Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

"What is a vote worth?" Venango County, PA's Election Board Chairman Craig Adams, a Republican, asked last week. "If the vote is counted it is priceless. If it is not counted, I don't care what it costs. Let's get a right."

"After months of legal wrangling," Marybeth Kuznik of the non-partisan Election Integrity advocacy group VotePA told The BRAD BLOG last week, Venango County's landmark independent forensic examination of the notoriously unreliable and 100% unverifiable ES&S iVotronic Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, most often touch-screen) e-voting system finally got under way.

Kuznik explained that the study comes in the wake of the heavily Republican-leaning county having experienced "numerous reports of vote-flipping, candidates missing from screens, write-ins missing, and high undervote rates in their May 17 Primary." Some candidates on teh ballots even were reported by the voting machines to have received zero votes...

I'm not sure what's more obnoxious, the way the Republican Party itself ignores and belittles their own 2012 Presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul --- who reportedly finished a very close second to Rep. Michele Bachmann, who is receiving tons of attention, in the hopelessly gamed Iowa Straw Poll over the weekend --- or the way the mainstream corporate media ignores and belittles him.

I suppose if Paul wasn't belittled by these jerks he'd get no media attention whatsoever.

No matter your personal or political feelings about Paul, the way he is treated by the establishment elite, the way they, not voters determine who will or won't be a "viable" candidate, is appalling in my opinion.

Jon Stewart, appropriately, let 'em all have it for that last night, asking incredulously: "How did libertarian Ron Paul become the 13th floor in a hotel?!"...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Obama plays the infrastructure card; Perry jumps in; Huntsman refers to EPA as 'terrorists', while all of the GOP candidates positions on science and global warming are difficult to swallow; the Summer of Records continues; PLUS: Arctic ice melting 4 times faster than predicted ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): DoE panel calls for more study on natural gas fracking; After North Sea oil spill, Shell to drill in Arctic; New GMO corn for gas, not food; Battle over new coal depot in WA; China to double solar capacity by year end; Coast Guard: Arctic oil spill response capability lacking; Record-breaking electric car gets 1000 miles on one charge; CNN FAIL on Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining; Coping With Change: can humans adapt again?; "The (Polar) Bear Facts," checked; Massive protest shuts down Chinese chemical plant; Federal judge throws out Obama drilling rules ... PLUS: Monsanto's Roundup herbicide research shows plant, soil problems ...

So, this guy is the front-runner for the 2012 Republican nomination for President of the United States?...

TPM has more context, etc., and you can decide for yourself whether Romney was echoing the absurd Citizens United line there (that corporations are Constitutionally entitled to the same rights as human beings), or whether he was trying to say that what is good for corporations is good for the people who own and/or benefit from them.

But what strikes me is that Romney appears quite flustered and weak in that exchange. The entire tussle, with a few hecklers at the Iowa State Fair serves to make him appear profoundly unPresidential, when appearing Presidential is one of the few things he can be good at...at times. Perhaps Mittens oughta stay away from state fairs...and campaign appearances where actual people get to ask questions and stuff...for a while.

One thing is for certain though. Fairly or unfairly, that comment is likely to haunt him for a long time to come. I suspect it will become a landmark moment in Romney's political trajectory frankly. That view seems to be shared by both Rachel Maddow, who points out this isn't the first such awkward campaign appearance by Mitt, and by Stephen Colbert as well, who says Romney's "historic" statement yesterday makes him "this generations civil rights champion --- a Dr. Martin Luther, Inc., if you will." (Videos of their takes below.)

Nonetheless, for the moment, even after last night's very lively and entertaining Iowa GOP Debate on Fox "News" (a few, if not all, of the high/lowlights of what TPM describes as 'GOP Fight Night' here), Mitt still remains the man to beat --- though that's not saying much, given the current Republican field a full 15 months away from next year's Presidential election.

Maddow and Colbert video takes on Romney's "Corporations are people, my friend" comment follow...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

While the recent recall of more than a half billion eggs in the wake of some 1,470 Salmonella infections has triggered a renewed focus on the dangers posed by factory farms to human health and to the environment (see videos below), the discussion stops short because factory farms are but one symptom of the deadly consequences of a perverse ideology whose sole purpose is to expand the already obscene wealth of less than 1% of the population at the expense of a healthy economy, community, the environment, peace, and the very ability of our planet to sustain life...

Elections are being held in some 13 states (Arkansas, California, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia) today. Lord help us.

A reminder how helpful screenshots of election results taken from official websites on election night and in the days following, can potentially be, can be found in our recent exclusive on the still unexplained results from the Monroe County, Arkansas, May 18th primary, where thousands of votes "disappeared" in the days after the election.

If you don't know how to take a screenshot, here's the quick primer (at least on a PC): While viewing the page in question, hold the ALT button and hit the PrtScreen button. Then paste the ensuing clipboard graphic into a graphics program, and save with a filename that includes both the date and time the shot was taken. Hopefully someone else can explain how to do that on a Mac in comments.

Of course, as you hear or read of problems at the polls throughout the day, feel free to email us with details and URLs, and we'll do our best to look into it.

On the more-political-less-Election-Integrity side of the equation, The BRAD BLOG's resident attorney/historian-in-chief Ernest Canning has offered a number of recent, noteworthy articles on matters related to the ballot out here in CA, perhaps they're worth re-linking this morning. Of particular interest --- even to readers across the country --- should be the top item below, concerning Prop 16, and the deceptive way in which a huge corporate power is attempting to deceive voters with the use of millions of dollars to support a phony campaign.

