The BRAD BLOG was the first to report that the former disgraced Speaker of the House turned Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich had admitted to committing massive "voter fraud" --- thousands of cases --- in his failed attempt to qualify for the Republican Presidential Primary ballot in his home state of Virginia.

Our report on Wednesday came just minutes after Gingrich's caught-on-video admission to a voter in Iowa that his campaign had "hired somebody who turned in false signatures."

"Oh, it was just a mistake," the one-time front-runner for the GOP nomination claimed. "We turned in 11,100 — we needed 10,000 — 1,500 of them were by one guy who frankly committed fraud."

To our knowledge, however, Gingrich has yet to divulge the identify of the "one guy" who "frankly committed fraud" to law enforcement officials.

We noted that by the same (completely disingenuous) standards that the GOP and its cable TV arm, Fox "News", has long applied, for years, to the now-defunct community organization ACORN (which never committed any actual "voter fraud" or even "voter registration fraud", though a few of its workers committed the later, as discovered by ACORN themselves who promptly turned them into authorities), Gingrich was, himself, the purveyor of "massive voter fraud".

Last night, while guest hosting the Mike Malloy Show (listen to top of Hour 1), we even encouraged folks to contact the special email address that Fox "News" long ago set up for reporting such instances of "voter fraud" at VoterFraud@FoxNews.com to let them know about this massive destruction of "the fabric of democracy" as then GOP Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain hypocritically described it in 2008.

And now it looks like Chris Hayes, filling in on MSNBC for Rachel Maddow last night, picked up --- "from the Department of Shameless Schadenfreude" --- on the same theme, pointing out that Gingrich himself had previously slammed ACORN in a 2009 op-ed, in which he falsely declared that "ACORN has a long history of engaging in voter fraud," due to the exact same thing Gingrich now refers to as little more than "just a mistake". (Ironically enough, in that piece, Gingrich used the fraudulent ACORN "Pimp" Hoax video tapes created by James O'Keefe, Hannah Giles and Andrew Breitbart as the basis for his entire op-ed lie.)

Here's the short video from MSNBC last night, and a few more words to follow detailing how what Gingrich Campaign did was far worse than anything ACORN was ever found to have done...

At the end of the "New Rules" segment on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher last night, Maher called out Republicans for being "neither fiscally conservative nor strong on defense," adding "they have to tell us what exactly it is they're good at."

"How many Muslims does a black guy have to kill in one weekend before crackers climb down off his ass?" Maher asked, before offering a flashing "FACTS" light at the bottom of the screen so Fox "News" viewers would know to keep the sound turned down until it disappeared. He then went on to call out the GOP for, among other things, implementing policies over the past decade that revealed them to be anything but fiscally responsible.

"When Bill Clinton left office in 2001," Maher said, "the Congressional Budget Office predicted that by the end of the decade, we would have paid off the deficit and have a 2 trillion dollar surplus. Instead, we have a 10 trillion dollar public debt, and the difference in those two numbers is mostly because the Republicans put tax cuts for the rich, free drugs for the elderly, and two wars on the layaway plan and then bailed on the check."

Maher then criticized George W. Bush's failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, after his admission that he "didn't spend that much time on Osama, [and] that he was no longer concerned about him, just as he wasn't before 9/11 when he blew off that mysterious, inscrutable memo entitled 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the U.S.'"

"Why focus on the terrorists who reduced Wall Street to rubble, when you can help Wall Street reduce the whole country to rubble?" the satirist asked rhetorically.

Near the end of his "New Rule," after eviscerating Republicans such as Bush for his "War on Terror" strategy, and Sen. John McCain for being "naive" in his criticism of Obama's promise to focus on bin Laden during the 2008 Presidential election, Maher went on to declare President Obama "one efficient, steely-nerved, multitasking, black ninja gangsta President." WATCH...

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

There have been a few occasions during my 62 years when I heard something profound that stuck with me.

