It is not a good day for Republican Governors and potential 2016 GOP Presidential nominees Chris Christie and Scott Walker. Both men are making news today, and not in a good way.

Wisconsin's Walker is at the center of what state prosecutors described as an extensive "criminal scheme" to illegally coordinate his 2012 recall campaign effort with about a dozen "conservative" political action committees, according to documents unsealed today in the Badger State.

And New Jersey's Christie is, according to another report today, said to be the ultimate target of federal prosecutors in a sprawling conspiracy case that appears to include all manner of improprieties --- not only limited to the infamous George Washington Bridge closure, but branching out from it to a number of his top political appointees and cronies who are reportedly said to face "near-certain indictment"...

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Dick and Dubya are back in the news! Now I wonder how that might have happened. On the upside, it allowed me to play some clips on this week's show that I first put together for a show back in 2006 (or earlier?)

Anyway, we talk about all of that and more on this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio, including:

• What was Dick Cheney's epic trolling of Obama really about? (Hint: Not necessarily Obama or even Democrats).
• Who's to blame for the current mess in Iraq?
• We take a whole bunch of great calls on all of the above, including one caller with a very interesting defense of Bush and Cheney.
• Some good voting news for Ohio, for a change.
• The fossil-fueled "War on Science" now includes war on science museums.
• Plus, as ever, Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report (including some epic trolling by Obama of science deniers!)

Enjoy!

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

Some pretty epic trolling tonight from Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz at Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal.

Read it at your own peril. These selected quotes oughta be enough to make your head explode all by themselves, however...

• "Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many."

• "Iraq is at risk of falling to a radical Islamic terror group and Mr. Obama is talking climate change."

• "Terrorists take control of more territory and resources than ever before in history, and he goes golfing."

• "Only a fool would believe American policy in Iraq should be ceded to Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terror."

• "This president is willfully blind to the impact of his policies."

• "President Obama seems determined to leave office ensuring he has taken America down a notch. Indeed, the speed of the terrorists' takeover of territory in Iraq has been matched only by the speed of American decline on his watch."

• "Al Qaeda and its affiliates are resurgent and they present a security threat not seen since the Cold War. Defeating them will require a strategy---not a fantasy."

Epic Trolling Accomplished.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Giant 'never-before-seen' twin tornadoes pummel Nebraska; Obama openly mocks climate change deniers; New study finds - again - economic benefits of EPA regulations outweigh costs; PLUS: Billionaire Koch Brothers' 'Kochtopus' grows a new tentacle... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): Germany sells out guidebooks to renewable energy sites; Oil and coal must be phased out entirely by 2050: study; Group of 77 & China agree to fight climate change; Upbeat ending to U.N.-Bonn climate talks; Warren Buffett issues warning on catastrophic insurance bond bubble; EPA doesn't kill coal jobs - new technology already did; Fukushima operator struggling to build ice wall; Tesla Motors goes open source to fight global warming; Abandoned oil wells spouting significant levels of methane ... PLUS: Even Science Museums Being Undermined by Fossil Fuel-Funded Science Denialism ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Kind of amusing. With today's news that U.S. Special Ops forces have captured the alleged ringleader of the deadly 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, suddenly Fox "News" is less than impressed.

Or, as Media Matters for America describes it today, "Fox Finally Finds a Benghazi Story That Is Not a 'Bombshell'".

"Since 2012, Fox News has referred to numerous Benghazi reports --- which typically just rehash their tired smears about the attacks --- as 'bombshells.' But in the hour after news of the arrest [of Ahmed Abu Khattala], nobody at the network has called the latest development a 'bombshell'," MMFA observes, before adding parenthetically: (Instead, Fox is busy questioning the timing of the arrest.)

Here's a few comparative samples from the archives of Fox, which must be finally recognized as one of the most impressive and effective propaganda organizations of all time...

Seriously. This capture of the Benghazi guy is obviously just another play by Obama to distract us from #Benghazi.

As we noted when citing the excellent recent episode of Fox' COSMOS, which explained the causes and dangers of global warming in a way that turned a long-time, self-described "climate denier" colleague of ours into a "believer," the documented facts of science don't require "belief." Scientific facts are still true, whether one chooses to believe them or not.

One of the great strengths of COSMOS host Neil deGrasse Tyson's explanation of climate change in the episode is that he did not hedge bets to satisfy the misinformed beliefs of science deniers. The show simply taught the science of global warming and what is both known and unknown about it. Period. That would seem to be the very central point of science education. But it's a point that is being forgotten, or lost, or simply ignored by some science museums when it comes to teaching the science of global warming, according to a report by Anna Kuchment of the Dallas Morning News.

