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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Catastrophic floods in Pakistan & India; Historic flooding in Phoenix, AZ; Continuing denialism on Fox 'News'; Hillary Clinton says global warming is both a crisis and an opportunity; Rand Paul isn't interested; PLUS: A win for the Lobster Boat Blockade, and climate action ... 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): CO2 levels in atmosphere rising at dramatically faster rate; The end of fracking is closer than you think; US quietly forwards tar sands pipelines without environmental review; 'Black fingers of death' could help fight climate change; Landfill workers told toxic coal ash waste 'safe enough to eat'; Big Oil's many new 'grassroots' front groups in California' The Ugly Denier: a real and present danger ... PLUS: Watching the world slip away: how kids are responding to climate change ... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've written about this problem for years here and, indeed, have spent no small part of those years repeatedly spanking papers like the New York Times for being amongst the worst repeated offenders.

Fairness is one thing. Balance, on the other hand --- particularly in cases of known, independently-verifiable, well-established facts on one side of an issue but not on the other --- is largely bullshit meant to do little more than level an unlevel playing field for bad guys. That's why Fox "News" loves the motto "Fair and Balanced", because it gives them an excuse to forward bullshit disguised as "balance", as if it was only fair to counter an established, well-supported (if not Right-leaning) view point. Never mind if that established view point has mountains of evidence and independently verifiable facts to support it. If those facts don't agree with ideological Republican dogma, they must be "biased" and "unbalanced".

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias," Stephen Colbert once famously quipped.

The New York Times has a long history of falling for, and forwarding in "the paper of record", false balance produced by those on the Right. Often, as was the case when The BRAD BLOG outed the James O'Keefe ACORN "Pimp" Hoax for being a complete fraud in 2010, the paper has sided simply with the word of Rightwingers, actual evidence-before-their-eyes be damned. Longtime readers will likely remember Greg Brock, the Times' Senior Editor for Standards(!), telling us that falsely reporting O'Keefe wore a "pimp costume" into ACORN offices (he never, ever did) was perfectly appropriate, because, as Brock explained to us in email at the time, "Our article included that description because Mr. O'Keefe himself explained how he was dressed --- and appeared on a live Fox show wearing what HE said was the same exact costume he wore to ACORN's offices."

"If there is a correction to be made," Brock incredibly added, "it seems it would start with Mr. O'Keefe himself. We believe him. Therefore there is nothing for us to correct."

After we took our complaint, and the independently verifiable facts to support them, to Clark Hoyt, the New York Times Public Editor at the time, he embarrassingly backed up Brock, despite the actual hard evidence that existed --- such as an independent investigative report from a former prosecutor and the videos themselves --- to the contrary. His remarkable defense of that egregious and damaging misreporting, repeated over a series of articles, earned Hoyt an infamous depiction as an actual "weasel" by cartoonist Tom Tomorrow. Eventually --- some six months later --- Hoyt admitted that both he and the paper were wrong, but not before the false reporting led to irreversible damage to ACORN, which had been long-vilified by the Right for little more than the crime of legally registering millions of largely low- and middle-income voters to participate in their own democracy.

So it's refreshing, finally, to see that the Times' current Public Editor, Margaret Sullivan, is not only not falling for the same old crap, she's actually attempting to hold the paper accountable for inappropriately advancing false balance on Rightwing stalking horse issues like pretend GOP claims about voter fraud and global warming denialism. And she's doing so repeatedly...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Fire and explosion at Indiana refinery with a history of exploding; UN climate report warns of 'irreversible' global warming; Million-dollar fines for oil and chemical spills; Renewable energy now produces 22% of world's electricity; PLUS: Get ready for the People's Climate March on Sept. 21 in NYC ... 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): "An actual exit from climate hell"; 4 scenarios of our global warming future; Unpackaged: German market revolutionizes shopping; Hawaii's largest utility will triple rooftop solar by 2020; US coal industry in free fall; Yosemite Rim Fire trees to be logged; Ocean acidification is killing Bay Area's oyster industry ... PLUS: Erick Erickson really wants you to know he doesn't care about global warming ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Breaking: Sudden storm ravages campground in VA; New rules for explosive oil trains; Big win in small Maine town over Big (tar sands) Oil; Sunday news shows discover global warming exists; PLUS: We're No.1! America and Rush Limbaugh lead the world...in global warming denial ... 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): Attack of the Chicago climate change maggots; Solar car sets new land speed record; Republicans always listen to the Pentagon --- except on climate change; Self-cooling solar cells generate more output; Oil industry damaged PA water sources 200+ times; Amid CA drought, Nestle guzzles private water; Forest managers ban exploding shooting targets over fire fears ... PLUS: National Hockey League warns global warming threatens hockey's future ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Record wildfires burn a million acres in the Pacific Northwest; It's official: June 2014 was the hottest June globally on record; EPA moves to block massive Pebble Mine; California moves to block oil industry polluting groundwater; PLUS: Wanna cut your emissions? Then cut the beef... 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): Study vindicates climate models accused of ‘missing the pause’; Wildlife refuges ban bee-killing pesticide; Obama administration approves seismic testing for oil off Atlantic coast; NY seeks to shut down Indian Point nuclear plant to protect fish; Freedom Industries proposes $3m settlement for chemical spill; Portland, Maine fights off tar sands pipeline; CA couple fined for brown lawn while conserving water; Australia's drought caused by carbon emissions ... PLUS: Poll: U.S. Leads The World… In Climate Denial ... and much, MUCH more! ...

