Wisconsin's far Rightwing Republican Supreme Court Justice David Prosser has come up with a novel way of demonstrating his fake conservative bona fides. According to a report over the weekend by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (a paper which endorsed Prosser in his recent Supreme Court election bid), Prosser is said to have attempted to make government smaller a few weeks ago, by placing fellow Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley into a chokehold.

Hey, at least he didn't attempt to drown her in a bathtub.

"The facts are that I was demanding that he get out of my office and he put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold," Bradley told the Journal Sentinel.

The incident, confirmed to the paper by other sources also present when it is said to have occurred, happened on the day prior to the court's decision on the legality of Gov. Scott Walker's bill legislating away the right for public employees to collectively bargain.

An alternate description of the incident, offered by supporters of Prosser's, is that he, not Bradley, was the victim in the alleged assault. Prosser has claimed victim-hood in other incidents in the recent past after being called out for abusive treatment of his fellow (female) Supreme Court Justices...

The Reuters story on Newt Gingrich --- serial adulterer, currently on his third marriage --- decrying New York's newly adopted marriage equality law was amusing and ironic enough on its own...even without the terribly unfortunate, if indescribably delightful, typo in the third paragraph...

Moments ago, the New York state Senate approved a marriage equality bill by a vote of 33 to 29. The legislation, previously approved in the state Assembly, will result in NY becoming the sixth state where same-sex marriage is allowed.

After Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs the bill, as expected, New York will join Massachusetts, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut and Washington D.C. in recognizing equal justice for all, as per the U.S. Constitution, in regard to marriage.

The right to marry was confirmed by conservative Supreme Courts in both California and Maine, but in each state, ballot initiatives were passed in hopes of nullifying that right. California's Prop 8, a state constitutional amendment banning equal marriage rights, has since been found unconstitutional in federal court, and is likely to be decided, eventually, in the U.S. Supreme Court.

NY's state Senate is the first legislative body with a Republican-majority to approve a bill for marriage equality.

The victory for real conservatives will result in a doubling of the number of Americans guaranteed equal marriage rights under the law.

And, once again, as a service to fake conservatives --- such as those who oppose equal rights for gay, fellow citizens, to marry each other --- a reminder: Even once this bill is signed into law, gay marriage will remain optional, not mandatory, in the state of New York.

UPDATE 9:18pm PT: Via AP...

...And the Empire State Building is lit in rainbow colors in celebration.

According to explosive new assertions from a credible former CIA agent, President Barack Obama's administration is said to have attempted to use the CIA to target, spyon, and smear an American conservative blogger and university professor on Middle-Eastern affairs, simply because he opposed the President's policies in Libya.

The alleged attempt to use the powerful U.S. intelligence agency for domestic spying and/or discrediting of a private American citizen would be in gross violation of the law disallowing domestic use of the agency. Uncomfortably, it's also precisely what so many on the Right have long warned of in regard to this President's proclivity for turning Big Government apparatchiks against the freedoms and liberties of private, law-abiding citizens simply because they dared to use their constitutionally protected rights of free speech to criticize his policies. It would also be, as folks on the Right have also long charged, a gross violation of the U.S. Constitution, which the President is sworn to defend, rather than abuse.

Republicans in Congress have vowed to investigate the matter, while Democrats, hypocritically and shamefully, have remained completely silent.

Given this startling and exceedingly troubling news --- particularly in light of Democrats ignoring the revelations, after so many years of charging George W. Bush with similar behavior --- we have to admit that perhaps we were too quick to ridicule the many Tea Party patriots for their warnings about the dangers of Obama's Stalinist and Maoist tendencies!

If the details of this story turn out to be true --- and so far, they certainly seem credible, as the blogger/professor says he was no longer invited to CIA conferences following the incident --- as much as we'd hate to admit it, we'd suggest impeachment or even legal proceedings against the President of the United States would be entirely appropriate here.

