Welcome aboard to the GNR's newest affiliate partner on our public airwaves --- Ohio's Progressive Talk, WVKO 1580am in Columbus!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Conservative World Bank warns of catastrophic climate change; For the first time, MotorTrend's 'Car of the Year' is all-electric!; CO2 emissions reach record highs; EPA slams Alaska's proposed Pebble Mine; Green up your Thanksgiving; PLUS: Urging universities to divest from fossil-fuel companies... 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): EU climate head wants Obama to pull his weight in global warming talks; Obama’s Game of Chicken with Big Ag; CIA closes climate center; US Board Issues Subpoena On Offshore Platform Blast; Nigeria Exxon spill spreads for miles along coast; CA carbon-credit auction raises $290M; Court sides with NRC on post-Fukushima reactor licensing; High breast cancer risk for plastics workers; U.S., Mexico pact on CO River water sale ... PLUS: Clean Break: A U.S.-Made Clean Energy Revolution? ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Some justice in the Gulf: Record fines for BP in Gulf Oil Spill disaster; October 2012 the 2nd hottest on record; CA launches landmark cap-and-trade system; PLUS: The Superstorm Sandy Effect: Obama says it's time to tackle climate change --- sort of ... 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): Refineries ran while 'offline,' yet gas prices rose; British government files charges against nuclear waste plant owners; Scientists show changing wind patterns are key driver of Antarctica's growing sea ice; EU climate head wants Obama to pull his weight in global warming talks... PLUS: Energy Independence: In Germany, everyone can be an energy producer ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: We're back! Obama wins and talks climate change, but will he --- can he --- deliver?; Grover Norquist vs. the Koch Bros.; Will US become the Saudi Arabia of oil?; PLUS: Superstorm Sandy was very 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): GA utility tries to muscle out solar startup; Forecast: drought and more drought; Chevron Refinery Fire: Chevron won't clean up; Bringing solar to military housing; Water Supply in a Warming World; Researchers Use Rust and Water to Store Solar Energy as Hydrogen; MRSA superbug found in US water treatment plants ... PLUS: CA's Cap-And-Trade System To Launch With First Pollution Permits Auction ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Last Saturday, we told you about a rare case of polling place voter fraud, when a Republican voter attempted to vote twice in Nevada during Early Voting in the state. Appropriately enough, she was quickly arrested and taking into custody by the FBI. Nevada's system of preventing double-voting at the polls worked well and efficiently, it seems, despite the woman's deluded, disinformed, Fox "News"-fueled belief to the contrary.

Now, however, 56-year old Roxanne Rubin, the woman who was arrested when she showed up for work at the Riviera hotel-casino last Friday for her attempted voter fraud, is reportedly claiming that she was just "testing" the system.

And she's not the only one. On Election Day, another Republican, this one a party-trained poll watcher, was detained in New Mexico after claiming to have been "testing" the system by obtaining a second ballot.

Ironically, after years of false allegations of "Democratic voter fraud" by the GOP and their minions, it has been Republicans this year who have been found defrauding the system in state after state, in case after case. They are failing their own "test"...

President Barack Obama may have voted for Mitt Romney yesterday when he cast his Early Vote at the Martin Luther King Community Center in Chicago's 4th Ward. Nobody knows for sure. Even him.

He cast his vote on a 100% unverifiable touch-screen e-voting system made by Sequoia Voting Systems (which is now owned by a Canadian firm named Dominion Voting.) It is scientifically impossible to ever know if his vote was recorded accurately, as per his itent, or not on that type of voting system.

"I can't tell you who I voted for," the President joked, as noted by our colleague Mark Crispin Miller in a short blog item today wryly headlined "Obama votes for Romney". The President's joke may not have been nearly as funny as he had intended it.

We confirmed with the Chicago Board of Elections that Early Voters in the Windy City must do so on the oft-failed, incredibly-vulnerable, and easily-hacked (see below for details) Sequoia AVC Edge touch-screen voting system which is still used according to VerifiedVoting.org's database for Early, Disabled-Accessible or Standard polling place voting in some 234 jurisdictions across all or part of some 13 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

On Election Day, the Board's Communication Director told The BRAD BLOG, voters are allowed to vote on their choice of either paper ballots (also tallied by Sequoia's incredibly faulty computer tabulators --- the same ones which announced losing candidates as "winners" in 3 different elections in Palm Beach County, FL earlier this year) or Sequoia's 100% unverifiable AVC Edge touch-screens.