During an appearance last week on the Allan Handelman Show on WSJS in North Carolina --- a state, like almost every one in the union now, where non-corporatist, non-wingnut views are almost non-existent over our public airwaves --- I was discussing the state Republicans' new voter suppression law, which is, hands-down, the most draconian in the nation since the era of Jim Crow was supposed to have ended.

While a Rightwing caller, apparently, was on hold to participate in the show, I detailed the fact that the polling place Photo ID restriction part of the GOP law (just one part of their horrific anti-voting statute) would do nothing to prevent so-called "voter fraud", since polling place impersonation is, for all intents and purposes, non-existent in this country, as this 2012 study by a non-partisan news consortium, detailing every known and/or reported incident of election or voter fraud in all 50 states going back to 2000, illustrated once again.

Once the caller "Jay" finally made it to air, his admission was quite revealing --- and even courageous --- yet illustrative of just about everything that is wrong with our corporate media (and the politics it has created) these days.

What he had to say is not what you'd probably expect. Give it a listen...

Download MP3 or listen online below. [Appx 9 mins, lightly edited to cover for a commercial break between two segments]...

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...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Huge Christian organization divests from fossil fuels; Germany pledges $1 billion to international climate fund; Australia slides backward to repeal carbon tax; Step aside, Formula One racing: all-electric Formula E is on your tail; PLUS: Climate denier Rupert Murdoch's Big 'But' ... 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 long will world's oil reserves last? 53 years, says BP; Clear differences between organic and non-organic food; Chevron admits oil shale will use huge amounts of West's water; US oil consumption still rising; Nuclear waste plan unsafe, panel told; Midwestern farmers fight 'superweeds' of their own making; 7 earthquakes in OK in 1 day; Early fire season destroys homes in PacNW ... PLUS: Neverglades: Sorry, Time Magazine, South Florida IS Drowning ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Debunking Neil Cavuto of Fox 'News' and the 1970's 'global cooling' myth; Anti-science nuttery alive and well in Kentucky...and Mars; BP oil still contaminating fish in the Gulf; Canada's tar sands linked to cancer spike in First Nations tribes; PLUS: Popular pesticide may be killing off the birds and the bees ... 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): Federal government still spending billions to subsidize fossil fuels; Global warming at root of ‘utterly unprecedented’ summer flood; Helsinki's ambitious plan will make cars obsolete; Most Americans say they'll vote against climate change deniers; Carbon pollution standards reduce electricity rates; Greenpeace tells Lego 'everything is not awesome'; Fossil fuels are the new subprime investments; Australia climate politics stranger than fiction ... PLUS: Even if coal were free, it couldn’t compete with solar ... and much, MUCH more! ...

We had a very enlightening conversation with The Nation's Ari Berman, straight out of the courtroom in North Carolina, on today's KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast.

Ari is in NC covering this week's hearings in federal court challenging what we've described as "the nation's most restrictive voter suppression law", as enacted by state Republicans just days after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act last summer.

This case --- and NC's law --- are really amazing. Most importantly, the results of this challenge, and the way the VRA must now be used to fight to protect voters from discriminatory laws, will be very important to similar challenges now pending across the country. In other words, this fight is important to NC, but it's arguably even more important to the entire nation.

Next up, we discussed the Rightwing stooge "reporter" Matthew Boyle, responsible for the fake 2012 story about a U.S. Senator and Dominican prostitutes, and my run-in with that same fake journalist back in 2011.

Then, Desi Doyen joins us for a few thoughts on Kentucky's genius climate change denying state Senator Brandon Smith and, as usual, for the latest Green News Report.

As a listener noted on Facebook tonight: "What a heavy duty broadcast today's was!", before adding: "It. Was. Awesome. And scary." Well, thanks! And you're welcome!

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

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...

With the story about the 2012 hit job against NJ's Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez back in the news, it seems a good time to remind folks about the clown, Matthew Boyle, who originally wrote the now-discredited article breaking the fake "news" at Tucker Carlson's The Daily Caller.

We had a run-in with Boyle in 2011, posted below, that may give you an idea of just how this pretend journalist sources his stories --- or doesn't.

For those who may not recall, Boyle wrote a story for The DC, just before the 2012 election, claiming that Menendez had been enjoying the services of Dominican hookers while on a number of vacations down there. The supposed hookers were featured in a video including with Boyle's original reporting, claiming that they hadn't been paid properly by Menendez and were seeking revenge...or something.

The whole story turned out to be phony and was eventually pulled off line by Carlson's "news" site. The women on the video admitted they had been paid by someone to make their claims, and not long thereafter Boyle left The Daily Caller. He is now a featured "investigative journalist" at the even less credible Rightwing "news" site (if there can be such a thing), Breitbart.com.

