TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Dems call for probe in U.S. Chamber of Commerce plot to target citizens like us; Indictment in WV coal mine disaster investigation; Deepwater drilling permits resume in the Gulf, but that's still not good enough for Republicans; Climate scientists in fake 'ClimateGate Scandal' vindicated --- AGAIN; PLUS: More on the WI GOP power play to privatize Wisconsin's power plants ... 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): NYT "fracking" bombshell: toxic & radioactive water dumped in rivers; US v. Tim DeChristopher, climate activist; House Democrats launch investigation into 'fracking' on public lands; Anonymous turns firepower against Billionaire Koch Bros.; 80% of US antibiotics go to factory farm animals; Ad Age slams Chevron ad campaign; House Republicans bring back styrofoam; SunChips tries again with quieter bag; Supreme Court halts NYC's push for hybrid taxis; NYC classroom scores 100% PCBs; Soaring oil prices, a popular argument for just about anything; BP fund lawyer to refuse 100k Gulf spill disaster claims, while BP asks judge to dismiss them; Australia stuck with desalination white elephant; Skyrocketing water bills anger GA residents; Glenn Beck says 350.org is part of a communist plot (and Bill McKibben's response); Arctic sea ice at new record low ... PLUS: China leadership issues stunning warning on climate & growth...

Via TPM who asks, "What 'Shellacking'?"...

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Getting "Gas"-y at the Oscars; Freakin' Frackin'; Natural disasters are expensive; Catastrophic flooding, drought around the world ... PLUS: The State of the Union ... 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): Texans rebel against TransCanada oil pipeline; McCain: 'Ethanol is a joke'; China leapfrogs past U.S. in wind power industry; Secret EPA study implicates new pesticide in decline of bees; Bloom fuel cell breakthrough (in financing); Is Biomass clean or dirty energy?; Warnings on leaky Alaska pipeline two years ago; Record melt of Greenland Ice Sheet in 2010; House GOP to grill Oil Spill Commission; More battles over mountaintop coal mining projects in Appalachia; Big cleanup questions linger at Hanford Nuclear Superfund site ... PLUS: 10 Common Misconceptions About California's Cap-and-Trade Program ....

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below.]

I've just been asked to jump in tonight (and tomorrow) to guest host for Mike on the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show. He's taken ill, but should be back in fine fettle on Monday.

So scrambling to put together tonight's show, but hope you'll tune in!

We'll be BradCasting LIVE as usual from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 9pm-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT) --- though we'll be pre-empted tonight for hockey in L.A. on KTLK, so see below for LIVE listening links! Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! The LIVE chat room will be up and rolling, as usual, right here at The BRAD BLOG during the show, so please come on by and say hey 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 (so far) for tonight:

• DAVID DAYEN, Firedoglake's great newsblogger, and my pal, will join me again (as a follow-up to his appearance with me on L.A.'s KPFK/Pacifica yesterday) to discuss the new rules in the U.S. House and the proposed new filibuster reform [PDF] in the U.S. Senate, where there have been a few new developments since yesterday.
• PLUS: National coverage of Arkansas' new U.S. Congressman, the disgraced RNC vote cager Tim Griffin; Today's rather ironic $1.1 million reading of the U.S. Constitution in the House, and whatever else comes up along the way, including your calls at 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.

Click here to jump into our LIVE Chat Room during the show. Or just see below!...

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Fun show tonight! It was U.S. Congress fever tonight! Commercial-free audio archives follow below (and the chat room archives are below those, if you like). Enjoy!...

This afternoon, during my weekly "Muckraking Wednesdays" appearance with Harrison on KPFK/Pacifica out here in Los Angeles, we discussed the first day of the 112th Congress, Kindergarten Kapitol Kop Rep. Darrell Issa, the continuing intentions of the GOP to keep legal (Democratic) voters from being able to cast their vote, the seating of disgraced RNC vote cager Tim Griffin in the U.S. House of Representatives and the proposed new rules for filibuster reform [PDF] in the U.S. Senate.

Joining us on that last point was the great David "d-day" Dayen, news blogger from FireDogLake.

The lively hour follows in full below, if you'd like to give it a listen.

Download MP3 or listen online here...

