Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...
Audio in MP3 format...

Tavis Smiley interviews former U.N. Inspector Scott Ritter who has a new book out titled "Iraq Confidential : The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein" (Official Site, Amazon page).

Ritter puts together the evidence of an Iraq intelligence conspiracy by connecting the dots with known facts and media reports. The Administrations of George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush are all implicated in falsifying intelligence for the purpose of creating regime change in Iraq.

Ritter alleges that the United States purposefully undermined the authority of the U.N. by voting for sanctions against Iraq that would be lifted when inspectors could verify that all weapons of mass destruction had been removed. Officials in the Bush #1 and Clinton administrations admitted that the sanctions would never be lifted regardless of the removal of Saddam's WMDs. The official policy of the United States was to impose permanent sanctions until Saddam was removed from power. The U.S. policy effectively undermined the credibility and authority of the U.N. Security Council.

Scott Ritter goes on to explain that Iraq under control of Saddam Hussein was never a direct threat to the security of the United States. All disputes could have been solved with focused diplomacy. Ritter says that no American lives needed to be lost over the fabricated threat that Iraq posed.

Ritter points out the Neo-conservative group that gained power under President Reagan as the primary driver of this conspiracy to manipulate the CIA and intelligence data about Iraq's WMD, undermine the United Nations, and the remove Saddam Hussein at all costs.

The Neocons are still in power and the conspiracy outlined by Scott Ritter continues to control U.S. foreign policy today.

Texas held their first round of Primary Elections last night since adding new electronic voting equipment to loads of counties around the state. It was one of the first Primary Elections to occur since the Help America Voting Act (HAVA) kicked in this year.

If today's 'Daily Voting News' by John Gideon is any indication, America is in for one hell of a mess this year. Take a look at just a few of the headlines from just the Texas section of today's DVN...and keep in mind that usually the real problems held in 'E-Lections' don't even begin to surface until some time after Election Day...

We have a feeling it's gonna be a very long year...

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

Abu Dhabi TV which is located in The United Arab Emirates broadcasts this report on prisoner abuse by "Iraqis and Americans" in Iraq.

Amnesty International found crimes so severe that they are considered "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity." They also found that American forces have detained 14,000 Iraqis.

Iraqis that have been released are almost never given an explanation for their detention or compensation. In the video, one Iraq can seen being released decrying his imprisonment as "terrorism! terrorism! terrorism!"

Today, the United States Department of State released a report claiming human rights violations by The United Arab Emirates and the Iraqi Police. The report even hinted at abuses by the U.S.

Ion Sancho is fighting back.

Sancho, the Election Supervisor of Leon County, Florida who exposed a number of security flaws in Electronic Voting Machines made by the Diebold corporation of North Canton, Ohio, today launched legal "breach of contract" proceedings against the company. The action has been filed on behalf of the Leon County Supervisor of Elections office.

In a conversation moments ago with Sancho, he confirmed to The BRAD BLOG that "we filed a breach action this morning, pursuant to a contract which notifies Diebold we are pursuing all available options."

The breach concerns Diebold's refusal to deliver their latest operating system for the optical scan voting systems which had previously been used in Leon County --- until Sancho discovered an alarming security flaw in the system at the end of last year.

"According to our contract with Diebold," Sancho explained, "we have to give them 30 days notice. And so we are requiring them to answer by March 21, as to how they intend to repair the breach."

The only two other Voting Machine Vendors, ES&S and Sequoia Voting Systems, have now officially refused to do business with Leon County and Sancho in the wake of a series of security evaluations held last year in the county on actual Diebold equipment. With the state threatening Sancho with legal action themselves if he is not able to implement a voting system which requires with the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA), Sancho had been forced to attempt to do business again with Diebold.

The most infamous of the security evaluations held last year by Sancho was a "hack test" in December of Diebold's optical scan voting system. That mock election test revealed that election results could be completely flipped on Diebold's optical-scan system without a trace of the hack being left behind.

