Follow & Support The BRAD BLOG!

Now celebrating 15 YEARS of Green News Report!
And 20 YEARS of The BRAD BLOG!
Please help The BRAD BLOG, BradCast and Green News Report remain independent and 100% reader and listener supported in our 21st YEAR!!!
ONE TIME ONLY
any amount you like...
$
MONTHLY SUPPORT
any amount you like...
$
OR VIA SNAIL MAIL
Make check out to...
Brad Friedman/BRAD BLOG
7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Latest Featured Reports | Friday, March 29, 2024
BRAD BLOG Spring Breaking
And not a moment too soon...
Sunday 'Roll Out the Barrel' Toons
FEATURING: Rich Con, Poor Con!...Sex-Havers!...March Madness!...More! Have a barrel of fun with our latest collection of the week's best toons!...
It's Up to You, New York: 'BradCast' 3/21/24
Trump staring down barrel of both civil and criminal accountability in NY; Also: Biden forgives another $6B in student loans; U.S. seeks 'sustained ceasefire' in Gaza; Scientists baffled by spike in record global heat...
'Green News Report' 3/21/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
Biden EPA issues biggest climate regulation in U.S. history; Rio hits 144°F heat index!; Exxon CEO blames YOU for climate change; PLUS: U.N. issues climate change 'red alert'!...
Previous GNRs: 3/19/24 - 3/14/24 - Archives...
'It All Comes Down to Brett and Amy': 'BradCast' 3/20/24
Guest: Slate's Mark Joseph Stern on another stunning week of federal judiciary debacles; Also: Primary results from AZ, FL, IL, KS, OH, CA; Biden EPA's 'biggest climate move yet'...
American 'Bloodbath':
'BradCast' 3/19/24
Trump is promising political violence whether he wins or loses; Also: Navarro goes to prison; Scofflaw MI MAGA attorney arrested; SCOTUS allows TX to override federal law, Constitution; Biden's SOTU success...
'Green News Report' 3/19/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
EPA finally bans all uses of asbestos; Biden unveils billions for rebuilding communities broken by highway construction; Extreme heat in Africa; PLUS: MA coastal town follies...
Previous GNRs: 3/14/24 - 3/12/24 - Archives...
Corporations 'Taking a Bazooka' to NLRB, Hoping to Declare it 'Unconstitutional': 'BradCast' 3/18/24
Guest: Labor journo Steven Greenhouse; Also: Putin's 'election'; Trump can't find $450M...
Sunday 'Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya' Toons
FEATURING: Moses Mike...Trump II Terror...TikTok Truth...and more in our latest collection of the week's most secular toons!...
Schumer Steps Up; Trump Associates Paid Biden 'Bribe' Liar $600k: 'BradCast' 3/14/24
Also: TikTok foolishness; NY hush-money trial delay?; Navarro must go to jail; Trump owes $400k for failed 'Steele Dossier' suit in UK...
'Green News Report' 3/14/24
FL bans heat protections for workers; Methane leaks continue; GOP Project 2025 would ban Paris Agreement; PLUS: CA snowpack is back, but too late for salmon...
After Accountability for Fraud, What's Next for the Corrupt NRA and Gun Safety Reforms?: 'BradCast' 3/13/24
Guest: Brady Center's Kelly Sampson; Also: Biden, Trump clinch; GA judge nixes 6 counts...
How to Media Better and Other Smart Ideas:
'BradCast' 3/12/24
Press quietly resets weeks of misreporting on Biden; Suggestions for NYT; Stephanopoulos v. Mace; Also: Buck quits; RNC 'bloodbath'; WI's MAGA Speaker Recall...
'Green News Report' 3/12/24
Biden touts climate jobs boom at SOTU; Feb. obliterated global temp and ocean heat records; PLUS: Great Barrier Reef hit with yet another 'mass bleaching event'...
BARCODED BALLOTS AND BALLOT MARKING DEVICES
BMDs pose a new threat to democracy in all 50 states...
VIDEO: 'Rise of the Tea Bags'
Brad interviews American patriots...
'Democracy's Gold Standard'
Hand-marked, hand-counted ballots...
Brad's Upcoming Appearances
(All times listed as PACIFIC TIME unless noted)
Media Appearance Archives...
'Special Coverage' Archives
GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...

Criminal GOP Voter Registration Fraud Probe Expanding in VA
State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...