In a press conference held this afternoon in Juneau, Alaska's GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate, Joe Miller, finally conceded the election to write-in candidate and incumbent Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski. He has decided not to appeal his federal case as dismissed by a U.S. circuit court judge on Tuesday. See AP's coverage for more on today's announcement.

Having followed the failures of Alaska's Diebold election system for years, The BRAD BLOG followed the race between Miller, Murkowski and Democratic nominee Scott McAdams closely over the last several months, as it served to offer, yet again, another reminder of the importance of full transparency and citizen oversight in (small "d") democratic elections and the need to reconsider the use of electronic tabulation systems which ultimately leave all of us wondering if election results are accurate and if this nation can consider itself as having anything approaching the self-governance envisioned in our Constitution...

After requiring Alaska's GOP U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller to file his federal lawsuit by Monday (yesterday), the federal judge in the case has now dismissed it without even waiting for the reply from the state, which was ordered due by Wednesday (tomorrow).

From Anchorage Daily News as posted within the last hour...

Last night we published our detailed analysis of Joe Miller's federal complaint, in which he pointed out Constitutional questions about the way in which the Diebold optical-scan system was used to tally votes. We also pointed out what might have been a fatal flaw in his complaint. Whether Miller will appeal Beistline's decision remains to be seen.

Beistline's 14-page dismissal is here [PDF].

UPDATE 8:22pm PT: A few thoughts after reading Beistline's dismissal...

[Update 12/28/10: Federal judge dismisses Miller's complaint. Details now here...]

"We want the end result of this legal action to be for the people of Alaska to not only have full faith in the outcome of this race, but a confidence in the manner in which elections will be conducted in our state in the future," Alaska's "Tea Party"-supported, Sarah Palin-endorsed GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate, Joe Miller said in a statement today calling for "fairness and transparency" in the election process, issued after filing an amended complaint in federal court. His statement concludes with the simple sentiment: "Election integrity is vital."

Miller has decided to press on in his election contest against the state's Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell and their Division of Elections (DoE), as overseen by Treadwell, by filing a Substitute Amended Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief in U.S. District Court in Alaska today. The filing comes after resounding losses in state court and --- if the state's hand-count of write-in ballots and the Diebold optical-scanner tallies of all the other ballots are to be believed --- to Republican write-in candidate Sen. Lisa Murkowski in November's general election for the U.S. Senate. As the unofficial state count now stands, Murkowski reportedly defeated Miller (and Democratic candidate Scott McAdams) by more than 10,000 votes.

In the statement (posted in full at end of this article) Miller explains that his team has decided to forgo challenging Murkowski's official certification as the winner, allowing her to be seated in the U.S. Senate on January 5th.

"The integrity of the election is vital and ultimately the rule of law must be our standard. Nevertheless, I have also decided to withdraw our opposition to the certification of the election, ensuring that Alaska will have its full delegation seated when the 112th Congress convenes next month." he said, "This decision will allow Alaskans to focus on bringing fairness and transparency to our elections process without distraction of the certification issue."

But Miller's decision to drop his challenge to Murkowski's seating may prove to be a fatal blow to his case --- at least if precedent set by Republicans in Congress some years ago, ironically enough, is any indication. But more on that below.

After winning the GOP nomination against Murkowski, and then reportedly losing to her unprecedented write-in bid in November, Miller originally filed his election contest in federal court in November. U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline subsequently responded by sending the case down to state court for initial adjudication on relevant issues of state law. Late last month, Beistline temporarily halted state certification of the race until those issues were decided, and last week the state's Supreme Court rejected Miller's appeal, siding with the state, on all counts.

Beistline had given Miller until today to re-file his amended complaint in federal court. His filing now includes just three counts asserting violations of the U.S. Constitution's "Election Clause" and "Equal Protection Clause" as based on both the DoE's liberal interpretation of state law in counting write-in ballots, as well as the disparate weight the hand-count of those ballots was afforded, versus those tallied by Diebold optical-scanners in the case of "pre-printed" candidates...

A "turducken" is defined by Wikipedia as "a dish consisting of a de-boned chicken stuffed into a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed into a de-boned turkey." Sounds pretty close to what we've just witnessed in the closing hours of the 111th Congress.

