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Pope Francis Dies,
Sunday 
Sunday 'Zero Day' Toons
Soc. Sec. Expert Warns DOGE Hastening Collapse, Privati-zation: 'BradCast' 4/10/2025
'Green News Report' 4/10/25
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w/ Brad & Desi
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Trump Blinks, Chaos Reigns, Markets Spike as Many Tariffs Remain Despite 90-Day 'Pause': 'BradCast' 4/9/25
SCOTUS Deportation Ruling Grimmer Than First Appears: 'BradCast' 4/8/25
'Green News Report' 4/8/25
Cliff Diving with Donald: 'BradCast' 4/7/25
Sunday 'Don't Look Down' Toons
'Green News Report' 4/3/25
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BARCODED BALLOTS AND BALLOT MARKING DEVICES
BMDs pose a new threat to democracy in all 50 states...
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VIDEO: 'Rise of the Tea Bags'
Brad interviews American patriots...
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'Democracy's Gold Standard'
Hand-marked, hand-counted ballots...
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GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
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VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
Criminal GOP Voter Registration Fraud Probe Expanding in VA
DOJ PROBE SOUGHT AFTER VA ARREST
Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
ALL TOGETHER: ROVE, SPROUL, KOCHS, RNC
LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
'Fired' Sproul Group 'Cloned', Still Working for Republicans in At Least 10 States
FINALLY: FOX ON GOP REG FRAUD SCANDAL
COLORADO FOLLOWS FLORIDA WITH GOP CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
CRIMINAL PROBE LAUNCHED INTO GOP VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL IN FL
Brad Breaks PA Photo ID & GOP Registration Fraud Scandal News on Hartmann TV
CAUGHT ON TAPE: COORDINATED NATIONWIDE GOP VOTER REG SCAM
CRIMINAL ELECTION FRAUD COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST GOP 'FRAUD' FIRM
RICK SCOTT GETS ROLLED IN GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL
VIDEO: Brad Breaks GOP Reg Fraud Scandal on Hartmann TV
RNC FIRES NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION FIRM FOR FRAUD
EXCLUSIVE: Intvw w/ FL Official Who First Discovered GOP Reg Fraud
GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD FOUND IN FL
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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...
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| MORE BRAD BLOG 'SPECIAL COVERAGE' PAGES... |
(In case you missed it, the U.S. Army missed its recruitment goal in April by 42%. Third straight month of missed recruitment goals. Have a feeling they may be lowering those goals soon.)
Imagine that.
Not since attorney Joseph Welch confronted the soon-to-fall Anti-Communist Crusader/Idealogue, Joseph McCarthy in 1954 with his now famous "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" testimony can we recall such a direct shaming of a Congressional Committee as that which took place earlier today in a Senate Subcommittee Hearing on the trumped-up U.N. Oil-for-Food "scandal". It's the scandal which Bush Lackeys and Fox & Friends have been flogging ever since it became apparent that there were no WMD in Iraq, and thus, no justification for this trumped-up war.
Also mirroring McCarthy's shameless use of the Senate for his Anti-Communist Witchhunts is the cavalier way by which the NeoCons and their sycophantic supporters are all-too-willing to destroy innocent lives with the stroke of an irresponsible pen or an out-and-out fallacious public statement in complete disregard for those whose lives and reputations they are smearing and defaming under false pretenses.
The hearings today, by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs investigation subcommittee, shamefully led by Democrat-turned-Republican Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, turned into a stunning embarrassment when British MP George Galloway gave his remarkable rebuttal to the unsubstantiated charges made against him by the Committee "investigating" the Oil-for-Food "scandal" which Galloway appropriately described as "the mother of all smoke-screens".
A video of a portion of the testimony is here (Streaming RealPlayer Broadband, Dial-up or Audio Only MP3). The full transcript (and we strongly recommend you read the entire thing to get the full impact of Galloway's statement!) is available via The Times of London.... Let me repeat the full transcript of George Galloway's statement to the U.S. Senate is here! Please read it!
For the attention-span impaired, however, here is Galloway's extraordinary closing statements:
“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.
"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.
If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.
"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Haliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.
"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.
"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government.
Galloway didn't say the precise words, so we will...