DOJ PROBE SOUGHT AFTER VA ARREST
Arrest of RNC/Sproul man caught destroying registration forms brings official calls for wider criminal probe from compromised VA AG Cuccinelli and U.S. AG Holder...

Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...

ALL TOGETHER: ROVE, SPROUL, KOCHS, RNC
His Super-PAC, his voter registration (fraud) firm & their 'Americans for Prosperity' are all based out of same top RNC legal office in Virginia...

LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
So much for the RNC's 'zero tolerance' policy, as discredited Republican registration fraud operative still hiring for dozens of GOP 'Get Out The Vote' campaigns...

'Fired' Sproul Group 'Cloned', Still Working for Republicans in At Least 10 States
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...

FINALLY: FOX ON GOP REG FRAUD SCANDAL
The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...

COLORADO FOLLOWS FLORIDA WITH GOP CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
Repub Sec. of State Gessler ignores expanding GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, rants about evidence-free 'Dem Voter Fraud' at Tea Party event...

CRIMINAL PROBE LAUNCHED INTO GOP VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL IN FL
FL Dept. of Law Enforcement confirms 'enough evidence to warrant full-blown investigation'; Election officials told fraudulent forms 'may become evidence in court'...

Brad Breaks PA Photo ID & GOP Registration Fraud Scandal News on Hartmann TV
Another visit on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture with new news on several developing Election Integrity stories...

CAUGHT ON TAPE: COORDINATED NATIONWIDE GOP VOTER REG SCAM
The GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal reveals insidious nationwide registration scheme to keep Obama supporters from even registering to vote...

CRIMINAL ELECTION FRAUD COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST GOP 'FRAUD' FIRM
Scandal spreads to 11 FL counties, other states; RNC, Romney try to contain damage, split from GOP operative...

RICK SCOTT GETS ROLLED IN GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) sends blistering letter to Gov. Rick Scott (R) demanding bi-partisan reg fraud probe in FL; Slams 'shocking and hypocritical' silence, lack of action...

VIDEO: Brad Breaks GOP Reg Fraud Scandal on Hartmann TV
Breaking coverage as the RNC fires their Romney-tied voter registration firm, Strategic Allied Consulting...

RNC FIRES NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION FIRM FOR FRAUD
After FL & NC GOP fire Romney-tied group, RNC does same; Dead people found reg'd as new voters; RNC paid firm over $3m over 2 months in 5 battleground states...

EXCLUSIVE: Intvw w/ FL Official Who First Discovered GOP Reg Fraud
After fraudulent registration forms from Romney-tied GOP firm found in Palm Beach, Election Supe says state's 'fraud'-obsessed top election official failed to return call...

GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD FOUND IN FL
State GOP fires Romney-tied registration firm after fraudulent forms found in Palm Beach; Firm hired 'at request of RNC' in FL, NC, VA, NV & CO...
The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...


With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 11/21/2013 3:58pm PT  


Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 
Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Pandora
Listen on Google PodcastsListen on Stitcher
Listen on TuneInRSS/XML Feed (Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Impasse at the UN climate summit as developing nations walk out of negotiations; Just 90 companies responsible for most of man-made global warming emissions; 'Apocalyptic' rains strike again, this time in Sardinia; PLUS: Didja hear the one about the Polish environment minister who was fired in the middle of the UN climate summit in Poland? ... All of those hot messes and more in today's Green News Report!

Please help us keep connecting the climate change dots over your public airwaves!
PLEASE CLICK HERE TO DONATE!

Listen online here, or Download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Shell Oil's self-imposed carbon pollution tax would crash coal; Superstorms cause spike in flood insurance rates; Jbets on hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars; 'Welcome to Las Vegas' sign goes solar; 70 taken ill after California chemical plant leak; Tesla: "3 fires received more headlines than 250k gasoline fires"; 'Digesting' food waste turns trash into cash; Developed countries spent $35 billion on coal plants since 2007 ... PLUS: BP back in the Gulf with largest-ever oil fleet ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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




Study on corporate espionage against nonprofits charges 'unethical, illegal tools' used by nation's largest corporations, trade groups...
By Brad Friedman on 11/21/2013 6:35am PT  

Oh, what fun. This, of course, is just one of the reasons why it's important that you help support and fund the work we do here at The BRAD BLOG. We're up against the unaccountable hoodlums and thugs like the far rightwing U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest lobbying organization in the world. So we must be doing something right.

