Busy with much this morning, so just a few quick notes for the moment.

- I'll be on Radio Left at 4:20pm ET (1:20pm PT) to discuss VR's "Divestiture for Democracy". You can listen live online, and we'll otherwise try to get a link to the recorded appearance later. For media who'd like more info on the campaign, and to discuss appearances, etc., please write to DV4D@VelvetRevolution.us.

- For media folks who'd like to participate in next Tuesday's BlogCall conference call that I'll be doing, along with Clint Curtis, to discuss developments in his story, please email me and I'll try to get an invitation out to you for the call.

- The great John Conyers (aside from smartly endorsing VR's campaign yesterday!) today has forced the issue of Election Reform onto the floor of Congress during debate of the House's bill to determine what happens to ensure continuity of government during a terror attack.

He used a surprise maneuver to do so known as a "Motion to Recommit". As Will Pitt explains in his TruthOut article an hour or so ago..."Rep. Conyers finds it ridiculous that the House is spending so much energy (and acting with such speed) to solve a hypothetical problem, about a hypothetical election, when there are so many real problems with our real elections." Pitt has the details, and Conyers official statement on the floor. Good on Conyers again!

- A task force assembled by Gov. Christine Gregoire in Washington state "has found that public trust in Washington state's election system was damaged by last year's tight gubernatorial race that took two months to resolve." Do ya think? The AP story is here. What a shame it takes governmental action for anything to happen on Election Reform. Wouldn't it be lovely if the press reported on the problems and the government followed with reform (the way it used to be) instead of vice versa? That is, when the press even bothers to report at all, even on governmental action...which they do, but only when it's Republican governmental action it seems. And so it goes...

The New Times Broward-Palm Beach, who two weeks ago reported on Clint Curtis and his sworn allegations that Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) and Florida software firm Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) conspired to create vote-rigging software when Curtis worked at the company in 2000, has a follow-up today. (Scroll down to the fourth story, "Crazy Guy").

Their latest news item is based on the recently released report from the FL Inspector General's office at the Florida Dept. of Transporation (FDOT) where Curtis had initially made his complaints about both Feeney and YEI. The report was finally released this month after an investigation initiated by Curtis and another whistleblower at FDOT back in 2001. (The BRAD BLOG is currently examining the full report, and will have more on it in upcoming stories.)

From the New Times article...

The article also goes on to mention...

Other than a column in The St. Petersburg Times, which got a number of key details wrong, "Tailpipe" is correct.

And BRAD BLOG continues to ask of the MSM (and we know there are many who read this blog) how much more does it take before you realize the importance and veracity of Clint Curtis' story?! Still need more? ... Okay, more will be coming soon. We'd love it if you beat us to punch.

(For a listing of all of the key articles in our Special Coverage series on the Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney/Yang Enterprises Vote-Rigging Scandal, please click here.)

We couldn't be more honored. A stunning and ringing endorsement from the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's ranking minority member!

Read the good congressman's full statement of support on ConyersBlog! But here's a quick quote...[emphasis added]

Conyers also sends a very clear message in his letter to the Voting Machine Companies, even threatening to introduce legislation to deny the companies HAVA funds (federal money from the Help America Vote Act which was earmarked to purchase E-Voting machines from these vendors), if they don't follow the recommendations made by VR: [emphasis added]

Conyers' Letter to the 9 Voting Machine Companies here.
Conyers' Letter to Brad here.

...And it looks like America's Voting Machine Company leaders may be none too happy about VR's DV4D Campaign...

From RAW STORY's article which is now up...

We resent losing complete confidence in the most fundamental aspect of democracy, Howard. Voting.

After you've read RAW's story, be sure to send a letter to Howard and the others! It's time that your voice is finally heard!

Just breaking via William Rivers Pitt at TruthOut. Looks like Blackwell, who doesn't think he should have to sit for depositions, now thinks Kerry and Edwards should!

Full story at TruthOut.

We guess the fat lady hasn't sung yet. Thanks, Ken! Keep up the good work!

On February 21, 2005 (President's Day), I sent a letter on behalf of Velvet Revolution's directors to each of of the nine major American Voting Machine companies --- (Advanced Voting Solutions, Diebold, Danaher-Guardian, Election Systems & Software [ES&S], HartInterCivic, MicroVote, Sequoia Voting Systems, Triad GSI and UniLect Corp) --- asking them to do the right thing for our country!
In short, our letter gives the companies 60 days to take the following patriotic actions:

If the companies publicly commit to all of the above within the 60 days, we will broadly recognize them for their efforts.