With all three companyies now refusing to do business with him, and pressure being applied from Diebold as well as state and local officials to do "do something about Sancho" - he now finds himself with no other choice but to fight back against Diebold, and face this "titanic clash" head on...

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...
Audio in MP3 format...

The Bush Administration has ordered investigations into who blew the whistle leaked information about NSA domestic spying and information about secret CIA prisons.

Employees of the CIA and other agencies have been questioned and forced to undergo polygraph testing. The Justice Department has warned that journalists may also be prosecuted under Federal espionage laws.

This video is a segment from Monday's MSNBC Countdown. Craig Crawford discusses the chilling effect this attack has on the ability to report information about the government. In effect, we are quickly getting to the point where only official information released by the government can be reported by the media.

You may also want to take a look at this video at C&L where David Gergen rails against the Bush Admin. for being worse than Nixon about secrecy and the press.

Meant to post this yesterday...From Reuters...

A bit alarmist, perhaps, for our personal taste (though we've misunderstimated the amount of needed "alarm" in the past), Chris Floyd covers the state of American Democracy and the Rise of the Machines in Russia's Moscow Times.

Chris, of Empire Burlesque, who has popped up from time to time as a friendly BRAD BLOG Guest Blogger, covers some of our Diebold/California coverage in his article. So we have no complaints. And couldn't be prouder.

If only American Media would cover the fall of American Democracy as closely as the Moscow Times does. Remember what the Wingnuts like to say: The world is watching.

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

Senator Pat Roberts convinced Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee to vote to kill an investigation into the NSA domestic spying scandal. Instead of an investigation, Republican Senators Hagel, Snow and Dewine agreed to create a new subcommittee that would oversee future domestic spying by the NSA.

Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller said that "this is an unprecedented bow to political pressure from the White House."

Today, Tom DeLay faces his first primary battle for re-election down in Texas since being indicted on money-laundering and conspiracy charges.

Tonight, he'll be back in D.C. at a fundraiser held by lobbyists. Smartly done.

Over the weekend, an ES&S IVotronic touch-screen voting machine was stolen from the house of an election judge. That, despite the water-tight security that American Election Officials are known for across the globe. (Just ask Linda Lamone in Maryland.)

To be clear, however, all four of the counties in DeLay's 22nd congressional district, use Hart-Intercivic machines and not ES&S machines. It's just an unfortunate coincidence that we can't help but think about Tom DeLay, Elections, Voting Machines and Theft all at the same time. Oh, well.

They were abruptly removed from the air last week, and replaced with yet another Christian radio station.

This week, Air America Phoenix is fighting back to rise from the ashes, perhaps as soon as April if you can help with money and/or noise.

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

A Denver teacher, Jay Bennish, was suspended after he made a loose comparison between Bush's and Hilter's foreign policies. A student made an audio recording of the teacher's comments. The same student may have been attempting to draw provocative comments from the teacher by asking specific questions.

Instead of contacting the teacher or the school, the parents "shopped" the audio tape around to different right-wing radio shows. Both the teacher and the student have now been suspended.

NBC Today had the first exclusive interview with Bennish. He says that he has had a great deal of support from his students and community. The parents of the student that made the audio tape still have not contacted him.

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...
Audio in MP3 format...

ADDITIONAL THOUGHT FROM BRAD: While the Wingnut Media has spent hours upon hours trashing this obscure, previously unknown high-school teacher from a small town in Colorado for the answers he gave to the recording-student in front of a few dozen classmates, to date, we're unaware of any of those same Wingnuts having aired Ann Coulter's recent "Raghead Speech".

Her speech was given as the keynote address, to a packed house of thousands and a standing ovation at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held a couple of weeks ago in D.C. The CPAC is the nation's largest and most important "Conservative" annual gathering and featured other speakers such as Dick Cheney and Bill Frist etc. Coulter also discussed the assassination of Bill Clinton and the bombing of the Supreme Court in her speech. The entire speech can be heard here on BRAD BLOG (if not on Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity et al, where you can hear the high-school teacher's lecture to a few dozen students over and over again.)