And there is no tactic too dirty for the slimeballs at the Chamber, as we're reminded again in a new report by Gary Ruskin released Wednesday by the Institute of Public Accuracy titled "Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations" [PDF].

As Ruskin notes on page 22 of the new report...

Long time readers will recall the sleazy, likely criminal, $12 million 2011 scheme plotted by the mafia-like thugs at the U.S. Chamber targeting me, my family (who have nothing to do with my work), and other progressive organizations and activists who dared oppose their corporatist, anti-American agenda in even the slightest way. Their plot involved using tools developed by private government contractors (with taxpayer dollars) for the so-called "War on Terror", and turning them against private U.S. citizens for their corporate espionage benefit...

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




By Brad Friedman on 11/19/2013 6:35am PT  

[This article now cross-published by Salon...]

Over the weekend, new Fox "News" lamestream media warrior Howard Kurtz was appropriately critical of the pathetic "apology" CBS' 60 Minutes offered for their bogus Benghazi report which was based entirely on a lying "witness" to the September 2012 attack. (The guy was never there, the story was completely made up.)

Fox doesn't seem to allow their videos to be embedded, but you can watch Kurtz' :97 second piece on "Why 60 Minutes apology isn't enough" right here.

While Kurtz is correct that CBS' "apology" was not nearly enough, and that the serious error requires a much more thorough investigation into and explanation for how Rightwing correspondent Lara Logan was so easily fooled by her source, and why nobody at 60 Minutes kept the false story from being aired in the first place, Kurtz completely fails to even mention one very important point. Fox "News" itself used the very same source for the basis of its own false narrative in its own series of misleading stories last year. Moreover, Fox, unlike CBS, has failed to even retract those similarly bogus reports, much less apology or investigate any of them...

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




Says if minority continues to block qualified nominees, Senators have both right and 'Constitutional duty to change filibuster rules'...
UPDATE: Republicans block 4th nominee to DC Circuit Court of Appeals...
By Ernest A. Canning on 11/18/2013 10:53am PT  

Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a former Harvard Law Professor, argued that Senators not only have the right, but a constitutional duty to change the Senate filibuster rules. She argued, in no small part to her fellow Democrats, that the rules were being abused by Republicans as part of a "naked attempt to nullify the results of the last Presidential election [in order] to force us to govern as if President Obama hadn't won the 2012 election."

Her remarks (see video and text transcript below) were made in the wake of the third occasion in which Senate Republicans blocked the nomination of an extraordinarily well-qualified female nominee to the important federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeal.

"Republicans now hold the dubious distinction of having filibustered all three women that President Obama nominated to the DC Circuit," she said. "Between them, they have argued an amazing 45 cases before the Supreme Court and have participated in many more. All three have the support of a majority of Senators. So why have they been filibustered?"

"Well, the reason is simple," she explained, answering her own question. "They are caught in a fight over the future of our courts. A fight over whether the courts will be a neutral forum that decides every dispute fairly, or whether the courts will be stacked in favor of the wealthy and the powerful."

Yes. The minority party in the U.S. Senate is blocking these nominations, not because of the qualifications of these very well-qualified women, but because they are continuing a thirty-year Republican effort to "rig the courts", as Warren explains, by packing the U.S. federal bench, particularly the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals...

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




State issues draft regulations for fracking, is praised by industry...
By Ernest A. Canning on 11/16/2013 4:03pm PT  

In a letter this week, twenty of the nation’s top climate scientists urged Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) to impose an immediate moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing (aka "fracking") as a means for extracting oil and natural gas in the Golden State.

Just days later, the state issued new draft regulations for "fracking". The new regulations were praised by the fossil fuel industry.

In the letter, the scientists warn Brown that "fracking," as applied to California's Monterey Shale Formation, would "exacerbate…environmental threats, particularly climate disruption, local air and water pollution, and resource consumption."

After noting that fracking "will likely rapidly increase fossil fuel development at a time when California is poised to transition to low-carbon renewable energy technology," the climate scientists expressed a number of specific environmental concerns...

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




By Ernest A. Canning on 11/14/2013 8:35am PT  

[This article now cross-published by The Progressive...]

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a vigorous Opposition [PDF] to a Motion to Intervene [PDF] filed by the Republican "voter fraud" group calling itself "True the Vote." In its motion, True the Vote seeks to become a party to the DoJ's federal legal challenge to Texas's polling place Photo ID restriction law, SB-14.