CORRECTION: It's a little embarrassing, but it appears we got at least one key detail in the above story completely wrong...

As a new report from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) [PDF] is released today, documenting a rapid rise in U.S. Islamophobia and asserting that anti-Muslim rhetoric in this country has doubled between 2009 and 2010 for some odd reason, I'm reminded of one of my favorite calls from the past week sitting in as guest host of the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show on radio.

"Josh", a Right-leaning caller from Madison, WI and a self-identified "civil" and "very fair" person was incredulous that Wisconsin's new voter-suppressing polling place Photo ID restrictions would actually disenfranchise any voters, since they would have a year, he said, to get themselves one if they didn't already have one.

Most telling, though, was the way "Josh" --- a seemingly nice guy, but one who has been used and abused by the folks on the Right who are playing him for an idiot --- began his call explaining what a fair person he was because, as he informed me, he "used to have a Muslim co-worker" with whom he was able to "sit and talk". They even "used to be able to debate" without, presumably, the Muslim co-worker trying to blow him up or, I guess, vice versa!

Here's my amusing/distressing conversation with "Josh" from the Tuesday, June 21 Mike Malloy Show. [Appx 4.5 mins]...

Sigh...

By the way, here's some information on those 80- and 90-year old nuns turned away from the polling place in 2008 for lack of Photo ID, as I mentioned in reply to "Josh" during the call. And here are the remarkable hoops those nuns, and everybody else in Indiana, must now jump through in order to keep their vote from being completely thrown out if they don't happen to have an Indiana-issued Photo ID on Election Day.

Ironic, all of that, particularly in light of Charlie White, Indiana's new Republican Sec. of State (charged with overseeing the state's election laws), who is currently facing 7 felony indictments, 3 of them for voter fraud, which, curiously enough, were not detected or deterred by Indiana's draconian, voter-suppressing, polling place Photo ID restrictions. But, I guess, he's not a 90-year old nun, a student, or a WWII veteran.

PETER FALK, 1927 - 2011

I must say, I am particularly saddened by this one. Yes, I was a very big fan.

The "Hello From Peter" page, the front page of Falk's website until he became ill from Alzheimer's, helps make his charms immediately apparent (see below)....

As leading Democrats finally begin to say out loud what many of us have observed for years, that the GOP is dead set on sabotaging the U.S. economy (and the U.S. with it) in order to re-gain the White House, I spoke with investigative journalist Robert Parry about his recent article "Making the US Economy 'Scream'" on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show today.

"Over the past several decades, Republican methods for winning national power have come to resemble CIA techniques for destabilizing an enemy country --- through the use of black propaganda, political skullduggery and economic disruptions," Parry argues rather convincingly in his article which is also cross-posted at Alternet under the title, "The GOP's CIA Playbook: Destabilize Country to Sweep Back into Power".

So with the GOP doing what they've done now for years, placing party far ahead of country --- and, as Parry explains, mirroring strategies used in the past to take down foreign nations like Chile --- who is really to blame for the destruction they continue to wreak? Them? The media for enabling them? The Democrats for having no apparent strategy to counter them? Or the American public, for being gullible enough to fall for it time and time again?

My conversation with Parry today on all of the above (and a few words about Obama's "draw down" from Afghanistan), follows below.

Download MP3, or listen online here [appx 27 mins]...

[Now UPDATED with tonight's audio archives below...]

It's our final night for a while guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show as the Malloys return from summer break tomorrow night! [Pausing for cheers.]

So we're back for one more night, BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT) tonight, coast-to-coast and around the globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE and lively chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight (so far):

• ME, YOU (AND DESI DOYEN!), Yup, we'll be taking the opportunity to catch up on all the stuff we haven't been able to cover over the past week, including Wisconsin, GOP voter fraud and much more, and even a visit from the Green News Reports' Desi Doyen!

