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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...

By Brad Friedman on 9/17/2007 4:12pm PT  

Speaking tonight at an event sponsored by the Democratic Westside Progressives here in Los Angeles, along with election attorney Paul Lehto and local election integrity champion Judy Alter.

The event begins at 7pm tonight at the Westside Pavillion Mall , 10850 Pico Blvd., Community Room, 3rd Floor Food Court (map here). More info: 310-490-3858.

I'm going to try to focus on the topic "Why Paper Trails Do Not Work" and will also be taking questions, as usual. If you're in the hood, come on out and say hello!




Rep. Hinchey 'Deeply Disappointed,' Calls Unwillingness to Debate Issue a 'Shame'
AlterNet Covers Latest Political Landscape Surrounding HR 811...
By Brad Friedman on 9/17/2007 2:06pm PT  

Citing "recent developments outside Washington that bolster critics who say DRE [usually, touch-screen voting] systems are too insecure and unreliable for use in elections," AlterNet's Steve Rosenfeld surveys the political landscape in regard to Rush Holt's impending time-bomb of an Election Reform Bill, known as HR 811.

The controversial bill that refuses to die is again said to be headed back to House Rules Committee this week, where a rule concerning whether or not amendments will be allowed to the bill when/if it reaches the House Floor will be set.

Rosenfeld reports Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office is being dodgy about whether or not Rep. Susan Davis's (C-CA) amendment to restrict the use of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen systems will be allowed for debate. "I don't have an answer for you," a spokesperson told him, "I have no way of knowing. This is a comprehensive bill. This is a process that is moving."

Last week, Davis said, in a statement sent to The BRAD BLOG, that "we are still ignoring the 800 pound gorilla in the room," in regard to Congress's fear of discussing whether or not to allow the use of DRE systems which are now being banned by states across the country.

Her amendment was followed by an editorial from the New York Times charging that "electronic voting has been an abysmal failure," and calling for a "provision banning the use of touch-screen voting machines" to be added to Holt's bill. They add that such a provision should be in place in time for the 2008 election, though Davis's amendment, as currently written, only calls for a restriction to one DRE per polling place, by 2012.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has been a supporter of HR 811 since a secret "compromise" version, recently brokered behind closed doors by out-of-touch DRE-supporters, People for the American Way (PFAW), and Holt was agreed upon several weeks ago.

Pelosi has remained largely mum concerning her position on the bill, which does not require paper ballots, despite the blatant lie that Holt offered Rosenfeld in a report some weeks ago after CA SoS Debra Bowen's independent study at University of California found "severe vulnerabilities" in DRE voting systems. Such vulnerabilities, her study found, would not be safe-guarded against use of the paper trails that the Holt/Hoyer/PFAW compromise bill mandates.

Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), now a co-sponsor of Davis's amendment --- along with Barbara Lee from California --- and a previous critic of the Holt Bill, is now critical of the Democratic leadership. He seems to indicate, in comments given to Rosenfeld, that Davis's amendment will not be allowed for consideration:

"The potential for manipulation of national elections with the use of touch-screen machines is much too serious for this Congress to allow their continued use --- let alone to encourage additional states to convert to DREs," he said. "Regrettably, the Democratic leadership was still unwilling to allow the Davis amendment to be considered before the full House."

"That's a shame, because this is an important issue about which many voters are justifiably concerned," he said. "I'm deeply disappointed that we won't even have the opportunity to have an open debate about the merit of these very dangerous touch-screen devices."

Quoting an industry watcher who straight out proclaims "The DRE is dead," Rosenfeld reviews a number of national and media developments that support that assessment.

Apparently, that message hasn't gotten through to Holt and the tone-deaf, out of touch Democratic Leadership on the Hill, however.

"While these events and trends are unfolding," Rosenfeld astutely sums up, "in Washington the House Democratic leadership has been accommodating interest groups that want to see continued use of the very voting systems that are being discredited across the country."

You may reach your Congress Members, along with Hoyer and Pelosi's office, to register your own opinions, via the Capitol switchboard at: 1-800-828-0498.




County Clerk Has 'Faith' in Her Sequoia Voting System, Plans to Continue Voting Machine 'Sleepovers' in 2008...
By Brad Friedman on 9/17/2007 9:05am PT  

I'll withhold most of my personal thoughts here for the moment, since Gail Pellerin, County Clerk for Santa Cruz County, CA, has agreed to come back to continue this discussion on the Peter B. Collins Show this Friday. For the moment then, I'll just let you listen and offer your own thoughts on this conversation from last Friday's show.

