One interesting --- dare we say, hopeful --- point we just noticed about last night's speech.

In the text transcript at the White House website, the speech was written to end, curiously enough, with the following words:

"See you next year"???

Anybody ever recall such an ending to a State of the Union address?! Now why would they include something like that, one has to wonder.

But as odd as it was to include those words in the first place, what's even more interesting is that Bush didn't say them, choosing instead to end simply with "God bless."

Shall we take this as an encouraging omen? I say we do.

With more than 5600 words in his State of the Union speech, Bush couldn't cobble together five or six of them to thank our 1.6 million new American Veterans? Let alone recognize the continuing horrors they face and what our country plans to do to help them?

A press release from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America find that pretty crappy. So do we.

Why does George W. Bush hate our troops?

Guest Blogged by Michael Richardson

Election Assistance Commission Executive Director Thomas Wilkey moved to the EAC after serving on the National Association of State Election Directors Voting System Board, which he chaired.

Wilkey's current boss at the EAC is Donetta Davidson, Chair of the federal commission. Davidson is a former president of NASED and served with Wilkey on the Voting System Board, which was tasked with certifying "independent testing authorities" to perform tests on electronic voting machines used throughout America.

In 2002, the Help America Vote Act transferred testing responsibility from NASED to the EAC, which took over the duties in July 2006. When it came time to issue interim accreditation to the test labs, EAC technical specialists found that Ciber, Inc. had failed to adequately document security testing while under NASED's certification. Serving "ex officio" on the Voting Systems Board, headed by Wilkey, was Shawn Southworth of Ciber.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has since recommended to the EAC that two other test labs perform the work formerly done by Ciber. Davidson, who twice testified before Congressional hearings last year on voting machine certification, failed to disclose the problems with the Ciber test lab to members of Congress. Senator Diane Feinstein has since asked Wilkey to explain why Ciber was not issued interim accreditation and why the public and election officials around the country were not notified before the November 2006 elections.

During the six months of secrecy from the EAC about the test lab ban, Ciber founder Bobby Stevenson sold $1.6 million worth of stock in the company. Ciber CEO Mac Slinglend also did some insider trading unloading $115,000 worth of the stock while the public was unaware of the EAC action against the company.

The failures of Ciber testing that led to the denial of interim accreditation were not under the EAC watch but instead arose under certification by Wilkey's NASED's Voting Systems Board.

Can EAC Chair Davidson be counted on to properly supervise her new subordinate? Maybe not, according to emails obtained by BlackBoxVoting from 2004 when both served on the NASED certification panel. Email traffic between the pair raise questions about their relationship.

On July 15, 2004 at 2:21 pm, Wilkey emailed Davidson: "You are actually reading your emails...WOW!!! Yes I will see you on Saturday. I get in about 9 pm so we will have a nightcap if you are not out partying on Bourbon Street. Love, Your New York Brother."

Two weeks later on July 29, 2004, after the nightcaps in New Orleans, Davidson sent Wilkey an email: "My Dearest Brother, Life has not slowed down, but I am staying out of trouble. Hope to talk to you soon, on the PHONE. That way I get to hear your voice. Love your Sis."

Now the cozy relationship between the two former NASED regulators can blossom at EAC where Wilkey reports to Davidson.

Wilkey's role in certifying electronic voting machines goes back a long way. According to his official agency biography, Wilkey helped draft the first voting system standards in country back in 1983 while working with the Federal Elections Commission.

"An early proponent of the creation of the National Association of State Election Directors, Wilkey has served as secretary, treasurer, vice-president and was elected president for 1996-1997. In January, Wilkey was named chair of NASED's Independent Test Authority Accreditation Board, which reviews and approves laboratories and technical groups for the testing of voting systems under NASED's national accreditation program. He was reappointed chair in 2000."

Wilkey's watchdog role over voting system security also gained him appointment to an advisory board of the Department of Defense's Federal Voting Assistance Program, which assists six million military and overseas voters. Ciber, one of Wilkey's NASED approved test labs, since banned, conducted the security testing of the FVAP computer system.

