Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

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Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha appeared on CNN America Morning where he expressed outraged at the military's handling of the massacre of innocent Iraqis by Marines in Haditha, Iraq. It's been over 6 months since the incident occurred, yet the investigation is still not complete. The Pentagon refused to drop their cover story until Time Magazine published an article in February of this year. If it were not for that article, the military would have never publicly recognized the atrocities in Haditha.

Murtha said that, even now, the Military was trying to spin the report by telling the press that the incident happened during a combat situation. According to Murtha:

CNN's Pentagon official ass-kisser correspondent reviewed the timeline of events originally compiled by Time Magazine. After a roadside bomb killed one soldier, the Marines killed four teenagers in a taxi. The taxi driver was also killed. In the first house, Marines killed 7 people, including women and children. In the next house, 8 were killed, including 6 women. The third house was spared. In the fourth house, however, 4 were killed.

Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA, formerly OpTruth) sends The BRAD BLOG a few exclusive passages, as read by the author, from his new book Chasing Ghosts --- documenting his extraordinary experiences in Iraq.

Paul was kind enough to send to us a copy of the book recently which we hope to be able to read in full some time this summer, if the gods ever lend us a few quiet hours.

The title of the first chapter alone, however --- "George Bush Had Better Be Fucking Right" --- should highly recommend this book to anyone.

Here's Paul reading a few passages from the book, which we're honored to run on Memorial Day, as just part of our thanks to those American troops fighting on our behalf...whether many of them like it or not. We particularly appreciate those like Reickhoff, and all of the tremendous folks at IAVA, who have had the courage to speak out about where this Administration and this Congress is letting them down and where they are abysmally failing to adequately support our troops.

Our thanks to Paul for all of the above. Please enjoy the audio clip, and please consider buying the book. The Chasting Ghosts website is right here...

-- Audio in MP3 Format...

ADDENDUM... Rieckhoff recently appeared as a guest on Steven Colbert's show, just days after Colbert's infamous appearance at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. He talked about the book, and otherwise held up under Colbert's "nailing" as well as I've ever seen anybody. Check out the video of Rieckhoff's appearance on Colbert if you didn't catch it when it aired.

UPDATE: Broken links in this item now corrected. Sorry about that!

We first met Karen Meredith in Crawford, Texas last Summer where she was one of many Gold Star family members standing with Cindy Sheehan who'd also lost her only son in Iraq. We interviewed Karen live [mp3] from Camp Casey on The BRAD SHOW about her son, Kenneth Michael Ballard, and her courageous stand against this war. We continue to both wear and cherish the duplicate dog tag of Ken's that she gave us while we were there, and think of both of them often.

On September 9, 2005, nearly a year and a half after she learned of the death of Ken in Najaf, the Army informed her that her son's death was an accident. They had known for a year, but failed to tell her. We blogged about that here.

What follows, is a letter Karen shared with us, as written to mark the occasion of yet another Memorial Day spent without her son. We're pleased to share it with you on yet another Memorial Day as our troops continue to fight and die by the thousands in this continuing, senseless war...

One of our favorite tunes to come out of Camp Casey in Crawford, TX last summer was Jesse Dyen's "Sons & Daughters". We interviewed Jesse [MP3], who sang it for us live on air when we were there for our special "Project Noble Cause" broadcasts of The BRAD SHOW. The moment Jesse began singing, a mighty wind blew through the big tent, perhaps on the leading edge of Katrina, on one of our last days there, on August 29, 2005. As ever, the mighty denizens of Camp Casey swung into action during the live broadcast with trashcan lids and cardboard and bodies to protect Jesse, and the live microphone, from the sudden gust during his song. Yet another memorable moment.

Anyway...Jesse recently let us know about a video of the song that's just been released on the Internet, using footage taken at Camp Casey by videographer Chun Pan.

We never tire of the song and, of course, the footage brought back memories for us. Memorial Day Weekend seems an apropos time to share the link with you. Please give it a look, a listen, and enjoy...

The fine new video blogger calling himself "Hot Potato Mash" has posted a few video excerpts from a talk I recently gave at the Culver City Democratic Club about two weeks ago. He's posted about about 8 minutes from the 30 or so I yammered on about in re: Election Integrity back on May 10th in an evening that also included the lovely Arlene Pinzler from Sen. Debra Bowen's office (have I mentioned lately that Bowen is running for Sec. of State of California in a really important election for all of America and could use your support before next week's primary?)

Please check out the video linked above and let us know what ya think. (NOTE TO CULVER CITY REPUBLICANS --- OR ANY OTHERS: I'll be happy to come and speak to you too! Just let me know when you'd like me to be there!)

While you're at The Mash, you may also want to check out this short video clip in which we learn about what's really important to American voters. Or atleast, what's important to them when the media bothers to cover it several hours a week during prime time.

