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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Green News Report special coverage: Buckle up - landmark US report from 13 federal agencies warns climate change is here and now, and a clear and present danger... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Stanford Univ. to divest from coal; Fracking earthquakes not OK in OK; Drought-stricken town turns to toilets for water; WA: fierce local opposition to oil trains; Organic farmers fight over allowable synthetic substances; Indiana has the most toxic coal ash waste ponds in US... PLUS: Uh oh: East Antarctic ice sheet more vulnerable to collapse than previously thought ... and much, MUCH more! ...

I was on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture TV show on Friday, to discuss the week's landmark decision by a federal court in Wisconsin which struck down the state's Republican-enacted polling place Photo ID restriction law as a violation of both the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act and the fact that the decision, as our own Ernie Canning explained, may finally signal the "beginning of the end" for such purposely discriminatory laws.

(And thanks to my friend Mike Papantonio of Ring of Fire, who was guest hosting for Thom on Friday, for the very kind words!)...

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This week's federal court decision to strike down Wisconsin's polling place Photo ID law has national significance and does not bode well for Republicans who have been attempting to advance such electoral schemes in recent years, as based on misleading "facts", wild claims and dishonest interpretations of case law and court precedent.

The court's landmark decision in the Wisconsin case contains a methodology for testing the law's constitutionality that, if applied by other courts in similar federal challenges to similar laws in other states, would likely mark the beginning of the end for Republican-enacted, polling place Photo ID restrictions. We describe that possibility as "likely", given that a careful reading of prior case law suggests that six of the Supreme Court's nine Justices have already subscribed to legal opinions that are consistent with the methodology used by the federal court in Wisconsin.

In late 2011, shortly after the filing of the first of the two federal cases that resulted in this week's ruling finding that Wisconsin's polling place Photo ID law (Act 23) violated both the U.S. Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), The BRAD BLOG explained why the issues before the federal bench in Wisconsin "could reverse similar laws nationwide."

The 90-page decision and order [PDF] that U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman meticulously crafted, not only after a full trial on the merits, but over a span of more than 3 1/2 months following it, suggests that our earlier prediction may have been an understatement.

In declaring Wisconsin's Republican-enacted Photo ID law unconstitutional and a violation of federal law, Judge Adelman applied a very specific test for the law, one called for by the U.S. Supreme Court back in 2008. That same test, measuring the potential benefits of such laws against their possible harm to voters' rights, if similarly applied elsewhere, would likely invalidate most, if not all of the similar restrictions which have been rammed through numerous GOP-majority state legislatures over the past six years.

While stopping short of describing Republican "justifications" for such laws as a mere pretext for voter suppression, Judge Adelman's decision persuasively finds that the core GOP claims about the supposed need for polling place Photo ID restrictions cannot withstand judicial scrutiny when tested against a fact-based reality in a court of law. The judge found, in no uncertain terms, that such laws are constitutionally infirm because, without legitimate state interests for such restrictions, they serve only to disproportionately disenfranchise the poor, the elderly and minority voters...

As a former Republican, I can't help noticing the dark irony in the abandonment of rogue Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy by Republican politicians and right-wing media figures on the heels of his incendiary comments last week about "the Negro."

Bigotry is never funny, as Los Angeles Clippers owner --- and (contrary to right-wing media misinformation) registered Republican --- Donald Sterling has proven. However, one can't help chuckling over the fact that right-wingers tried to wash their hands of Cliven the Cretinous just a few days after they celebrated a US Supreme Court ruling limiting affirmative-action efforts in higher education.

The two issues are connected, though not in the way one might think...

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

Very big news out of a federal court in Wisconsin today, where the state's polling place Photo ID law (Act 23) has now been struck down as both a violation of the federal Constitutional as well as under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

While similar laws, all enacted by Republicans, have been struck down by state courts before --- indeed, Wisconsin's, was already found in violation of the state constitution in state court --- and in federal courts under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, today's ruling is the first to strike down such a law under Section 2 of the VRA.

The landmark ruling will almost certainly have national implications for federal challenges in other states against similar restrictions recently enacted by Republicans.

Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the heart of the VRA by making Section 5 unenforceable until Congress passes new legislation to determine which jurisdictions must pre-clear new elections laws with the U.S. Dept. of Justice before they are put into effect, due to a history of racial discrimination in elections in those jurisdictions. Section 2, however, bars discrimination in all 50 states, even though, unlike Section 5, it cannot be applied until after the new law in question goes into effect.

Judge Lynn Adelman's ruling [PDF] today, finding WI's version of the law discriminatory and in violation of both Section 2 and the 14th Amendment of the federal Constitution, is likely to have an impact on federal challenges to similar laws in states such as Texas and North Carolina, where federal cases are pending to block similarly discriminatory polling place restrictions.

