Our good friend, the mysterious and legendary Freeway Blogger posted the above yesterday, one prophetic day before Bush's latest nonsense about "hunting down bin Laden." Bush was just kidding, of course. FB wasn't.

On that note, FB is now organizing nationwide. Won't you join him?

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

"American citizens once took for granted that every vote mattered, but no longer. It is time that we, the elected state officials, work to restore American's confidence in our electoral systems and undertake reform that moves to eliminate skepticism and uncertainty." --- NM Governor Bill Richardson's 3/1/06 Letter "To the State Officials of the 50 United States of America" (Posted in full below)

Today Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico made a powerful statement to officials in all states (see full letter below) as he announced that tomorrow he would be signing legislation that would require the state of New Mexico to go to a paper ballot based voting system. No longer will the state use Sequoia DRE (touch-screen) voting machines...the machines that reported large numbers of undervotes in previous elections...The same machines that disenfranchised minority voters...The technology Richardson describes as "simply fail[ing] to pass the test of reliability" in his open letter published today.

The Governor has also announced that the bill's signing ceremony will be webcast. The announcement says:

This all sounds wonderful, except???opponents of the legislation managed to get the legislation amended so that voting systems "owned or used" as of 1 May 2006 that do not use paper ballots can continue to be used until, among other things, debt on purchases of those machines are paid by the state. Then, the bill that appropriated funds to pay off the debt died in committee. Now the state needs to find the money to pay off the debt.

UPDATE 3/3/06: Signing ceremony video and petition calling on all states to join NM now here.

The complete letter from Gov. Richardson of New Mexico follows...

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

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MSNBC Countdown reports on the tapes of FEMA/Bush teleconferences held the day before Katrina hit New Orleans. Bush was on the call when the experts said they were concerned about the levees and a "disaster within a disaster" at the Superdome.

Just hours after AP released the tapes, the White House responded with a transcript where Brownie says that Bush was "engaged." A very weak rebuttal, indeed. What's more is that the White House had earlier refused to turn over this same document to the Congressional investigation on Katrina.

Crooks and Liars has a high-quality video of AP's report.

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

Local police report that "over 100,000" people protested Bush's arrival in India. American corporate media reports say there were "tens of thousands" of protestors.

More protests are planned for the duration of Bush's visit.

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Received this note yesterday before heading off to Guest Host "The Young Turks". It's from Fred McChesney, co-host of the excellent "M&M Show", where I've appeared several times, on Air America Phoenix:

The KXXT website now has a thanks and farewell message from the now-former General Manager, who apparently had tried to save the station. It reads, in part:

I welcome commenters here who have any suggestions about what --- if anything --- can be done about it.

UPDATE: The links to the KXXT webpages have now been removed. Unfortunately, I failed to cache them when I visited them. If anyone happened to cache those pages, please let me know, and I'll link to them instead. The message from the now-former GM, Bob Christy, can now be read in full right here. (Hat-tip to Zelph at Desert Rat!)

UPDATE 3/7/06: A campaign has now been mounted to get Air America Phoenix back on the air! They could use your help!

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

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Includes Special Mardi Gras video intro: "CNN Anchors Gone Wild"

Stephen Colbert, in character as always, frowns on Bush's latest approval poll numbers. Highlighting a Scottish investigation into a Bush bicycling accident, Colbert reminds us of the many cuts, bruises and falls the President has sustained in past years.

Colbert offers the obtuse suggestion that Iraqi's problems could simply be solved with "Iraqi-Gras".

His Salon piece, entitled "Impeach Bush", starts this way:

...and ends this way:

Sounds about right to me.

Or better yet, Mr. Bush, show some courage for the first time in your life. Step down now and save the country from even one more day of the agony, danger, shame, harm and destruction that you've already inflicted upon us.

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

I'm back and today's DVN includes some articles from the past two days added in with today's articles. Early voting for this year's primaries is taking place in TX and IL. It looks like NY will be using their lever machines for another election year. It would be catastrophic for them to change this late in the game. PA is a mess with counties rushing to get anything and not much really certified by the state or federal authorities. ...

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

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Rep. John Murtha was interviewed on yesterday's edition of CNN Situation Room.

Transcript:

Related: Zogby poll via ThinkProgress - 72% of U.S. Troops Want Out of Iraq Within One Year. 29% of U.S. troops serving in Iraq favor "immediate" withdrawal.