To Senator Norm Coleman, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Rupert Murdoch, George W. Bush and All the Rest of you evil-doers:
You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
Almost a full three weeks after the Chicago Tribune allowed their Public Editor, Don Wycliff, to write a foolish rebuttal to Robert Koehler's watershed column --- in which he said "the 2004 election was stolen, will someone please tell the media?" --- they have finally allowed Koehler a response by way of a letter in their hallowed pages.
It should be noted that the Trib never ran Koehler's original column, nor its followup, nor the original direct reply which Koehler wrote in response to Wycliff. In fact, the Tribune Media Services, in an unprecedented example of censorship at the organization, refused to allow Koehler's response to be published at all via the syndication service where Koehler has worked and published as editor and columnist for nearly a decade. A hastily compiled column crafted of letters that Koehler's received since the brouhaha began took its last minute place.
(We interviewed Koehler on our radio show a couple of weeks back discussing the spiking of that column. Here's the .MP3 archive of the interview, the Koehler interview begins at the :22 minute mark or so.)
In regards to the Trib finally allowing a response to Wycliff's article by anyone (they received hundreds of letters, only a single one of them was published, and that one didn't even speak to the 2004 election mess), Koehler wrote to us yesterday...
You can read Koehler's letter in the Trib here.
We should also note that Don Wycliff finally answered our calls inviting him to give his side of the story on our radio show with a call from his secretary who informed us that "Don does not do radio."
We have no reason to doubt that's the truth. Nonetheless, if any of you good folks out there in Chicagoland happen to hear Mr. Wycliff on the radio, please do let us know won't you?
...CONTACTS...
Tribune Media Services Contact Page
Robert Koehler, Editor/Columnist/American Hero
Chicago Tribune Contact Page
Ann Marie Lipinski, Editor
R. Bruce Dold, Editorial Page Editor
James O'Shea, Managing Editor
N. Don Wycliff, Public Editor
UPDATE 5/18/05: Editor & Publisher, who has been doing a fine job of following the Koehler story, picks up on the latest story as well.
Josh Marshall gets the goods on the Republican plan to attempt to morph "Nuclear Option" into "Constitutional Option" via a Republican Senate Committee Talking Points Memo [PDF].
The GOP strategy for bamboozling the American People with linguistic tricks has been working quietly --- and working very effectively! --- for years. Now, however, that there is an actual opposition media (yes, that "Liberal Media" you've heard so much about is actually beginning to come into existance...even if it's out here, built from the ragtag blogosphere) one wonders how much longer they'll be able to get away with such tricks.
They were busted in the Schiavo case, and it looks like they're busted in the "Nuclear Option" case. For that, and many other reasons, it looks like the GOP Hucksters may be in more long and short term trouble than they realize yet.
That's just speculation on our part, of course. And yes, we're of the eternally optimistic sort still. But we believe we're seeing some signs written on the wall that The Force is not with the GOP these days. We believe we're seeing an Empire, if not yet crumbling, then beginning to show its potentially fatal cracks. Stay tuned...
"Tom DeLay is the most effective leader the House has seen in 50 years."
So said U.S. Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) of his very good friend, and mutual backscratcher, Tom DeLay (R-TX) outside of last week's exciting "Conservative Movement Salutes Tom DeLay" event!
And no wonder! Between all the cold, hold cash money that Feeney's received from DeLay, and all the money and voting support Feeney's given right back in return, it looks like the two Toms are birds of a feather! We certainly hope they're not jailbirds of a feather someday! Yee-Ouch! That certainly wouldn't be very helpful to the "Conservative" movement!
Feeney's been there for DeLay all along and nothing's gonna stop him now!
That's why Mr. Feeney was one of the few Congressmen willing to talk to reporters --- outloud, and right there in public yet! --- at the big "Salute to Delay" last week. That's why Feeney was more than happy to go on that important trip to play golf in Scotland with DeLay (apparently paid for by lobbyists)...Hell, they're even champs when it comes to redistricting their own states to help themselves get elected!
Is there anything these two can't do together when they set their minds to it?!
And just in case you weren't certain how close the two Toms actually are...The Public Campaign Action Fund was nice enough to recently compile a list of "DeLay Rankings" showing which Congressmen and women are closest to Tom DeLay and deepest inside of his pocket. And guess who came out on top of the entire U.S. House of Representatives?!
That's right! Our man, Feeney's #1! Waytago Tom! You've done it again!