The Intellectual Property of those Sequoia systems is still a proprietary trade secret owned by a Venezuelan firm named Smartmatic, which has been tied to the country's long-time President Hugo Chavez. That point was lied about by Sequoia's then CEO Jack Blaine when he was asked directly about it by a Chicago Alderman some years ago, as The BRAD BLOG detailed exclusively back in 2008.

Sequoia has since been purchased by the Canadian firm Dominion Voting, which also subsequently lied about the company's Intellectual Property being owned by the Chavez-tied company when they announced their takeover of Sequoia in 2010. Dominion confirmed as much when we called them on it after their announcement. And, yes, we are still the only ones to have reported that as well.

A few other quick points of note which should deeply concern every voter in the nation --- of any party, or none at all --- about the 100% unverifiable Sequoia touch-screen voting systems that the President foolishly entrusted yesterday to accurately record his vote...

Where, in Pennsylvania, the state GOP admitted that they are not aware of so much as a single instance in which an ordinary citizen has been charged with, let alone convicted of in-person voter impersonation --- the only form of voter fraud that can be prevented by disenfranchising polling place Photo ID restriction laws --- there have been a growing number of claims that political elites have used a false residence to vote, often to insure their own elections in a district where they do not reside.

On October 2, a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ordered that "Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon [D] and his wife will face trial on 23 felony counts of perjury and voter fraud" when the couple allegedly used a false address to both vote and qualify for elective office within LA's 7th district, according to Los Angeles Times. The Alarcons claim they were simply using a second home outside the district while their other home was being renovated.

The issue of false residency voter fraud is neither novel nor limited to Democrats like Alarcon. Indeed, as Brad Friedman has tirelessly documented, the issue of false residency voter fraud amongst high-profile Republicans --- including the GOP's 2012 nominee for President of the United States --- has approached epidemic proportions.

Class, as well as party, may explain the disparity between the ability of the elites to commit false residency voter fraud with near impunity as compared to the harsh impact of Photo ID laws that address a phantom menace as applied to the most vulnerable segments of our society.

Here are just a few recent cases of false residency voter fraud by some faces you will be very familiar with. Only one of them, to date, has faced any sort of actual accountability for their election crimes...

The trip across surface streets from LAX to the Space Shuttle Endeavour's new home at the California Science Center took at least 12 more hours than scheduled. We've had similar problems in L.A. traffic. But it became a real Los Angeleno on the way...

More Sunday photos of the trip from LA Observed's Gary Leonard here...

And some equally fantastic shots from Friday and Saturday here...

Here's one that's bound to be a classic...

And, for the historic record, here was our exclusive video of Shuttle Endeavour as it screamed just above The BRAD BLOG World News Headquarters on its final flight (until it's eventually taken out of mothballs to help destroy the incoming asteroid) a few weeks back.

Given the horrific cold we've been socked with upon returning home after a week on the road, it's nice to have a moment of non-political news to share with ya. Now back to bed...

On Thursday, we reported that the companies of Nathan Sproul, the man at the center of the GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, are still at work for Republicans in some 10 states. That, despite previous claims by the RNC that they'd fired his company, Strategic Allied Consulting, after fraudulent registration forms the firm collected on behalf of the Florida GOP were discovered in 12 counties across the state late last month, and reports that employees of the company destroyed Democratic registration forms in other states.

The RNC, which had a $3 million contract with Sproul (a paid political consultant of Mitt Romney's), claimed they fired his company --- the one Sproul says he created at the RNC's request, due to his long reputation for having been accused of doing the same thing in elections going back to 2004 --- because they had a "zero tolerance" policy for those involved in election fraud. Nonetheless, as detailed yesterday, several other companies of his, including one, Issue Advocacy Partners, with a nearly identical website to Strategic Allied Consulting, was found to be still operating in a whole bunch of states.

We had identified 10 such states in yesterday's report: Alabama, California, Georgia, Wisconsin, Iowa, Louisiana, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, and Virginia (with former Sproul associates reportedly at work in Ohio.)

