What began innocently enough with a watershed article several weeks ago by Tribune Media Service's Robert Koehler on the need for Election Reform and an investigation into the results of Election 2004, has now erupted into a full-fledged firestorm resulting Wednesday afternoon in the unprecedented rejection of Koehler's latest column by the higher-ups at TMS where Koehler is both a columnist and editor!

Tribune Media Services is the syndication arm of the Tribune Company which, in turn, is the parent company to the Chicago Tribune.

Koehler's original ground-breaking column from April --- the first by an American Mainstream Media journalist that we know of to out-and-out charge that the 2004 Election was stolen --- was written a few days after Koehler attended the National Election Reform Conference last month in Nashville. The piece was headlined "The Silent Scream of Numbers: The 2004 election was stolen — will someone please tell the media?"

He followed it up the next week with another stunner headlined "Democracy's Abu Ghraib — If they can disable an election, what's coming next?"

While both pieces were distributed via TMS to syndicate member newspapers, only a handful chose to run either of those two columns.

Most notably, however, despite Chicago Tribune itself having chosen to run neither column, their "Public Editor", Don Wycliffe, found it appropriate to write a column in the Trib's pages wherein he rebutted Koehler's original piece. Wycliff's rebuttal, as reported here previously, attempted to discredit Koehler's column, Koehler himself, and those of us who might give a damn about democracy and the responsibility that the people (and yes, that would include the media) have to remain vigilant in order to sustain it.

Wycliff's column, citing the "moral example" of Richard Nixon (yes, not kidding) as the figure whom Americans ought to follow in regards to potentially stolen elections, has erupted in a torrent of email directed towards the misguided and/or misinformed Wycliff and in support of Koehler.

Koehler once again hits a home-run with this week's column in response to Wycliff's. Or at least he would have had the Masters of Tribune Media Services not killed the article for the first time in Koehler's career!...

Did this performance really appear on NBC's The Tonight Show??? Does anybody know???

(UPDATE: The link to the video above has been changed to include a higher quality version now available via Justice Through Music. And yes, it's since been confirmed as legit! It really aired as is!)

We usually like to check these things out for ourselves, but are otherwise occupied for the moment and yet would love any details anyone may have.

We'd be so incredibly delighted to know that it actually aired on American Broadcast Television that we'd even be more than willing to overlook the use of the misleading phrase "Voter Fraud" in lieu of "Election Fraud"!

(Hat tip to Emailer MitchMB!)

Catching up in a brief "off the road" moment with another item from the good Mr. Conyers' blog posted yesterday.

Some months ago he promised not to let go of the Election Reform issue. As far as we can tell, he has kept that promise --- without fail --- each and every moment since then.

From his latest public volley yesterday:

On the money, as usual, Congressman.

But allow us also to include this mouth-watering notion also from his same blog item:

While we do not know if Conyers was referring to anything in particular beyond the current tanking approval ratings for Bush and Cronies, we have some early word ourselves about a coming wave (perhaps a tsunami even) which may be coming ashore soon. Even within the next 24 hours or so...

We'd recommend you keep an eye on The BRAD BLOG over that period for a few details as we're able to release them...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

It's always nice to find a website that features plenty of talk about freedom, democracy and the press. But it's a special treat when you can actually see these things in action.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The major media may be busy trying to find a runaway bride or drooling over lurid details of the trial of a former pop music star, but Congressman John Conyers is not about to let these vital non-issues detract attention from the most serious story of the day. It figures!!

Rep. Conyers has written an open letter to president bush asking some very pointed questions, as detailed in this piece from our friends at The Raw Story !! Conyers doesn't mess around with small-talk, either. The letter begins:

The remainder of the letter follows...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

It's out now! The Gannon/Guckert story is out in the mainstream!!

And it ain't pretty.

Thus wrote Carol Towarnicky, of the Philadelphia News, in a piece published Monday.

E-mail a quick Thank You to Carol Towarnicky.

And on we go into Year Three! Let's just hope it's as "catastrophically successful" as the first two!

A dose of reality for those who've been told that a Runaway Bride was the most newsworthy item this week.

(Seriously, I hate this shit.)

Oddly enough, the Progressive Movement salutes Tom DeLay as well! Go figure!

And then there's this from the WaPo piece today which suggests this "salute" is actually a "wave goodbye" (do ya think?):

Oddly enough, the Progressive Movement thinks Tom DeLay is the key to Bush's agenda as well! Uh, oh...Hope "the president" doesn't lose his keys!

And as a final, "oddly enough", looks like that Paul Weyrich fella is a busy busy boy of late working overtime on damage control in support of friend, DeLay. He was quoted defending the soon-to-be outgoing House Majority Leader in WaPo's lollapalooza from yesterday covering the latest bit of foul play in which DeLay's great $upporter Jack Abramoff is found embroiled again, right next to Mr. DeLay! This time, even including a gangland style murder! And in South Florida, of all places! Oddly enough. Go figure!:

Ah, SunCruz, Florida, Tom DeLay, Murder.

Salute!