(Thanks American Woman, Jaime, and Jesse of Stakeholder for their contributions to this salute!)
Late last week, the good John Conyers posted a fun (and very smart) piece headlined "The GOP's Attack On Voting Rights" over at TomPaine.com. Presumably his article was in reply to Russ Baker's attempt --- published the week before at TomPaine.com --- to tamp down the ever-growing cries of foul in Election 2004 and the need for true Electoral Reform in this country.
Election Reformers being no dolts and well used to subtle smoke-screens, trojan horses and deflections by now, quite a few enlightening letters to the editor were published over there as well last week in reply to Baker's article. Those letters also followed a quick reply/clarification/CYA column by TP's Executive Editor, Alexandra Walker.
Conyers' piece uses a bunch of Harper's Index-like numbers to cut through the crap and outline the very real and very major assaults now being mounted by the Right against American freedom and democracy. Read the whole thing. Here's a couple grafs of particular note to BRAD BLOG readers...
6: The number of days the American Center for Voting Rights, a new, "non-partisan," "voting rights" organization, had been in existence before it was called to testify by Republican members of Congress before a House Administration Committee hearing on March 22. The American Center for Voting Rights was formed by a lawyer for the Bush-Cheney campaign and the notoriously anti-voting rights Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, who described the group as a non-partisan, voting rights advocacy group. He testified and submitted a report on Ohio election irregularities, which highlighted the Mary Poppins Conspiracy in this country. If you haven't heard about it, the Mary Poppins Conspiracy consists of many, many ineligible voters—using the names Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Jive F. Turkey—fraudulently voting in elections.
Unfortunately for advocates of this conspiracy theory, a precinct has yet to report that a citizen by the name of Mary Poppins showed up on Election Day and voted. Searches for Dick Tracy votes and Jive F. Turkey votes have also come up empty.
UPDATE: Oliver T. Dawshed also delivers a helpful reply to Baker's article in his letter that was not published at TomPaine.com. Amongst the information in his rebuttal:
So, who are the paladins he trots out to defeat their arguments? Warren Mitofsky, whose company and future stand or fall on the work under discussion. A psychology graduate student who has written a children's book. A bachelor's level graduate with some graduate coursework in polling (and many years working as an employee of polling firms). And someone with no relevant credentials (but plenty of chutzpah), whose work ironically contradicts Baker's implied characterization of it, saying "Dr. Freeman is right in concluding that statistical explanations of the discrepancy of the discrepancy to date are inadequate."
It's our first full day back in the homeland trenches today after being on the road for the last month and a half. It's good to be back, especially as there have been so many things we've wanted to be able to work on over the past several weeks which have been nearly impossible to accomplish from the road. We look forward to getting back to the hardcore investigative grind very soon!
Along with the month and a half on the road doing various speaking engagements, important meetings and accomplishing other super-secret missions (fruits of which will appear later), someone decided to drop an opportunity to do a weekly radio show on us during that same period. All of which make a difficult job (keeping up with BRAD BLOG and Velvet Revolution duties on the fly) all the much more difficult.
So it's been both a fruitful period, and an extremely difficult --- and frequently frustrating --- one all at the same time.
It'll likely take some time to get caught up and fully back to speed here. (Even the month and a half worth of accumulated snail mail is a carbon-based mountain that needs climbing! Including a number of snail-mail donations --- thanks! --- which have yet to be processed!)
There are a number of items that we haven't been able to post over the last several days (at least) which are worthy of your attention. Some have been pointed to by the eagle-eyed BRAD BLOG commenters already, but several deserve a higher profile as full-fledged blog items in and of themselves. Several others we had hoped to discuss on the radio show last Saturday but had to dump due to lost time caused by technical problems. So we'll be posting some of those "catch-up" items shortly even if they are not quite as timely as we like to be here.
As well, there are several tasks at Velvet Revolution that need our immediate attention to boot. Concerning the "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign and other notable projects which haven't been able to receive the attention they require due to lack of both time and resources. So watch for some new information over there as we work to get caught up over there as well.
Oh, and it looks like Microsoft has made some internal changes to IE that has caused for some odd formatting to the blog in some cases. We'll need time to figure out how they messed things up, and what, if anything, we can do about it! Just what we needed right about now!