For that matter, in reviewing the articles below, they each speak to one common element: the outlandish power that money holds, now more than ever, when it comes to our "democracy"...

5/9/10: Prop 16 'Power Play': A Private Utility's Assault on Publicly-Owned Electricity Providers

4/27/10: Meg Whitman, Wall Street, 'Billionaire Sociopaths' and the Media 'Substance Deficit'
5/31/10: Billionaire vs. Billionaire: Propaganda and Race in CA's GOP Gubernatorial Primary

5/16/10: Winograd Misses 'Debate' Chance to Slam Harman's Dissembling, Conflicts-of-Interest

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

The March 3, 2010 segment of Democracy Now is so shocking that it is best seen. In Utah, lawmakers have approved a measure that could potentially expose a pregnant woman to murder charges if she is stuck in an abusive relationship, is beaten and miscarries. When one of two twins is a still birth, the mother is charged with murder because she refused a C-section. In Iowa, a woman is arrested when she miscarries after a fall down the stairs.

All this amongst efforts by the health insurance cartel to treat spousal abuse as a pre-existing condition.

Perhaps we should post signs: Warning: Pregnancy will place you in legal jeopardy.

UPDATE, 3/10/10: Democracy Now reported that Utah's Republican Governor Gary Herbert signed the anti-choice measure into law. "The...bill would allow women to be charged with murder if they commit 'an intentional or knowing act' that causes a miscarriage. The bill initially included language that would have also punished women for 'reckless' acts. But despite the revision, critics still say the measure could target women for all kinds of actions, including staying with an abusive partner."

The 01/04/10 Democracy Now! segment, Utah Abortion Bill Could Punish Women for Miscarriages, Domestic Violence follows below...

The list of out-and-out lies in this new anti-marriage ad, on the heels of recent constitutionally conservative victories in Iowa and in Vermont, is astounding...Even by the standards of the cowardly, fear-mongering hate groups that spend millions in their fight against equality and Constitutional equal protection under the law...

The ad, from the ironically-named NationForMarriage.org (NOM) hustlers, who appear to have just set up their new, thinly-disguised hate site as of yesterday, looks to have cost quite a bit of somebody's money.

Courage Campaign, who aptly describes the ad as "deplorable" and notes that it's now "airing across the country and 8 times a day in California" has launched a campaign to fight back against what it describes as the anti-American NOM scaredy-cats' use of "actors to push lies claiming that marriage equality threatens personal freedoms". Aren't there any restrictions in place that keep broadcast outlets from airing out and out lies like the many in the above propaganda video? Anyway, please help the Courage Campaign folks out, if you're inclined (or if you happen to place American Values above opportunistic, dishonest Religious Bigotry).

In yet another Constitutionally conservative ruling, from yet another state Supreme Court, the very American values of equal protection under the law and protection of the minority against the tyranny of the majority (and against the tyranny of Big Government intrusion into private lives) have been upheld in Iowa today!

In addition to real Constitutional conservatives who should be rejoicing today, true Fiscal conservatives should also appreciate today's ruling, which is bound to be a boon to the state's economy since "There are no residency rules for marriage in Iowa, so the rule would apply to any couple who wanted to travel to Iowa."

Welcome into the light of civilized society and equality for all, Iowa! That's three states down (MA, CT and IA), with just 47 more to go!

UPDATE: As the emailed headline linking to the following article was so darn good, we just had to offer them a link for their good work: "Court Decision Deals Gay Opponents a Hard Blow"

FURTHER UPDATE: Steve Benen at Washington Monthly points out: "In recent years, four state Supreme Courts have ruled in support of same sex-marriage...And what do all four have in common? Each was appointed to their respective state Supreme Court by a Republican governor." Those darn 'judicial activists' strike again!

Obama wins for the D's, Huckabee wins for the R's. Consider this an Iowa horse race Open Thread, as you wish...

For my part, I'll take the opportunity to open it up with a few bragging rights, along with a simultaneous warning to those who think Huckabee will be easy for the D's to beat if he were to win the nomination.

Back in January of '07, after seeing Huckabee interviewed for the first time (on The Daily Show), I wrote:

I stand by that prediction, and think Dems would be foolish to misunderestimate Huckabee. Period. Discuss.

Me, on the Stephanie Miller Show this morning, with Guest Host Bree Walker, talking about the Iowa Caucuses, and various concerns thereof.

(Appx. 15 mins) Download MP3, or listen online here...

{Broken audio link now fixed. Sorry about that. --- BF}

We don't pretend to fully understand the strange and confusing mechanics of the Iowa Caucuses (the Hawkeye Caucii, as Rush refers to them), nor do we make predictions about the results of such things (Edwards and Huckabee), but BlackBoxVoting.org sent out a missive over the weekend, with some very helpful information about how the Election Integrity aspect of the two respective party caucuses will, or won't, work, along with a the request to forward the info to folks in Iowa.

As the corporate MSM will undoubtedly be watching the horses only as they cross the finish line --- not bothering to notice what their owners and jockies are up to on the way there --- we're happy to help with anything that increases citizen participation and transparency in the process, and empowers citizen vigilance and reporting. So with that, we pass along the following important and interesting info from BBV's Bev Harris...

"Problems and issues with the Iowa Caucuses" --- for both the Democratic and Republican parties, including the lack of precinct-based reporting of tallies, and even an apparently Republican-leaning company who is running one of the Democratic caucus web servers --- "And what every Iowan can do" about it, follow below from the BBV newsletter...