Conventional wisdom, at least that flogged by the MSM over the last 24 hours or so, has it that somehow Democrats shocked the nation by finally stepping up their game and doing the extraordinary in the lame duck session by passing an unprecedented number of their hard-fought initiatives, many thought to have been otherwise dead (or waiting for reconsideration in the next, more heavily Republican-weighted Congress).

Not to be a contrarian here, or even a Christmas curmudgeon, but while the Democrats deserve credit for hanging in there on a number of important initiatives, rather than tossing up their hands and walking away in the face of unprecedented, historic obstructionism by the GOP, it's a fact that the major legislation finally passed can hardly be seen as any sort of "progressive," or even "liberal," victory. It all may well represent a Democratic victory, if a short-lived one, but that only demonstrates how successful Republicans have been in pushing Dems far to the right, and how willing Democrats are these days to celebrate the passage of center and center-right (and even hard-right) legislation, almost all of which was depressingly low-hanging holiday fruit to begin with...

As largely expected, the Alaska Supreme Court has rejected GOP U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller's contest against the Division of Elections, which has unofficially determined write-in candidate Sen. Lisa Murkowski bested both Miller and Democratic candidate Scott McAdams on November 2nd.

Via Sean Cockerham at Anchorage Daily News...

See Cockerham's ADN article for more details on the high court's findings.

Here's Miller's original state complaint [PDF], his appeal to the AK Supreme Court [PDF] and the AK Supremes' 24-page ruling [PDF] on it (which we haven't gotten to read in full yet, so we may update based on our review.)

And here's our detailed report from yesterday, describing the general issues at stake, and offering what seems to have been a pretty accurate preview of what the court appears to have decided today. The decision once again leaving thousands of paper ballots completely unexamined by human eyes, tallied only by oft-failed, easily-manipulated computer systems, just as NY's highest court did earlier this week in a race that was far closer than the Miller/Murkowski/McAdams race.

The fight to see paper ballots actually be counted --- as per Democracy's Gold Standard --- continues.

[Update 12/22/10: Alaska Supreme Court decides against Joe Miller on all counts. Details here...]

Having paper ballots is one thing. Seeing them actually be counted, unfortunately, continues to be quite another matter.

For those of you who may not understand why it's not enough to merely have hand-marked paper ballots that are tallied only by oft-failed, easily-manipulated computers --- even if those paper ballots could be counted by human beings "in the event there are questions about the results", as supporters of such systems like to say --- need look no further than the extraordinary finding on Monday from New York's highest court, its Court of Appeals.

And, for that matter, what is likely to happen in Alaska very soon, where Republican Joe Miller continues to wait for a similar decision from that state's Supreme Court in his fight for a hand-count of all paper ballots in his still-uncertified U.S. Senate race against Republican write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski and Democratic candidate Scott McAdams...

I'm preparing to host tonight's Mike Malloy Show, so not much time to go into details or deep background. Suffice to say, once again, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show have shamed the bulk of the mainstream media by demonstrating, in just a matter of minutes, what journalism looks like. Or is supposed to. His entire show last night became devoted to one single issue.

It starts here, in the first segment, with Stewart taking his final shot of the year (on his final show of the year) at Senate Republicans who have shamefully "filibustered" to avoid voting on the "Zadroga Bill", an act to provide health care funding for 9/11 first responders, many of them suffering and dying from severe issues, including cancer and other serious respiratory disease, along with the failure of Fox "News" and the major broadcast networks (ABC/NBC/CBS) to even mention the story and the outrageous insult by those who have, for years, pretended to give a damn about 9/11 and those who gave their lives in responding to it...

Next, in perhaps the most important/journalistic segment, Stewart interviewed, in studio, four New York City first responders, some of them suffering from cancer following the toxic, hazardous conditions they worked in, with inadequate protection, on the day of, and in the months following 9/11, and allowed them to respond directly to the behavior of GOP Senators and Fox "News"...

I'll be joined by GLENN GREEWALD, Salon's great blogger, constitutional attorney and author (of How Would a Patriot Act?, A Tragic Legacy, and Great American Hypocrites LIVE today during the 3p PT/6p ET hour on KPFK, the Pacific Radio outlet in Los Angeles (90.7FM), San Diego (93.7FM), Santa Barbara (98.7FM) and China Lake (99.5FM) where I'm sitting in one more day for Harrison. The show will again be streamed live via KPFK.org.