The Menendez story has resurfaced once again, as the Washington Post ran an exclusive this week, claiming that an unnamed government source had evidence that the entire matter was a hit job planted by Cuban intelligence agents, intended to hurt Menendez just before the election, as the Senator is reportedly an ardent opponent of Cuban and was set to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. WaPo claims that someone identifying themselves as "Pete Williams" had been shopping the story around to a bunch of media outlets, unsuccessfully, until Boyle was happy to fall for it at The Daily Caller. So-called "Pete Williams," WaPo reports, was actually a front for a Cuban agent.

Boyle now claims that he worked "with a wide array of sources in reporting on the story" originally, and that "there were no indications that they were connected to or working for the Cuban government." He also claims that the "Pete Williams" character "was not a source for the original story and never provided non-public information to this reporter."

But Boyle claims a lot of things. And the problem is, he appears to simply make shit up out of whole cloth as needed to defend his crappy "reporting". That point became pretty clear during a conversation I had with Boyle on Twitter back in 2011, in response to another terribly sourced story that he had run that day at The DC...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Japan hit with monster typhoon, while Hurricane Arthur breaks a record on the US East Coast; No time for deniers: BBC smacked for false balance in climate change coverage; Voters reject climate change-denying politicians; Paltry fine for Freedom Industries poisoning drinking water in WV; Oklahoma now the nation's earthquake capitol - thanks, fracking!; PLUS: NASA's new climate eye in the sky ... 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): Pope calls exploitation of nature a sin; Solar cheaper than coal in Australia; Renewable energy provides 1/3rd of Germany's electricity; More US jobs in solar industry than coal industry; Deniers denyin' again in the Daily Mail; Extensive soil pollution in China; Court upholds cities' right to ban fracking ... PLUS: KY State Senator: Mars temperatures exactly the same as Earth ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Big Coal baron says Obama's 'evil', attacks wildly popular new EPA emissions standards; CNBC busted seeking climate change deniers; PLUS: Acting on climate and clean energy would boost global economy by $3 trillion dollars, finds World Bank ... 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): Voters more likely to back climate-friendly candidates; Plastic debris widespread on ocean surface; Hanford nuclear site workplace secrecy agreements may violate federal whistleblower laws; Arkansas spill pollution case against Exxon can proceed: court; Canadian government's own experts warn of climate change, urge action; Boom meets bust in Texas: atop a sea of oil, poverty digs in; Polar Vortex silver lining raises water levels in Great Lakes .... PLUS: Russian hackers threaten power companies, US energy infrastructure ... and much, MUCH more! ...

I was interviewed over the weekend by OpEd News' Joan Brunwasser on the death of the recent 'Recounts for the Rich' legislation that had been sailing through the CA legislature until The BRAD BLOG's exclusive exposé detailing exactly what it would mean for citizen election oversight highlighted the dangers of the provision and helped to kill it.

See my thoughts on that, the Dems who were helping to pass the terrible Republican bill, some other recent voting news (both good and bad) for California, and a few other related thoughts (like who I really blame for all the Supreme Court disasters of late) in my interview with Joan...

In related news, I hope you'll take a moment this week to read Charles Lewis' article at Politico, "Why I Left 60 Minutes", for yet another helpful reminder of the radical importance of truly independent media, and why I so much need your help to survive here to continue all that we do.

My great thanks to those who have already donated of late! But if you haven't, please consider doing so. A one time donation is great. A monthly sustaining contribution is even better, as it may help, if we can get enough of them, to bring at least some stability to what we're able to do here as we head into another general election season, and as our eleventh year fighting as many good fights as we can, continues...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The gloves are off - President Obama now just openly mocking climate change deniers; Pesticides linked to autism (again) and death of beneficial insects (again); Extreme weather kicks the FIFA World Cup in Brazil; PLUS: Shocker: Fox 'News' says the globe is cooling. They are wrong. (Again.)... 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): Is Congress lifting US crude oil export ban? No, not really.; If you think US climate politics are crazy, wait'll you see what just happened in Australia; Detroit shutting off water to thousands; Next-gen GMO crops are here and will increase use of pesticides; Doctors fail to instruct pregnant moms on toxic chemical risks; New study proves air pollution regulations save lives.... PLUS: 1 In 10 U.S. beaches too polluted for swimming ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. Supreme Court upholds EPA authority on greenhouse gas emissions --- again; It's official - May 2014 was the hottest May on record; Canada's First Nations vote to fight the other tar sands pipeline; PLUS: Titans of Wall Street warn climate change is really, really expensive ... 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 Rupert Murdoch created the world’s newest climate change villain; Carbon tax would boost global economy up to $2.6T a year; Autism risk higher near pesticide-treated fields; Save the Bees: widespread impacts of neo-nicotinoids 'impossible to deny; Insecticides put world food supplies at risk; Silver lining: CA drought is stopping spread of Sudden Oak Death disease; Feds failing to inspect over 1k high risk oil and gas wells .... PLUS: These maps show how many brutally hot days you will suffer when you're old ... and much, MUCH more! ...