Completely unnecessary polling place Photo ID restrictions enacted by so-called "small government conservatives" are costing taxpayers more and more big government money every day.

In Dallas County, Texas, for example, where County Commissioners are wrestling with the Republican-enacted state law to restrict which legal voters will be allowed to vote, hundreds of thousands of dollars have already been allocated to try and help legally registered voters retain their right to vote in the upcoming March primary election, according to the Dallas Morning News. And it looks like they will have to spend still more.

The cost of "small government conservatism" to taxpayers continues to mount in the Lone Star State, on outreach to voters and administrative necessities, as well as the cost of defending the voting restrictions in state and federal court...

With Brad Friedman...

After a recent three-to-three decision by a partisan-deadlocked Federal Elections Commission (FEC), Karl Rove may have thought he was off the hook for federal campaign finance violations by his Crossroads GPS organization. Two non-profit, good government groups, however, feel differently. Last Friday, they filed a federal lawsuit [PDF] against the FEC in hopes of forcing the agency to reverse its ruling, revisit the complaint against his group's 2010 electioneering, and to enforce federal campaign finance rules as specified by law.

Late last Friday, Attorneys from the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center and the Public Citizen Litigation Group filed a civil complaint against the FEC in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C.

The suit seeks to reverse what the plaintiffs describe as an "arbitrary" and "capricious" decision by the three Republican FEC Commissioners, in contradiction of the advice of their own staff attorneys, to dismiss the administrative complaint the groups had filed against Rove's organization. That administrative complaint charged that Rove's group violated federal campaign finance law during the 2010 election cycle.

The votes by the three Republican FEC Commissioners effectively quashed any further official investigation into the allegations that Rove's group violated the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) when it spent the majority of its money during the 2010 election cycle on electioneering, but failed to register as a "political committee" with the FEC, as required by law. Their decision to shut down the investigation came after what the FEC's own staff attorneys found to be a likely violation of the federal campaign finance law.

By dismissing the administrative complaint and shutting the door on the investigation, the Republican FEC Commissioners not only allowed Rove to keep, as a secret, the identity of donors of tens of millions of dollars used to support Republican Congressional campaigns in 2010, but effectively offered Rove carte blanche to conceal donor identities with respect to monies spent in subsequent elections, such as the 2012 election cycle in which Crossroads GPS "spent at least $71 million on federal campaign activity," according to the newly filed federal complaint.

The plaintiffs charge that the FEC's deadlock was the result of "an impermissible interpretation of FECA," and the agency's own published guidelines due to an "abuse of discretion" by the Republican commissioners in a manner that was "otherwise contrary to law"...

Sure, Pennsylvania's Republican Governor Tom Corbett may be the dumbest in the nation, but the competition for that title is certainly fierce and tough to quantify.

Who can forget his advice to women of the state back in 2012 that they should just lie back and "close your eyes" while being forced by his government to receive a vaginal ultrasound while the monitor must be pointed towards them before terminating a pregnancy? That was fun.

Then there was his claim that same year, described as "ludicrous" to The BRAD BLOG by a longtime Keystone State election integrity expert, that the GOP polling place Photo ID restriction bill he signed into law was needed, in no small part, because some precincts in the state "come in with a 112 percent" turnout. Of course, that was completely untrue, but, hey, it sounded like actual information! That voter restriction law, as we reported recently, was permanently enjoined by a state court earlier this month after it was found to be in violation of the commonwealth's constitutional right to vote. The law, according to the court, would also have disenfranchised "hundreds of thousands" of legal voters in the bargain.

But how could Corbett have known that? After all, when Corbett's own appointed Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele (another great mind and, coincidentally, the wife of Corbett's own Chief of Staff), was asked about it in court during the legal challenge to the law, she admitted, "I don't know what the law says." Hey, if the state's chief election official doesn't know how many thousands or millions of otherwise legal voters will be disenfranchised by a law, how should the Governor be expected to know any better?!

But the news is not all bad for Gov. Genius, as a new poll out this week in advance of his exciting re-election bid this year details!...

In the lead up to this Sunday's Super Bowl XLVIII, an advocacy group calling itself SackNFLTaxBreaks.org announced its formation "to sack the National Football League's anti-fan behavior, its nonprofit tax-free status, as well as the overall government subsidization of the league."