If, however, they choose not to take these steps to ensure free, fair and transparent elections in America, then VR --- along, we hope, with all of you! --- will encourage all Americans to (1) divest from these companies and those with which they are affiliated, and (2) participate in a massive national boycott targeting them, their affiliates and their clients. We will also launch an extensive education campaign for the American public explaining the ways in which these companies are secretly doing the public's business of handling elections in the world's most important democracy!

VR has the support of more than 80 Affiliate organizations in this effort, representing millions of Americans, and more are joining up every day! Please join the revolution by stopping by the site to send an email to all nine companies stating your support of this campaign! It'll take you less than a minute!

We're all in this democracy together, and without you, we're nothing!

And so begins the revolution...

The Official Press Release for this campaign is available here online or may be downloaded here in WORD format.

For more information on VR's "Divestiture for Democracy" please visit:
http://www.VelvetRevolution.us/Campaigns/DV4D
or write to:
DV4D@VelvetRevolution.us

Good news from the Supreme Court for a change. America may be entering into the community of civilized countries...Though it's been a long and slow process, and we've still got a ways to go.

According to The NY Times...

Well, good for us. For once.

And on "International Death Penalty Abolition Day" of all days! Details on that and more at fine organizations here and here.

After an interview with Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL), The New Times Broward-Palm Beach reported:

After another interview with Feeney, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC reported:

Despite the reports above, we've discussed the fact several times that Feeney's Campaign Headquarters is still located in the YEI building, and that the Yangs and their attorney Michael O'Quinn continue to be huge campaign donors to Feeney...

But --- other than that --- no ?connection to Yang Enteprises" since 2002?

Well, that's interesting, because it looks like the truth is --- again --- somewhat different from what Feeney would have folks believe. Look what we seem to have found here (Screencaptured, just in case it disappears from the net like so much else these days.):

There are several more photos of Feeney with Dr. and Mrs. Yang at this YEI-sponsored event in 2003 along with members of ATAYAL on the linked page above.

Feeney's questionable --- and apparently, continuing --- connections with YEI were brought to light in early December when we first reported exclusively on programmer Clint Curtis' sworn affidavit alleging that Feeney had asked him to create a "vote-rigging software prototype" during an October 2000 meeting at YEI in Oviedo, Florida.

The key articles from our series of reports on that matter can be read here.

Our call to Feeney's press spokesperson seeking explanation about the 2003 party thrown for Feeney by YEI has not yet been returned. We have not yet been able to ascertain who actually paid for Feeney's trip to Asia, but, of course, we will continue to look into this story and report any new developments.

Our understanding was that it was supposed to have been Democrats who liked to "scare old people about Social Security". At least according to Rush, Sean, Fox and Friends.

Turns out it's the Rightwingnuts who have actually turned the practice into both an art form, and a cash cow. The shadowy rightwing group, National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) has been quietly sending scare letters to the nation's elderly for years in which they ask recipients to keep the letter a secret, while they terrify them about their Social Security benefits.

And, again, --- surprise! --- House Majority Leader Tom Delay seems to be one of the biggest beneficiaries thereof! Delay is reported today, in a RAW STORY Exclusive, to have received some $130,000 from the NCPPR who has been paying for "posh" Delay vacations!

From RAW STORY's investigative report:

And just when you thought these guys had scraped the bottom of the "Moral Values” barrel. Think again.

We live close enough to the Kodak Theater that the persistent buzz of the Oscars' Goodyear blimp was echoing through our windows all morning. Thankfully, we had a date in Santa Monica at the Election Reform Teach-in sponsored by CitizensAct.org which kept us busy most of the day and night and well out of range of the constant copters, blimps and Joan Rivers.

On the other hand, it also meant that we missed the entire Awards show. Did we actually miss anything? Or did we just not see it? Feel free to blog back in comments and let us know.

We're a bit too tired to blog too much more this evening other than a quick report from Santa Monica and one quick tease for a story coming tomorrow...

The event was tremendous, and packed to the gills. Standing room only. The speakers were all Election Reform All-Stars plus yours truly. Bob Fitrakis of the Columbus Free Press lit the joint on fire as he opened in lieu of Rep. Maxine Waters who was late coming from the airport. She made it, and followed in fine fettle. As did the Green Party's Blair Bobier (spokesman for David Cobb), Bev Harris of BBV, Kevin Spidel of PDA and other illuminaries too numerous to mention before the orchestra plays us off.

We had a great time talking about some of the adventures here on BRAD BLOG and Velvet Revolution's brand-spanking-new "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign which seemed to make a tremendously good impression. (Have you signed the letter there yet?...No worries, it's so brand-spanking-new we've hardly given it a proper introduction here, but we will).

