A few seemingly remarkable items coming in via our Twitter feed today, all fueled by folks on the Right who are hoaxed into giving their hard-earned dollars to con-men...

• The crew at the pretend "news" site, Breitbart.com (specifically, Editor-at-Large Ben Shapiro) have successfully pushed a story about "Friends of Hamas" supporting SecDef-nominee, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R) somehow into the mainstream Rightwing media. The problem with the story --- which is meant to help target the first Presidential cabinet nominee in history to ever be filibustered (much less by his own party!) --- is that "Friends of Hamas", the "scary-sounding pro-Hagel group", doesn't actually seem to exist, according to Slate's Dave Weigel.

• George Zimmerman, the Florida "hero" who claimed that he was just "standing his ground" after having stalked and shot unarmed African-American teen Trayvon Martin last year has a) Reportedly burned through $300,000 in donated legal defense funds and is now considering asking the court to declare him "indigent", so the state would have to pay for his defense and b) Gained some 105 pounds since his arrest last year, according to ThinkProgress today. (Yes, that is what Zimmerman looks like now, at the top of this article.)

• But the most bizarre story of the day must surely be David Corn's at Mother Jones, where his latest investigative report into the profiteering "non-profit" racket called FreedomWorks (one of the nation's largest and most powerful so-called "Tea Party" groups) documents a video said to have been created by the group, but never shown publicly, which "included a scene in which a female intern wearing a panda suit simulates performing oral sex on Hillary Clinton." As Corn himself felt necessary to mention in an Author's note: "The previous sentence contains no typos."

Keep sending in those bucks to the Rightwing scam-artists, wingnuts! No, you're not being played for suckers in the least!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Special Coverage: Climate change takes center stage at the State of the Union address (though not in the corporate media) while activists and Senate Democrats turn up the heat ... 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): Fukushima: 3 youth diagnosed with thyroid cancer; GAO warns weather is changing; Superstorm Sandy 2nd costliest; $188b cost for weather disasters in two years; NY to ban Styrofoam cups?; NJ officials charged with poisoning drinking water; Tesla v. NYTimes; Solar 'glass' breakthrough; Fox News 'stands in way of energy security progress'; Refinery fire: Chevron refinery pipes 80% corroded; Industry ousts scientist from EPA panel ... PLUS: Global climate treaties work: Antarctic ozone hole smallest in 10 yrs ... and much, MUCH more! ...

"If a tree falls in the forest (because of global warming), but the media doesn’t report on it, does it make a sound?," asks Joe Romm at Climate Progress, along with a pretty incredible observation.

Romm highlighted the Washington Post's front page banner the day after this week's State of the Union speech, during which President Obama spent a rather large chunk of it on issues related to climate change and energy.

Nonetheless, when WaPo summarized the percentage of the speech devoted to each of the various topics mentioned during the address, here was the front page banner used to detail it on Wednesday (click graphic to enlarge):

As Romm notes:

Amazing.

But, maybe such things just aren't very important to the "State of the Union" after a year of record drought, record heat, and a record number of global warming-related natural disasters.

On today's KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast we covered the State of the Union Address last night, with extended focus on the President's call for election form and his new "Presidential Commission on Election Administration" [PDF], to be questionably co-chaired by Swift Boat GOP attorney Ben Ginsberg. As we noted yesterday, color us dubious about all of that.

My guest in the first half-hour was Marcia Johnson-Blanco, Co-Director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and we also discussed their recent report on "Our Broken Voting Systems And How to Repair It", as well as the upcoming February 27th U.S. Supreme Court hearing in Shelby County v. Holder, challenging the Constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act's Section 5 protection of jurisdictions with a history of discrimination at the voting booth.

Suffice to say, she was more optimistic about all of the above than I was.

In most of the second half of the show, we focused on the many environmental issues raised in Obama's State of the Union with the Green News Report's Desi Doyen. I'm not sure who was more (or less) optimistic in that half of the show.

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

Republican House Speaker John Boehner didn't seem to care for President Obama's State of the Union address tonight...

The Speaker "managed not to rise even for a shout-out to 'wounded warriors,' or 102-year-old Desiline Victor, who waited seven hours to vote in Miami on Election Day," notes Joan Walsh in "The night John Boehner just sat there".

But the biggest boner of the night came during Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) official Republican Response. The junior Senator and 2016 hopeful was apparently demonstrating the need for action on climate change, by personally re-enacting the nation's worst drought in fifty years. It all eventually led to what has now become known as the "gulp heard round the world"...