Co-founded by "New Orleans Saints fan Lynda Woolard" and Ryan Rudominer, "a proud shareholder of the Green Bay Packers, the NFL's only publicly owned team," the group says it hopes to "bring together supporters from associations, nonprofits, unions, corporations, government, journalism, think tanks, academia, the law, and leading advocacy organizations from across the political spectrum."

Their advocacy, to date, is largely built upon a petition launched last year by Woolard calling on Congress to revoke the non-profit, tax-exempt status of the National Football League. Her petition, so far, has obtained more than 300,000 signatures.

On their home page, the group notes that "Despite making $10 billion annually in profits, and paying Commissioner Roger Goodell a whopping $29.5 million dollars-a-year (15 times more than the nonprofit tax-free league gives to charity), the NFL receives a billion dollars annually in government assistance."

The NFL is a separate entity from the individual teams in the league, which do pay taxes. At least two U.S. Senators, Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn and Maine independent Angus King (who caucuses with the Democrats), have recently "started a push to end" the NFL's non-profit status.

While the movement to end the NFL's special tax breaks is relatively new, the issue of corporate welfare via professional sports has been the subject of previous, blistering critiques...

On Tuesday, a Los Angeles County jury convicted California State Senator Roderick D. Wright (D) of false residency voter fraud, after finding that he lied about his address on voter registration and candidacy papers.

Wright's crime was an elite form of voter fraud, which, along with almost all of the most prevalent forms of voter fraud, would not have been prevented by polling place Photo ID restriction laws.

The jury was not persuaded by Wright's claim that he resided in the Inglewood residence of his common law stepmother. Prosecutors presented extensive evidence that established that Wright resided in an "upscale Baldwin Hills neighborhood" that was outside the district. They found that, in addition to lying about his address on his voter registration and candidacy papers, he fraudulently voted in five elections.

As we have repeatedly explained, most recently in covering a recent judicial determination that Pennsylvania's Photo ID law violated that state's constitution, cases involving in-person voter impersonation by ordinary citizens --- the only type of voter fraud that can possibly be prevented by polling place Photo ID restrictions --- are about a scarce as hen's teeth. False residency, by contrast, is a form of voter fraud that has reached epidemic proportions amongst our political elites in both parties, especially, as Brad Friedman has tirelessly documented, amongst the very high-level Republicans who hypocritically call for Photo ID restrictions for everybody else.

Where millions of innocent Americans are at risk of disenfranchisement as a result of the phantom menace of in-person voter fraud, prosecutions of elite politicians for false residency voter fraud have been rare. In one of those rare instances, former Indiana Republican Secretary of State Charlie White was convicted in 2012 of three counts of felony false residency voter fraud. His conviction was particularly ironic, given that he was the chief election official in the first state in the nation to implement polling place Photo ID restrictions. Despite his felony voter fraud charges (and four others) White has not had to serve so much as a single day in jail. Wright, a Democrat, faces up to eight years in prison.

[Update 1/31/2014: Following a meeting by the Democratic caucus, California State Senate Leader Darrell Steinberg (D) announced that Wright will retain his seat pending appeal. However, the Democratic caucus, which sports a super-majority in the state Senate, removed Wright from his position as the Chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.]

Here are just a few of the cases of false residency voter fraud we've documented over recent years, by some high-profile GOPers you will be very familiar with...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Obama's State of the Union goes big for fracking... but Big Green says it's a bridge to nowhere; Big Fossil Fuel has a new mega-astroturf group; Extreme weather paralyzes Atlanta on behalf of Big Business; PLUS: NSA spied on UN climate talks, according to new Snowden docs ... 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): WV water tests positive for formaldehyde; Shell won't drill offshore in Arctic this year; Shell ordered to pay $11b oil spill fine to Nigeria; Monarch butterflies in steep decline; Climate hawk Rep. Henry Waxman to retire; Great Lakes drying up; New conflicts of interest in Keystone XL environment review; Climate change killing baby penguins; ... PLUS: One Vid to Rule Them All: “If There’s Global Warming, How Come it’s So Cold?” ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Much appreciate the very kind shout out, TruthDig! Thanks, guys!

P.S. I'm now finally climbing out of my food poisoning coma. That was fun. Thanks for all the well wishes. Please help us celebrate our 10th anniversary so we can keep on raking the muck around here for as long as possible!

The great Joe Romm of the even greater Climate Progress returns to discuss Obama's schizophrenic "All of the Above" climate policies offered in this week's State of the Union address, and as demonstrated in the year since Romm last joined us on the KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast just after the 2013 Inaugural address.