Pellerin and I appeared on PBC's radio show to discuss issues of Election Integrity, CA SoS Debra Bowen's "Top-to-Bottom Review" and the Sequoia Voting System that Pellerin uses in Santa Cruz, the hometown of former CA SoS Bruce McPherson.

She is on the public record as having said last July at the public hearing in Sacramento for Bowen's TTB Review: "I can guarantee that every eligible vote is counted accurately," about which, you can imagine, I challenged her on the show. As well, in the interview (complete audio below) she commits to sending her voting systems home yet again on "sleepovers" with poll workers in next year's elections. I also had a thing or two to say to say about that, as you may have guessed. Suffice to say, it was a lively interview.

Pellerin --- presumably a Democrat, as she once worked in the CA state assembly for then-Speaker Willie Brown --- was scheduled only for the first half-hour of the show, but fortunately called back for the final segment to answer some of the questions that I didn't have time to ask her about when she was on the air. I greatly appreciate her willingness to do so and to stand up to the fire.

You'll want to stay tuned for that final segment.

As well, be sure to tune in this Friday at 5pm on the PBC Show (listening link here), where she has agreed to come back and pick up where we left off. I greatly appreciate her willingness to do so. The continued discussion can only benefit voters both in Santa Cruz (one of the locations where Peter's show is heard live on the air) and across the nation, where Elections Officials and Election Integrity advocates must continue to find ways to work together to solve our problems and push back at the damaging, cynical, divisive, selfish, and inaccurate propaganda being forwarded by the Voting Machine Companies.

NOTE 9/22/07: Pellerin returned for another full hour on 9/21/07, the week following this broadcast, in order to follow up on this week's interview. That subsequent second interview and text transcript has now been posted here...

-- Santa Cruz County, CA, County Clerk Gail Pellerin and Brad Friedman on the Peter B. Collins Show, 9/14/07 (appx 41 mins. w/ commercials now removed):

Complete text-transcript of the hour now follows below...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Do You? (And Any Help In Paying For It Is Much Appreciated)
By Brad Friedman on 9/16/2007 10:30pm PT  

Finally catching my breath, and beginning to get back up to speed here at home after three months on the road. Given that I'd hoped to find a few much needed days off over the summer --- and largely failed, but for a few days snuck in here and there --- it seemed a worthy effort at reviewing some of what we were able to do here, even while on the road.

All of this by way of reminding folks that my work here at The BRAD BLOG is supported almost solely by the generosity of you readers. We sell a few ads occasionally, but it is your donations that give me a shot at paying my bills on time(ish) and covering the various expenses here. The rest I try to cover by an occasional freelance article where I can get one, and otherwise I continue to pray to the democracy gods that I'll be able to pay for food, rent, gas, and credit card bills. Somehow.

So your help is appreciated --- and relied upon! Online donations can be made at this link, or, preferably, you can use the blue form on the right side of every page to create a monthly "subscription" for any amount you like, or use the snail mail address there to send a paper-based contribution.

Having made that pitch, if you're still not convinced that you are needed to keep this place going --- and that keeping this place going is worth while --- here are just some of the highlights of both our reporting and other missions (the public ones anyway) that we were able to pull off even while on the road this past summer...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Bush's Contention of '36 Nations in Iraq' Last Week Mirrors Cheney Lie in '04 Veep Debate
Incident Led to Infamous BRAD BLOG Exposé on Pre-Election White House Website Scrubbing...
By Brad Friedman on 9/15/2007 3:43pm PT  

During last Wednesday's televised address from the Oval Office, George W. Bush said, "We thank the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq."

As it turns out, you'll be stunned to learn that his number was a lie. But it wouldn't be the first time the Administration has lied about who is, and isn't, a part of the so-called "Multinational Coalition" in Iraq, as The BRAD BLOG reported exclusively as far back as October of 2004, prior to the Presidential Election.

Concerning Bush's "36 nations" mentioned last week, Spencer Ackerman reports, in an exclusive over at TPM, that the number is fudged at best, and just another unsupportable, outright lie by the administration at worst. The White House's fuzzy math used to comprise the "36 nations" with "troops on the ground in Iraq" apparently includes several nations which "aren't in Iraq in any capacity anymore," according to Ackerman.

The number also includes Canada's one soldier who had been serving at the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), who has since been withdrawn; New Zealand's single troop (yes, like Canada, just one!) commitment to UNAMI; Tonga's now-withdrawn force; a single press aide from Iceland; and an unknown number from Hungary which may, or may not, have anybody still in Iraq at all as part of a tiny NATO contingent.