Now "New York Brother" and "Sis" are tasked with protecting the voting machine security for the entire nation. The earlier role of the two EAC leaders in oversight of Ciber's lax work that led to non-accreditation may well be the subject of Congressional hearings before the year is out.

Ed Note: Several important updates now added to the end of the story...

Good lord in heaven. How dumb are these guys at Diebold?! Can you believe the United States has actually entrusted them to build a security system for the original U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights?!

After everything else... now comes this.

It was revealed in the course of last summer's landmark virus hack of a Diebold touch-screen voting system at Princeton University that, incredibly, the company uses the same key to open every machine. It's also an easy key to buy at any office supply store since it's used for filing cabinets and hotel mini-bars! That is, if you're not a poll worker who already has one from the last time you worked on an election (anybody listening down there in San Diego?).

The Princeton Diebold Virus Hack, if you've been living in a cave, found that a single person with 60 seconds of unsupervised access to the system, who either picked the lock (easy in 10 seconds) or had a key, could slip a vote-swapping virus onto a single machine which could then undetectably affect every other machine in the county to steal an entire election.

But the folks at Princeton who discovered the hack (after our own organization, VelvetRevolution.us, gave them the Diebold touch-screen machine on which to perform their tests) had resisted showing exactly what the key looked like in order to hold on to some semblance of security for Diebold's Disposable Touch-Screen Voting Systems.

But guess what? Diebold didn't bother to even have that much common sense.

This idiotic company has had a photograph of the stupid key sitting on their own website's online store! (Screenshot at end of this article.)

Of course, they'll only sell such keys to "Diebold account holders" apparently --- or so they claim --- but that's hardly a problem. J. Alex Halderman, one of the folks who worked on the Princeton Hack and tried to keep the design of the key secret for obvious reasons, revealed Tuesday that a friend of his had found the photo of the key on Diebold's website and discovered that was all he needed to create a working copy!

As Halderman writes...

Last year, during the SOTU, we spent all night live blogging the inappropriate arrest of Cindy Sheehan for wearing a T-shirt to the State of the Union address. And, naturally, the misreporting of it by CNN, AP et al. We're hoping for a less eventful SOTU tonight, personally, but lord only knows what could happen. If it does, we'll be here.

But so will you. So, to that end, consider this a SOTU Open Thread. Have at it!

To get you warmed up, if you need it, see the rather hysterical parody SOTU at right and the quite amusing Democratic response that follows. We're sure neither will be anything at all like the actual versions. (Hat-tip Atrios for the vid.)

For your more serious types, RAW STORY has advance excerpts from the speech right here and Webb's response right here.

And if you're wondering what came of our call for Sen. Jim Webb to be allowed to give his Democratic Party Response to the full joint session of Congress just after Bush, here's the final word from Speaker Pelosi's office on it.

Oh...and if you're interested, I was on San Antonio's KTSA with Chris Duel this afternoon discussing it (and delighting everyone in Texas by calling George W. Bush a criminal!) That radio appearance is right here [MP3, appx. 15 mins]

See you in Comments (unless events warrant an update here)...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

According to a Michael Richardson article posted at OpEdNews [see below]; “Although the public was not informed by the Election Assistance Commission about its decision to not issue interim accreditation to Ciber, Inc., one of the nation's three previously certified test laboratories for electronic voting machines, the company executives were very aware they had lost a hold on the lucrative testing business. While unknowing election officials around America continued to incorrectly claim their voting machines were properly tested and certified in the months leading up to the November 2006 elections several Ciber honchos quietly began a stock sell-off. // And according to a newspaper in St. Louis [see below], an Illinois state representative has filed a bill that calls for the state of Illinois to study the idea of using Internet voting as early as 2010....

Former Republican Ohio Secretary of State and failed Gubernatorial candidate, J. Kenneth Blackwell may be mercifully out of office in the Buckeye State, but it looks as if his former constituents will continue to pay for his atrocious tenure in the SoS office for some time to come. That, in addition to the price they are already paying, along with the rest of the country, by suffering George W. Bush who remains in office due, in no small part, to Blackwell's abhorrent mis-administration of the 2004 Presidential Election.