As a former acting Assistant Secretary of Energy during the Clinton Administration and founder of one of the most important climate blogs going, Romm offers helpful insight on the dangers of Obama's Jekyll/Hyde energy strategy, on the likelihood of the Keystone XL pipeline receiving final White House approval, on whether Obama truly "gets it", and on the tantalizingly cool new Years of Living Dangerously series begin in April on Showtime, on which he serves as Chief Science Editor.

In the second half of the show I talk GOP State of the Union Derangement Syndrome and why the Republican "extreme" is now the mainstream and how it all helps to remind us once again that, yes, elections really do matter.

PLUS, as usual, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, including a hat-tip to the dearly departed Pete Seeger...

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P.S. If you use iTunes and would like to listen to The BradCast that way, you can now subscribe (for free) over there right here. And please feel free to leave us a good review there at the same time, if you are so inclined!

It's become a bit of a cliche in the Obama era. Every year, when the President delivers his State of the Union address, someone in the Republican Congressional caucus makes an absolute jackass of him/herself. Let's call it the Rep. Joe Wilson "YOU LIE!" syndrome.

They just can't seem to help themselves in those grand moments in the bright lights during which they are finally forced to be in the same room with the actual reality of the person they've spent the bulk of the year deluding themselves --- with no small amount of help from Fox "News" and even the so-called legitimate news networks --- into believing to be an incompetent, dictatorial, fascistic, imperial-socialist evil genius. (I'll leave it to you to figure out how he can be all those things at once.)

We thought we had last night's winner of the Republican SOTU Jackass of the Year Award when Texas Rep. Randy Weber tweeted, before the speech even began...

On floor of house waitin on "Kommandant-In-Chef"... the Socialistic dictator who's been feeding US a line or is it "A-Lying?"

— Randy Weber (@TXRandy14) January 29, 2014

Setting aside the impressive typos and incoherence, Rep. Weber's idiocy was clear enough. But, as it turns out, he was an amateur last night. There were at least two other elected officials in the GOP caucus vying for last night's (dis)honor, with one even willing to threaten a violent offense against a reporter on camera. But, in truth, it was the third who really represents the gravest threat to our democracy...

Not entirely sure what's going on here, but people keep saying nice stuff about us lately (and not even in conjunction with our 10th Anniversary).

Last week, the BBC's Greg Palast called us "investigative reporter par excellence".

And this week, Charlie Pierce of Esquire described us as "invaluable".

What's wrong with these people? You'll have to click the links to find out what must have gotten into them.

As we wait with bated breath for tonight's State of the Union address, either my food poisoning is still making me loopy, or I remember this SOTU as if it was yesterday...

...or, probably both.

[Hat-tip @RubinReport]

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Transcanada natural gas pipeline explodes, cutting off heat for thousands; Oil pipeline spills into river in Philadelphia; PLUS: It's a Polar Vortex Redux, making Alaska warmer than most of Florida ... 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): Industry Awakens to Threat of Climate Change; U.N. Says Lag in Confronting Climate Woes Will Be Costly; Chris Christie’s other traffic jam: the cancelled Hudson River Tunnel; FDA allowed antibiotics in animal feed despite risk to health: report; Most Latinos want government action on climate change, poll; 7,300-sq-mile ring of mercury around tar sands in Canada; Monsanto Is Going Organic in a Quest for the Perfect Veggie ... PLUS: Canadian Arctic Warming Unprecedented In 120,000 Years ... and much, MUCH more! ...

...Because after I posted about BRAD BLOG's milestone, and headed to Disneyland on Sunday with family to cash in some free tickets a friend had given us a year or so ago, I returned to wake in the middle of the night with some kind of horrific food poisoning. I mean, violently so. So if you might be wondering what happened to me since announcing our 10th Anniversary, that's it. Have dragged myself up out of bed just long enough to say so. No idea when this passes for good. Hopefully in time for tomorrow's GNR? Tomorrow night's SOTU? Wednesday's BradCast? Dunno, but there you go. Back to bed.

For the record, I don't know that I've ever even had food poisoning until now. And, FYI, I don't care for it one bit...

Late last year, The BRAD BLOG covered the incredibly close results of the state Attorney General's race in Virginia in great detail. The Democrat Mark Herring was eventually declared to be the winner in that razor-thin race after what suffices for a "recount" process in the Old Dominion.

An announcement this week by the state's brand-new Attorney General offers a stark reminder, once again, of the importance of elections and of the work that The BRAD BLOG has done here for the past 10 years...