Bush's prepared statement lie on national television last week, however, simply continues the pattern set years ago, prior to the 2004 Presidential Election, by Dick Cheney, as The BRAD BLOG exposed in a series of reports back then in what would become our first breakthrough story to be picked up by both national and international media alike...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Alan Breslauer on 9/14/2007 4:41pm PT  

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer





By Brad Friedman on 9/14/2007 4:33pm PT  

Alberto Gonzales leaves office today. Not a moment too soon.

From his farewell address:

Over the past two and a half years, I have seen tyranny, dishonesty, corruption and depravity of types I never thought possible. I have seen things I didn't know man was capable of.

No kidding, Gonzo. Adios.




By Brad Friedman on 9/14/2007 1:02pm PT  


If you've been living in a cave (or happen to be one of America's humorless Republicanists) the above video is a parody of this one.

As a side note, to those dead-ender Republicanists embarrassingly willing to display their desperation --- not to mention contempt for the first amendment --- with your fits of phony outrage over "General Betray Us," we'll join with Dick Cheney on this one by telling you to "go fuck yourselves."

Beyond that, we'll not be drawn into your quagmire of transparent attempts to hijack the real news, but will chose instead to move on to issues that actually matter. But nice try, losers!




Republicanists Using Their Politicized Big Government Tools to Fight Against Democracy in America
Voter Roll Purges Ordered for 2008 by DoJ in 10 Key States...
By Brad Friedman on 9/14/2007 8:35am PT  

Gonzalez and Schlozman and Griffin may be gone, but the long-term politicization and damage at the DoJ was done and institutionalized long ago. The usual suspects --- Thor Hearne, Hans von Spakovsky, Joe Tanner, et al. --- are still plying their insidious anti-democracy trade with all of the tools of big Republican government at their disposal.

If you Dems think "nothing could possibly go wrong in 2008," you'd better think again. As Steve Rosenfeld at AlterNet reports, the Republicans aren't taking '08 lying down. Not by a long shot.

Earlier this year, the DoJ sent another round of threatening letters to 10 key battleground states, threatening to sue them if they do not purge their voter rolls. Yes, the Republicanists have found a "legal" way to use the DoJ to do the illegal vote-caging work the party and their phony well-funded "grass-roots" used to have to do. No wonder Thor's American Center for Voting Rights was able to go "out of business."

The DoJ is the new ACVR.

"They want more people showing up on Election Day and not finding their names," former DoJ Voting Section attorney David Becker, now of People for the American Way (PFAW), tells Rosenfeld. "They want people not voting."

If you don't haven time to read Rosenfeld's entire in-depth investigative report (which should have been on the front page of the NY Times) here are a few of the key grafs...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Brad Friedman on 9/13/2007 6:39pm PT  

George W. Bush did not --- I repeat, did not --- melt into a puddle of tears tonight on live television during his address on Iraq. It was stunning. I say it was a home run!

(NOTE: My pre-speech expectations may or may not have been lower than some of yours.)




'It's Us Against Big Money And They Are Sweeping Us Under The Rug...'
'Back In 2000 We Were Rabble-Rousing We All Knew Something Was Wrong, We Voted For Gore...'
By Alan Breslauer on 9/13/2007 12:21pm PT  

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

A great Election Fraud-themed country music video! Including some video of Clint Curtis and much more!


Visit Eliza Jane's website.




By Brad Friedman on 9/13/2007 11:00am PT  

Well, that's somewhat amusing. An 800 number that I just gave out to folks while on the Thom Hartmann Program for the U.S. Capitol Switchboard has now apparently been switched to an "adult" phone service! Whoops!

Please use this one instead: 1-800-828-0498

I've just tested it, and it gets you through to Congress. Successfully. Though perhaps not as much fun as the other number, this one will allow you to ask for your Congress Members and tell them it's time to ban DRE touch-screen voting machines once and for all! No more excuses.

Even the New York Times editorialized just last week that "electronic voting has been an abysmal failure" and then they went on (finally!) to call for a federal bill "banning the use of touch-screen voting machines."

Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) has filed an amendment to the fatally flawed Holt Election Reform Bill (HR 811) that restricts such machines, but even that doesn't go far enough. Worse, the House Rules Committee may not even allow her amendment to be debated or added to the bill. So call your reps, and demand that they amend the Holt Election Reform Bill (HR 811) to ban touch-screen voting machines and to require a paper ballot for every vote cast in America!

Holt's bill does not do that right now --- no matter how much propaganda you are given to the contrary by the bill's supporters!