Thanks for your continuing support and patience as we crank back up to full speed over the next week or two. Slowly, but surely, we'll get there. So much corruption, so much progress made fighting it, but so little time, "staff" and resources to get it all out here into the sunlight where it needs to be. Nonetheless, onward and upward...as best and as quickly as we can.
And thanks again, as well, to Winter Patriot for his diligence in keeping things rolling here when we were not able to! We're glad to hear that he is just fine and was simply unavailable to run Saturday's Night's BRAD SHOW Open Thread. Apparently he told us in advance, but that news seemingly was one of too many things which dropped through the cracks. The BRAD BLOG "staff" has been fully reprimanded for their failure do note that in advance, and a top-to-bottom review of such policies here will be conducted shortly by the FBI's former-director Robert Mueller, Jeff Gannon, Judith Miller and the entire NEWSWEEK Editorial Board to ensure such failures never occur again.
Looks like we made it! Winter Patriot? Where are you?
RAW STORY has the complete letter signed by 51 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. It begins like this:
We are writing to request that you appoint a special counsel to investigate whether high-ranking officials within the Bush Administration violated the War Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. 2441, or the Anti-Torture Act, 18 U.S.C. 2340 by allowing the use of torture techniques banned by domestic and international law at recognized and secret detention sites in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.
We don't care what the MSM does (or doesn't) report. The drumbeat will not stop. The truth is on our side. Truth always wins out over lies. Eventually. Stay tuned...
Just one of several stories from the past week that we're only now getting time to link up (having been furiously driving across country over the past week).
This one from Miami-Herald:
A study on the November general election shows thousands of discrepancies between the number of votes cast and signatures collected by poll workers at the end of the day.
A study by a member of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition found frequent discrepancies between the number of votes cast and signatures collected by poll workers in the November general election.
The study, expected to be released next week, found that workers at dozens of polling places submitted counts of signatures to elections officials that did not match the number of votes recorded on the touch-screen machines.
...
[b]ecause the iVotronic touch-screen machines do not use paper ballots, elections officials may never know for sure --- highlighting a continuing issue with the machines.
''I think it's significant that we can't be sure that things can't be counted, compared and investigated all the time,'' said the study's author and University fo Miami Professor Martha Mahoney, who also is a member of the coalition.
The news comes weeks after Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan resigned amid revelations that human error led to the county's iVotronic touch-screen machines tossing out hundreds of votes. The $24.5 million machines have become such an issue that the county manager has asked the elections department to advise him on whether to keep them.
The study's findings were a surprise for the elections department, which had considered the November election a success.
...
The study found that there were 5,917 cases where there were more votes than signatures.
...
In at least one case, the problem appears to have been the machine. At precinct 816, the Church of the Ascension, the number of signatures was 945, a figure verified on the machine. But the number of reported votes that day was 1,116.
After testing the machine, its maker, Election Systems & Software, told the state Division of Elections that an internal memory bank failed but the votes were recorded.
ES&S and their "computer glitches" strike again.
Any of you political and MSM ostriches out there realize this is a story yet?
Made it back (finally!) to the Left Coast! Safe and sound! And it looks like we've found a studio for this weekend's show! So, barring any surprises between now and Saturday 7pm ET (4pm PT), we'll be up and on the air with another exciting LIVE episode of The BRAD SHOW via RAW RADIO!
GUESTS CURRENTLY TO INCLUDE:
As always, subject to change as events warrant...
Please plan on tuning in LIVE Saturday Evening! And tell a few friends while you're at it! We need you all to spread the word high and low!
{Guest Blogged by Jaime}
Brad is cooling his jets in the ever famous undisclosed location. He is currently incapable of access to the "internets" so I am transcribing a message from him directly to you.
Even better news, we have booked HBO Sports commentator Jim Lampley for this week's BRAD SHOW lineup!!! (See this item and this followup for why that's very cool news if you don't know already!)
Now all we have to do is find a broadcast studio in Southern California.
If there's anyone who can help, please email me ASAP. Thanks.
John Conyers will appear on our good friend, Don Grady's Louisiana Live today at 3pm CT. You can listen online here.
As I'll be on the road at that time and won't be able to listen, if anyone can grab and record to .MP3 it'd be appreciated!
This morning's explosive item at the new Huffington Post by NBC/HBO's Jim Lampley stating that the November Election was the "biggest crime in the history of the nation" has apparently touched a nerve.