Moreover, the judge placed the racial and class discrimination and disenfranchisement that would be caused by this law in stark terms, in regard to how many otherwise legal voters in Wisconsin might lose their right to vote, and how such a law might have directly affected the results of the state's 2010 election, had it been place at the time...

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

A Circuit Court judge has resoundingly rejected Arkansas' new Photo ID restrictions on voting, declaring the law to be "null and void" and in violation of the state's Constitutional right to vote.

Last year, after Republicans took over the Arkansas statehouse for the first time since Reconstruction, they passed an onerous Photo ID restriction law for voting. The Democratic Governor Mike Beebe vetoed the new restrictions, but that veto was subsequently overridden by the Republican legislature.

Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Davis Fox' 2-page Summary Judgement [PDF] finds in favor of plaintiffs in the case, the Pulaski County Election Commission and against both the defendant, the Arkansas State Board of Election Commissioners, as well as the Republican Party of Arkansas which intervened on behalf of the Board of Election.

In his Thursday ruling, Fox found the law to be "unconstitutional in that it violates Articles 3, Section 1 and Article 3, Section 2 of the Arkansas Constitution."

Section 1 of Article 3 details the "Qualifications of Electors" in the Arkansas state Constitution, declaring that, "Except as otherwise provided by this Constitution, any person may vote in an election in this state who is: (1) A citizen of the United States; (2) A resident of the State of Arkansas; (3) At least eighteen (18) years of age; and (4) Lawfully registered to vote in the election."

Section 2, on the "Right of Suffrage" states that "Elections shall be free and equal. No power, civil or military, shall ever interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage; nor shall any law be enacted whereby such right shall be impaired or forfeited, except for the commission of a felony, upon lawful conviction thereof."

Given the very clear and straightforward language of the state Constitution, this seems to have been a very easy case. Republicans, however, are reportedly preparing to appeal the ruling...

"Hannity ate up that story so hard, Bundy should have charged him grazing fees," observed Stephen Colbert by way of introducing his brilliant Ballad of Cliven Bundy. "Like every folk hero," Colbert continued, "he deserves a folk song"...

While that tune and that segment couldn't be more brilliant, the Bundy situation on the range is now just getting plain sad. Here's a clip of his fairly pathetic appearance on CNN this morning...

As I snarked last night on Twitter...

The time at the #BundyRanch is now 14:59.

— Brad Friedman (@TheBradBlog) April 25, 2014

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Another fossil fuel explosion, this time in Wyoming; State Department delays as Cowboys & Indians protest the Keystone XL pipeline; Landmark $3m judgment against fracking company; Oil industry unprepared for oil spill in the Arctic; PLUS: The legacy of the BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf, four years later... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Sweeping reforms to protect coal miners from black lung disease; Game Over: killer video uses Tetris to explain climate change; China says 59% of its groundwater is polluted; Tea Party wants to help you go solar; WV coal ash spill: Health Dept. reports finally admits negative health impacts; Apple offers free recycling of its products; Score another victory for climate science and Michael Mann ... PLUS: Let This Earth Day Be The Last ... and much, MUCH more! ...

The least surprising news of the week, except to those in the media who bought in to the months of Rightwing/Republican/Darrell Issa/GOP Victimization propaganda...

Those numbers, showing that progressive groups as well as "conservative" ones seeking tax-exempt status were given additional scrutiny by the IRS, are based on docs received via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests made by Think Progress.

We noted this very point in our initial coverage of the phony "IRS is targeting conservatives!!!" scam last year, just after the White House had (pathetically) fallen for it as well. (See here, then here, then here.)

While one might be excused for buying in to the scam in the first five minutes, 24 hours after it broke everyone should have known it was a scam. Nonetheless, the GOP, without having any legitimate basis for still being in business, has been making a career out of pretend scandals, including the one that "Obama is using the IRS to destroy Tea Party conservatives!!!" Their stupid base is dumb enough to believe them.

At this point, the Republican Party is no longer a political party. It's a permanent campaign organization with little more than self-victimization as their central platform.

For the record, as we've discussed many times, the problem is not the IRS giving too much scrutiny to political groups (aligned with either party) masquerading as "social welfare organizations", it's the fact that they are allowing such groups to continue the masquerade, despite the very clear statutory prohibition on any political activity by such groups.

Jon Stewart and The Daily Show's fantastic --- MUST-WATCH (just for the crying clips!) --- take on the outrageously absurd and demeaning media-enforced double-standard faced by female politicians over their male counterparts...

Seriously. Must-watch.

Via The Hill...

Maybe Democrats will stop acting like losers now too. Hmmm. Doubt it.