• PLUS: Anything else of note today, and whatever is on your mind via calls to 877-520-1150 and tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: My thanks to you all for a great week on the Malloy Show! We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when...but until then, you can listen to tonight's commercial-free audio archives and read the chat room archives, all down below. Enjoy!...

More from the toon's artist, Joel Pett:

[Now UPDATED with tonight's audio archives below!...]

We're back guest hosting for two more nights on the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show as the Malloys' summer break continues!

Once again, we'll be BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT) tonight, coast-to-coast and around the globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE and lively chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight (so far):

• TOMMY CHRISTOPHER, online journalist at Mediaite on being scammed by fictional sources in his "WeinerGate" reporting, and on his full-throated defense of Rightwing scam-artist Andrew Breitbart.
• RICHARD AVERETT, author of the new book ImaginePolitik, featuring a fictional character by the name of "Brad Friedman" who instructs a third-party "Independent Progressive Party" Presidential candidate who has just been named President-elect that his "victory" may likely have been due to electronic election fraud on touch-screen voting machines in the state of Georgia! Totally implausible, of course!
• PLUS: The many crimes, "Judicial Insider Trading" and increasingly apparent ethical bankruptcy of Justice Clarence Thomas, plus everything else of note today, including whatever is on your mind via calls to 877-520-1150 and tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Tonight's archives follow below, both commercial-free audio and chat room. Enjoy!...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below...]

We're back again tonight guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show, as we will be through next Tuesday!

We're BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT) again tonight, coast-to-coast and around the globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE and lively chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight:

• KEN MORRIS & JEANNE "AKMUCKRAKER" DEVON, on their new book Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years and how lead author Frank Bailey, a former aide to Palin, partnered up with Morris and Devon (progressive publisher of the virulently anti-Palin Alaska blog "The Mudflats", to write this book.
• PLUS: GOP election fraud charges in MD; ACORN exonerated yet again; Fukushima is worse than the media and governments are telling us; and much more, including whatever's on your mind via calls to 877-520-1150 and tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Another lively show tonight, with a lot of different topics along the way! The audio (and chat room) archives follow below. Enjoy!...

Via Oliver Willis:

Hat-tip Washington Monthly's Steve Benen who adds:

Of course, the new indictments handed down against Ehrlich's aides in MD (Ehrlich ended up losing the election anyway) are hardly the only examples of GOP election fraud going on out there, even as there are rarely indictments for any of it.

We recently detailed the story of the high-ranking Clay County, KY, election officials (including the County Clerk, a circuit court judge, and the school superintendent --- and other members of the County Election Commission) who were sentenced to a combined total of some 150 years in the federal penitentiary jail, for gaming elections for years in the county via buying and selling votes as well as, in 2006, actually changing the votes of voters on electronic touch-screen voting machines.

That's election fraud. As to actual voter fraud --- the thing that Republicans pretend exists in epidemic form, but doesn't, so they can use the propaganda to bolster implementation of their disenfranchising polling place Photo ID voter suppression schemes --- early this week we reported on the new complaint filed against former GOP Governor and current Republican Presidential front-runner Mitt Romney for having committed voter fraud in the state of MA. It appears that Romney voted in MA last year, even though he no longer actually lived there.

The facts of the case highlight Romney as just the latest in a rapidly growing list of high-profile GOP vote fraudsters, as detailed in our article, including Utah's former Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. (also set to run for the GOP Presidential nominee), Indiana Sec. of State Charlie White (who's already been indicted for 3 voter fraud related felonies), Missouri's U.S. Rep. Todd Akin (who's running for U.S. Senate), and GOP voter fraud queen Ann Coulter.

The complaint against Romney was filed by fellow GOP Presidential candidate Fred Karger, who was my in-studio guest last night on the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show (which I'm guest hosting this week and the beginning of next). The audio from my interview with Karger last night about his voter fraud investigation and complaint against Romney, and much more, can be downloaded here [MP3], or listened to online below...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below...]