The DoJ's opposition is rather straightforward. The right wing-funded True the Vote, they argue, has not established that it is entitled to intervene because it sets forth nothing more than a generalized grievance and because its allegation "that illegal voting might be prevented by enforcement of SB 14 is, at best, speculative."

Anyone familiar with this organization and its history, should appreciate how absurd it is that they should be taken seriously at any time, much less allowed to intervene in a critical lawsuit filed in federal court.

Permissive intervention is inappropriate, according to the DoJ, because True the Vote has failed to establish that its interests would not be adequately represented by the State of Texas. Indeed, its participation in the case, DoJ says, would be unduly burdensome in that the group seeks to divert the court's attention from the legal issues relating to polling place Photo ID restriction laws "to issues concerning True the Vote’s numerous allegations of purported voter registration irregularities."

The DoJ notes that, for identical reasons, True the Vote, whose 2011 list of "Recommendations for Legislation" [PDF] was topped by the desire to enact the polling place Photo ID law at issue, was excluded from participating in the Department's legal challenge to last year's ill-fated effort by Florida's Gov. Rick Scott (R) to purge "potential non-citizens" from the Sunshine State's eligible voter rolls.

True the Vote's deceptive tactics should come as no surprise to long time readers of The BRAD BLOG. The group is essentially the latest pretend "election integrity" arm of the Koch brothers-funded, Paul Weyrich co-founded, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-fueled GOP effort to enact voter suppression laws across the country.

The nature of their hostile, anti-voter tactics, according to the Houston NAACP, included an alleged attack upon its "volunteer poll monitors for handing out water to voters at Early Vote locations and for assisting Disabled and Elderly voters by standing in line for them or asking younger people in line to let the elderly and disabled go ahead of them in the line to vote."

The group's label, 'True the Vote', is nothing short of Orwellian. As detailed by The BRAD BLOG last year (and by others this year) truth and True the Vote remain perfect strangers...

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




Guest: Heather Parton (aka 'Digby'!)
By Brad Friedman on 11/13/2013 9:21pm PT  

On this week KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast I was joined by Heather Parton --- much better known as the great blogger "Digby" of Hullabaloo --- to discuss the complete collapse of CBS 60 Minutes' bogus Benghazi exclusive and their pathetic "correction". Moreover, we take a look at what Digby has uncovered about the apparent Rightwing, Fox "News"-like predilections of correspondent Lara Logan and how that (and a few other disturbing Fox "News" connections) resulted in Benghazi hoax disaster at the once-great CBS News.

Next, I bring everyone up to date on the insane roller coaster that has been the last week of the insanely close Virginia Attorney General's race and the surreal pitfalls to come in the likely "recount" and potential election contest thereafter.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on the Super Typhoon Haiyan disaster in the Philippines, its connection to climate change and the new all-time low for global warming deniers in its wake...

Download MP3 or listen online below (appx 58 mins)...




With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 11/12/2013 3:32pm PT  


Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 
Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Pandora
Listen on Google PodcastsListen on Stitcher
Listen on TuneInRSS/XML Feed (Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The devastation of Super Typhoon Haiyan, and the climate change signal; PLUS: The denial industry sinks to new lows, as the U.N. meets again to hammer out a global climate treaty ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Listen online here, or Download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): AP shocked - shocked! - to find corn ethanol is bad; Archbishop refuses communion to polluters; Billionaire Koch Brother says advocates of carbon tax 'are on acid'; U.S. crushes ivory to save elephants from extinction; ARCO to pay $20m to residents near NV copper mine; Fossil fuels receive $500 billion a year in government subsidies worldwide; Another oil train explodes, this time in Alabama ... PLUS: Map: What the U.S. coast will look like after we melt all the ice ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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




Bonus Video: Jon Stewart and 'The Daily Show' do too!...
By Brad Friedman on 11/12/2013 11:56am PT  

On last night's Colbert Report, Stephen was joined (hilariously!) by Poncho Denews, aka heroic old-school newsman Charlie Skinner from "HBO's documentary The Newsroom", aka Sam Waterston to absolutely destroy CBS' completely bogus and now mildly "corrected"/retracted super-explosive extra-special exclusive on BenghaziGate!!! Nailed it (in two must-watch parts)...


The Daily Show also took on Lara Logan and 60 Minutes' "Meh Culpa"...and, once again, also deservedly eviscerated Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) along with it. That one follows below...

