THIS WEEK: Lots of Santa ... Lots of Naughty ... (And a Little of Bit Nice) ... Hark! The tooning angels sing! Glory to this year's collection of the best Hanuchristmaka toons!...
Biden EPA grants CA waiver to phase out all-gasoline cars; Microplastics linked to cancer; PLUS: GOP plan to expand natural gas exports would drive up prices for Americans...
Guest: Joshua A. Douglas on voting laws, Presidential powers; Also: House panel to release Gaetz report; Trump plans for reversing Biden climate, energy initiatives...
'Apocalyptic' cyclone slams Indian Ocean island; Malaria on the rise; Swiss ski resort gives in to climate change; PLUS: Biden EPA finally bans cancer-causing chemicals...
THIS WEEK: Kashing In ... Billionaire Broligarchy ... Slow Learners ... Exiting Autocrats ... and more! In our latest collection of the week's best toons...
Firefighters struggle to contain Malibu wildfire; Planet getting drier, new study finds; PLUS: Arctic has shifted to a source of climate pollution, NOAA reports...
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...
State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...
Arrest of RNC/Sproul man caught destroying registration forms brings official calls for wider criminal probe from compromised VA AG Cuccinelli and U.S. AG Holder...
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...
So much for the RNC's 'zero tolerance' policy, as discredited Republican registration fraud operative still hiring for dozens of GOP 'Get Out The Vote' campaigns...
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...
The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...
FL Dept. of Law Enforcement confirms 'enough evidence to warrant full-blown investigation'; Election officials told fraudulent forms 'may become evidence in court'...
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) sends blistering letter to Gov. Rick Scott (R) demanding bi-partisan reg fraud probe in FL; Slams 'shocking and hypocritical' silence, lack of action...
After FL & NC GOP fire Romney-tied group, RNC does same; Dead people found reg'd as new voters; RNC paid firm over $3m over 2 months in 5 battleground states...
After fraudulent registration forms from Romney-tied GOP firm found in Palm Beach, Election Supe says state's 'fraud'-obsessed top election official failed to return call...
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.
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.
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:
Hi Brad,
Today is KXXT's (Air America Phoenix) last day. Phoenix is getting its eighth AM Christian Station, starting tomorrow. Air America is off the air in Phoenix.
Fred
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:
You helped take an unrated, unprofitable AM radio station and pushed it to a tie for 3rd place out of 25 AM stations in Phoenix. You took that same AM station and made it profitable in less than a year and even after the sale was announced you stood by Air America Phoenix and we kept on making money even when our future was in doubt and we didn't know when our "plug" was going to be pulled. In fact, the last month we were on the air was the 3rd best month we've had financially!
Air America Phoenix has now disappeared into the ether and Phoenix is left with multiple Christian formats, some in English and others in Spanish, several "brokered' time stations (you know the radio stations selling you vitamins, good bowel movements and financial advice) a bagful of right wing "Conservative Talk stations" featuring Rush, Sean, Laura, Bill Bennett, Savage, Medved and all of their local imitators, three "Sports Talk" stations that live off the largess of their sister stations in the big corporate clusters that dominate the dial in Phoenix. Is anyone enjoying Tony Snow on KTAR…did anyone ask for him?
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!
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:
The man was lost and then he was found and now he's more lost than ever --- and he's taking us into the darkness with him. It's time to remove him.
...and ends this way:
The U.S. Constitution provides a simple ultimate way to hold him to account for war crimes and the failure to attend to the country's defense. Impeach him and let the Senate hear the evidence.
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.
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. ...
MURTHA: They have to settle this themselves. They have to settle the underlying problems which have caused the insecurity there.
For instance, water supply, the electricity supply, the oil supply. All those things are prewar level. And there's no way they're going to settle.
Unemployment is 60 percent. There's no way they're going to settle this by talking about it. It's not rhetoric.
And the military has done everything they can do. They have done a marvelous job. Now it's up to the political leaders to take hold of this thing and settle it themselves.
And, you know, I keep getting different reports about the Iraqis being ready to take over, and then the next day they say there's no battalions ready. But the Iraqis themselves have more confidence in their police and in their army than they do in the United States Army.
We have become the enemy, and our troops, unfortunately, have become the targets. So it's time to redeploy our troops.
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!
Pima County Election Director Brad Nelson Launches Outburst Towards Election Reform Advocate in Response to Question About New Touch-Screen Voting Machines
Letter Calls for Censure of Official as Onlookers Stunned by Encounter, Feared Violence Would Break Out...
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...
=== 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...
===
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.
Let's make this clear, folks. The docs Heller is accused of exposing were important evidence. First, they show that Diebold and their attorneys, Jones Day, conspired to mislead the California secretary of state, and that the lie they told was material, and resulted directly in the disenfranchisement of voters. Second, another document demonstrates that Diebold lied to the secretary of state when it represented that certain problems with its software were "fixed." This document, the release notes for the new software, showed that the problems were not fixed. Third, the documents showed that Diebold had been advised by Jones Day that what it had been doing with its uncertified software was illegal. Fourth, the documents show that Jones Day advised Diebold that it was subject to criminal prosecution. So in a nutshell, Diebold was defrauding the state government and taxpayers of California, and disenfranchising the voters of California. And the documents PROVE it.
And for allegedly exposing Diebold's felonious behavior (which led directly to Diebold being de-certified in California), for allegedly helping protect the taxpayers and voters of California, for allegedly helping to keep elections clean and fair, what happens? Diebold, the true criminal in this case, and their powerful international law firm Jones Day, press the L.A. District Attorney's office to hammer Heller, a whistleblower. Three felonies! Diebold was (and probably still is) screwing California voters, Heller is alleged to have seen the smoking gun evidence of Diebold's crimes, and, like a true patriot and whistleblower, allegedly exposed that smoking gun evidence, and now HE'S the one facing jail time. Only in Bush's America!
Soby goes on to offer some talking points and helpful contact information for the LA District attorney. Please check them out and take action.
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.
As violence surges in Iraq, the death toll for journalists has risen to a new high. Depending on the source, between 76 and 82 journalists have been killed since the war began.
While covering the bombing of a revered Shi'ite mosque, Al-Arabiya's Atwar Bahjat and two of her colleagues were shot by two gunmen. Atwar Bahjat had recently left the Al-Jazeera television network for pro-American Al-Arabiya network. She was widely known and respected in the Arab world.
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About Brad Friedman...
Brad is an independent investigative
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and a Commonweal Institute Fellow.