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Latest Featured Reports | Thursday, March 28, 2024
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It's Up to You, New York: 'BradCast' 3/21/24
Trump staring down barrel of both civil and criminal accountability in NY; Also: Biden forgives another $6B in student loans; U.S. seeks 'sustained ceasefire' in Gaza; Scientists baffled by spike in record global heat...
'Green News Report' 3/21/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
Biden EPA issues biggest climate regulation in U.S. history; Rio hits 144°F heat index!; Exxon CEO blames YOU for climate change; PLUS: U.N. issues climate change 'red alert'!...
Previous GNRs: 3/19/24 - 3/14/24 - Archives...
'It All Comes Down to Brett and Amy': 'BradCast' 3/20/24
Guest: Slate's Mark Joseph Stern on another stunning week of federal judiciary debacles; Also: Primary results from AZ, FL, IL, KS, OH, CA; Biden EPA's 'biggest climate move yet'...
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'BradCast' 3/19/24
Trump is promising political violence whether he wins or loses; Also: Navarro goes to prison; Scofflaw MI MAGA attorney arrested; SCOTUS allows TX to override federal law, Constitution; Biden's SOTU success...
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  w/ Brad & Desi
EPA finally bans all uses of asbestos; Biden unveils billions for rebuilding communities broken by highway construction; Extreme heat in Africa; PLUS: MA coastal town follies...
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Corporations 'Taking a Bazooka' to NLRB, Hoping to Declare it 'Unconstitutional': 'BradCast' 3/18/24
Guest: Labor journo Steven Greenhouse; Also: Putin's 'election'; Trump can't find $450M...
Sunday 'Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya' Toons
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Schumer Steps Up; Trump Associates Paid Biden 'Bribe' Liar $600k: 'BradCast' 3/14/24
Also: TikTok foolishness; NY hush-money trial delay?; Navarro must go to jail; Trump owes $400k for failed 'Steele Dossier' suit in UK...
'Green News Report' 3/14/24
FL bans heat protections for workers; Methane leaks continue; GOP Project 2025 would ban Paris Agreement; PLUS: CA snowpack is back, but too late for salmon...
After Accountability for Fraud, What's Next for the Corrupt NRA and Gun Safety Reforms?: 'BradCast' 3/13/24
Guest: Brady Center's Kelly Sampson; Also: Biden, Trump clinch; GA judge nixes 6 counts...
How to Media Better and Other Smart Ideas:
'BradCast' 3/12/24
Press quietly resets weeks of misreporting on Biden; Suggestions for NYT; Stephanopoulos v. Mace; Also: Buck quits; RNC 'bloodbath'; WI's MAGA Speaker Recall...
'Green News Report' 3/12/24
Biden touts climate jobs boom at SOTU; Feb. obliterated global temp and ocean heat records; PLUS: Great Barrier Reef hit with yet another 'mass bleaching event'...
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GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...

Criminal GOP Voter Registration Fraud Probe Expanding in VA
State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...

DOJ PROBE SOUGHT AFTER VA ARREST
Arrest of RNC/Sproul man caught destroying registration forms brings official calls for wider criminal probe from compromised VA AG Cuccinelli and U.S. AG Holder...

Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...

ALL TOGETHER: ROVE, SPROUL, KOCHS, RNC
His Super-PAC, his voter registration (fraud) firm & their 'Americans for Prosperity' are all based out of same top RNC legal office in Virginia...

LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
So much for the RNC's 'zero tolerance' policy, as discredited Republican registration fraud operative still hiring for dozens of GOP 'Get Out The Vote' campaigns...

'Fired' Sproul Group 'Cloned', Still Working for Republicans in At Least 10 States
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...

FINALLY: FOX ON GOP REG FRAUD SCANDAL
The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...

COLORADO FOLLOWS FLORIDA WITH GOP CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
Repub Sec. of State Gessler ignores expanding GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, rants about evidence-free 'Dem Voter Fraud' at Tea Party event...

CRIMINAL PROBE LAUNCHED INTO GOP VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL IN FL
FL Dept. of Law Enforcement confirms 'enough evidence to warrant full-blown investigation'; Election officials told fraudulent forms 'may become evidence in court'...

