-- By Brad Friedman and Ernest A. Canning

As The BRAD BLOG reported over the weekend, an internecine firefight has blown up among progressives who support the candidacy of Marcy Winograd against entrenched "Blue Dog" Jane Harman (D-CA), and Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), long regarded as one of the more progressive members of the U.S. Congress.

Woolsey, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) and a longtime Advisory Board Member of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), stunned progressives over the last several days when it was revealed that she was endorsing, and would be participating in a fundraiser for Harman next Saturday, January 16th, as noted in our report yesterday.

In the wake of Woolsey's curious support for the seven term Democrat, PDA is issuing an email blast to supporters tonight, asking them to sign on to an open letter (posted in full below) demanding Woolsey withdraw from the upcoming event, as well as drop her endorsement of Harman who will be challenged this year by Winograd, a longtime leader in PDA's Los Angeles chapter, and the first candidate of 2010 to be endorsed by the group. Winograd ran an unsuccessful challenge against Harman in 2006, but has begun her campaign earlier this year, and hopes to capitalize on growing progressive outrage at entrechned Congressional Democrats such as Harman. In a recent letter to supporters, Winograd described Harman as "the Joe Lieberman of the House."

In the open letter posted here, initially signed by Tim Carpenter, PDA's National Director, Mimi Kennedy and PDA's Advisory Board Chair, the group, describes the process signing the letter as "painful," but describes the negative response from members to the Woolsey endorsement of Harman, and asks for her to withdraw from the event immediately.

"The tone and emphasis of the responses vary, but the overwhelming gist is clear," Carpenter and Kennedy write to Woolsey, "The progressive base is upset about your scheduled involvement [in the January 16 fund-raising event] and hopes that you will withdraw from this event. As an organization, Progressive Democrats of America joins in that request."...

While criticism of Obama and Democrats is as easy as it is appropriate (as well as frequently engaged in here), their failures on the marquee items --- Afghanistan, health care, torture accountability, etc., ya know, the items Fox "News" and the other wingnuts like to talk about --- tend to obscure the very real differences between the current administration and the former one across a broader, and much less sexy (by cable news standards), level. That's just one of the reasons I reject the far too lazy "Democrats are just the same as Republicans" knee-jerkisms.

While on the big ticket items, as noted above, there is far less difference in real world results than all of us would like, but below the radar, in executive departments and policies, the difference has been, at times, and in some areas, like night and day.

Desi Doyen and I have made this point on a number of occasions in our Green News Reports --- most recently in last Thursday's edition, highlighting new, important and aggressive policy changes and initiatives at the EPA, federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Dept. of Interior.

Now, some important changes at the DoJ's Civil Rights Division, and of particular note to long time readers of The BRAD BLOG, its Voting Rights Division, are beginning to show real change and significantly for the better, whether you hear about it on Fox and CNN and MSNBC or not.

Adam Serwer of The American Prospect highlighted some of that positive change late last week on the heels of an upheaval at the DoJ's Voting Rights Division over which The BRAD BLOG played a very direct and significant role in 2007....

Was on the road all day Friday...Here was the view from Holbrook, New Mexico...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) and board member of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), has confounded progressives by joining forces to support notorious "Blue Dog" Democratic Rep. Jane Harman in her upcoming primary re-match against PDA-backed Marcy Winograd, long time leader in the grassroots progressive organization.

Several weeks ago, in "Winograd, Harman Race Heats Up Again," we noted that the looming 2010 primary contest between Harman, California's powerful eight-term Democratic U.S. Congresswoman and the progressive Winograd "presents a classic David and Goliath match up. With a net worth ranging between $236 million to $558 million, Harman, is said to be one of the richest members of Congress. Winograd, by contrast, is running a bottom-up progressive campaign of the type I advocated for recently in 'Progressives of America - Unite!'."

We noted:

An endorsement for Harman, from Lynn Woolsey of all people, has engendered some predictably strong reactions from progressive circles...

Guest essay by Ernest A. Canning

Irrespective of whether one accepts the government's official explanation or one of the multiple "inside job/false-flag" theories advanced by the "9/11 Truth" movement, or even if you simply regard the current state of public information about 9/11 to be inadequate to arrive at any hard-and-fast conclusions about that seminal event, the mere mention of it evokes the word "terror" in some way for all Americans.

But the word "terror" is rarely applied to Donald Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" assaults on the city of Fallujah. Why?...