The year was 1969. I was attending a freshman college history class, shortly after returning from Vietnam, when my professor said:

His words came back to me as Brad Friedman and I simultaneously made guest appearances on Live from the Left Coast with Angie Coiro.

While the topic was Afghanistan, a concern emerged over the splintering of the Left as a product of what Coiro described as strident "rhetoric," such as the suggestion that President Obama was a "sell-out" or the announcement by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) that he intended to introduce a privileged resolution to stop the "criminal enterprise" in Afghanistan. The concern was the potential for that "rhetoric" to adversely impact the Democratic Party in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Unfortunately, in part due to technical difficulties they had on the show that night, I failed to adequately articulate my concerns, which go to the core of the Progressive dilemma in U.S. electoral politics....

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says "comity" in the must-see clip below, but "comedy" might have been more appropriate in regard to Sen. Al Franken's (D-MN) shut down of Sen. Joe Lieberman (WhoKnows-CT), as Franken was presiding over the chamber, which left us laughing out loud, and applauding quietly to ourselves. (Via TPM with more background)...

And, if you missed it earlier this week, Franken's take-down of Sen. John Thune (R-SD) is an absolute must-see as well. Though we've had our own beefs with Franken's politics over the years, we must concede that it's frickin' awesome to finally see and hear someone --- anyone --- speak this way in the U.S. Senate. We'd be delighted to see 60 more just like him! Check it out if you haven't seen it already (and again, TPM has more background)...

Take a bow, Sen. Franken. Please keep up the great work!

Guest Editorial by Ernest A. Canning

A number of comments, some posted here at The BRAD BLOG, others in media accounts, suggest that President Obama's willingness to abandon the "public option" was either a caving-in to "formidable opposition" or, as Howard Fineman speculated on MSNBC's Countdown, merely the case of the President's use of the "public option" as a "bargaining chip" which he played "way too early." T.J. Caswell described it as "throwing in the towel."

Other assessments have been less charitable. In a powerful video, journalist John Pilger argues that President Obama is nothing more than "a marketing creation"; that the American electorate was duped into believing the junior senator from Illinois was on the side of common men and women. Pilger portrays the President as a sort of Manchurian candidate for Wall Street, the corporate security state and Empire.

While perhaps not quite as harsh as Pilger's, Ralph Nader's assessment is just as devastating:

Not much of a dialogue over health care when those representing a reform --- single-payer --- favored by 60% of the American electorate can't even get an audience with the President...

I'm impressed, frankly, with the unflinching outspokenness of Meghan McCain (John's daughter) in her quest to restore sanity, and a future, to the Republican Party. No idea whether she'll have any success --- at least for the foreseeable future --- but her willingness to stand straight up to her own party's not-minimal thuggery is impressive.

Today, McCain is out and out calling for the GOP to "Go Gay" by embracing same sex marriage (she still calls it "gay marriage," but that's because she's still a Republican), and begins her case by pointing out that it was the GOP deity himself, Ronald Reagan, as Governor of CA in 1978, who fended off a ballot proposition which would have outlawed gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools.

"Reagan’s argument centered around the idea that parents already had all the rights they needed to protect their children and that the government did not need to interfere," McCain notes, pointing to an actual conservative doctrine which the GOP has all but abandoned in their bigoted, unConstitutional demands for Big Government intervention into the private lives of homosexual Americans.

I'm digging fairly deeply into the details of what could be a tremendously important story to come (unrelated to this issue), so for the moment I'll just leave you with a few of the money quotes from her essay at The Daily Beast today:

She finishes with the incredibly overly optimistic notion: "I believe the Republican Party has, at this moment, the opportunity to come forward and play an instrumental role in securing gay rights." Nonetheless, she deserves credit and kudos for having the courage to say it. It's a pity it'll likely fall on so many deaf, crazy, tea-bagging ears.

Discuss.

Guest blogged by Shannyn Moore

[Ed Note: Now updated. See details at end of article.]

ANCHORAGE - Something stinks. Not just an ordinary low tide smell. Not like something you’d blame on the dog. It smells like an infection. For me to plug my nose, I’d have to overlook some curious facts.