Last week it was revealed by the office of the new SoS, Democrat Jennifer Brunner, that Blackwell got in his last licks by authorizing some $80,000 in year-end bonus payments to 19 different staffers in his office. The BRAD BLOG has obtained a copy of that memo (posted in full at end of this article) which includes type-written payment amounts to 18 now-former employees, along with the hand-written addition of a payment to be made to Blackwell's obnoxious press spokesman and noted democracy-hater, Charles "Carlo" LoParo.

The previously unannounced bonuses, along with the additional surprise revelation that payment for a $225,000 litigation settlement made by Blackwell last December was suddenly due just after Brunner took office in January, has left the new SoS with a $1 million shortfall to meet standing obligations for the office between now and the end of the fiscal year on June 30th.

Both matters were a shock to the incoming SoS who said the discoveries made her "kind of sick, really" as her office has suggested to The BRAD BLOG that there may be administrative and/or legal follow-ups to the issues. The Toledo Blade's coverage of the news as it was revealed last week is excellent.

The legal settlement, according to the Columbus Dispatch, was apparently "related to a lawsuit filed in November 2004 against Blackwell and the Lucas County Board of Elections on behalf of voters who did not receive an absentee ballot and were not allowed to cast provisional ballots."

All of that, of course, as the trial began last week against three Cuyahoga County Elections Officials who are accused of having rigged the 2004 Presidential Election recount while serving at the pleasure of Blackwell under County Election Director Michael Vu. Despite massive failures in 2004 and just about every election in the county since then, Vu has yet to be charged for that incident or any others.

The Bonus Memo

The memo detailing Blackwell's farewell bonuses was signed by his former chief financial officer, Dilip Mehta, who approved $7,765 --- a full extra month's pay --- for himself in the bargain. LoParo's payment of $1,702, one of the lowest amounts listed, was added in what appears to be a handwriting other than Mehta's. That payment is earmarked, according to the memo, for "Carlo."

Naturally, it was LoParo who mouthed off to the media in defense of his old boss and the free, tax-payer largess he received from the state. He claimed the payments were "severance packages offered to members of senior staff," and that "depending on the severance package received, 10 members of the staff agreed not to accept unemployment benefits, which is a net savings for the office in terms of total pay-outs."

But a Brunner staffer has told us last week that 3 former employees had already filed for unemployment benefits. While they had been initially unable to locate any such "severance packages" last week, as based on the 'executive transition document' received from Blackwell, a spokesperson today has informed The BRAD BLOG they have now discovered the elusive "mutual separation agreements" that were signed by Blackwell and the former employees.

The office is currently uncertain whether they will be honored or not.

We're told the letters of 'agreement of mutual separation' also counter LoParo's claims that there would be a net savings for the SoS office for unemployment compensation that wouldn't have to be paid. The letters signed by the three employees who have already applied for such benefits, stated "that it is not intended to affect an employee's eligibility for unemployment compensation," according to Brunner's office.

"It seems Carlo and Ken are telling two tales that don't jive," the staffer wrote in a recent email in reply to our query.

The comments to the media by LoParo --- who also signed one of the "mutual separation agreements" himself --- are quite directly contradicted in the final graf of the agreement which speaks to the matter explicitly as follows:

As far as we know, however, LaParo has yet to apply himself for unemployment benefits.

For 'Outstanding Service Through the Years'

LoParo went on to tell a number of media sources that the money was "given because the secretary felt taxpayers had been given outstanding service through the years, and it was within his prerogative to dispense. It's not unusual and not unprecedented in the private or public sector."

It was unclear whether the disastrous administration by Blackwell of Ohio's 2004 and 2005 and 2006 elections were a part of that "outstanding service through the years."

LoParo took his usual cheap shots at anybody with the temerity to catch the office, yet again, with their hand in the cookie jar or thumb on the scale. "I would just have to chalk (Brunner’s comments) up to overall inexperience," he was quoted as mouthing off to several media outlets.

The staffer we spoke with from Brunner's office noted that the public sector is different from the private sector where such bonuses might be more run of the mill. "While these bonuses are not illegal," the staffer wrote, "in contrast to Carlo's contention that they are appropriate and customary, that is pure unadulterated balderdash."