Don't worry, Marco. Nobody noticed. Except for everybody. And, of course, Deadspin, who has the entire moment in excruciating extreme slo-mo.

For more serious concerns about tonight's State of the Union address, see our earlier report.

[UPDATED THRICE following the State of the Union address.]

Ryan J. Reilly had the scoop at HuffPo tonight. We're about to get another bipartisan commission on voting reforms...

After the 2000 Presidential election fiasco, a bipartisan blue-ribbon commission headed by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford was created by Congress. The commission offered reforms that ultimately helped lead to the disastrous Help America Vote Act of 2002. That bill, among other things, offered some $4 billion in federal money to states in order to "upgrade" to computerized voting systems. Those same systems, using proprietary hardware and software from private vendors, tally votes in secret and continue to fail in election after election even today.

After the 2004 Presidential election fiasco, a private bipartisan commission was created, as The BRAD BLOG was the first to reveal, by high-level Republican operatives and former Bush/Cheney officials calling themselves the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR). The private commission, formed in secret, was headed by Carter and longtime Bush family friend James A. Baker III, the man who took Bush's 2000 fight to keep ballots from being counted in the state of Florida all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The inclusion of Baker on the commission led to an uproar from Election Integrity advocates, a furious response at The BRAD BLOG from the commission's Executive Director for our revelation of the scam, a letter from then Chair of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) stating his "strong opposition" to Baker's presence on the commission, and then a guest-blog from Conyers himself, here at The BRAD BLOG.

As Conyers noted at the time, and as the sham Baker/Carter commission's report ultimately showed, the private commission was created in order to lay the groundwork for polling place Photo ID restrictions down the road. "Make no mistake about it," Conyers wrote here at the time, detailing his belief that the commission's push for Photo ID restrictions was "more of the same old Ken Blackwell-style Republican electoral dirty tricks, where Democratic voters are deliberately disenfranchised so that Republicans can win elections."

While the privately created Baker/Carter commission was meant to appear similar to the official Ford/Carter blue-ribbon commission (Ford was ailing at the time of the second commission, so was replaced with Baker), we can only hope that whatever new commission President Obama has in mind won't end up with the same "dead-on-arrival" recommendations as the ones from Baker and Carter. Though those recommendations were roundly criticized at the time, they are still cited today --- as if they were official recommendations --- by Republicans hoping to disenfranchise legal American voters through new restrictions on voting.

UPDATE: Reilly at HuffPo had it right. The President announced his call for a new commission during his State of the Union address tonight...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: 'Too pooped to pope': Pope Benedict's green legacy; Did global warming find Nemo?; State of the Union - Obama's next act on climate change; Wind power now cheaper than coal in some countries; PLUS: Fox 'News' surrenders to Germany (in the clean energy race) ... 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): Koch-backed 'Tea Party' started in 2002 with Big Tobacco; Meet your newest national park; Shell's damaged Arctic drilling rigs go to Asia; Map of cities to avoid as sea levels rise; Keystone XL pipeline: Just Say No; National Journal covers rising costs of inaction on climate change; Bloomberg's clean energy investor factbook; Flame retardants linked to ADHD; Why the US drilling boom lowered gas prices ... PLUS: Energy Subsidies and the 'Free Market' Lie ... and much, MUCH more! ...

In the continuing "fight" over the automatic billions in federal subsidies granted to fossil fuel companies each year, versus the begging and pleading for similar subsidies that the renewables industry is forced to go through year after year, the Republicans have come up with a nifty pretend argument: "The government shouldn't be in the business of picking winners and losers!"

Of course, government has always done exactly that, and continues to do so each and every year by rewarding fossil fuel company "winners" with federal subsidies, despite record profits for many of them year after year. And, naturally, Republicans continue to support the government helping out those "winners".

But in a recent discussion in comments around this topic, BRAD BLOG commenter "Sven O" made a very good point over the weekend. It's worth highlighting here for those who weren't following the full thread:

Yup. So do you Rightwingers (and self-proclaimed libertarians) who think you believe in "free markets" really want such a market? I don't think you really do. But let us know...

It would be rather easy to double The BRAD BLOG's readership in a week or quadruple it in a month. It's a pretty simple matter to pound out short "Look What This Republican Idiot Did Today!" items and other similar knee-jerkery. It brings in tons of traffic. But there are plenty of places that do that. Instead, I've tried, since opening this joint almost 10 years ago, to offer stuff that actually matters. We may not always succeed, but that is always my hope. I have tried since our inception to choose carefully what we devote attention to, in hopes of publishing things that we can actually add something beyond "me too-ism." It has always been my goal to remain a unique place on the worldwide Internets where focusing on helping to better educate the electorate is the prime directive.