In Alaska, more people voted for George W. Bush in 2004 than for Sarah Palin on Tuesday despite an identical 61-36 margin of victory. Yes. Only four years ago 54,304 Alaskans got off their sofas and voted for Bush, but decided to sit home and not vote for Palin in 2008.

In turn, I have to ignore the 30,520 Alaskans who felt progressive enough in 2004 to vote for John Kerry, but weren’t inspired enough to get out and vote for Barack Obama.

I would have to glance past the 1,700% increase in the Democratic caucus in February, the 20,991 newly registered voters, and the three largest political rallies in Alaska’s history.

I would also have to forget the people I stood in a long line with to early vote. It would be helpful not to know every other presidential election since Alaska began keeping records has had a larger turn out than the one we just had with our own Governor on the ticket. Try not to remember 12.4% more Alaskans showed up for the August primary as compared to four years ago, before the Palin nomination. Don’t think about the Lower 49’s record voter turn out this year either. Try to delete the memory file, though difficult, that 80% of us approved of Sarah Palin just two months ago.

And as if all of that doesn't stink enough, we still don't know who won the Ted Stevens U.S. Senate race, the Don Young U.S. House, or even the race for Mayor of Anchorage and most curiously, why turnout this year was down 11% from 2004, even with Alaska's own previously-popular Governor on the ticket, and passions for Obama here and everywhere else, extraordinarily high...

Guest Blogged by Jim Cirile

As of this minute CNN is projecting 207 electoral votes for Obama and 135 for McCain. 270 is the magic number to win. Once Obama scores California's 55 electoral votes, that puts him at 262--8 votes away. In other words, California plus pretty much any other state (okay, almost) and Obama wins.

Can McCain still pull this out?

We're watching with trepidation as McCain's numbers have been creeping upwards while Obama has been holding steady at 207 for some time. Of course, here on the West Coast the polls haven't even closed yet. But still, we here at The BRAD BLOG know from experience not to count our proverbial chickens. Frankly, I can't see how Mac can pull it out. But if there's a will, there's a way, and there certainly is a lot of will on the part of those who would do anything to keep the military industrial complex fully funded.

CNN also projects the Democrats now have 54 seats in the Senate, with another ten still in play. In the House, Dems have won 133 seats to 83 for the Republicans.

More breaking news to come, stand by...

Working on a number of troubling stories today, so for the moment, here's a much welcome :30 second comedy diversion for you and me both...

While John McCain has not yet had his literal "Great Portending Republican Fall" yet (it should be due any moment), this video certainly counts as a John McCain Campaign Classic. High-larious. Watch the confused folks behind him when he screws up his punchline (:34 seconds)...

We suspect this video will rank right up there in history with Bush's "...Can't get fooled again" and this already-classic photo from this year's final Presidential Debate.

And speaking of GOP voter registration hucksters, it looks like Nathan Sproul of Sproul & Associates, the group accused of destroying Democratic registrations in several states during previous elections, has been hired by the McCain-Palin campaign and the RNC again this year. Knock us over with a feather...

Hopefully, soon will come the GOP's ACORN "voter fraud" fraud backlash, though I realize that's still very much a hope given the continuous rightwing media's full-throated reporting attempt to punk American democracy in regards this issue.

Palm Beach Post, thankfully, bothered to do some actual reporting yesterday, and led with the following good news:

The story goes on to quote FL Secretary of State Kurt Browning who says: "'we have not seen a persistent problem across the state of Florida' with registration fraud by ACORN or other groups."

And FL's Republican Governor Charlie Crist who says: "There's some who sort of enjoy chaos. That's kind of what's going on more than fraud."

Bingo, Charlie. And rather ironic, given the outrageous statement John McCain made during last night's debate; the GOP's own far-worse-than-ACORN's record of registration form problems in California; Crist's own record of voter purges in his own state; and the Republican Party's dismal history of trying to use ACORN at the last minute, just before elections, in order to wreak the "chaos" that Crist was referring to...