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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Breaking: More aid to Africa for drought/famine relief; Good year-end news for anyone who breathes: new rules to clean up toxic mercury and arsenic from coal plants; 30k Chinese 'occupy' to protest coal plants; Meet today's World's Newest Oil Spill, now in Nigeria; PLUS: Um... "explosive" trends in a melting Arctic ... 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): House GOP earns ‘Worst Environmental Record Of Any Congress’; Record TX drought kills 500m trees; Genetic mutations in farm-raised salmon; New material breakthrough could double solar efficiency - with cheap plastic; Seattle bans plastic bags; Keystone XL would ship oil to China; USDA deregulates Monsanto GMO seed; Top clean energy stories of 2011 ... PLUS: Don't paint it black: US researchers invent paint-on solar cells ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Newt makes stuff up; Historic drought in TX now worst in a century; This week's newest oil spill, now in CO; Extreme weather disasters will cost even more due to global warming; One step forward, two steps back in UN climate negotiations; PLUS: House GOP wins another courageous battle in the fight against imaginary regulations ... 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): In spite of Solyndra, military solar project a GO; How to slash CA's greenhouse gas emissions by 2050; Abrupt climate change possible from melting permafrost; Study: Renewables can reduce pollution at no cost to the economy; Running dry on the Great Plains; Algae bloom baffles scientists; Study Shows Worse Picture of Meltdown in Japan ... PLUS: The end of world as we know it: a surprisingly uplifting documentary... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Meet the world's newest oil spill, now in Brazil and starring Chevron!; Supercommittee FAIL a big win for Big Oil; Confirmed again: Extreme weather is the New Normal; Bye-bye oysters; PLUS: Surprise! Fox News deceives its viewers on climate change, or the more you watch Fox, the less you know ... 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): Not-so-fresh round of hacked climate science emails leaked online; TX towns will run out of water in 2 weeks; Hackers target US water utility; Future cancers from Fukushima plant may be hidden; Solyndra accounts for less than 2% of the DOE's loan program; Scientists slam BLM’s coal-friendly slant on climate change; Obama Says Climate Threat ‘Cannot Be Denied’... PLUS: The art of talking about climate science ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Some of the police brutality that has occurred at Occupy demonstrations around the country has been appalling. It's particularly upsetting to watch as those cops seen violating the law and the Constitutional rights of demonstrators are also part of the "99 Percent" themselves.

One of them --- Officer Fred Shavies of the Oakland PD, who was revealed as an undercover infiltrator at Occupy Oakland --- now concedes as much in an extraordinarily moving interview in which he condemns the violence by his fellow cops and says he sees the Occupy movement as a possible "turning point, the tipping point" for our generation.

"It looks like...police shot tear gas into it, right?" says Shavies, referencing the October 25 violence in Oakland at the intersection of 14th & Broadway that The BRAD BLOG has documented in great detail here (see here, here and here for example). "That could be the photograph or the video for our generation. That’s our Birmingham," he explains, alluding to the police brutality that occurred during the otherwise peaceful fight for voting rights in the South during the 60s.

"So, twenty years from now this movement could be the turning point, the tipping point," Shavies says during the interview, as he identifies with the protesters in the "99 percent" movement, adding that he is one of them. [Video and more excerpts below.]

We're not among the anti-cop folks around here. We have, however, reported in great detail on the lawlessness demonstrated by some of the "law enforcement" officials in Oakland, referenced by Shavies, as well as the serious injuries they've inflicted on peaceful demonstrators and even some who weren't demonstrating at all.

So while we don't oppose the lawful men and women of law enforcement, some of them seem to be working awfully hard to give their brothers and sisters a very bad name. Those who have done so must be held accountable for their actions.

You've seen some of the videos of NYPD officers violently pepper spraying peaceful demonstrators, and the videos from Oakland as seen in the articles linked above. Here are two more recent examples of appalling police behavior as witnessed on video tape.

The first is from Occupy Berkeley on Wednesday, where the actions seen below were reported by AP as little more than police "nudging" demonstrators:

Really, AP? "Nudging"?...