Tonight, however, Joseph Tanfani at LATimes is reporting that, in fact, Sproul "is now hiring workers for a voter canvassing operation this fall in as many as 30 states"...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Paul Ryan lies about the Keystone XL pipeline; Arctic scientist cleared, Fox forgot to tell you; The Monsanto Effect: GMO crops cause a rise in superbugs and superweeds; Carmageddon 2's silver lining; PLUS: America's wilderness to remain wild --- for now ... 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): Fracking: casualties of Chesapeake's "land grab" across America; Fish May Shrink as Oceans Warm; Oregon: Return of White Salmon Marks River’s New Direction; The eco=footprint of bio-fuels: study; The 'true cost' of electricity: fossil fuels vs. wind & solar; EPA rules create $5 of good for each $1 they cost; Obama vs. Romney: A Stark Contrast on the Environment ... PLUS: Half of Great Barrier Reef lost in 3 decades... and much, MUCH more! ...

From Palm Beach to Richmond, from Las Vegas to Portland, it's not a coincidence, it's a coordinated GOP scheme intended to keep Obama supporters from signing up to vote.

While a major element of the Republican National Committee's strategy to game the 2012 elections by affecting who gets to vote and who does not has been cut off at the knees in the wake of a criminal election fraud complaint and other late developments in the still-widening GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, a disturbing and abhorrent nationwide GOP voter registration strategy may have also been revealed by it.

The coordinated strategy, as evidenced by recent video documentation emerging from a number of key states, includes registration workers screening out Democratic-leaning voters from registration drives in order to keep them from registering. The way it's done: lying to potential registrants about a "voter survey," rather than disclosing that workers are actually there to register voters --- but only Republican-leaning ones. The deceptive tactic has so far been seen this year in several of the five battleground states where the RNC's controversial, and potentially criminal, $3 million registration program was scuttled late last week after fraudulent registration forms were discovered to have been turned in by a shady firm hired by the RNC to sign up Republican voters in Florida and four other states.

The BRAD BLOG has also collected evidence suggesting that the dishonest registration tactic also appears to be in use in states where the RNC's firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, is not said to be operating, suggesting that the practice is not just one used by the discredited firm, but, rather, a nationwide voter scheme by the GOP.

Questions about the legality of the tactic are emerging as well, though the deplorable ethics of the practice, legal or otherwise, would seem to be beyond dispute.

Election officials in the five states where Strategic was paid some $3 million by the RNC to do voter registration, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, and Nevada, are now said to be in the process of scrambling to review tens of thousands of new and updated voter registration forms submitted by state Republican Parties, as collected by the firm owned by Nathan Sproul, a long-time, notorious GOP operative and paid political consultant of Mitt Romney's campaign. But the disturbing, and seemingly coordinated, tactic of registration workers instructed to misrepresent themselves in order to screen out potential Democratic voters is coming to light as a separate element of the GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal.

To date, The BRAD BLOG has documented instances of the phony "polling" tactic being used by Republican voter registration workers in Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Oregon, and, in years past, Tennessee and Minnesota. Our suspicion at the moment: What we have been able to discover to date is just the tip of the iceberg...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hey, fracking industry: you didn't build that, either!; Chevron caught cheating in SF refinery fire; Texas police Taser pipeline protesters; PLUS: BACONPOCALYPSE --- this time, global warming has gone too far! ... 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): Why is solar cheaper in Germany than the US?; Carbon tax could half deficit in 10 years; Obama must break 'climate silence'; EPA regs create $5 in benefits for every $1 in costs; Gov. Brown signs 'human right to water' bill; '100m to die' from global warming?; If US oil production is at all-time high, yet so are gas prices; Total Oil chief warns against drilling in Arctic ... PLUS: Obama vs. Romney: Stark contrast on the environment ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Over the weekend, this disturbing video of a voter registration worker at a Safeway grocery story in El Paso County, Colorado went somewhat viral...

The short video shows a young woman attempting to register voters outside the grocery store, but asking first: "I'm polling people. Would you vote for Romney or Obama?"

When the unidentified woman shooting the video tells the young lady she thought she was registering people to vote, the registration worker admits she is. The woman asks who she works for, and the young lady admits, "I'm actually trying to register voters for a particular party, because...we're out here in support of Romney, actually."