That, however, doesn't necessarily bring torrents of clicks and eyeballs. Yes, it's easy to offer crap that brings clicks. Sideboobage, literal and otherwise, makes lots of money for its progenitors, and it's really easy.

There is a reason that The BRAD BLOG does not receive regular financial support from either foundations or corporations, and it's not because I'm against the idea, in principle --- so long as we'd be allowed to maintain 100% editorial independence. But it's because we are truly independent here, unlike many of some of the finest progressive websites on the net, that we find ourselves now in our tenth year still raking the muck on our own, with only reader support to help keep us in rakes.

By way of just one recent example, I didn't even bother trying to pitch our exclusive investigative special report last week on what happened to the attempted Prop 37 "recount" to any other news sites. Though my independent work at such places helps to fund what we do here, it's unlikely that any of those sites, even progressive news sites, would be interested in paying for such a report that isn't particularly sexy and calls both Republican and Democratic officials on the carpet. It took some three weeks (at least) of digging and researching to make that report possible. And you'll only find that sort of work --- and my KPFK radio report that followed it in support --- generated here at The BRAD BLOG, despite how important I believe that story is to the nation; despite national election expert and UC Irvine law professor Rick Hasen declaring that it "calls for a legislative response"; and despite the fact that meetings are taking place this coming week in Sacramento to discuss what can be done about some of the problems that special report helped to expose.

I could detail many other things that The BRAD BLOG does and offers exclusively, or, at least, unlike any other place on the net, but hopefully you get the idea.

Nonetheless, despite my recent plea with our 9th Anniversary announcement, only a tiny fraction of the thousands who read this site regularly and/or every day, answered the call to chip in support to help keep us going. I'd really like to make it through our 10th year (and beyond!), but unless something around here changes, that may be very difficult, if not impossible.

So, not to belabor this, I'm going to simply re-run below the section from that recent announcement that includes easy options I hope more of you will consider using to help keep us going. We've got only a few signed books left. [We've now sold the last of those, thanks! So if you now want one, please grab one at the author, Marta Steele's website!]. My thanks to those of you who have already chipped in after previous recent pleas (and, especially, to those of you who signed up to be sustaining monthly supporters!). But, to be perfectly blunt, we need more help. If you can afford to do so, I hope you will consider it. If you can't, I certainly understand. I hate asking, but I must. Either that, or I can start running nothing but "Republicans Suck!" videos and sideboobage! You'll let me know what you prefer.

Here then, once again, are a few easy ways that you can help us keep going...

• ONE-TIME DONATION

If you are inclined, out of pure thanks for what we do here, and/or encouragement to continue, we'd ask that you hit our tip-jar with an online "anniversary gift" of any amount you'd like.

You can contribute with either a credit card or PayPal at that link. Alternately, snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" is also very much appreciated!

A one-time donation of any amount, from $10 to $1,000,000, is quite welcome! (We'll even be grateful for $5 if that's what you have to offer. Truly.)

• MONTHLY SUSTAINING SUBSCRIPTION

Even more than a one-time donation, sustaining, automated, monthly contributions of any amount you can comfortably afford is greatly appreciated as well.

Monthly sustaining subscriptions of any amount you like are a quick and easy matter to create, via credit card or PayPal, as you prefer, and help to keep us alive year round! (For amounts other than those in the drop-down box below, please see the form in the light blue box mid-way down our right sidebar where you can specify any number!)

Choose monthly amount...

$10: $10.00 USD - monthly $20: $20.00 USD - monthly $50: $50.00 USD - monthly $100: $100.00 USD - monthly

• COOL NEW PREMIUM OFFER!

[NOTE/UPDATE: We've now sold the last of the limited number of signed copies of Marta Steele's new book! Thanks for those who purchased! If you'd like one now, please grab one at Marta's website! And, otherwise, read on below to find out about this very cool new book, in which we are featured quite prominently throughout!]

The still unfolding events surrounding the murderous rampage that has allegedly been carried out by Christopher Jordan Dorner, a former LAPD officer who has vowed to take revenge for his 2009 job loss by killing other officers and their families, while tragic, provide a teachable moment.

The notion advanced by the National Rifle Association (NRA) that safety can be insured if law abiding citizens simply take up arms or by adding armed police inside our schools is nothing more than dangerous nonsense.

In this instance, as two people who had nothing to do with Dorner's rampage were mistakenly shot at dozens of times by police officers wrapped up in the manhunt, we saw what can happen when fear is added to the equation...