Brad Breaks PA Photo ID & GOP Registration Fraud Scandal News on Hartmann TV
Another visit on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture with new news on several developing Election Integrity stories...

CAUGHT ON TAPE: COORDINATED NATIONWIDE GOP VOTER REG SCAM
The GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal reveals insidious nationwide registration scheme to keep Obama supporters from even registering to vote...

CRIMINAL ELECTION FRAUD COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST GOP 'FRAUD' FIRM
Scandal spreads to 11 FL counties, other states; RNC, Romney try to contain damage, split from GOP operative...

RICK SCOTT GETS ROLLED IN GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) sends blistering letter to Gov. Rick Scott (R) demanding bi-partisan reg fraud probe in FL; Slams 'shocking and hypocritical' silence, lack of action...

VIDEO: Brad Breaks GOP Reg Fraud Scandal on Hartmann TV
Breaking coverage as the RNC fires their Romney-tied voter registration firm, Strategic Allied Consulting...

RNC FIRES NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION FIRM FOR FRAUD
After FL & NC GOP fire Romney-tied group, RNC does same; Dead people found reg'd as new voters; RNC paid firm over $3m over 2 months in 5 battleground states...

EXCLUSIVE: Intvw w/ FL Official Who First Discovered GOP Reg Fraud
After fraudulent registration forms from Romney-tied GOP firm found in Palm Beach, Election Supe says state's 'fraud'-obsessed top election official failed to return call...

GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD FOUND IN FL
State GOP fires Romney-tied registration firm after fraudulent forms found in Palm Beach; Firm hired 'at request of RNC' in FL, NC, VA, NV & CO...
The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...


Oliver Willis helps set the record straight...again...
By Brad Friedman on 6/13/2014 3:06pm PT  

As Iraq seems to finally (and predictably) be imploding this week, longtime Republican apologists in this country are returning from their wingnut ghettos to mainstream spotlights once again to pretend this isn't the result of their unprecedented disaster of a criminal foreign policy.

Naturally, even eleven years later, they are still lying to themselves and everyone else about the Bush Administration and the Iraq War, including: The reasons we attacked the country, who did and didn't support the war of choice and why, and what role the entire clusterfuck of a disastrous pointless mess has played in our continuing American history.

Among the best and briefest responses to the newly invigorated round of Bush-era apologia disguised as (naturally, misleading and/or fact-free) Obama-era 'told-ya-so-isms', comes from Kurt Eichenwald on Twitter...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




A busy week & lots of exclusive reporting you'll hear nowhere else...
By Brad Friedman on 6/12/2014 7:05am PT  

It's been a stupid busy news week this week, but I tried to fit as much of it as possible into this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio.

So grab a pencil to take notes and buckle up before listening. We've got a lot of exclusive reporting for you in this week's episode!

Among the stories covered this week: The ignored and unverified votes in the Eric Cantor Bombshell/Guessing Game; the shamefully retracted 2009 DHS Report on Rightwing Extremism in the U.S. in light of continuing and recent carnage from RW terrorism in the U.S.; the 'Tea Party' Trio's Mississippi Mystery Courthouse Caper in last week's Republican primary for the U.S. Senate in MS; the CA legislature's move to restrict election recounts to all but the wealthiest of individuals.

And, as if all of that's not enough, a few callers and the delightful and ingenious Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report. Enjoy!

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

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Republican bill supported by Democrats in the Assembly would allow only wealthy individuals to seek post-election counts...
By Brad Friedman on 6/11/2014 1:45pm PT  

Up until now, the state of California has been able to boast about one of the most liberal election "recount" statutes in the nation. It allows any voter or group of voters to request a post-election hand-count of any number of precincts in any race or ballot initiative in the state. The state election code allows crucial access to citizen oversight of public elections.

That may all be about to change, however, if a Republican proposal, currently being supported by Democrats in the state legislature and causing alarm among some who have carried out recent "recounts", becomes law.

[NOTE: The BRAD BLOG generally uses quotes around the word "recount" to denote post-election hand-counts of ballots which have never actually been counted by human beings, but rather, only tabulated by computers. It's impossible to know whether those computers actually tallied votes accurately unless paper ballots are examined by hand.]

