In a double-length smackdown last night, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show were as good as we've ever seen them, on the Fox "News"/Rightwing's professional ability to live in self-denial and delusion, even while consistently and hypocritically playing the victim card.

It was a collection of rather extraordinary collection of Fox clips, culminating in what Stewart aptly describes as, "some of the most free-range, organically-grown, disingenuous, ideologically-marinated, un-self-awareness I've ever seen in the wild."

Here's the must-watch segment, as broken in to two parts for some reason (they ran consecutively on the show)...

On my Pacifica Radio show today on KPFK in Los Angeles, I discussed yesterday's report at The BRAD BLOG concerning the woman who was forced to jump ridiculous hoops while trying to help her son get Photo ID at the Wisconsin DMV in the wake of the new GOP voter suppression law there which institutes polling place Photo ID restrictions before legal voters are allowed to cast their legal vote.

By the way, I spoke to the woman today --- who'd like to be identified only as Nicole --- and she made clear that her video was not secretly taped (as, for example, James O'Keefe's ACORN hoax tapes were). Her video camera was on the table and in plain sight the whole time, she told me.

As seen (and heard) in her video tape, during the process of trying to get the Photo ID for free at the DMV, as allowed by the new statute, the son's bank statements were rifled through, and questioned as to whether they showed enough "activity" on them. Also, they were almost charged $28 for the "free" ID, which brought up questions as to why the WI DMV policy is to charge applicants, unless they know to "request" the ID for no charge.

I also took the opportunity during the show to offer a bit more background context, including a 1980 sound clip from Paul Weyrich, one of the "conservative" movement godfathers, during which he calls for fewer people to be allowed to vote. "Quite candidly," he said to the convention of Baptist ministers where Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell also spoke, "our leverage in elections goes up when the voting populace goes down."

That's what all of this is about. He says it quite plainly in the video tape.

Weyrich went on to found the non-profit American Legislative Exchange Counsel (ALEC), the group of Rightwingers said to be responsible for writing the polling place Photo ID restriction laws being passed by Republicans now in state after state. I also share some hard stats on who will actually be affected by these laws (and who will not.) And, for good measure, I tossed in some Stephen Colbert speaking about Photo ID and "voter fraud" as well.

Enjoy!

Download MP3 or listen online below [appx 28 mins]...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Despite what Rush Limbaugh says, record breaking heat wave breaks heat records; Speaking of climate change deniers, guess what the Norwegian terrorist was?; And speaking of climate change, a new study says it's causing the release of long-buried toxins; Fukushima, four months later; PLUS: House Republicans attack clean air and clean water --- 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): Appalachian Poverty Concentrated Around Mine Sites; More big Yellowstone fires predicted with climate change; Biting the Bullet, VT Yankee Orders Fuel; Smart Grid Stimulus Creates a Global Player in CO; GA's coastal infrastructure under threat; 'Toxic 20' list released of states with most air pollution; Painting roofs white keeps buildings cool, save $$$; Alarming 'Dead Zone' Grows in Chesapeake Bay; Coal Ash Taints Groundwater at TVA Sites; EPA Program on Children's Toxic Exposure "Flawed"; Natural Gas Drillers Lowball Leases; New Rules Put Pressure On Outdate Power Plants ... PLUS: The true cost of gasoline? $13 a gallon ...

Prepping for tonight's Malloy Show, so very quickly, this from Wednesday night's Colbert Report. Can't tell you how nice it is, after so many years, that I'm no longer one of the very few yelling and screaming about this shit...

This may have been just about one of the funniest frickin' things I've ever seen on the Colbert Report...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Obama nominates a 'radical environmentalist' for Commerce Secretary?!?; FDA sued over antibiotic-resistant superbugs; No wildlands for YOU!; Killer cucumbers; PLUS: The Arctic is melting (see photo at right), yet the media is obsessed with Weiner (see photo everywhere else) ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!...