Kuchment's central example is Dallas' Perot Museum of Nature and Science and their display celebrating Texas' energy boom. "Some [of the museum's] choices are scientifically questionable," James S. Russell understated for Bloomberg News shortly after the $185 million dollar facility first opened in December of 2012.

The Morning News found that some such institutions are failing to accurately portray the science of global warming and climate change, in part, "to avoid stirring up controversy with donors, visitors and political representatives."

The paper cites the energy exhibit at the Perot Museum which "failed to display a panel that spelled out the link between burning fossil fuels, higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and a warming planet."

Museum officials claim the omission of the panel, which was part of the exhibition's original design, was little more than an oversight or that the panel was "incorrectly designed to fit its space" --- and that they have now "ordered a temporary panel to hang in its place until a new one can be manufactured" after the matter came to light. But those explanations seems fairly thin...particularly once the main funders of both the museum itself and this particularly exhibit are taken into consideration...

Apparently, swinging and missing on three separate occasions is not enough to get either Ohio's Republican Governor John Kasich or its Republican Secretary of State John Husted to walk away from the plate.

After U.S. District Court Judge Peter Economus issued an August 2012 preliminary injunction that forced the Buckeye State to restore early voting for the three days preceding the November 2012 Presidential Election, Husted found it necessary to apologize to the court for what appeared to be a contemptuous directive to the state's 88 county Boards of Election that they not establish hours for voting on those days, pending the state's appeal of the preliminary injunction. Strike one!

In early October 2012, a unanimous three judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeal ruled against Husted, expressly sustaining every aspect of Judge Economus' August 2012 decision. Strike two!

That same month, the U.S. Supreme Court summarily rejected Husted's request for an emergency stay. Strike three!

Undaunted, in Feb. 2014 Gov. Kasich signed into law a new elections bill that failed to correct the previous disparate deadlines for in-person voting, allowing military voters to vote on the last days before the election, but nobody else. Husted then issued a directive that provided for early voting between 8:00 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014, but failed to provide for any voting hours on either Sunday, Nov. 2 or Monday, Nov. 3 --- despite the still-existing law allowing military members to cast their vote those days.

As it happens, African-American churches have traditionally used early voting on the Sunday before elections as "Souls to the Polls" day to help get out the vote. In turn, Republicans in Ohio have been working hard to end early voting on the Sunday before election day.

In his original 2012 ruling, Judge Economus held that all Ohio voters had a "constitutionally protected right to participate in the 2012 election --- and all elections --- on an equal basis." That is why he declared the effort to limit early voting to only active duty military members on the weekend before the election to be an unconstitutional violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

This year's latest gambit led to the issuance last week of a Permanent Injunction [PDF] on the Republican scheme, pursuant to which Judge Economus has ordered the recalcitrant Ohio Secretary of State [emphasis added] "to set uniform and suitable in-person early voting hours for all eligible voters for the three days preceding all future elections." Strike four?

Amusingly, rather than attempting to violate the court order this time around, SoS Husted is pretending that all of this is simply what he wanted all along, declaring in a statement (via the "Election Law Blog"), issued after losing again in court last week: "I am pleased that the federal court has affirmed what I have long advocated --- that all voters, no matter where they live, should have the same opportunity to vote. Thankfully, uniformity and equality won the day."

Also, up is down, black is white, and John Husted is a great champion of voting rights.

Please help support The BRAD BLOG's fiercely independent, award-winning coverage of your electoral system --- now in our ELEVENTH YEAR! --- as available from no other media outlet in the nation...

Via John Amato at C&L on Friday...

And there's more. Watch...

And for still more truth (which probably won't see much light of day on Fox "News") about the disastrous War on Iraq , please see our previous post...

As Iraq seems to finally (and predictably) be imploding this week, longtime Republican apologists in this country are returning from their wingnut ghettos to mainstream spotlights once again to pretend this isn't the result of their unprecedented disaster of a criminal foreign policy.

Naturally, even eleven years later, they are still lying to themselves and everyone else about the Bush Administration and the Iraq War, including: The reasons we attacked the country, who did and didn't support the war of choice and why, and what role the entire clusterfuck of a disastrous pointless mess has played in our continuing American history.

Among the best and briefest responses to the newly invigorated round of Bush-era apologia disguised as (naturally, misleading and/or fact-free) Obama-era 'told-ya-so-isms', comes from Kurt Eichenwald on Twitter...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 


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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: GOP Leader Eric Cantor defeated by climate denier who doesn't want you to know that he's a denier (and for good reason); Australia sees hottest 2 years on record, but their Prime Minister is a global warming skeptic; Historic heat results in riots in India; PLUS: Tesla is giving away its secrets --- for free!... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): "Supercritical" breakthrough for solar energy, 'like breaking the sound barrier'; Americans 2-to-1 would pay more to curb climate change; Scary hurricane record broken in Pacific; Google aims to re-invent electric utility sector; Tests prove fracking contaminated water in Texas' FDA advises pregnant women to eat fish, but avoid mercury; How El Nino 2014 will affect world weather .... PLUS: Kiriabit's president: 'it's too late for us' ... and much, MUCH more! ...