Under current law, voters seeking such a post-election count have to pay for the cost, though if the outcome of the election is changed in favor of the requester, they are entitled to receive a refund. Over the years, The BRAD BLOG has also documented abuse by County Registrars who have arbitrarily priced such counts so high that they became cost-prohibitive, effectively blocking such citizen oversight from happening at all.

Still, the provision for post-election citizen oversight of election results in the state, until now, has been far better than most such laws elsewhere in the nation.

But now, a bill proposed by a Republican and broadly supported by Democrats in the state Assembly has moved on to the state Senate for approval. If it passes there and is signed by the Governor, it is almost certain to put a chill on post-election citizen oversight...for all but the wealthiest of voters...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




D.C. reels after reported upset victory by Dave Brat over the GOP House Majority Leader in Virginia's 7th Congressional District
But can the oft-failed, easily-manipulated e-voting results be trusted?...
By Brad Friedman on 6/10/2014 11:26pm PT  

The political world exploded tonight with the stunning reported defeat of Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to little-known "Tea Party" candidate Dave Brat.

Cantor's loss was so unexpected that Democrats didn't even bother to nominate anyone to run in Virginia's 7th Congressional District until last night, reportedly during a conference call, when they decided to put up a professor named Jack Trammell (from the same Randolph-Macon College where Brat works) as their nominee, just before today's deadline.

"A conservative challenger is expected to fall far short of defeating House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in Tuesday's congressional primary," wrote Rachel Weiner in Virginia's local paper known as the Washington Post just this morning. "The question in this race is how large Cantor's margin of victory will be."

So, there's more than enough speculative analysis complete guess work out there for you elsewhere about what all of this portends, from the same political pundits and geniuses and well-sourced insiders who had no clue that Cantor was about to become famous as the first sitting House Majority Leader to lose in a primary race since either 1899 or...forever, depending on who you listen to.

But, pretty much just as soon as it appeared that Cantor was about to be announced the "loser" in a blowout of an election late today, questions started coming in to us, via Twitter and elsewhere, with concerns about the integrity of the reported results and if there could have been any chicanery behind them...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 6/10/2014 3:16pm PT  


Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President Obama pushes back against climate change-denying politicians; Real-world data shows cutting emissions boosts economic growth and that the Koch Brothers are wrong; PLUS: Supreme Court says BP must continue oil spill payouts ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): How Solar Will Destroy Utilities in 5 Easy Steps; President of Kiribati: "It's too late for us"; Amazon tribal chief: the white man is destroying everything; War on Coal already happened - mining industry won and miners lost; FAA oks first drones on US soil - for BP; Supreme Court rules against homeowners in Camp Lejeune water contamination; Duke Energy signs deals for Dan River spill cleanup; Illinois bans plastic microbeads in personal care products due to water pollution ... PLUS: 7 reasons to be more optimistic about climate change than Ezra Klein ... and much, MUCH more! ...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Conservative Republican terror analyst Daryl Johnson's remarks are chilling and prescient in light of weekend shooting in Las Vegas...
By Brad Friedman on 6/9/2014 4:27pm PT  

In July of 2011, just days after the massacre of 77 mostly children at a youth summer camp by a Rightwing extremist in Norway, Brian Levin, the Director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University interviewed Daryl Johnson, formerly of the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS).

Johnson was the agency's senior domestic terrorism analyst from 2004 to 2010. He was also the lead author of DHS' April 2009 draft report --- which was, shortly thereafter, retracted under pressure from Republicans, rightwingers and some veterans groups --- entitled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment" [PDF].

After the public outcry from the Rightwing victimization industry, the DHS shamefully apologized for working on the report at all, even though it was begun during the Bush Administration; was being produced in response to a mandate from Congress; followed a DHS report on Leftwing extremism [PDF] (which received no similar outraged protestations) in January of 2009; and was authored by Johnson, who describes himself in the interview below as a pro-life, pro-gun, conservative Republican Mormon.

The draft 9-page DHS report had cautioned about the re-emergence of potentially violent extremist groups "that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely."

It warned that similar conditions to those in the 1990's (an economic recession, a Democrat in the White House) which had led to, among other domestic terrorist incidents, the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, had brought about a "growth in the number of domestic rightwing terrorist and extremist groups and an increase in violent acts targeting government facilities, law enforcement officers, banks, and infrastructure sectors."