Then the woman asks her who is paying her for this work and the young lady, after a moment's pause, says, "We're working for the county clerk's office."

The woman is, understandably, aghast at the registration worker's response and asks again incredulously, "You're working for the county clerk's office?!"

"I believe so. Yes," replies the worker, shortly before the video ends.

As it turns out, the registration worker was not working for the El Paso County Clerk's office, according to responses sent to The BRAD BLOG by the CO Secretary of State's office as well as the El Paso County Clerk. Instead, she was a paid employee of the state Republican Committee, as confirmed by the local GOP Chairman. And, incredibly enough, both the Sec. of State and County Clerk, both Republicans, assert that what the registration worker is seen doing in the video, screening out potential voters based on who they might vote for, is absolutely legal in the state of Colorado...

Unlike the rigged votes at last week's Republican National Convention, the rigged vote during today's Democratic National Convention didn't have its results pre-determined by TelePrompter. Instead, it was left to Los Angeles Mayor and Convention Chairman Antonio Villaraigosa to simply ignore the shouts of "NO!", in passing an amendment this afternoon to the party platform "by a two-thirds vote in the affirmative"...

The otherwise-unscheduled vote came about after President Obama and the Democrats withered under several hours of GOP and Fox "News" criticism of the fact that the word "God" and recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, did not appear in this year's party platform. That, despite Obama's previously stated belief that the Israeli capital should be in an undivided Jerusalem, the existing platform reference to an "unshakable commitment to Israel's security", and the lengthy passage on faith and the importance of religion already present in this year's Democratic platform.

It took three tries, as seen in the video above, before Villaraigosa got up the nerve to pretend that the "Ayes" had it by the two-thirds majority required to adopt the amendment, which included restoring the party's 2008 platform language that had included the word "God", without debate. Well, Republicans and Fox "News" will be happy now at least. Right? And, after all, responding to fake Republican scandals, with a pretend vote, about an invisible bearded man floating in the sky, is certainly among the most important things that should happen at a Democratic National Convention.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Romney mocks climate change, while Obama doesn't, as the Democratic National Convention gets underway; Energy company CEO pushes for a price on carbon(!); Midwest drought now coming for your popcorn; PLUS: Speaking of 'popping' - Hurricane Isaac recovery, now with dead rats! ... 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): Summer of Fire 2012: new fires prompt evacuations in NE, CA; Organics no healthier than conventional foods - if you don't count pesticides and antibiotic-resistant superbugs; Israel solar industry struggling; Arctic ice melt: 1st sailboat in the Arctic Ocean; Shell gets a pass, clears another hurdle to Arctic drilling; Methane now contaminating PA water supplies; Study: humanity set to blow past 2 degrees Celisus warming ... PLUS: Labor Day 2040: Endless Summer ... and much, MUCH more! ...

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER?

President Obama, during his surprise Reddit chat last Wednesday, jumps into the Citizens United fray.

"I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn't revisit it)," President Barack Obama wrote last week during a surprise public Reddit chat.

"Consider mobilizing?" Groups like Move to Amend and Public Citizen initiated that mobilization shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court's radical-right quintet handed down that infamous decision in 2010. By July of this year, California had become the sixth state to call for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizen's United.

"Assuming the Supreme Court doesn't revisit it?" The Court had an opportunity to revisit Citizens United earlier this year, or at least to limit its impact to federal elections. Instead, the same radical-right quintet expanded the reach of that democracy destroying decision by overturning a Montana Supreme Court decision which had sought to uphold a century old, state anti-corruption law.

While the President's remarks will no doubt be welcomed by the already-mobilized movement, one should not lose sight of the fact that they fall far short of an endorsement of either Vermont's proposed constitutional amendment or the measure introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the U.S. Senate. Both efforts call for the end to "corporate personhood" and a determination that money does not equal free speech under the First Amendment.

If the President truly desires to spotlight what amounts to a hostile corporate takeover of our democracy, he will confront Mitt "corporations are people, my friend" Romney in the upcoming Presidential debates with an openly stated support for a constitutional amendment that, as the Sanders measure provides, establishes that the "rights protected by the Constitution...are the rights of natural persons and do not extend to for-profit corporations, limited liability companies, or other private entities established for business purposes." Indeed, that position could frame the issue for all candidates seeking public office in the 2012 election.