Thanks to those of you who came out to say hello. It was great to put some faces to some of the user names. Even to those of DU'ers

It was also a delight to learn we have so many loyal readers who we didn't know (too shy to post in comments?!), but we're happy to have made some swell new friends and a couple of interesting connections to boot. We even picked up some inside Clint Curtis skinny from a few folks who shall remain nameless for the moment...and for their own safety.

And before we drop off from exhaustion, or you do, we'll just tease briefly that ... on Monday ... only on The BRAD BLOG ... our friend Tom Feeney gets caught once again flashing his Yang in public... This time with pictures to help set the scene. More on that tomorrow...

Until then, please consider this thread now open until further notice...

In re: the Ann Coulter column we mentioned several times as running over at World Net Daily. It turns out the original version of her column was even more appalling than the one which was first edited before being sent out by her syndicator, Universal Press Syndicate (UExpress).

As MoveLeft points out, here is the phrase from the distributed version of her column, as seen at hate publication, World Net Daily (emphasis added):

And here is the phrase as written in Coulter's original version, still posted on her website (emphasis added):

"That old Arab"?...What a disgusting, slimy, little bitch. Feel free to send a note of complaint to Coulter's syndicator here.

We've got some business for much of the day, but perhaps later if time allows we'll try to collect a list of Email addresses for all of the "news" outlets that carry the words of this obnoxious, horrible, hate-filled, racist "woman" so you can let them all know what you think of them carrying her column. This woman is begging to be put out of business.

At the end of a fun read over at Watching the Watchers on "horrible fiendish cackling harpy" Ann Coulter's latest pile of self-serving venomous horsehit slash apology vis a vis the Gannon/Guckert Scandal, the good (though hard to type) ~A! picks up on a subtle shot that Fox "News" seemed to toss at the Right's favorite new whipping boy, Raw Story.

As ~A! noticed...

Why, ~A!? Because Raw is in the business of reporting news and, of late, they are doing it like no other site on or off the net. You'll note that Fox also took the time to link to faux "news" organization GOPUSA in their article as well. We suppose they'd hate for any of their reader/zombies to start noticing the difference between real news and Fox "News".

While you're watching the Watcher Watchers, you may also want to check out what they've uncovered from Republican pollster, Frank Luntz, whose great offering to history will have been his instructions to his GOP clients to use such words as "Death Tax" instead of "Inheritance/Estate Tax" when hypnotizing their zombies. Well, it worked. And the "Death Tax", along with many other clever turns of lexicographical trickery has made its way into the daily GOP parlance. Yes, language does matter. Especially to zombies.

And as our own aside, by way of reminder, we'll be panelling tomorrow (Sunday) at the Election Reform Teach-in in Santa Monica, with an esteemed group including Congresswoman Maxine Waters and a bunch of other Election Reform All-Stars. If you're local to So-Cal, and the rain has still stopped, come on out and say hey!

We'll be talking, amongst other things, about VR's "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign the creation of which is just one of the too-many reasons we've had less time than usual to blog of late. We've quietly launched the VR DV4D campaign this morning and plan to plan to make quite a bit of noise about it this coming week.

But you, dear BRAD BLOGGERS, have heard about it before just about anybody else! So check it out, and send the bad guys a letter while you're there! You'll be glad you did!

More...as ever...later.

We caught the excellent new documentary, Inside Deep Throat, yesterday afternoon while on “gf bday duty" and found it to be simply fascinating on innumerable levels.

The most notable of which, at least for BRAD BLOG readers, will be the remarkable parallels pointed up --- no accident, we'd think --- between the oppressive political atmosphere of 1972 and that of 2005.

The film covers the emergence and subsequent legacy of hairdress-cum-director Gerard Damiano ‘s Deep Throat in the early 70's as it rose out of the back alleys to become "Porno Chic" after it was described as such by a New York Times article.

Then, as now, one NY Times article officially declares something as "newsworthy", and then, as now, we had a politically damaged President who managed to get himself re-elected and then, as now, felt himself the holder of a mandate to be the personal guardian of all that is moral for the American people.

As Harry Reems, the male star of Throat was told at the time when he was chosen to be made an example of and put on trial under newly created obsenity laws --- specifically brought about by agents of the Nixon Administration in a futile attempt to stuff the genie back into the exploding bottle --- "If the Republicans win the next election, you're going to jail. If the Democrats win, you'll walk.”

Why is it that Republicans, for decades, have always claimed (with a straight face, mind you) that they want to get the Federal Government off the backs of American citizens, yet whenever they manage to come to power they are invariably the most intrusive with their use of that Government which they claim to hate?

Anway, there was much more to discuss about the film which kept us yackin' and ponderin' all throughout dinner afters. It's an incredibly thought-provoking and timely film, filled with a host of fascinating and often hilarious characters! It's well-worth your time should be lucky enough to live in a town with a theater willing to exhibit NC-17 films. Even one created by mainstream Universal Pictures.