Score another one for the home team. Especially for those of us who call California home.

From AP yesterday...

This is all rather important to us, as you may have guessed, at The BRAD BLOG, considering the kind of work we do here.

In fact, we were quoted by the NY Times last March concerning this very case and appeared on ABC News to discuss it as well that day.

Thanks, and a big congrats, go to the EFF for standing up for us on this one!

Right on.

(Hat tip John Gideon!)

We reported earlier this week about an ad placed on the Internet by Kelly Services seeking temporary workers for the upcoming California primary elections in San Francisco.

The ad sought workers to "assist in dropping off election voting machines and picking these machines up when voting is complete." (See our full story and the complete text here.)

That ad has now been removed from Monster.com. We'll try and offer some updates if we can gather any additional information about the removal of the ad.

As we noted in our original story on Tuesday, the ad was notable given CA Sec. of State Bruce McPherson's recent approval of Diebold voting machines shortly after it was revealed, and then confirmed by his own independent analysis [PDF], that those machines were vulnerable to hackers. After the revelations, McPherson implemented what he described as increased physical security procedures to protect such machines from tampering --- procedures which would seem to be out the window by allowing $11.99/hour temporary workers hired from the Internet to shuttle California's electronic voting machines, unsupervised, before and after the election.

Apparently the systems in question in San Francisco are reportedly made by Diebold's "rival" company ES&S. Unlike Diebold's systems, ES&S's have never faced the rigorous independent "hack testing" that systems made by Diebold have undergone. Given our lack of knowledge, therefore, about the security in ES&S electronic voting systems and whether or not they are any more or less prone to hacking than Diebold's systems, it would seem that allowing unknown individuals to have unsupervisored access to those machines is equally as irresponsible as McPherson's own less-than-safe security measures as recently prescribed for Diebold systems.

We will, of course, keep you updated with new developements as we are able to acquire them.

A sample from the original screen shot of the Internet ad posted by Kelly Services on Monster.com. Click the graphic below for the complete story...

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

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On Wednesday, May 24th at about 3:43 pm ET, CNN broadcast this odd little story. There seems to be no reference to it on CNN's website and we haven't seen any encore broadcasts since.

Here is the short version of the story... Geronimo's great grandson is making a plea to President Bush to facilitate the return of the remains of the Apache chief. The heir to Geronimo decided to make this request to Bush after a researcher found proof that Bush's great grandfather, Prescott Bush, had robbed Geronimo's grave. The skull, bones and other relics are now part of initiation traditions in the secret society of the Skull and Bones.

Read on for more of this story...

After an otherwise encouraging headline on MSNBC's just posted "Optimism about voting reform wanes: New machines and procedures have been introduced, but problems persist" the article, by NBC News' Huma Zaidi goes curiously downhill thereafter.

Zaidi cursorily mentions early "a group of experts and election officials" who met in DC last month to discuss election reform and "the picture most of them painted wasn't very optimistic". As well, he reports that "Almost a dozen states that have already held primaries this year have experienced problems."

But enough with the facts of the matter. From there, it's time for the Pro E-Voting spin to commence...

Zaidi goes on to quote three different Electronic Voting supporters and not one of those previously mentioned un-optimistic "experts and election officials."

As well, while the article discusses the problems of "a handful of companies who produce voting machines" and who have had trouble fulfilling their contractual obligations to multiple states and counties in primary elections so far this year --- along with a nod to a one or two of the "wrinkles" and "glitches" caused by the machines so far this year --- not a single voting machine company is mentioned by name (not Diebold who has failed enormously, nor ES&S who has failed enormously, nor Sequoia Voting Systems who has failed enormously, nor Hart InterCivic who has failed enormously!)

On the other hand, the pro-electronic voting folks are named, and even have their websites plugged. Go figure.

We guess if you downplay problems by private companies who have access to millions of dollars and teams of attorneys ready to go, and don't bother to mention them or their failings by name, you're far less likely to be sued. Why else would NBC cover the issues this way after all?

As ever, we're glad to see attention finally being given to the most important matter of the legitimacy of our votes in our electoral democracy --- particularly by an outlet as large as MSNBC and NBC News --- but these articles that end up doing little more than saying "there's some problems, but everything will be just fine, nothing to worry about here" are getting absurd.

See NPR's report (text transcript now included) from over the weekend for a far more responsible --- and yes, "fair and balanced" --- report on this issue.

For more thoughts on all of this, see mass media maven Danny Schecter's "Why is the Media Downplaying Our Voting Scandal?" editorial as posted on Monday!

Investigative journalist and best-selling author, Greg Palast has given The BRAD BLOG a few exclusive audio clips from the studio sessions of the audio version of his new book (to be released June 6), ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf? China Floats, Bush Sinks, The Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left, and Other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.