The massive operating deficits that have driven the U.S. Post Office to announce an end to delivery of First Class mail on Saturdays, beginning in August, are not the product of postal service ineptitude. Those deficits are not the product of increased public access to emails or from competition by private delivery services like UPS or FedEx.

The U.S. Postal Service has been victimized by the Orwellian-labeled Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA), which embodies a scheme designed to destroy the constitutionally established U.S. Postal Service in order to privatize mail and parcel delivery. In a lame duck session, at the peak of the USPS' profitability and productivity, a then Republican-controlled Congress forced the U.S. Postal Service "to pre-fund 75 years worth of pensions" in the span of ten years, "a requirement not made of any other public or private institution." If not for the onerous and unprecedented requirements of the PAEA, the U.S. Postal Service, which is not funded by any taxes, would now be experiencing a $1.5 billion surplus.

The contrived demise of the postal service must be understood within the broader subversive goals of libertarian and right wing philosophy --- a philosophy which, despite the express provisions of both the Preamble and Article I of the U.S. Constitution, rejects the right of government to "promote the general welfare"...

This is a map of annual sunlight in the U.S. and in Germany (on lower right), according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory...

Yet, this is how Fox Business Network "reporter" Shibani Joshi explained, on Fox "News" today, why it is that Germany leads the world in solar energy production, while "the hopes for solar in the U.S. have dimmed":

Sigh. See Media Matters for the full Fox video and actual facts and stuff, including the actual reason why solar energy is so successful in Germany, where, last year it powered about a third of the country's energies need on a single Friday in May, and a full 50% of its energy needs the next day on Saturday. (On average last year, solar accounted for some 4% of the country's energy needs, with other renewables there accounting for about 20% total. That, as the country, in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, moves away from nuclear entirely and attempts to replace all of that power with clear renewables. See our "UPDATE & CORRECTION" below for more details.)

And, while taking in all of the misinformation from Fox above, keep in mind that yesterday PPP released the results of its 4th Annual TV News Trust Poll which finds, among other things, 70% of Republicans still actually trust Fox "News". Even more incredibly, some 67% of Republicans trust Fox more than any other source.

Can't imagine why Republicans are so obscenely misinformed these days.

[Hat-tip @alutz3 on the Twitters.]

UPDATE & CORRECTION 2/9/2013: Fox' Joshi has now filed a correction, of sorts, buried on the Fox "News" website (as opposed to front and center on one of their highest watched programs, Fox and Friends, where she originally misinformed millions of Fox viewers. See below for that update and a correction of our own...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Obama nominates REI CEO for DOI; Historic Nor'easter to hit Nor'east, historic low water levels in Great Lakes; Ben & Jerry's junks GMOs; Saving Indonesia's rainforest; PLUS: Find the nation's biggest polluters - in your backyard... 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): "These big pools of oil will be burned if we choose to cook ourselves"; Air pollution linked to higher infant mortality; Flame retardants linked to ADHD: study; OH: Frackers illegally dump toxic fracking fluid into storm drain; Big Oil profiting from record high gas prices; BP objects to $34b spill bill from states; Faulty bolts halt offshore drilling; USDA reports climate change to slam farms, forests ... PLUS: AZ's anti-Agenda 21 bill wants to eat your brains ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Yesterday on KPFK/Pacifica Radio's BradCast I was joined by Tom Courbat, longtime Election Integrity advocate and 25-year former CA county fiscal manager, and Dr. John Maa, who initiated and paid for the first "recount" of a statewide initiative in California (Prop 29).

Courbat helped lead the coalition who recently attempted a "recount" of Prop 37, which would have required Genetically Engineered Foods to be labeled as such. Maa unofficially advised the group, until the entire process was blocked by the outrageous, and seemingly illegal, pricing set for hand-counting paper ballots in Fresno County by their Registrar of Voters Brandi Orth, as we detailed in our exclusive Special Report on Monday.

One election official, Orth, effectively stopped the attempted confirmation of the computer-tabulated results of the election dead in its tracks, and once again put the lie to the notion that secretly-tallied paper ballots are just fine because "we can always count them after an election if there are any questions about the results."

Unfortunately, both Orth and CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen declined to join us on the show today to discuss the disturbing facts we uncovered in our special report, which UC Irvine election law professor and nationally-recognized elections expert Rick Hasen linked to Tuesday night, along with his assessment that the seemingly "arbitrary" pricing of attempts to oversee our own elections "calls for a legislative response."

Plus, in the second part of the show, a few quick news items and, as usual, a visit from Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report.

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