Ben Piscatelli, a spokesman from the Ohio Dept. of Administrative Services backed up the assertions of Brunner's office. "It is not common for a state agency or elected official to pay bonuses, but there is no state law or policy that forbids it," Piscatelli was reported as telling the Columbus Dispatch today.

Despite LoParo's claims, however, The Blade reported they were unable to confirm any such similar bonuses handed out to officials in 2006 throughout the rest of Ohio's government at year's end:

While there were no such bonuses to speak of in 2006, other than from Blackwell's office, a report by Ohio's 10TV last week, said that 65 state employees at the State House received a total of $89,000 in bonuses in 2005. That, in contrast with the more than $80,000 in bonuses handed out by Blackwell to just 19 of his own staffers on his way out the door.

Legal Action Against Blackwell May Be Coming

Brunner's office has told us they intend to request an audit from Ohio's new Republican State Auditor, Mary Taylor "to assess the state of our agency now that Blackwell is gone." Whether or not Taylor will be willing to potentially take on one of her party's own local titans remains to be seen. Today's Dispatch article also quotes a spokesperson from the office of Attorney General Marc Dann, saying their "would look into the matter if someone asks."

We imagine "someone" will.

The memo containing Blackwell's $80,000 bonus list for 19 now-former staffers follows in full below...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Bill Kristol responds to Shepherd Smith's questions about whether the White House has a "Plan B" by stating, "they're serious about it...they're serious about staying in Iraq and winning and they're serious about being serious about judging whether we are winning. No more happy talk". Kristol seems to believe this is praiseworthy. As for Plan B? You'll have to judge Kristol's response for yourself.

As previously mentioned, we've received some comments from Nancy Pelosi's office in reply to our initial editorial and subsequent follow-up calling on Congressional Democrats to assert the branch's co-equal powers by allowing Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) to give his State of the Union Response Address to the full joint session of Congress. That, instead of relegating the response to the usual, audience-free, less-than-impressive, impossible-to-compete, unlevel playing field of a makeshift TV studio somewhere.

In a conversation yesterday with the office, I was told there were no "Constitutional issues" to keep Webb from addressing the full joint session as some callers to Pelosi's office, encouraging her to allow it, may have been told. And, in fact, the aide I spoke to, speaking on background, felt the idea was "brilliant" and it might be something to consider for next year. This year, however, the logistics would make it impossible at this late date.

I'd admit to still being somewhat unclear on exactly what the logistical problems would be. It seems that it would simply be a matter of keeping the joint session open after Bush is finished and giving the podium to Webb and allowing him to give his address to the assembled members and officials. Logistical issues concerning Secret Service sweeps and such surrounding a POTUS visit being an issue handled separately.

However, I'm told there is some form of joint resolution that is passed by both chambers each year to allow for the President's address to Congress and perhaps it is that resolution which would need to be amended to allow the floor to stay open after the intial SOTU speech has concluded.

In any case, here is the official statement as emailed from Pelosi's communication director, Brendan Daly, which seems to close the door on the matter for this year. Unfortunately...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Andrea Mitchell calls former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie on his B.S. GOP talking points today on MSNBC. Refreshing to say the least.

It also appears that Libby's Defense is preparing to go against the White House, according to their opening statement. Or, at least they seem to be claiming he was worried about being thrown under the bus to protect Rove...

Full MSNBC story, plus video, here...

FireDogLake is live blogging their notes on the scandal from inside the courtroom. Coverage of Prosecutor Fitzgerald's opening here..., Defense Attny Wells opener here....

Treacherous Republican wordsmith/pollster/spinman Frank Luntz sinks to new depths in pretending to offer "advice" for the Democratic Party in a condescending little screed posted at Huff Po on Sunday.

I'll let you make what you will of the bulk of his self-serving nonsense. But setting aside Luntz's apparent inability --- rather transparently, I'll add, for someone whose business is supposedly language --- to keep himself from using the pejoratively intended "Democrat" when he means "Democratic," I'll focus on only one major point.