It's been a stupid busy news week this week, but I tried to fit as much of it as possible into this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio.

So grab a pencil to take notes and buckle up before listening. We've got a lot of exclusive reporting for you in this week's episode!

Among the stories covered this week: The ignored and unverified votes in the Eric Cantor Bombshell/Guessing Game; the shamefully retracted 2009 DHS Report on Rightwing Extremism in the U.S. in light of continuing and recent carnage from RW terrorism in the U.S.; the 'Tea Party' Trio's Mississippi Mystery Courthouse Caper in last week's Republican primary for the U.S. Senate in MS; the CA legislature's move to restrict election recounts to all but the wealthiest of individuals.

And, as if all of that's not enough, a few callers and the delightful and ingenious Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report. Enjoy!

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

P.S. We've been asking of late, but few have answered the call. Please consider supporting The BRAD BLOG with a one-time donation or a monthly sustaining donation. Everything that we do here --- including our survival and our independence and much of the exclusive reporting offered for free above --- depends on your support to help us continue. It's getting very difficult to do so. So please consider helping us out if you can afford it. Every bit really helps!

Up until now, the state of California has been able to boast about one of the most liberal election "recount" statutes in the nation. It allows any voter or group of voters to request a post-election hand-count of any number of precincts in any race or ballot initiative in the state. The state election code allows crucial access to citizen oversight of public elections.

That may all be about to change, however, if a Republican proposal, currently being supported by Democrats in the state legislature and causing alarm among some who have carried out recent "recounts", becomes law.

[NOTE: The BRAD BLOG generally uses quotes around the word "recount" to denote post-election hand-counts of ballots which have never actually been counted by human beings, but rather, only tabulated by computers. It's impossible to know whether those computers actually tallied votes accurately unless paper ballots are examined by hand.]

Under current law, voters seeking such a post-election count have to pay for the cost, though if the outcome of the election is changed in favor of the requester, they are entitled to receive a refund. Over the years, The BRAD BLOG has also documented abuse by County Registrars who have arbitrarily priced such counts so high that they became cost-prohibitive, effectively blocking such citizen oversight from happening at all.

Still, the provision for post-election citizen oversight of election results in the state, until now, has been far better than most such laws elsewhere in the nation.

But now, a bill proposed by a Republican and broadly supported by Democrats in the state Assembly has moved on to the state Senate for approval. If it passes there and is signed by the Governor, it is almost certain to put a chill on post-election citizen oversight...for all but the wealthiest of voters...

The political world exploded tonight with the stunning reported defeat of Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to little-known "Tea Party" candidate Dave Brat.

Cantor's loss was so unexpected that Democrats didn't even bother to nominate anyone to run in Virginia's 7th Congressional District until last night, reportedly during a conference call, when they decided to put up a professor named Jack Trammell (from the same Randolph-Macon College where Brat works) as their nominee, just before today's deadline.

"A conservative challenger is expected to fall far short of defeating House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in Tuesday's congressional primary," wrote Rachel Weiner in Virginia's local paper known as the Washington Post just this morning. "The question in this race is how large Cantor's margin of victory will be."

So, there's more than enough speculative analysis complete guess work out there for you elsewhere about what all of this portends, from the same political pundits and geniuses and well-sourced insiders who had no clue that Cantor was about to become famous as the first sitting House Majority Leader to lose in a primary race since either 1899 or...forever, depending on who you listen to.

But, pretty much just as soon as it appeared that Cantor was about to be announced the "loser" in a blowout of an election late today, questions started coming in to us, via Twitter and elsewhere, with concerns about the integrity of the reported results and if there could have been any chicanery behind them...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President Obama pushes back against climate change-denying politicians; Real-world data shows cutting emissions boosts economic growth and that the Koch Brothers are wrong; PLUS: Supreme Court says BP must continue oil spill payouts ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): How Solar Will Destroy Utilities in 5 Easy Steps; President of Kiribati: "It's too late for us"; Amazon tribal chief: the white man is destroying everything; War on Coal already happened - mining industry won and miners lost; FAA oks first drones on US soil - for BP; Supreme Court rules against homeowners in Camp Lejeune water contamination; Duke Energy signs deals for Dan River spill cleanup; Illinois bans plastic microbeads in personal care products due to water pollution ... PLUS: 7 reasons to be more optimistic about climate change than Ezra Klein ... and much, MUCH more! ...