The developers of Yelp updated their iPhone app yesterday, and tossed in a pretty good joke to those paying close attention...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Perry can't remember the name of the Dept. of Energy --- but wants to shut it down; BREAKING: State Dept. may re-route controversial Keystone XL pipeline; Australia passes world's first carbon tax; More wacky extreme weather in weird places; PLUS: IEA: 5 years to avoid the worst consequences of climate change ... 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): Oil Executive: use military-style 'Psy Ops' to fight opposition "insurgency"; Video: 'The Story of Broke'; U.S.-China trade war in solar taking shape; Studies link auto pollution to autism; 1st commerical plane flight using biofuel; Oil Lobbyist likes oil industry subsidies: 'There Are No Loopholes ... PLUS: Current global warming unprecedented compared to last 20k years ... and much, MUCH more! ...

If you had the pleasure of not sitting through tonight's GOP debate on CNBC, here is the only thing you missed...

P.S. About fifteen minutes later he remembered: The Department of Energy.

UPDATE: AP's story on the flub starts this way:

"Oops", indeed.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: EPA, 'green' energy under attack at the GOP Presidential debates; Whitehouse blasts climate change denial industry (Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, that is...); Australia forges ahead with carbon tax; International Energy Agency issues dire warnings of higher food & fuel prices to come; PLUS: Surprise! Scientists got it wrong: The Arctic is melting faster --- much faster --- than predictions ... 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): IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: EPA, 'green' energy under attack at the GOP Presidential debates; Whitehouse blasts climate change denial industry (Senator Sheldon, that is...); Australia forges ahead with carbon tax; IEA: Dire warnings of higher food & fuel prices to come; PLUS: Surprise! Scientists got it wrong: The Arctic is melting faster --- much faster --- than predictions ... 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): US solar firms file trade complaint against China; FDA cites dirty equipment in cantaloupe outbreak; Sen. Rand Paul lifts hold on pipeline bill; Regulators impose limits on oil speculation; EPA plans new water standards for 'fracking'; Natural gas drilling causing conflicts with mortgages; U.S. can only monitor offshore drilling in Cuban waters; Drama-filled 2011 World Solar Racing Challenge; Herman Cain's extensive ties to billionaire Koch Brothers; Climate change is shrinking species, research suggests; David Suzuki on the Occupy Wall Street Movement; Fox News FAIL: reports fake solar scandal; Fracking: you don’t miss your water ‘til your well explodes; Climate change could trap 100s of millions in disaster areas ...PLUS: Solar Leaf breakthrough: while Tea Party slimes clean energy progress, innovators build the future ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Republicans wave the white flag, surrender to China; Obama doesn't, as clean energy jobs are the fastest growing sector in the U.S.; Gov. Rick Perry's political appointees censor climate change from a scientific environmental report; PLUS: This week's historic floods now arriving in Bangkok, in a year of record flooding across the globe ... 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): Arctic Ozone Hole: Inaction Risks “Future Nasty Climate Change Surprises Far More Serious”; Solar is getting cheap fast; Radioactivity found in plankton near Fukushima; Coal: for every $1 in cheap electricity, coal causes $2 in damages; Interior to allow BP into Gulf lease sale; U.S. sanctions BP, contractors for Gulf oil spill; Canadian pipeline company threatens U.S. landowners with eminent domain; Judge strikes down Bush-era ruling on polar bears; EPA Tries To Put To Rest 'Myth' of Farm Dust Rules; Herman Cain's long tes to Koch Brothers; Scientists nderplay Climate Impacts; Climate Change Poses Immediate Threat To Health; Salmon-Killing Virus Seen for 1st Time in Wild; Bringing a 'dead' TN river back to life; House Republicans Score Another Symbolic Defeat for EPA; Where Did Global Warming Go?; Climate Change is Shrinking Species, Research Suggests...PLUS: 'Occupy the Tundra': One woman's lonely vigil in bush Alaska ...

Via #OccupyAustin..

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

"What is a vote worth?" Venango County, PA's Election Board Chairman Craig Adams, a Republican, asked last week. "If the vote is counted it is priceless. If it is not counted, I don't care what it costs. Let's get a right."

"After months of legal wrangling," Marybeth Kuznik of the non-partisan Election Integrity advocacy group VotePA told The BRAD BLOG last week, Venango County's landmark independent forensic examination of the notoriously unreliable and 100% unverifiable ES&S iVotronic Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, most often touch-screen) e-voting system finally got under way.