The report cautioned that "lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States" and concluded that "rightwing extremism is likely to grow in strength."

Following the deadly attack on two police offers and another person on Sunday in Las Vegas, allegedly carried out by two married members who self-identified as part of the so-called "Liberty Movement" and who appeared at the Nevada ranch of Cliven Bundy during the recent armed protest against the federal government with others in the movement, it seems a good moment to revisit that 2011 interview with the lead author of that retracted DHS report.

The alleged killers in the tragedy over the weekend later killed themselves. They reportedly draped the dead bodies of the two cops they shot with the Gadsden ("Don't Tread on Me") flag, popular with those in the "Tea Party" and "Liberty" movements, and were said to have kept Swastikas and other Nazi memorabilia in their apartment.

Neighbors told reporters that the two "had a reputation for spouting racist, anti-government views, bragging about their gun collection and boasting that they’d spent time at Cliven Bundy’s ranch during a recent standoff there between armed militia members and federal government agents."

In other words, the warnings of Johnson, both in the retracted 2009 DHS report and in his 2011 interview, seem extraordinarily prescient today, for some odd reason.

Here are extended excerpts, some of them chilling in retrospect, from that 2011 interview of Daryl Johnson by Brian Levin...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




So why was the 'Tea Party' trio locked inside Hinds County election HQ at 2am on night of incredibly close race with Cochran?...
By Brad Friedman on 6/6/2014 6:02am PT  

You may have already heard at least some of the bizarre story about three "Tea Party" supporters of Mississippi's Republican U.S. Senate candidate Chris McDaniel who found themselves locked inside the Hinds County Courthouse around 2am on primary election night last Tuesday. McDaniel himself is now locked in a run-off for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate against six-term Senator Thad Cochran, after the nail-biter on Tuesday which left the two men reportedly about 1,400 votes apart out of more than 300,000 cast.

Ultimately, neither candidate received more than 50% of the vote, so they'll face each other again in a run-off for the GOP nomination on June 24. But the incident that left the three McDaniel supporters calling for help to let them out of the courthouse in the middle of the night after the last election official had locked the door and left almost three hours earlier is more than curious. It has many wondering what the hell the three were doing at the location where ballots are tallied and vote tabulators stored, in one of the last counties to come in with their results on the squeaker of an election night.

The details of the story, and why the three --- one a top campaign official for McDaniel (and a former Presidential campaign staffer for Newt Gingrich) --- were there at all, remain murky. On Wednesday, the Hinds County Sheriff's office said that there were "conflicting stories from the three of them." But by Thursday evening, despite what a Sheriff's spokesman described as a "fabrication" from the President of the Central Mississippi Tea Party who contacted a fellow Hinds County Republican executive committee member to seek his help in getting out of the courthouse, the county decided that she and the two men caught in the courthouse caper along with her broke no laws.

"Based on our findings and subsequent conclusion," the County Sheriff's office announced in a statement, "there is no reason to believe that the three individuals engaged in any criminal activity nor do we believe any laws were broken."

But with one of the original headlines about the story focused on the fact that the three had been locked in the empty courthouse "with ballots on Election Night," there remain a number of questions about what actually happened, despite initial reportage indicating that "ballots had been secured prior to the intrusion" and a subsequent report noting that "some precinct information wasn't sealed."

So, The BRAD BLOG contacted the Hinds County Election Commissioners to get more information on the exact type of voting system used there, which aspects of it might have been vulnerable to the three McDaniel supporters alone inside the courthouse, and what type of information was left unsealed there on election night.

We received detail answers to our questions from one of the five Hinds County Election Commissioners --- the one who would, perhaps, have the most reason to be suspicious of the trio of McDaniel supporters...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 6/5/2014 4:01pm PT  


Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Republicans attack Obama EPA's proposed CO2 emissions standards... but they were FOR emissions cuts before they were against them; Good news for endangered wolves; PLUS: Los Angeles oil spill exposes gaping hole in pipeline oversight ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Listen online here, or Download MP3 (6 mins)...