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

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Three reports from three networks based in different countries:

• MSNBC (U.S.) - Low poll numbers for Bush on approval of Iraq war. Latest tallies of today's violence.
• BBC (U.K.) - More in-depth reporting on bombings in Baghdad earlier this morning.
• Al Alam TV (Iran) - While American leaders have mostly blamed the bombing of the "golden dome" mosque on "terrorists", this report looks at suspicions from the "Shi'ite street" that American occupation forces should share some of the blame.

Please note that views expressed in the video are those of the broadcasters. We invite viewers to evaluate the material and make their own conclusions.

I was just asked last minute to jump in and Guest Host The Young Turks radio program on Tuesday from 6p-9p ET (3p-6p PT). When an opportunity arises to "Be the Media", you know I'm always happy to answer the call. As best as I can. Even at last minute. Cuz somebody's got to.

I'm happy to say I'll be sitting in along with the good Michael Shure once again.

Please tune in via Sirius Satellite Channel 146 or watch/listen to the LIVE video webcast at www.TheYoungTurks.com. Call in to say hey, if you like, at 866-99SIRIUS!

Amongst Tonight's Special Guests (so far) ...

+ Ion Sancho, Supervisor of Elections, Leon County, FL
(he, of the now-infamous Diebold "hack test"!)

+ Lowell Finley, Attorney, Co-Director of VoterAction.org
(he, of the CA Diebold decertification lawsuit, and Sequoia temp restraining order in NM!)

+ Kay Brown, Comm. Director for DNC in Alaska
(they, of the Alaska/Diebold 2004 Election Data bait and switch!)

More to be announced tonight. Feel free to call in to the show tonight and help us stir up trouble and save democracy at the same time!

Who are the Bush dead-enders? Latest poll...

Bush Approval Rating: 34%
Cheney Approval Rating: 18%

Approval of Bush's Handling of War: 30%
Approval of Bush's Handling of Katrina: 32%
Approval of Bush's "War on Terror": 43%

The battle between Election Officials and Election Integrity Advocates has been simmering and intensifying for some time. Last week, in Arizona, one such confrontation boiled over briefly into an outburst at a public meeting which was documented on video tape. In what could be a preview for the Electoral Integrity fight still to come, Pima County, Arizona's Election Director Brad Nelson went into a short tirade last Tuesday as the video camera rolled during a local Democratic precinct council meeting in the state's 26th Legislative District.

The BRAD BLOG has obtained the exclusive video of the event which reveals the Republican Nelson flying off the handle and shouting as he confronts Election Integrity Advocate, John Brakey, "nose to nose" during a question about Diebold's DRE (touch-screen) voting machines. Before Brakey was able to get to his main question concerning Nelson's plans for Logic and Accuracy testing on the machines, he was interupted by Nelson's outburst over whether or not he had, in fact, signed a contract for use of the new voting machines in the county.

Diebold's hackable touch-screen machines have been recently approved for first-time use in the state by Arizona's Secretary of State Jan Brewer.

Ironically enough --- especially in light of this new video --- Brewer herself recently referred to election integrity advocates as "anarchists" in an interview with the Arizona Star after demonstrators concerned about Diebold interrupted her re-election campaign announcement just after the first of this year.

While Nelson's confrontational rant was just short of anarchic, it certainly sent a shockwave of concern throughout the room of stunned onlookers.

One of the witnesses present, Rev. Gerry Straatemeier, described the "intimidating behavior" displayed in the incident as "completely out of line for a public official". Straatemeier was so troubled by the display that she sent an open letter to the Pima County Board of Supervisors calling for Nelson to be censured for the behavior. In the letter (posted in full at the end of this item, along with a text transcript of the event) Straatemeier says, "I really thought he was going to land a blow on Mr. Brakey and I was scared to death."

In the video, Nelson charges towards the camera at one point --- which Brakey was standing near --- coming so close that it's impossible to see anything but his chest in full camera's full frame.

Straatemeier, in her letter, suggests the tirade was an attempt to intimidate Brakey --- and other election integrity advocates --- from further inquiry into the controversial Diebold touch-screen voting equipment now coming into Arizona despite a Dept. of Homeland Security warning that their tabulator software is hackable, a non-partisan GAO report confirming the failures and loss of ballots via electronic voting, and a recent independent analysis [PDF] commissioned by the Sec. of State of California which warns about the hackable "interpreted code" used in Diebold voting machines despite a ban on such code by the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) guidelines.