UPDATE 5/28/05: "Conservative Salute" to Tom DeLay falls flat... An insider reports...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

This might be something to keep an eye on.
AmericaBlog has the details here.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

We're rolling backwards at the moment, coasting along in Retro Mode, or so it seems.
After the Best Of The Brad Show and a repost of last week's comic,
some loyal readers and listeners must be wondering:
How much worse can this get?

I just happen to know the answer
and I don't think it would be fair to leave you hangin' ...

(NOTE FROM BRAD: Catching up on a few items as time allows. Still mostly "off the grid" for the next several days, but jumping in when I can.)

You may recall the recent decertification of E-Voting machines made by the UniLect corporation in several Pennsylvania counties. That occured as a result of one good American citizen, Sheila Green, demanding an investigation into the Direct Electronic Response (DRE) voting machines in the state (oh, okay...Commonwealth) of Pennsylvania. The effort cost her just $450 and resulted in the decertification of PA's $1.2 million UniLect touch-screen voting machines.

The machines were decertified after the investigation, according to the Sec. of the Commonwealth's statement, because...

UniLect was generously allowed a chance to meet with the Department again to answer to the concerns revealed by the investigation. And now, after meeting with them, it looks like UniLect failed to meet the concerns according to a Press Release issued yesterday:

(Hat tip the good folks from VotersUnite.org for the info!)

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

I'm still in the dark about plans for this week's RAW RADIO ...
I know you are too, and some of you will be wondering ...
Hang tough, folks: I will post the schedule here as soon as I get it!

As Brad likes to say: "Developing..."

UPDATE FROM BRAD: Try as I might, I was unable to get up a new live broadcast from where I currently am this week on the road! The BRAD SHOW On the Air will return LIVE again next week from our previous On-the-Road location for one last broadcast before high-tailing it home to our (hopefully) permanent homebase broadcast center!

So, this week's BRAD SHOW will be a "Best Of..." --- yes, we've been at it for all of two weeks and already broadcasting a "Best Of..." For the record, the radio gig came upon us quickly while we were on the road, and knew that we had previous obligations for this weekend which might make it difficult or impossible to get a LIVE show up and on the air. We did our best to make it happen, but just couldn't pull it off. However, if you missed any of these great hours, they will be new to you!

Tonight's "Best of The BRAD SHOW" features:

HOUR 1: Clint Curtis Interview (First BRAD SHOW hour ever! Rebroadcast from 4/16/05)
HOUR 2: Election Reformapalooza (Rebroadcast from 4/23/05)
HOUR 3: Intervew with Congressman Chris Bell, re: Tom DeLay (Rebroadcast from 4/23/05)
HOUR 4: Brad Show's Big Gay Hour! With Jim Key of the LA Gay & Lesbian Center and Mike Rogers of Blogactive.com and RawStoryQ.com (Rebroadcast from 4/23/05)

Attempting to update BradShow.com right now --- where you can get to "LISTEN LIVE" links for tonight's show, but even having trouble doing that from our super-secret, on-the-road, undisclosed location! Thanks WP for keeping things up-to-date here in our "absence". Hopefully things will get easier again in a couple of weeks!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

An open invitation to share your thoughts regarding David Ray Griffin's lecture, C-SPAN's coverage, the events of 9/11 themselves, the many "conspiracy theories" which have been advanced to try to explain those events, the gaping holes in the "official conspiracy theory", and/or the fact that only now --- more than three and a half years after the attacks --- is it even partially acceptable to ask serious questions about any of this on American television ...

And speaking of the "official conspiracy theory", I've recently read an article which does a great job of debunking it, and you can find a few more remarks about it, plus a link, on this page of please don't read my blog.

QUICK UPDATE: My apologies: I accidentally referred you to a piece on my blog which had a broken link. [The page I had linked to has been taken down.] I found another copy of the same essay and fixed the link in my blog page, so I invite you to try it again: or, to go straight to the essay "Debunking Conspiracy Theorists" by Gerard Holmgren, click here.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

According to a comment we received on another thread, it may be time for a flashing light alert --- CSPAN is again threatening to show the lecture presented in Madison, Wisconsin, by David Ray Griffin...

This has been in the breeze for a while now. There was supposedly a prior date set for it but the broadcast was allegedly cancelled. Or postponed. Or something. Can't quite grab it by the tail ...

But in any event ... the video of Griffin's Madison lecture (which was said to be excellent) might be broadcast on CSPAN2 (the book channel), Saturday morning at 10:30. Eastern time, local time, I don't know. I wish I could tell you but I can't. Check your listings. Post your listings. My research skills seem to be on vacation and I'm in a hurry [again!] but I invite you to post whatever you've got pertaining to the lecture and the broadcast, here on this thread.

PLUS! Unconfirmed reports from trusted sources indicate that the Josh Mittledorf piece "View from Another Planet", which ran at the Free Press a couple of weeks ago, may have been published by the Philadelphia Inquirer. This is important because Mittledorf wrote about Clint Curtis:

UPDATES!! with details provided by cooperative BradBlog readers...