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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): Pessimist Ezra Klein's 7 reasons America will fail on climate change; G7 leaders back 2015 climate deal to build on U.S. momentum; Report: faulty blowout preventer, corporate culture at fault in BP oil disaster; Court rejects BP suit to avoid paying federal fines and damages for Gulf spill; Corporate spies infiltrated Australia anti-coal group; CA fracking moratorium voted down by oil-funded legislators; China aims to cap greenhouse gas output soon; Monarch butterfly decline linked to spread of GM crops ... PLUS: Latest 'COSMOS' Episode on Global Warming Turns a 'Denier' into 'Believer' ... and much, MUCH more! ...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Brad Friedman on 6/4/2014 10:57pm PT  

A very lively BradCast this week on KPFK/Pacifica Radio.

First up, a bit of a rant on a few different things, including the good news/bad news results of California's primary election for Secretary of State and the disenfranchised voters this week in Alabama's primary (and beyond!)

Next, Desi Doyen joined us for an extended Green News Report to discuss the Obama EPA's landmark announcement of newly proposed nationwide CO2 emissions reduction and the fossil fueled freakout that followed.

Finally, listener phone calls on all of the above and more! Please enjoy it!...

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

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State GOP's voter suppression law working as designed; Why has DoJ not challenged it yet?...
By Brad Friedman on 6/4/2014 12:41pm PT  

Yesterday we covered the story of 93-year old Willie Mims, the African-American man who was turned away from the polling place in Alabama for lack of a Photo ID, after having voted successfully in nearly every election since WWII.

Mims had a drivers license, but it had expired. So, according to the polling place Photo ID restriction law enacted by state Republicans, even though Mims would have had his photo on it and even an address that matched his voter registration, he was not allowed to cast his vote during yesterday's primary election.

But Mims was hardly the only one who was kept from voting yesterday, under the first official statewide run of the AL GOP's polling place Photo ID law. (The law was passed in 2011, but didn't take effect until now, since the state was waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to knock down the section of the Voting Rights Act that would likely have blocked the racially discriminatory statute from taking effect.)

Kay Campbell of AL.com shared this story yesterday of another long time voter who lost her right to vote thanks to the same law...

A Huntsville woman, 92, who has lived in the same house in Huntsville for 57 years and voted in every election since she was eligible, was turned away from the polls today because her driver's license expired nine months ago.

The voter, a great-grandmother to five, was deeply embarrassed by the whole incident and declined to talk directly with AL.com, but she gave her go-ahead for her neighbor, who took her to the polls, to relay the incident, with the provision that her name not be used.
...
The license had expired in August 2013. She had not renewed it because her eyesight is failing and she has made the tough decision to quit driving. But she thought since it was so recent, it would work. She uses it to cash checks and in other rare incidences when she is asked for an ID.

As we also noted yesterday, via MSNBC's Zachary Roth, Alabama has a loophole built into the law, which the NAACP Legal Defense fund describes [PDF] as "an illegal relic of the Jim Crow South". It allows a voter without the very specific state-issued Photo ID now required to cast a ballot, to vote anyway so long as two poll workers at the precinct can vouch for them.

Campbell reports that Libba Nicholson, the neighbor who drove the elderly woman to the polling place, "said that the woman in charge of the Help Desk asked the other poll workers if any of them recognized her - just one more verification would have done it, Nicholson said, but no one did."

And then there was this...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




First use of new GOP voting restriction in the state, while state Republicans offered $1,000 reward for evidence of voter fraud...
By Brad Friedman on 6/3/2014 6:35pm PT  

It was Primary Day in Alabama on Tuesday and the first time since passage of the law that the state's Republican-enacted polling place Photo ID restriction on voting has been in place. Sure enough, the voter suppression law was successful, as voters were immediately disenfranchised by the new restriction, according to Zach Roth at MSNBC...

Willie Mims, 93, showed up to vote at his polling place in Escambia County Tuesday morning for Alabama's primary elections. Mims, who is African-American, no longer drives, doesn't have a license, and has no other form of ID. As a result, he was turned away without voting. Mims wasn't even offered the chance to cast a provisional ballot, as the law requires in that situation.

Mims, as he explains in the video below, first voted back during WWII. He says he's voted in almost every election since then. Until now...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 6/3/2014 3:04pm PT  


Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Green News Report Special Coverage: President Obama's EPA unveils historic new proposed standards to cut carbon pollution from power plants nationwide, to take action on climate change... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Listen online here, or Download MP3 (6 mins)...