As we reported in May of last year, Brakey has for some time been closely investigating a number of troubling anomalies in recent Arizona elections. His intensive work auditing his own precinct in Pima County, where he says evidence suggest fraud occurred in the 2004 election, was covered in detail last year by The Tuscon Weekly. That work has brought him in contact many times in the past with Nelson --- without incident apparently, until last week.

Last Tuesday, as the following video shows, the simmering frustration and growing anger roiling up between many Election Officials and Election Reformers, has finally begun to make its way to the surface and into the public eye...

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UPDATE 3/17/06: Tuscon's local NBC affiliate runs a report including this video, Nelson says he is sorry for the outburts. Full report here...
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A complete text transcript of the incident, and a copy of Straatemeier's open letter to the Pima County Board of Supervisors calling for censure of Nelson follows...

Last week we briefly discussed Stephen Heller who, out here in Los Angeles, is now facing three felony charges for exposing the illegal scheme by Diebold to use uncertified software on their voting machines in the state several years ago. The LA Times coverage is here.

Heller blew the whistle on the company's plan to defraud California voters when he exposed documents he saw while working as a temp worker at Diebold's California law firm, Jones Day. The courageous act, from which Heller stood to gain nothing (he, in fact, was fired for it) led to the decertification of Diebold in the state by former Sec. of State Kevin Shelley, and then to the eventual settlement between the company and the state of California for $2.6 million in 2004.

Today, several Huffington Post blogger take up on Heller's behalf, along with issuing some calls to action to contact the LA District Attorney's office to encourage tell them to drop this appalling case of punishing the patriot, Heller at the behest of the the bullies at Diebold.

Peter Soby Jr.'s coverage is the most complete. Here's a snippet:

Soby goes on to offer some talking points and helpful contact information for the LA District attorney. Please check them out and take action.

As well, Lyn Davis Lear (Norman's wife), speaks up in support as well.

...CONTACT...
District Attorney's Office
County of Los Angeles
210 West Temple Street, Suite 18000
Los Angeles, CA 90012-3210

Email: lada@co.la.ca.us

Telephone: (213) 974-3512
Fax: (213) 974-1484
TTY: (800) 457-7778 (8:30am - 5:00pm M-F)

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

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Thanks to a heads-up from Larisa at The Raw Story, we were able to captured this broadcast of CNBC's Tim Russert show. Russert interviewed James Risen and Robert O'Harrow, Jr. The video contains about 24 minutes of clips from CNBC's Saturday broadcast.

James Risen broke the NSA warrantless domestic spying story for the New York Times. He also has a new book out, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA And The Bush Administration. Risen is known to have sources within various intelligence agencies and has recieved information from several NSA whistleblowers. One of those whistleblowers, Russell Tice, recently testified before congress that NSA domestic surveillance programs may be much more widespread than the "limited" program that the Bush Administration has admitted. Tice has said that some programs could be monitoring "millions of Americans".

Robert O'Harrow, Jr. is an award-winning reporter for the Washingon Post with an expertise data mining and privacy issues. His recent book, No Place to Hide: Behind the Scenes of Our Emerging Surveillance Society, describes "a surveillance society that's less centralized and more a joint public/private venture".

Together, Risen and O'Harrow paint a picture of an enormous partnership between U.S. intelligence agencies and private data collection firms. Spying agencies like the NSA can leverage its' massive computing power to mine data collected by these private firms. The result is a mind-boggling domestic surveillance capability with access to nearly any information imaginable. Phone calls, email, video as well as financial, criminal and other personal records can all be searched at the same time. The NSA's powerful computers can mine the data to find otherwise imperceptible links for profiling groups and individuals.

Russert calls it a "sobering" discussion. The interview only scratches the surface of how extensive the scope of Big Brother's monitoring of Americans may be. The surveillance programs are a dramatic departure from what the public has come to believe. It's easy to see why the Bush Administration has avoided legislation and oversight.

It's quite possible that the American people would not stand for Bush's spying policies if they had a sense of the true nature of the government's surveillance.

UPDATE 5/8/06: Luke has now posted a text transcript of this Russert/Risen/O'Harrow interview.