We're back guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show for the next few weeknights --- tonight through next Tuesday! Hope you can join us!

We'll be BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT) each night, coast-to-coast and around the globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE and lively chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight (so far):

• FRED KARGER, the GOP 2012 Presidential candidate who has filed a "voter fraud" complaint against GOP front-running Mitt Romney in MA. Karger, as the first openly gay Presidential candidate from a major party is also an activist, who organized boycotts against many of the corporate supporters of CA's Prop 8 banning marriage equality in the state. LIVE IN STUDIO!
• ERNEST CANNING, attorney and The BRAD BLOG's legal correspondent on the recent incitement to violence/murder by Rightwing broadcaster Neil Boortz over our public airwaves.
• PLUS: Media and Democratic Party idiocy over Anthony Weiner; good (and bad) news on Constitutional rights; Bush admin CIA targeted an American middle-east expert/blogger; Fake civil war in the Republican/U.S. Chamber of Commerce Party; and much more, including whatever's on your mind via calls to 877-520-1150 and tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Fast-paced show, with a GREAT interview with Fred Karger right in the middle! Be sure to give it a listen! The audio archives (and chat room archives) follow below. See ya again tomorrow night!...

Now, before I forget, a quick note to say that a) I'll be guest hosting the Mike Malloy Show again beginning tomorrow (Thursday), weekdays through next Tuesday and b) I will have what is no doubt a Malloy Show first on tomorrow night's show: one of my guests will be a 2012 Republican Presidential candidate. Which one? You're welcome to guess, but otherwise, stay tuned.

And with that extra time we had today, I was finally able to take some calls for a change (plus, discuss Mitt Romney's alleged voter fraud and some related issues). That was our first half-hour of the show, which you can listen to below.

In the last 60 minutes, I was delighted to have two guests, together, who had never spoken in person previously. The first is conservative/libertarian D.R. Tucker --- whose recent column, "Confessions of a Climate Change Convert" was published at former Dubya speechwriter David Frum's FrumForum.com. The must-read article begins "I was defeated by the facts." It then proceeds to explain how the man who had previously "joined others on the right in dismissing concerns about climate change," and felt that "any movement associated with Al Gore and Van Jones couldn't possibly be trusted, that environmentalists were simply left-wing, anti-capitalist kooks."

My second guest was Grist.org's progressive environmental and political journalist David Roberts, who responded to Tucker's astonishing column with an "Open letter to a conservative climate change convert," congratulating the former skeptic on having bothered to read the actual facts (some 900 pages of them, as found in the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), encouraging him to keep learning and offering several points where conservatives and greens might be able to begin to find common ground on this issue.

And so, it was my hope that we'd be able to use radio to actually work on finding solutions, for a change, rather than exacerbate conflict. And so we did in the second hour, after Tucker explained his remarkable conversion. That too is also available below for your listening pleasure (or displeasure)...

Last night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow led off with the story we covered on Monday concerning Mitt Romney's apparent voter fraud in the state of Massachusetts.

Her piece includes an interview with GOP Presidential candidate Fred Karger, the man investigated the case and who filed an official complaint against Romney in the Bay State on Monday...

Maddow's excellent report does not, however, delve into the recent and growing spate of high-profile GOPers who have, or appear to have committed similar felony voter fraud violations --- such as Romney's potential fellow Mormon GOP Presidential hopeful Gov. Jon Huntsman, Missouri's GOP U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin, Indiana's Republican Sec. of State Charlie White (who is currently facing 3 voter fraud-related indictments), or GOP voter fraud queen Ann Coulter.

Neither does she take the opportunity of noting the hypocrisy of Romney's (and the others) apparent voter fraud, when taken side-by-side with the current Republican jihad in state after state across the country to impose disenfranchising polling place voter suppression measures.

Our Monday story on Romney's apparent voter fraud, should you be interested, covers all of the above.