Kuznik explained that the study comes in the wake of the heavily Republican-leaning county having experienced "numerous reports of vote-flipping, candidates missing from screens, write-ins missing, and high undervote rates in their May 17 Primary." Some candidates on the ballots even were reported by the voting machines to have received zero votes...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate change denial industry desperately distorting EPA reports; 'Poo Power' lights London --- literally; Historic dam removal creating a bunch of new dam jobs; PLUS: Rand Paul wants the Koch Brothers to go to jail?!? (but he doesn't want you to have safer gas pipelines ... 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): Winners of the Solar Decathlon 2011, ends this weekend; Maathai: Be "active participants" in environmental restoration; Feedlots are hazardous to your respiratory health; American 'allergy' to global warming; Google invests $75m in residential solar; Santa Fe's air among cleanest in the world; Texas air quality the worst in US; New process converts plastic into synthetic crude oil; Artificial leaf could change solar power; Keystone XL: Pipeline divides along Old lines; No one wants Japan's radioactive soil; Pakistan: another victim of climate change; Obama admin delays fed fuel efficiency rules; Gibson Guitars made illegal logging a conservative cause célèbre; Lobbyists spinning weak science to defend BPA ... PLUS: Peak Coal: The Coming Decline and Fall of Big Coal ...

As posted by the Texas Parks & Wildlife Dept. (Strongly suggest you click the full-screen button to view these after they begin playing)...

In the meantime, following a summer of all-time record heat, all-time record drought, and all-time record wildfires to go with it all in the state, TX Governor and Republican Presidential front-runner Rick Perry so thoroughly denies the scientific consensus about global warming that, after 11 years as the state's chief executive, he has not met even once with Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon, the official Texas State climatologist, to discuss any of it.

For that alone, it seems to us, Perry ought to not only be disqualified for higher office, but should be impeached, if the Texas constitution allows it, for gross, and even criminal, negligence.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Government shutdown showdown, now starring FEMA in the role of 'Hostage'!; GOP candidate Herman Cain bucks his party, says 'fund FEMA now'; More than 100 arrested in very polite Canadian pipeline protest; Celebrating the legacy of one woman in Africa; PLUS: Climate Science Rapid Response Team, ACTIVATE! ... 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 leaders turn tables at congressional mountaintop removal field hearing; BP oil spill affected Gulf fish cell function; Obama On Perry: ‘You’ve got a governor whose state is on fire, denying climate change’; Japanese rice radiation levels prompt more tests; 'Unavoidable climate disruption' locked in; Oil co's flaring natural gas on the ND prairie; Labour Party threatens UK's six biggest energy companies; DOE report: U.S. should focus on transportation fuels; Proof that fracking can make water flammable; New lithium ion battery charges faster, runs longer; BP will be messing up Australia next; China invests $313B on clean tech; U.S. military moving to clean energy; Moving Planet actions around the globe; Only 8 fish stocks out of 136 by 2022; Media fact-check on Solyndra bankruptcy; the American 'allergy' to global warming...PLUS: U.S. Engineers: We have all the tech we need to cut carbon ...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Since taking power in statehouses across the nation in 2010, Republicans have been feverishly implementing new restrictions on democracy in advance of the 2012 Presidential election. A number of those laws, clearly --- and often deceptively --- designed to carve out blatant partisan advantage for the GOP next year, were examined during a recent hearing by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights. The video of the hearing on "New State Voting Laws: Barriers to the Ballot" can be viewed here.

This is the second of our two-part analysis of the hearing.

In Part 1, we covered the subcommittee's examination of new polling place photo ID restrictions designed to make it more difficult for lawfully registered (and disproportionately Democratic-leaning) voters to cast their ballots at the precincts on Election Day. That issue --- which included some devastating cross-examination of long-time GOP "voter fraud" front-man Hans Von Spakovsky by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) --- was the first of three categories, as defined by committee chair Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) of new state voting laws covered in the hearings. All of the new voter suppression laws have been recently rammed through Republican-majority statehouses across the country.

In this concluding piece, we will cover the two additional categories examined: laws erecting barriers to the ability of individuals and non-partisan, non-governmental organizations to offer convenient registration for new voters and laws imposing significant reductions on early voting periods. Both are likely to restrict the number of voters able to cast their lawful vote in 2012 and, again, each is likely to disproportionately affect Democratic-leaning voters.

Finally, We'll also touch upon the status of legal challenges to these new laws by democracy proponents and challenges to the Voting Rights Act itself by operatives on the Right. Moreover, it's impossible to look at any of these issues without drawing inferences about what the combination of new laws in all three categories means, particularly in light of the fact that the models for these new laws were drafted by the billionaire Koch brothers-funded, Paul Weyrich co-founded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)...