Last month we wrote about our amusing and completely factual experience in the recording studio laying down one of the chapters for the audio version ourselves (and a few additional characters for elsewhere in the book) along with Ed Asner and Janeane Garafalo. If you missed it, you may want to check out our scandalous reporting from that crazy afternoon.

At right, you'll note the distinguished bunch of folks (plus us) listed on the cover as reading for the book (we're smartly placed in the middle between Larry David and Janeane.)

The exclusive clips Palast has provided to The BRAD BLOG for your listening pleasure including passages by both yours truly and the great Ed Asner.

Asner's a master, of course, and reads about what Palast describes as "The Network" in this clip:

(NOTE: The references to "Mr. Friedman" in Asner's clip is to Thomas of The New York Times as opposed to Brad of The BRAD BLOG, just for clarity sake

For our part, we get to rant a bit about electronic voting machines and other ways of gaming the system in Florida by Gov. Jeb, Katherine Harris and friends. As well, in the reading Palast pokes some fun at guys like me, and lauds "Lord of the Voting Universe, Ion Sancho" (about whom you may learn some things you didn't previously know!):

Please enjoy the clips, and then go and buy the book! You can pre-order either the text or the abridged audio versions here.

Audio Excerpts from...

Chapter 3: "THE NETWORK" - The World as a Company Town
As read by Greg Palast & Ed Asner
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-- MP3 Version...

Chapter 4: "THE CON" - Kerry Won. Now Get Over It...
As read by Greg Palast & Brad Friedman
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-- MP3 Version...

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

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The Special Prosecutor investigating the outing of CIA officer, Valerie Plame-Wilson, has indicated in a court filing that Vice President Cheney is likely to be a witness in the Libby trial.

The New York Times quotes Fitzgerald writing, "Contrary to defendant's assertion, the government has not represented that it does not intend to call the vice president as a witness at trial." (see: Muckraker). Cheney's testimony is expected to reflect the state of mind in the Office of the Vice President during the organized attack on Joe Wilson's credibility and the outing of Plame-Wilson. The testimony will likely show that Libby had motive to leak selective information to reporters to smear Wilson and bolster the Administration's justification for war on Iraq.

Fingering Cheney as a possible witness may lead to questions about a conspiracy secret illegal scheme planned and executed within the Vice President's office.

As controversy swirls again around House Speaker Dennis Hastert and whether he is or isn't under investigation by the DoJ on bribery related charges as ABC News is reporting (and standing by), now might be a good time to remind of you this earlier exclusive which The BRAD BLOG reported in February concerning FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds' charges that Hastert may be involved with yet another bribery scandal.

In light of today's new story, it may well be worth taking a look back at that previous piece including a detailed statement from Edmonds wherein she calls on Hastert to "come clean" in regard to $500k in un-itemized campaign donations and his relationships with various Turkish interest groups.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, with Brad Friedman

Elections Systems and Software (ES&S) has finally shown us why they should not be in the elections business. The disgraceful primary election in Arkansas yesterday is a prime example. It was, and continues to be, an utter disaster today. The day after.

Brad and I both have been overwhelmed all day with the number of reports coming in on the complete failures by ES&S in the state yesterday. So much so, that it's difficult to even know where to begin. Thus, tonight's late report --- with general details and enough links to set you on your way to inform yourself about what the hell is going on here.

In our best (if fruitless) attempt at brevity, however...

The Young Turks had NEWSWEEK's Steven Levy as a guest on their show yesterday to discuss his article on the Diebold disaster from this week's issue. (See our item discussing his article here, including an update with a response from Levy concerning our coverage.)

Says host Cenk Uyger during the interview: "The bloggers have apparently been right about this all along."

Other items that jumped out at us: When asked how many states have "reliable systems", Levy said, "26 states have instituted some sort of paper trail."

We'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he understands that a "paper trail" law, particularly when it's never actually counted, and it almost never is, means nothing (as we pointed out in our piece covering his article a few days ago.)

And this from Levy, who does, I think, generally "get it" --- even if he may somewhat underestimate the full gravity that this issue deserves, as it underscores our entire democracy: "The big thing would be to take the election system out of the private sector, and put it into the public sector."

On that score, of course, he's right on the money.

One more note: They discuss the "blogosphere" several times in several ways in relation to this issue. No names mentioned (can't imagine who they may be referring to.) And co-host Ben Mankiewicz --- who I've sat in for once or twice while he was gone, so haven't gotten to speak with him much on this --- seems to be the most skeptical of the bunch. I've told Cenk this morning that I'd be delighted to go back on the show to answer any and all of Ben's (or his) questions, skepticisms, concerns or anything else on this matter. Hopefully, we'll be able to arrange something along those lines soon.

-- Watch/Listen to the complete interview with Steven Levy here...

(Thanks for the heads up, Cenk!)