For a man who damned well understands the importance of words he sure did manage to drop one huge rhetorical and literal LIE smack-dab into the middle of his editorial. He writes:

Of course, that's not "exactly" what Boxer said to Rice at all. Nor is it even close to what she said. What she said was EXACTLY:

Further, Luntz twists his disingenuous knife by adding:

Speaking of "cheap shots", if Luntz doesn't know by now that the phony non-incident he describes as having "made even the most hardened Washington insiders cringe" is little more than the Luntzian creation of White House spokeshole Tony Snow as aided and abetted by both the wingnut media and the NYTimes then he shouldn't be allowed in public, much less on Huff Po.

For the record, we covered the disingenuous brouhaha from the get-go as it sprang from a call we made for a Congress member to ask the White House about the casualty estimates for their Iraq "surge plan" (a Luntzian turn of phrase if we've ever seen one). As it turns out, they didn't bother to make any. Or so Condi claimed during the Senate hearings. (More relevant links to the notable points in our coverage are below.)

Shame on Luntz for purposely misleading readers. Shame on Huffington Post for giving a platform to an out-and-out liar. I don't care how much undeserved "celebrity" the man can claim, nor how much "the other side" should be heard from. If "the other side" is going to simply lie, then there is no reason that anyone, much less Huffington Post, should give them a platform to do so.

UPDATES:

• To HuffPo's credit, they have cross-posted this blog item.
• BRAD BLOG Guest Blogger Alan Breslauer calls to our attention one of his blog items from last summer highlighting a video clip of Luntz demonstrating yet more disingenuousness, along with Alan's personal observations of Luntz who was both a professor of his and, apparently, a frat house drinking buddy...

PREVIOUS RELATED BRAD BLOG ARTICLES:

• Brad Calls on Congress to Ask White House About Casuality Estimates for 'Surge'
• Rice Claims White House Made no Casualty Estimates for Troop Escalation Plan in Response to Boxer's Senate Inquiry
• NYTimes Ignores News, Falls for White House Spin on Boxer/Rice Exchange
• Washington Times Outdoes Them All in Misreporting Boxer/Rice Exchange
• VIDEO - Finally! A Media Outlet CORRECTLY Covers Rice Admission That White House (Supposedly) Made No Casuality Estimates for Iraq Escalation Plan

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

The Election Assistance Commission has some explaining to do. The secrecy that pervades the EAC, which oversees testing and certification of voting systems, holds dire consequences for our electoral system. Both chambers of Congress need to work to dispel this culture of secrecy. / In the past year, concerns about the accuracy and integrity of computerized elections have entered the general consciousness and become accepted as serious. Issues that [were] addressed in the March 1, 2006, edition of the Spectator have since been written about in the national media, and the momentum has grown for legislative solutions to be found at the federal level. A new Congress is getting under way, and decisions will be made that will profoundly affect the way Americans cast and count their votes. While computerized voting has been touted as a way to make elections easier and the results more reliable, an increasing number of voters, poll workers, and election officials have concluded that the process in 2006 was more difficult—not easier—and confidence in the tallies has been undermined. Many activists and legislators now question both the wisdom of relying on software to record votes, and the degree to which our elections depend on computerized voting systems and the manufacturers that sell them. ...

Guest Blogged by DES

At The BRAD BLOG we prefer a splash of snark with our morning coffee (helps take the edge off), and today we are pleased to direct your attention to a veritable feast of snark with a big dollop of snotty on the side, courtesy of the fine folks at The BEAST.

They've graciously offered a list of their favorites for The 50 Most Loathsome People in America, whose loathsome-osity crossed that invisible barrier of taste and public tolerance to STFU status (in their opinion) in the preceeding year. Among so many prospects, how do they manage to limit it to just fifty? Sad to say that we were unaware of The Beast's compilations in previous years, but we look forward to catching up. Snark is a dish that never gets cold.

While we heartily disagree with some of their choices (would you expect anything less?), these are a smattering of our favorites, including Limbaugh, Abramoff, Coulter, Bush...

In response to Condi Rice's recent comments before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Iraqi government was working on "borrowed time," Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said:

I wish the Bush Administration would stop supporting al-Qaeda with their irresponsible rhetoric.

Do they not know we're at war? Have they forgotten what happened on September 11th, 2001? Why do they hate America?