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




By Ernest A. Canning on 11/11/2013 6:35am PT  

As the disturbing report from Chris Ramirez of KOB Eyewitness News 4 in Albuquerque, New Mexico reveals, police in nearby Deming have given new meaning to the concept of an unreasonably intrusive search.

A routine traffic stop for failing to come to a complete stop upon exiting a Wal-Mart parking lot turned into an extraordinary, fourteen-hour, unbelievably invasive ordeal that Ramirez appropriately describes as "a humiliating violation of a New Mexico man's body by police and doctor."

Deming police officers, according to Dennis Eckert's attorney, Shannon Kennedy, claimed that when Eckert obeyed the command to get out of his car, "he did so in a manner that looked as if he was clenching his buttocks."

Based on, apparently, no more than that, police obtained a warrant to do an anal cavity search for drugs. The police first sought to obtain the cavity search from a nearby emergency room, but the ER doctor refused to conduct it, stating it would be unethical to do so. Police then drove the man to the Gila Regional Medical Center, located in a different county (and outside the scope of the warrant).

KOB4 summarizes the incredible content of the Gila medical records, as they pertained to procedures conducted without Eckert's consent thereafter...

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




Story said 'year in the making' removed from CBS News website
UPDATED: CBS correspondent Lara Logan admits 'We were wrong, made a mistake'...
By Brad Friedman on 11/7/2013 7:58pm PT  

[UPDATED - Video added at bottom. CBS' Logan admits they blew the story. ALSO NOW: Simon & Schuster Rightwing imprint pulls book off shelves.]

A full week after serious doubts were raised concerning 60 Minutes' report on a supposed eye-witness to the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, CBS has finally issued a terse two paragraph statement tonight to announce they are "currently looking into" whether they were "misled" by their star witness.

Here's the full statement:

60 Minutes has learned of new information that undercuts the account told to us by Morgan Jones of his actions on the night of the attack on the Benghazi compound.

We are currently looking into this serious matter to determine if he misled us, and if so, we will make a correction.

The statement coincides with new information this evening that appears to further undercut the 60 Minutes report...

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




Guests: Media Matters' Eric Boehlert; Act Blue's Howie Klein...
By Brad Friedman on 11/6/2013 9:55pm PT  

This week on the KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast, I was joined by Eric Boehlert of MediaMatters.org to discuss: a) The serious questions about CBS' 60 Minutes "train wreck" on Benghazi and the media's dreadful double-standard in comparison to the reaction to the Dan Rather/George W. Bush Air National Guard story from 2004 b) Media failure in reporting on "Obamacare" c) The double-standard at Fox "News" in covering the alleged "pissed-off patriot" who shot up LAX Airport last week and d) Rand Paul's plagiarism disaster.

Then, I was joined by the great Howie Klein of DownWithTyranny.com and the Blue America PAC to discuss the various progressive victories from Tuesday's elections (and a few of the failures), as well as concerns about the still incredibly close, 100% unverifiable Attorney General race in Virginia and its likely "recount".

Plus, Desi Doyen joined us as usual for the latest Green News Report. Enjoy the show!

Download MP3 or listen online below [appx. 58 mins]...




'Harrowing account' of tragedy offered by British 'witness' on TV news mag appears completely untrue, says Washington Post
UPDATED: Davies responds, says lied to employer originally, but telling the truth now...
By Brad Friedman on 11/1/2013 3:11pm PT  

In what Washington Post's Karen DeYoung describes as an "explosive report" on CBS' 60 Minutes on Sunday, the venerable TV news magazine offered "a harrowing account of the extremist attack that killed four Americans" at the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya last year.

Naturally, Fox "News" and others on the Right --- such as Sen. Lindsey Graham who promised on Wednesday to block all of President Obama's nominees following the report --- have been trumpeting it all week.

In the report, CBS' Lara Logan interviews a man pseudonymously identified as "Morgan Jones", a British supervisor of security guards protecting the mission. He tells Logan that, as the attack that night went on and four U.S. officials were ultimately killed, he scaled the compound's 12-foot wall, took out an al-Qaeda terrorist "with the butt end of a rifle" and eventually was at the hospital to witness the lifeless corpse of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

But, as reported by DeYoung at WaPo today, that story by "Jones", as offered on 60 Minutes, appears to be completely untrue. That "harrowing account" by "Jones," whose real name is reportedly Dylan Davies, is completely at odds, according to the Post, with the written account that he "provided to his employer three days after the attack" when he said he was nowhere near the diplomatic compound on the night of the deadly tragedy...