Please don't dial the other number that I gave out on the air. As Peter B. Collins --- who's sitting in for Hartmann today --- said: that number is apparently for Sen. David Vitter's private use only. Our apologies for the confusion. Especially to the Senator.




And a Promise of More to Come...
By Brad Friedman on 9/13/2007 10:35am PT  

A short follow-up from Dan Rather Reports to his recent landmark investigative report on "The Trouble With Touchscreens", in which he exposed ES&S' undeclared sweatshop, producing faulty voting systems in The Phillipines.

We're told that he'll have more to come in the following weeks on the scandalous --- and still completely unexplained --- exposé on the seven Sequoia Voting System employee/whistleblowers who detailed how they were forced to use faulty paper (and purposely misaligned chads in Palm Beach County only!) for the punch-card ballots used in the 2000 general election debacle in Florida.

We've followed that up a bit ourselves and so far, Sequoia and their spokesperson/VP Michelle Shafer have failed to explain how the scheme happened or who was behind it. They did, however, offer up some documents they said would clear their name. It turns out, however, that those documents may concern the ballots created for the primary election in Palm Beach, rather than the general, where the ballots where allegedly --- and demonstrably --- gamed to ensure hanging-chads and other spoiled ballots of all sorts.

(You can watch the entire original jaw-dropping program in three segments here.)

Congrats to John Gideon and VotersUnite.org for the mention in Rather's quick update as seen below...





And a Special Thanks or Two...
By Brad Friedman on 9/12/2007 11:37pm PT  

Blogged by Brad from...LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA!

Home again. Finally. After three months on the road, I wish I could say it's good to be back. But for the moment, I'll remember how incredibly difficult it's been to keep up with everything while on the constant move for so long, and will just be glad that I'm back in one place. For at least a few weeks.

Though the gods seem to laugh and the news seems to conspire to keep me blogging even more frequently from the road at times than when I'm at home...Nonetheless, for those long hours when I was barreling down the highway from coast-to-coast over the past months, guest-hosting radio shows, engaged in some super-secret mission or another, or otherwise sneaking in a few hours off the grid, on a mountain, or both, there are a bunch of folks who are owed much thanks.

To all of the tremendous BRAD BLOG guest contributors who kept the joint lively and up-to-date with important news and commentary while I was otherwise occupado, I thank you. The talented list of folks who contributed here over the past few months, in case you hadn't noticed, includes the following impressive list (in no particular order):

Joseph Cannon of CannonFire; Jon Ponder of Pensito Review; Bob Bancroft of Voters Unite; Miriam Raftery of Writer, Ink; Clint Curtis of ClintCurtis.com; Steve Huff of CrimeBlog.us; Emily Levy of VelvetRevolution.us; John Washburn of Washburn's World; Margie Burns of MargieBurns.com; Arlen Parsa of The Daily Background; Rebecca Mercuri of Notable Software, Inc.; Tom Courbat of SAVE R VOTE and Bo Lipari of New Yorkers for Verified Voting.

Additionally, much always-reliable heavy lifting was performed for the duration by BRAD BLOG perennials DES, Alan Breslauer of HotPotatoMash and Agent 99 of neufneuf. As ever, guys, thank you.

But there is one person whose efforts deserve extra special mention here, and not just for the extra duty he's had to pull at The BRAD BLOG for the past few months...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Brad Friedman on 9/12/2007 11:52am PT  

Written "at the tail end of a 15-month deployment" in Iraq, seven U.S. service members filed a devastating opinion piece in the New York Times last August 19th, headlined "The War as We Saw It."

Their insightful, nuanced, and intelligent piece countered the simplistic "We're makin' progress!" message of the Administration, the Republicans, their Media Talking Heads, and General Petraeus. It began this way...

As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day.

The troops on the ground concluded that "Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise," adding, "we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence."

Yance T. Gray and Omar Mora of the 82nd Airborne Division, two of the service members who wrote the op/ed "at the tail end" of their 15-month deployment, were killed outside of Baghdad on Monday.

According to Editor & Publisher:

Mora, 28, hailed from Texas City, Texas, and was a native of Ecuador, who had just become a U.S. citizen. He was due to leave Iraq in November and leaves behind a wife and daughter. Gray, 26, had lived in Ismay, Montana, and is also survived by a wife and infant daughter.

They are now, indeed, "heading back home."

Another of the seven, "Staff Sergeant Jeremy Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head while the article was being written. He was expected to survive after being flown to a military hospital in the United States."

(via A.J. Rossmiller at AMERICAblog)




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