This just in. More Republican traditional family values...

Remember, we must protect traditional marriage at all costs! Even for attempted Republican murderers and the recently twice-divorced Karl Rove, to whom we must give credit for at least having had the decency of not trying to murder either of his former wives (that we know of).

Furthermore, we hope they don't try to disbar Farren over this policy difference between him and his wife. Politicizing his belief that she should no longer be alive would just be wrong, set a very bad precedent for future administration attorneys, and put our nation at even greater danger from terrorism.

While that may be biggest "no, duh" headline ever for readers of The BRAD BLOG, happily it's actually news today at Washington Post [emphasis added]:

Note to rest of media: Begin ignoring the above immediately. It never happened.

Follow and stream @GreenNewsReport!...



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IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: Whale Wars turn violent; Obama Administration gets serious --- big moves at EPA, BLM, Interior; Senate retirements threaten climate legislation ... PLUS: Is America's love affair with the car over? ... 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': Climate activists jailed over anti-coal statements; Experts: Cold snap doesn't disprove global warming; Science confirms that blowing up mountains harms mountains; 'Silk' organic soy milk not organic anymore; Japanese project to turn CO2 into natural gas; Whole Foods CEO steps in it again, says 'no scientific consensus exists' on global climate change .... PLUS: 7 Energy Efficient Gadgets that Could Be 2010 Game-Changers ....

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

A new movement, led by economist Robert Johnson, who previously served on the Senate Banking and Senate Budget Committees, is urging citizens to move their money out of the big banks, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo and into local community banks in order to "stop this toxic side effect of derivatives lobbying and 'too big to fail' lobbying" --- a move that is secure so long as the selected community banks are covered by the F.D.I.C. for deposits up to $250,000.

According to Johnson, who was interviewed recently by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, those four banks, along with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, control 97% of the derivatives market:

The 01/04/10 Democracy Now segment on the Community Bank Movement follows below...

A bit of good-ish, encouraging news from out of an otherwise horrible year, from this week's New York Times...

The BRAD BLOG has long endeavored to fight back against the disinformation being put forward by the GOP "voter fraud" charlatans and fraudsters contending that massive fraud is being carried out by voters at the polls, requiring the institution of disenfranchising Photo ID restrictions at the polling place which would result in some 21 million Americans being unable to cast their legal votes, according to the League of Women Voters and most other serious experts on these matters.

Once again, a story out of Kentucky helps us highlight that it's election insiders, not voters themselves, who are, by far, the greatest threat to the integrity of elections.

We reported early last year on the passel of election officials in Clay County, KY, arrested for buying and selling votes, manipulating ES&S electronic voting machines without the knowledge of voters, and otherwise fixing elections from 2002 to 2006.

As their January 19 trial date nears, more motions are being filed by federal prosecutors. The latest, filed last week, alleges that two of the top officials charged --- one, a circuit court judge and the other, the county school Superintendent --- had been fixing elections for decades before their recent indictments...

Follow and stream @GreenNewsReport!...



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IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: Baby it's cold outside! Record cold and storms in U.S. and Europe --- but the hottest decade on record Down Under; Water shortages in Mexico City and water contamination in China ... PLUS: A new tax for an old bag ... 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': New rules curb wind power development in Wyoming; Prison for man convicted of killing China's last endangered Indo-Chinese tiger; Manatees vs. the Military in Florida; Controversial solution to Red River flooding in North Dakota; California state Republicans work to halt climate law; French Constitutional Council nixes carbon tax for being insufficiently tax-y .... PLUS: Tools for doing your own home energy audit! ....

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...

The baseball metaphors were theirs. I just thought I'd pick up on them.

Over the holiday weekend, there was a bit of an "academic" tàªte-à -tàªte in the upper-blogosphere over President Obama's handling of the arrest, detention and prosecution of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Detroit "Underwear Bomber," as it compared to George W. Bush's almost exactly similar handling of the arrest, detention and prosecution of Richard Reid, the "Shoe Bomber," and other alleged terrorists by the former administration.

While there were swell arguments into which "both" sides could firmly dig their heels, as usual, the conversation that the people of this country really need to be having was shunted far aside in favor of the one Dick Cheney and Karl Rove prefer to be having...

In case you missed this bit of shame and unsurprising-by-now hypocrisy buried in between the holiday news holes...

Glenn Greenwald has more...

[Hat-tip longtime BRAD BLOG toon sherpa Pokey Anderson.]