We'll be picking up where things left off a bit, following my interview last week with "Pentagon Papers" whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and the extraordinary events that have happened since, as the all-out assault on WikiLeaks --- by the U.S. Government, both major political parties and, most disturbingly, the media --- continues to grow.

See Greenwald's piece last week at Salon on Sen. Joe Lieberman "emulating Chinese dictators" by what seems to be an abuse of his post as Chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee in helping to intimidate WikiLeaks' Internet server Amazon.com into shutting them down, and some in the MSM's support of the notion that WikiLeaks is the bad actor here, despite having broken no laws and being charged with no crime.

That was last week, and things have gone quickly downhilll from there, with U.S. colleges warning students not to read or link to WikiLeaks, Government agencies (including the Library of Congress) restricting access to them, PayPal cutting off their account, and now even Switzerland freezing their defense fund account.

This seems to be all out "Information/Cyber War", at the very least, and like nothing we've ever seen in this country. Greenwald has more on all of this today, and it's chilling --- particularly his UPDATE on that link.

We'll talk LIVE about all of that and much more on today's show beginning at 3pm PT! Please tune in live here...

POST-SHOW UPDATE: The complete interview with Greenwald follows. Lots of interesting stuff to dig into. Enjoy...

Download MP3 or listen online [appx. 48 mins]

Via Huffington Post...

See HuffPo for more details on the ruling. Miller's campaign has issued a brief statement here.

And see The BRAD BLOG's detailed analysis from Wednesday explaining why, in our opinion, Miller would be wise to call for a full, transparent hand-count and reconciliation of all ballots cast in Alaska's U.S. Senate election.

Earlier this week AP called the election in favor of incumbent Republican write-in candidate Sen. Lisa Murkowski. But, as we described, there are a number of reasons --- including Alaska's recent history of impossible election results as reported by their flawed, oft-failed, easily-manipulated and non-transparent Diebold optical-scan system --- which suggest that Miller would be performing a service to the voters of Alaska and the rest of the country if he used his standing to insist on a full, public hand-count. By the way, Democratic candidate Scott McAdams would be performing a similar service if he used his standing to join Miller in that pursuit...

"Our campaign had an undeniable, unmistakable message," he told his supporters during his victory speech on Election Night, "and that message could be summed up in three words, three words which were on every one of our 4 billion highway signs: 'stop voter fraud.'"

"And now that clear message becomes transformed into a clear mandate," Kansas' Secretary of State-elect Kris Kobach (R) told his fans that night, promising "significant reforms" to the state's election system. Answered with cheers in the Topeka ballroom Kobach promised: "We are gonna have Photo ID at the polls."

As he stated himself, Kobach's campaign was almost entirely built on the promise of putting a stop to the state's out-of-control (and also, non-existent, but ssshhh, don't tell anybody) "voter fraud" epidemic. But now that the election's over, he's having trouble identifying any actual instances of the horrible scourge he helped trick Republican voters into believing actually existed.

Talking Points Memo, who has done a bang-up job of keeping tabs on Kobach's duplicity over the past year, caught up with the SoS-elect yesterday after he spoke on a "civil rights" panel at the Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention and asked him how the hunt is going.

He, um, had trouble actually citing any evidence of voter fraud since, as of now, he "hadn't heard of any." "There have been a few cases where I've heard allegations of voter fraud," he says, "but we're just a few weeks out from the election."

No doubt, the evidence will come rolling in soon. The only question is will it come in before or after Kobach and his anti-democracy GOP cronies enact disenfranchising Photo ID restrictions at the polling place, as promised, despite the fact that such laws have been shown time and again to keep millions of legal minority, elderly, and student (read: Democratic-leaning) voters from being able to cast their ballots.

Here's TPM's short video interview with Kobach in which --- just in case you hadn't any doubt about the bankruptcy of his claims --- he also alludes to the long-discredited Rightwing scam-artist/"voter fraud" fraudster John Fund, whose book on "voter fraud" has, itself, been debunked as a fraud over and again...