, quicker action,” Schwarzenegger said, according to the Associated Press.

What the Governor failed to mention is that he vetoed four bills that would have increased staffing and fire resources after the Cedar Fire, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. A fifth bill, signed by Schwarzenegger, requires local governments to first submit safety plans to the California Department of Forestry and will not take effect until 2010, the Los Angeles Times reported in a May 20, 2007 article titled “Fire danger acute as 2003 lessons fade.” That article has since disappeared off the newspaper’s website, but a copy is here.

The same story cited Dallas Jones, former director of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and current official with California Professional Firefighters union. Jones damned Schwarzenegger for failing to provide additional firetrucks. “How many years are we since the ’03 fire siege?” he asked, “and so far, nothing.”

Other unfulfilled recommendations made to Schwarzenegger by his Blue Ribbon Fire Commission include replacement of aging fire helicopters, increasing staffing to assure four person crews on each state fire engine sent to major wildfires, and nighttime air drops.

A national contract fleet of heavy air tankers has fallen from 41 to 16 in the last five years, with aging aircraft deemed unsafe and grounded. The state firefighting fleet has not replaced two air tankers that crashed, the L.A. Times reported.

CNN reports that only 1,500 National Guard have been sent to assist Californians during the current wildfire crisis—less than 1/10 of the state’s 20,000 National Guard members. Clearly having the bulk of our National Guards forces deployed to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan have hindered emergency response here at home.

Guest Blogged by Emily Levy

ED NOTE: The BRAD BLOG's Emily Levy sat down with Dennis Kucinich on Sunday, just before serving as a hand-counter for votes in the first Democratic San Mateo County Presidential Straw Poll. Results of that poll are below. Kucinich spoke about his plans to force a vote in the U.S. House on the Impeachment of Dick Cheney; on having officially removed his name as co-sponsor of Rep. Rush Holt's flawed Election Reform Bill; his interest in hand-counted paper ballots; and concerns about e-voting systems. As it turns out, however, his wife Elizabeth may have stolen the show with an impassioned speech on what America must do to restore "a rigged and a fake political system," which, she told Levy, is "very, very undemocratic."

===

Candidate Kucinich was surrounded by supporters after his speech to Democrats in San Mateo County, just south of San Francisco, over the weekend. One asked the U.S. House Rep (D-OH) about the failures of the current Congress to protect the Constitution. "If Congress did the right thing," he answered, "they would be talking … about impeachment."

At that point, I broke in with a question:

(In a follow up phone call with the Congressman last night, I asked when he intended to introduce the privileged resolution in the House. He said it would happen in "the next few weeks," but couldn't be more specific. Now back to San Mateo...)

Kucinich burst into laughter when I showed him the teabag tag hanging from my shirt pocket. I praised his ingeniously deadpan appearance on The Colbert Report. He searched around in his jacket pocket for his mini-Colbert but was unable to produce the little guy.

While I waited for my turn to speak with Kucinich alone, I spoke with his wife, Elizabeth, who was "enjoying the last day of my twenties." (Happy birthday, Elizabeth.) I asked her the question that was really on my mind: Knowing what he knows about the theft of the last two presidential elections, why would her husband run for president?

After she said, "Are you kidding?" several times with increasing alacrity, I asked if I could turn on my voice recorder...

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review

On his radio gabfest yesterday, CNN's resident rightwing crackpot Glenn Beck implied that because residents of Malibu "hate America," they were therefore unluckily suffering the loss of their homes to wildfires:

Leaving aside the fact that there isn't a "forest" within miles of Malibu, just seconds before that outrageous, though half-baked, assertion, Beck made a statement that contradicted what he was about to say:

He then contradicted himself in the same sentence a second time, saying he was not referring to Democrats but to nefarious people (liberals? terrorists?) who pretend to be Democrats:

Huh?...

When we wrote of the reported "death" of the GOP initiative/scam to split California's Electoral College votes we urged caution, suggesting that these guys don't just give up that easily. Not just because they get caught. As they did when it appeared an out-of-state Rudy Giuliani supporter appeared to secretly be behind the attempt to see the measure placed on next year's ballot.

The initiative, if it gains enough signatures, would make its way onto the ballot in next February's Presidential Primary Election. If passed, it would require that California's enormous number of electoral votes be apportioned as based on Congressional district support. That, instead of the current winner-take-all system used in the state and in the vast majority of the country. Critics, not without appropriate justification, have viewed the initiative as an attempt to steal the 2008 Presidential Election for the Republicans.

Late last night, Sacramento Bee reported that the initiative may be back on track, having found new, deep-pocket funders. Today, "The Maven" at dKos offers many more details.

"This is pretty unbelievable," begins the email send from the campaign manager of Presidential Candidate Barack Obama to supporters today.

The email, from David Pouffe, calls on members of the public to demand the DoJ fire its Civil Rights Division Voting Section chief, John Tanner, in the wake of disturbing and inaccurate comments, video-taped and first reported by The BRAD BLOG, as made during a recent panel discussion at the National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles.

The email, which exhorts readers to send emails to DoJ via their new "John Tanner Must Go" campaign at http://Action.BarackObama.com/TannerMustGo continues thusly [emphasis in original]:

The letter to supporters from Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, is posted in full here.

Last week, Obama had sent a letter to Acting Attorney General Peter D. Keisler, demanding he immediately fire Tanner. Our coverage, along with his full letter, is here.

"The situation is clear," Plouffe writes in today's email after detailing a number of concerns about Tanner's record at the DoJ. "John Tanner has an obvious disregard for the voting rights of minorities and should not be in charge of protecting them."

Plouffe concludes by charging that "His recent comments are the last straw --- he must go."

Hearings have been tentatively confirmed by The BRAD BLOG as scheduled in the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties for October 30th at 10:00am ET. Tanner will be called as a witness and likely presented with clips from the video tape that we delivered yesterday in D.C. to committee staffers.

The chairman of the sub-committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), has said he's hopeful that Tanner "will be as willing to provide lawmakers with the same candid views he has been providing at various public venues."

The chairman of the full House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), a 78-year old elderly minority member who, contrary to Tanner's assertions has not, in fact "die[d] first," has expressed consternation recently and over the years about the DoJ's chief voting official, including a 2005 letter in which he said he was "flabbergasted" at Tanner's contention that the reason for long voting lines in minority areas in Ohio's 2004 Presidential election was due to African Americans coming to the polls later in the day than non-minority voters.

The twisted conclusions from Tanner's "investigation" of voting problems reported during the 2004 Presidential election, including his assertion that minority voters actually had more access than whites to voting machines, were detailed in a letter, posted here in 2005, which can only be described as an extraordinary (and literal) "white washing" of the facts on the ground that day.

Conyers and his staff published a comprehensive report, entitled "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio," as based on their own, far-reaching investigation after the election. We look forward to his questioning of Tanner next week.

Yesterday, we detailed additional allegations likely to be faced by Tanner in hearings next week.

A quick, video-taped snapshot of Tanner's most offensive --- and inaccurate, according to his former DoJ colleagues --- comments from the October 5th National Latino Congresso panel in Los Angeles, follows below...