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Palin: Gas Prices Are So High We Might Not Finish Our PAC-Funded Vacation; Canadian government deliberately left oilsands data out of UN report; Ice melt to close off Arctic's interior; Corexit Makes Oil Spills Worse; Oil industry slams EPA's regulatory review; How does oil speculation raise gas prices?; 3 CA Condors Die of Lead Poisoning; Philly Moves Ahead With 25-Year Water Management Plan; Stores Stock New Bulbs for the Light Switch; P&G to develop 100% bio ingredients; Energy efficiency is THE core climate solution ... PLUS: The Right’s Environmental Wish List ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Big Oil's big subsidies survive the Senate; Federal investigators find "deviant practices" by Massey Energy; Faulty equipment at Japanese nuke plant also installed at US nuke plants; PLUS: It's the End of the World as we know it! So drive safely! ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): NOAA scientists see 'unprecedented' ocean changes; US weather disasters are the 'new normal'; Are environmental regulations really 'job killers'?; 100% solar plane makes another successful flight; Hauling icebergs to deserts; CA hybrid owners to lose carpool lane privileges; Exposing babies to carcinogenic flame-retardants; Big fines for PA 'fracking' violations; Deforestation in Brazil escalates; Where has MT's water gone?; TX drinking water shows radioactive contamination; MS River flood making Gulf Dead Zone much worse; Bringing solar to the masses at Lowe's; Climate denier's retracted report exposes workings of the Denial Industry; Climate change deniers now like birthers ... PLUS: Is climate sanity the kiss of death for Republican presidential candidates? ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Breaking: 'Catastrophic' sewage spill in TN; Running out of ideas: Japan dumps tons of radioactive water into the ocean as their nuclear nightmare continues to continue; The one year anniversary of the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster in WV; Guess what's the fastest growing sector of the economy? (hint: that big glowing ball in the sky) ... PLUS: Transocean execs recieve safety bonuses --- less than a year after 11 men died on their rig in the Gulf ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Climate deniers' review supports scientific consensus; Sustainability is winning over CEOs; Coal power industry’s deceptive attack on EPA; Coal plants don’t create the jobs they promise: study; Saving bats could prevent huge U.S. farming losses; Future of Pennsylvania is a dystopian wasteland; Water utilities failed to alert public to likely carcinogen; Study: many Quebec worksites contains high levels of asbestos; Right-wing Group Writes Anti-EPA Bills For State Legislatures; Almost Two Dozen Members Of Congress Get Farm Subsidies; Rep. Praises Excessive CEO Compensation; Skeptic Fest Kind of a Let Down for Deniers; The Truth, Still Inconvenient; Confronting climate collapse ... PLUS: Science bites climate skeptics in the ass on the House floor ....

Guest Blogged by Lizz Winstead

[Ed Note: And now for something completely different. As a welcome distraction from the last week plus of covering the Fukushima nuclear crisis around the clock (most recently here and here and here, for example), I was delighted to catch my friend Lizz Winstead, co-creator of The Daily Show (originally hosted by Craig Kilbourne and now by Jon Stewart) and Minnesota native, distracting her own self yesterday on Twitter by answering 100 questions (more or less) from her "Tweeps". As the questions to and answers from Lizz were alternately amusing, provocative, hilarious and occasionally just inane, I asked her if she'd mind if we ran them in full here at The BRAD BLOG, typos, occasional misnumbering and all, as a guest blog today, just in case you needed the temporary distraction as much as I did. In those hopes, here's at least 99 more things to know about Lizz than you ever thought you wanted to...Oh, and for the Twitter challenged, "RT" means "Re-tweet". So you'll see the user's question re-tweeted (quoted briefly), followed by her answer to it in each tweet. If you need any more explanation than that, you're shit outta luck. I'm busy! - Brad]

On Thursday night, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert waded into the HBGary muck with an explanation of the scam that the cyber-security intelligence firm, along with two other firms (government contractors all) were putting together for law firm Hunton & Williams on behalf of Bank of America, in hopes of discrediting journalists and organizations that supported WikiLeaks.

As readers of The BRAD BLOG likely know by now, a parallel $12 million scheme was being hatched by the same law firm and same three cyber-security firms on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, targeting me and my family, as well as other citizens and progressive organizations the U.S. Chamber had regarded as their enemies.