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




Minority still stalling Obama's second nominee to key federal agency overseeing home mortgages; Bush's man remains at helm...
By Ernest A. Canning on 11/1/2013 1:18pm PT  

On Thursday, despite a deal said to have been struck with Democrats in August, Senate Republicans successfully used the filibuster to block meaningful economic reform again.

With just 42 Republican votes, the GOP was able to block the majority and continue to prevent the President's nominee --- his second --- from taking taking the helm at a crucial federal agency, ensuring the man appointed by George W. Bush would remain in that key role.

In late summer, in "GOP Filibuster Still 'Single Largest Obstacle to Meaningful Economic Recovery'", we explained how the Senate’s Republican minority had successfully used the filibuster to prevent the Obama Administration from replacing Bush Administration holdover Edward DeMarco as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency(FHFA) . The FHFA is the federal agency which oversees government-sponsored mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own 60% of all mortgages in the United States.

Last year, in a petition to President Barack Obama, the advocacy group Change.Org described DeMarco as "the single largest obstacle to meaningful economic recovery". That assessment was shared by The New York Times' Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman, who called for President Obama to "Fire Ed DeMarco," after DeMarco, in defiance of the Obama Administration, rejected a U.S. Treasury Department request "that he offer debt relief to troubled homeowners --- a request backed by an offer that the U.S. Treasury would pay up to 63 cents to the FHFA for every dollar of debt forgiven."

Although Krugman explained at the time that "a reduction in debt burdens would strengthen the economy," creating "greater revenues" that could "offset any losses from the debt forgiveness itself," DeMarco has consistently sought to protect the Wall Street casino (aka the mortgage backed securities market) against any relief to homeowners who were victimized by those fraudulent schemes.

All of these years later, Republicans in the U.S. Senate, defying the majority will of the American people, continue to help him...

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




By Brad Friedman on 10/31/2013 6:59pm PT  

Norm Ornstein of the very conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), writes this week at National Journal...

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, is leading to a new era of voter suppression that parallels the pre-1960s era—this time affecting not just African-Americans but also Hispanic-Americans, women, and students, among others.

The reasoning employed by Chief Justice John Roberts in Shelby County—that Section 5 of the act was such a spectacular success that it is no longer necessary—was the equivalent of taking down speed cameras and traffic lights and removing speed limits from a dangerous intersection because they had combined to reduce accidents and traffic deaths.

I won't be surprised if history finds the Shelby County ruling, along with Citizens United, to be right up there in the Dred Scott pantheon of terrible rulings by a U.S. Supreme Court. That both occurred within years of each others on the John Roberts Court speaks volumes --- and does not bode well for whatever may still be to come.

How's that for a scary Halloween night posting?...




Total Pages (244):
« Newest ... « 109 110 111 112 113 [114] 115 116 117 118 119 » ... Oldest »

Support The BRAD BLOG
Please visit our advertisers










Support The BRAD BLOG
Please visit our advertisers
Brad Friedman's
The BRAD BLOG



Recent Entries

Archives


Important Docs
Categories

A Few Great Blogs
Political Cartoonists



Please Help Support The BRAD BLOG...
ONE TIME ONLY
any amount you like...
$
MONTHLY SUPPORT
any amount you like...
$
Or by Snail Mail
Make check out to...
Brad Friedman
7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594
Los Angeles, CA 90028

The BRAD BLOG receives no foundational or corporate support. Your contributions make it possible to continue our work.
About Brad Friedman...
Brad is an independent investigative
journalist, blogger, broadcaster,
VelvetRevolution.us co-founder,
expert on issues of election integrity,
and a Commonweal Institute Fellow.

Brad has contributed chapters to these books...


...And is featured in these documentary films...

Additional Stuff...
Brad Friedman/The BRAD BLOG Named...
Buzz Flash's 'Wings of Justice' Honoree
Project Censored 2010 Award Recipient
The 2008 Weblog Awards



Wikio - Top of the Blogs - Politics

Other Brad Related Places...

Admin
Brad's Test Area
(Ignore below! It's a test!)

All Content & Design Copyright © Brad Friedman unless otherwise specified. All rights reserved.
Advertiser Privacy Policy | The BradCast logo courtesy of Rock Island Media.
Web Hosting, Email Hosting, & Spam Filtering for The BRAD BLOG courtesy of Junk Email Filter.
BradBlog.com