ALSO...: Newshounds has great coverage of how Hannity et al, are taking Bennish's comments out of context and mis-quoting him, etc. to fit their own agenda and to fool their gullible, captive audiences who seem to be less educated than the high schoolers Bennish was speaking to.

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

Tom DeLay faces three Republican challengers in today's Sugerland Primary Election but he isn't sticking around for the results. DeLay is on his way back to Washington for a fund-raiser.

In related news, President Bush is flying to Texas today to vote. It has been reported that an aide made a mistake with his absentee ballot.

Wow. We've made it through the first rounds with 9 nominations in 6 different categories of Wampum's "Koufax 2005 Blog Awards!" And we didn't even need to call in Harri Hursti! Thanks to all for getting us there!

And now, the next round of voting begins. Please vote BRAD BLOG into the Semi-Finals if you're so inclined!

There are links to all of the categories on this post. Otherwise, hit any or all of the following links where you are inclined to vote for us, and leave a vote in the Comments section at the bottom!

I'll try to keep this at the top when I can, as a reminder to vote while it's still allowed for the next few days in this round. Be sure to check out some of the other superb nominated blogs while you're there!

What's with AP? We thought all of this stuff was "conspiracy theory"?

It looks like Diebold's other "showcase state" who, along with Maryland, were the first to move to un-auditable paperles touch-screen voting machines is beginning to face the music. Reports AP...

We should point out that what the GA Senate is talking about is not actually "paper ballots" as the AP story seems to erroneously suggest, but "paper trails". There's a difference, of course. More on that in a second.

For additional context here, we'll note (with a hat-tip to John Gideon) that Cox, a Democrat, is running for Governor now in the state. She, along with her counterpart in Marlyand, Linda Lamone had been huge supporters of paperless Diebold voting originally, going so far as to allowing herself to be featured on Diebold's brochures (see photo below).

Apparently Cox sees the writing on the wall, while the tone-deaf Lamone is still fighting to ensure nobody can ever actually count how her state's constituents actually voted (see this previous article.)

Also worth noting, unfortunately, is that what they seem to be calling for down in Georgia is "paper trails". The worthless, uncounted little "voter-verifiable" toilet-paper roll tapes which are almost never counted at all and, in the case of Diebold machines, have turned up completely blank on the busiest voting machines during the most recent Ohio election.

Well, it's a step in the right direction, anyway. If the state of Georgia wants to create new legislation for these "paper trails" now, only to have to face the music once again later to spend still another round of money in order to ensure full paper ballots that's up to them, of course. Though we might recommend skipping the middle step, and going right now to something that is actually countable.

Maryland's Republican Governor Ehrlich continues to face the music about the Diebold voting machines that his state bought into hook, line and sinker (emphasis on sinker). He's been had by Diebold's use of the state as a "showcase", but at least he now seems brave enough to admit it, even while the Diebold dead-enders (like State Elections Board Chairman Gilles W. Burger and Democratic Election Administrator Linda H. Lamone who brokered the deal) are trying to hang on to the very last.

Ehrlich has sent a new letter to Burger today, demanding that Maryland's paperless touch-screen Diebold voting machines be sent back to federal authorities for further testing in light of recent discoveries of the vulnerability of the machines to hacking and tampering. Ehrlich writes, "We are spending too much time protecting the status quo instead of evaluating Maryland's current election system from an objective and unbiased perspective."

-- The complete new letter from Ehrlich to Berger is now available in full right here [PDF].

Washington Post picks up on the Governor's letter today and reports:

It should be pointed out that Ehrlich's motives may not be entirely pure. He is up for re-election himself this November, and the Democratic legislature has approved a measure to allow for early voting and other measures to help increase voter turnout. As Republican's do, Ehrlich opposed the measure to make it easier to vote by vetoing the bill, but the Dems in the legislature were able to muster enough votes to override that veto. Again from WaPo...

Nonetheless, Ehrlich is now joining the Dem run House Ways and Means Committee who, as we reported last night, voted 20 to 3 last Friday to support a measure calling for paper ballots...