(I was likely targeted due to my roll in The BRAD BLOG's co-founding of the non-profit, non-partisan VelvetRevolution.us which has, since late 2009, been running a StopTheChamber.com campaign to expose the insidious, mafia-like tactics of what has become the largest, most extreme corporate lobbying outfit in the nation. Relatedly, late last week, VR filed a complaint with the D.C. Bar Association against the three H&W attorneys heading up these schemes. I hope to have more on that at a later date, but you can now read the complaint yourself right here [PDF]. Legal Times coverage is here, Washington Post's coverage today is here.)

Though the U.S. Chamber side of the plot is not discussed here, here's Colbert summing up the scheme as proposed for Bank of America...

...And here is the short interview that followed with Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald who, the same as I in the U.S. Chamber plot, was placed front and center in the Bank of America plot...

By the way, though I didn't notice it while watching a Tivo'd verison of the interview above on Thursday night --- so don't know if it was in the actual broadcast, or just added online, by someone --- PC Magazine noticed a curious anomaly at the 3:22 mark of the above video. For no more than a moment, the infamous Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta, often used as a sort of trademark by the "hacktivist" collective Anonymous (the group which inadvertently exposed both of the above described plots when they broke into HBGary's corporate servers and stole the emails describing all of this) is briefly superimposed over Colbert's face, for reasons unknown --- but amusing.

For much more on the U.S. Chamber Plot, please see the links below for The BRAD BLOG's previous coverage of this disturbing story...

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"...

From last night's live Colbert Report, during which he used his "Action Midterm Outcome Prediction Verifier 2010 5400" to examine where "there have been reports of voting machine irregularities" across the country yesterday...

If you missed it this morning, Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear drew at least 150,000 people (a number of reports put it "well over 200,000") to the National Mall in D.C. where they were "PACKED IN!" as our own Jeannie Dean writes via email today. The decidedly un-political rally concluded on a serious-ish note from Stewart, one well worth watching as his closing remarks represented, certainly, the most substantive moment of what looked to be a really fun day...

Much of Stewart's critique of the seemingly dysfunctional state of our nation embedded in his closing remarks was aimed squarely, as usual, at the media...

He went on to draw the distinction, however, between the mad picture the media paints of our nation, as compared to the relative reasonableness with which most of us still carry out our lives each day. The complete text transcript of Stewart's remarks is now posted here.

See RAW STORY's article on the rally here and Greg Mitchell's blow-by-blow live-blog coverage here for more details.

As comedian John Fugelsang wryly tweeted recently: "My only real beef with the Republican Party is that they keep forcing me to vote for Democrats."

As horrendous as the Democratic leadership (particularly in the Senate) has been over the last several years --- little better underscores that horrendousness than the embarrassing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's announcement yesterday that he'd be putting off a vote for overwhelmingly popular middle-class tax-cuts until after the election --- the Republicans still remain far worse...and far more dangerous to both the country and the world.

Where the Ds are hapless, short-sighted, and cowardly, the Rs remain apologetically insidious, dangerous, shameless, and disingenuous.

The Daily Show's brilliant video montage last night, marking yesterday's thud-like introduction of the GOP's "Pledge to America" (which, we'd wager, is likely to be all but abandoned and forgotten by Rs by the time November 2 rolls around), illustrates that point as ingenuously as we've ever seen.

If Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) --- likely to become Speaker of the House if Republicans take it over this year --- had any shame, he'd be ashamed of himself. But he doesn't. So he won't...

Last night on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, correspondent Aasif Mandvi offered some of the best journalism we've seen on television in quite a while.

It wasn't particularly funny, union supporters are going to hate it, Walmart is going to love it, but credit where it's due.

This is the sort of journalism that Rightwing con-men like Andrew Breitbart, James O'Keefe, and their acolytes pretend to be producing. It's journalism they could and even should be producing. But as they are political/partisan con-men/hitmen/hacks, they've chosen to throw away all of their credibility to the point where they are outclassed even by a comedian like Mandvi. Then again, the same can be said for many of the so-called journalists in our corporate MSM who rarely manage to offer anything as serious, substantive --- or scathing --- as Mandvi's report from last night...