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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): Controlled burn planned after oil spill in Delta National Wildlife Refuge; Whales Saved by Ship Speed Limits; The implications of Google's self-driving car; WSJ’s shameful climate denial; Green Energy Investment Set To 'Explode'; Here’s How Much U.S. Summers Have Warmed Since 1970; IEA Report calls for huge investment in energy development; Solar Farmers in Japan to Harvest Electricity With Crops.... PLUS: Conservatives Searching for New Reasons Not to Save Planet ... and much, MUCH more! ...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Brad Friedman on 6/2/2014 1:50pm PT  

[This article now cross-published by Salon...]

As we noted last night, the global warming deniers were sure to start firing on all carbon-emitting pistons this week in response to the Obama EPA's landmark announcement today of proposed new rules to decrease harmful, climate-destabilizing CO2 pollution from existing dirty power plants, as per the U.S. Supreme Court-mandated enforcement of the Clean Air Act.

The deniers haven't disappointed.

The following quotes come from a press release sent out this morning from the fossil fuel industry-funded "Heartland Institute," which pretends to offer science-based arguments in support of their "mission...to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems."

In fact, the group serves as little more than a mouthpiece for Big Carbon and the modern Republican Party which, largely thanks to Citizens United in 2010, now eschews the use of actual science in the public sphere.

Despite their ironic "non-profit" status --- enjoying government subsidies for promoting "free-market solutions" --- the Heartland Institute is also little more than an arm of the Republican Party. In one of the responses to today's announcement, the Heartland Institute President argues that "Republicans in the House and Senate are right to oppose EPA's new global warming rules," and "Voters will do well to remember who was on their side during the coming political battles."

In another response, the "non-partisan" group says that challenging the Obama EPA's proposed policy could be great for the GOP. "If done intelligently," Heartland's Science Director(!) Jay Lehr writes, the challenge "could cost [Obama's] party the Senate in the November elections and dramatically increase the Republican majority in the House of Representatives - which will enable the Republicans to stymie any further legislative action by the president for the remainder of his term."

Now that's some good Science Directing! And some good non-partisanship! Of course, this is also the same group that purchased billboards comparing those who believe in science to "The Unabomber" and Charles Manson, so it's not as though anybody would take these folks seriously, right? Wrong. They are consistently featured and quoted by theoretically legitimate mainstream media outlets in coverage of the pretend "global warming debate".

Here then, in no particular order, are the top 7 most amusing responses from the Heartland Institute's "experts", as released this morning in response to today's EPA announcement...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Brad Friedman on 6/1/2014 9:47pm PT  

Our too-infrequent guest blogger D.R. Tucker is now working the weekend shift at Washington Monthly's excellent "Political Animal" blog and, as expected, he's out of the gate like a lion on the climate crisis and the pre-wrangling over the Obama EPA's proposed landmark guidelines for restrictions on CO2 emissions by dirty coal-fired power plants (ya know, the rules they're required by law, under the 1970 Clean Air Act, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, to put in place.)

Over just this weekend, D.R. has published a number of sharp articles there on the topic, including "It's On: You can already hear the denialists screaming. And scheming."; "The Short-Timers"; "(Dirty) Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand"; and the ingeniously-named "If You Like Your Planet, You Can Keep Your Planet" (in which he quotes The BRAD BLOG at some length, from this recent piece).

You should read them all if you'd like to be smarter about actual facts in regard to climate change, the GOP denial industry (which will certainly be kicking into the highest of dudgeon once again this week), and the clear and present danger we now face thanks to run-away, human-caused CO2 emissions and the global warming it is causing.

But it was the following exchange in the comments section of the "If You Like Your Planet..." piece --- specifically the last line by commenter "Virginia" --- which made me smile...

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And why the entire 'debate' is phony...
By Brad Friedman on 5/30/2014 4:06pm PT  

We touched on this a bit in yesterday's Green News Report, but this new "I'm not a scientist" tactic now emerging from Republicans, as played most recently by Speaker John Boehner, is noteworthy enough --- and cowardly enough...and purposely deceptive enough --- to look at just a bit closer.

It's a fairly clever new ruse to avoid what folks like Boehner know to be absolutely true, but which, for a number of reasons, they're not allowed to say outloud anymore.

New York's Jonathon Chait helps kick this off...

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