Sadly, we have a feeling there are not many towns like that left in "the land of the free", so we have a feeling most of you out there in “Bush Country” may just have to wait for it to show up on HBO or at your local DVD store. (That is, if even they are willing to help spread the "liberty" that Dubya acts as if he's so interested in.)

"If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us." -George W. Bush, Presidential Debate at Wake Forest University Oct 11, 2000

Welcome to Russia, Mr. Bush...

(Hat tip to regular BRAD BLOG linking commenter, Cheryl!)

Our previous Toon of the Moment item, recalled a “conversation" we had in BRAD BLOG comments a week or two ago with Chuck Noles, owner of The Oviedo Voice, a small weekly paper in Tom Feeney's (R-FL) U.S. Congressional district down in Florida. The Voice had pretended they were going to investigate and give --- as they said --- "balanced coverage" to the Tom Feeney/Clint Curtis/Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) Vote-Rigging Scandal, but then went on for several weeks to give the Feeney/YEI side of the story almost exclusively.

His paper even went so far one week as to print YEI's official web statement in full in their paper --- without comment, weeks after it had been published and subsequently debunked --- even though we had been in touch with Noles long before and had given him our complete reply to that statement which had included a point-by-point rebuttal demonstrating that they were lying in several areas.

Nonetheless, Noles chose to run YEI's press release as is. Choosing to repeat rather than to report. (And, indeed, one of YEI's statements about convicted Chinese spy and illegal alien, Hai Lin "Henry" Nee, never having worked for them, has since been proven wrong yet again. This time, by Federal agents and the Florida's own Inspector General's office. We don't believe that The Voice has covered that recently published fact in their pages either. We don't suspect they will.)

The following week they ran the YEI statement yet again, but this time, with a comment by Curtis after each point. Fair enough? Apparently not. They followed each statement by Curtis with a closing rebuttal --- each time --- by YEI attorney (and longtime friend, law-partner and contributor to Feeney), Michael O'Quinn. We suppose that counts for the "balanced coverage" that they, in a previous front page item, had faulted cross-town rival The Seminole Chronicle for not offering. They insinuated the Chronicle (or we?) had featured "supermarket tabloid" journalism.

The next week we were out of town. But we were told that The Voice ran an interview exclusively with Curtis. However, as The Voice doesn't post their paper on their website, and Noles did not email the interview to us, as he had the previous articles, we have only his word to go on.

For a bit more background, Noles is in friendly close contact with Feeney himself and his nearby office in Florida. Despite his protestations in the following "conversation", Chuck answers all email sent to Editor@TheOviedoVoice.com. He also seemed like a nice enough fellow, despite his strong rightward political leanings, when we first got to know him prior to his string of hit pieces on Curtis. He even went so far as to call us at 11:15pm (ET) on New Year's Eve from his Yacht Club, apparently to wish us a Happy New Year...and to find out how we'd be spending it.

The paper was started by his father Randy who began it years ago and still apparently serves as Chief Editor. From our one phone conversation with Randy, we found him to be first-rate, a delight, and a long-time avowed Democrat. The apple, however, doesn't fall as close to the tree as the saying goes. At least when it comes to politics and intellectual honesty.

Since the "conversation" between Chuck and ourselves took place in the comments section of an item that ran a while ago, you may have missed it. The item upon which Chuck was commenting was on the The New Times Broward-Palm Beach's article on the Feeney/Curtis/Yang affair, in which Feeney had claimed that he hadn't been in contact with YEI and the Yangs since he ceased being their corporate counsel and registered lobbyist upon leaving his job as Florida Speaker of the House to go to the U.S. Congress in 2002. That, despite the fact that Feeney's own website --- to this day --- shows that his 2004 headquarters (for a campaign during which he ran unopposed, and received thousands of dollars from the Yangs and their attorney, O'Quinn) remains in the YEI Building in Oviedo. Our article showed photographs from the YEI and Feeney websites showing they both had the same address. As they still do today.

Chuck seemed concerned throughout the exchange that he would be banned for his comments or would have them deleted or, at best, that they would never be read by most of you. So, as it's our girlfriend's birthday, and it's our duty to spend most of the day and night with her, we thought today we'd do Chuck the courtesy of reposting that thread here in its entirety so that Chuck's insightful thoughts would not be overlooked by BRAD BLOG readers. He is, of course, more than welcome to comment again in this thread on any of the above...or anything else he wishes. Chuck's comments are always fun, most welcome and enlightening (especially, as we say, in light of our previous Toon of the Moment) as you'll soon read.

The “conservation" between us is reposted here, completely unedited, included typos and misspelings by both of us. Enjoy...