The Sports Announcer cum Political Commentator's deftly on-target blog item (covered by BRAD BLOG earlier today) --- in which he aptly suggested that what happened last November was bigger than Watergate --- was met with a limp-wristed rejoinder from Rightwinger Byron York also at the Post. York attacked Lampley's sports book metaphor as weak by using a silly comparison to the oddsmakers' take on last weekend's Kentucky Derby.
York then went on to attempt a futher rebuttal to Lampley with powerful statements such as...
Good stuff. Very persuasive. I don't know much about York other than he writes for National Review and appears on Fox News all the time, but there is ample evidence that he is also a small gray-haired poodle --- for one thing, speaking from memory, I believe that I remember seeing him take a leak at a fire hydrant near our house. One time. Somewhere.
As to the Kentucky Derby silliness, Lampley himself pushed back with another post later in the day to embarrass York on that point, prove that he's no featherweight on this Election 2004 business and to demonstrate clearly that York is in way over his head on this matter.
We hope at least that Lampley tossed York a nice chew toy and gave him a warm pat on the head when he was done.
Not one to miss out on a good Election Irregularity Brouhaha wherever it may rear its ugly head, Celebrity Congressman John Conyers' showed up ringside at Huffington Post today as well to offer his well-experienced two-cents on today's main event!
We welcome this new spat and apologize for the bad boxing metaphors! But if that's what it takes to get folks to take notice, especially during May Sweeps, then we're happy to ring the bell for ROUND 3!
On a related note, we are attempting to reach Lampley to discuss it all on this weekend's BRAD SHOW presuming we make it back to the Left Coast in time, and can find a homebase broadcast studio! If Lampley himself reads this item before we are able to track him down, please let it be known he may contact us at our Email Address to discuss it!
We'd also be keenly interested in discussing another thought or two with him concerning this statement in his latest answer to York...
The BRAD BLOG has been hot on the trail and committed to that very "investigative process" he speaks of since the early morning hours of November 3rd. We'd like very much to discuss an idea or two with Lampley if he is able to contact us. Or vice versa.
And finally...while we've given so much coverage (and free links) to the well-funded start-up Huffington Post today...We'll add that this well-underfunded blog does not appear on her Blogroll! But certainly should! (As should RAW STORY for that matter who has similarly been a key player in that same "investigative process" for months!) Please feel free to let Arianna know via the only address we've so far been able to find to contact her: Scoop@HuffingtonPost.com.
This is a difficult story to follow blow-by-blow as we're currently on the road for 10 or so hours per day for the next few as we head back Westward across the fruited plains...So our thanks to those readers who have sent us links to help follow the day's action as we're otherwise putting pedal to metal!
UPDATE 5/11/05: Robert A. George pours some fuel on the "Lampley-York Smackdown", though --- unsurprisingly, by now --- takes shots at the good guys tactics/character as opposed to his argument. And Arianna features the entire brouhaha from her front page teaser column. Keep making noise...
UPDATE AGAIN 5/11/05: This morning, York tries to get out of the corner he's backed himself into by playing the already long-discredited "Even the Exit Pollsters admit they were wrong" card. Apparently, he hasn't been told that the Exit Pollsters own report has been entirely rebuked and debunked some time ago [PDF]. Get with it, York! You're losing big time on points as ROUND 3 begins, you're gonna need to punch harder than that!
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'Mob Boss' Trump's Trade Sanctions Tank U.S., World Markets: 'BradCast' 4/3/25
Crawford Landslide in WI; Booker Makes History in U.S. Senate: 'BradCast' 4/2/25
Judge Ends Challenge to GA's Unverifiable, Insecure Vote System: 'BradCast' 4/1/25
Bad Court, Election News for Trump is Good News for U.S.: 'BradCast' 3/31
Vets Push Back at Plan to Slash Health Care, 80K V.A. Jobs: 'BradCast' 3/27/25
Signal Scandal Worsens for Trump, GOP; Big Dem Election Wins in PA: 'BradCast' 3/26
'Emptywheel': Trump NatSec Team Should 'Resign in Disgrace': 'BradCast' 3/25/25
USPS 'Belongs to the People, Not the Billionaires': 'BradCast' 3/24/25
( 18 so far... )