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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Oil rigs exploding; Volcanoes erupting; Senate Climate Legislation coming --- soon ... PLUS: On the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, a look back at the very first one... 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': Green reasons to 'Move Your Money': Big Banks and King Coal; Morales slams capitalism at People's World Conference on Climate Change; Dead whale found with gallons of human garbage in gut; Cash for appliances program starts TODAY!; Everest expedition to clean World's Highest Garbage Dump; UK University Ordered to Give Data to Climate Skeptic; USDA downplays own scientist's research on ill effects of Monsanto herbicide ... PLUS: A 'real life' AVATAR: Director James Cameron allies with indigenous tribes to save Amazon rainforest from dam project ...

LATE UPDATE: Burning oil rig sinks in Gulf of Mexico....

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

Wonder if our good friend, the alleged vote-rigging conspirator and high-flying Abramoff golf buddy, former Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL), will finally get the starring role he deserves in this new documentary. We're very much looking forward to it...

By the way, this is just one of the upcoming films on GOP uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Another one, a theatrical re-telling of his story, is currently in production with Kevin Spacey starring as "Casino Jack," and me not starring, despite my best efforts, as the diminutive yet dangerous Tom Feeney.

Russian Television's English language satellite broadcast channel, RT, tracked me down on the road to comment on George W. Bush's speech yesterday at a conference on "Internet Freedom" at his George W. Bush Freedom Institute in Dallas.

A speech by Bush on "Internet Freedom"?! Irony much? Um, yes.

As it turns out, the Internet connection in the little town I was in was not stable enough to handle a Skype video interview, so my contribution had to be via telephone. Here's their story...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Rescue & recovery in China; More fallout for the coal industry ... PLUS: Eruption Disruption: It's not just travel that's a pain in the ash, thanks to Eyjafjallajokull ... 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': Another Good Reason to Cut Oil Use; Hard science vindicates climate scientists; EPA, Energy Dept. announce Energy Star revamp; Saudis tighten China energy ties; Tea Partiers far less informed about climate change than general public; Tweeting uses less juice than Googling; Seattle to lead LED street light study ... PLUS: Yummy: USDA says meat supply routinely tainted with harmful residues ...

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

I wonder why those who were so "outraged" about supposed ACORN corruption (even though it all turned out to be fabricated Rightwing fiction) are not outraged in the slightest about the latest alleged corruption of Blackwater which has now resulted in an actual federal indictment of its former President.

Andrew Breitbart's big big big "Big Government" website, which made its name last year by publishing the phony ACORN "Pimp" Hoax videos hasn't found time to even mention last week's criminal indictments of top Blackwater officials, despite the company receiving BILLIONS in federal tax-payer dollars --- versus the millions ($3.5m/year on average) that ACORN received over the last 15 years.

It's as if Breitbart and his Tea Bag Boyz don't actually care about corruption of federal tax-payer dollars. Hell, they don't even seem to care about actual prostitution --- even CHILD prostitution --- rings being run on the Government dime, since Blackwater is also fighting two different court cases in which former employees allege the company did exactly that, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, with their BILLIONS in federal tax dollars. Yet still not a peep about that either on any of Andy's websites. Go figure.

It's just a small town somewhere in the middle of Nevada, but the top-notch political pun-ditry we caught on display around the town of Ely (pop. 4,041), could make all the difference this November...

Heheh...It sez "butt" instead of "but." Get it? Harry Reid is a "butt"! heheh...

And if you think that's good stuff, on the side of the trailer --- if you park your car and walk over to it, since the letters are pretty small --- you'll find some slightly more substantive political wisdom and criticism, apparently from someone named Jack Norcross. These thoughts are even more convincing, since they rhyme! (Sort of, though there are some metering problems)...

Guest Blogged by Ernest A. Canning

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 --- a date which will live in infamy."
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Amidst exploding bombs, smoke billowing from sinking battleships and dead bodies floating atop the oil slicked waters of Pearl Harbor, it was not all that difficult to appreciate the damage wrought by a surprise attack launched by the Empire of Japan. The same was true when we watched in horror as the smoldering twin towers of the World Trade Center precipitously collapsed on September 11, 2001.

Like these two earlier pivotal events, January 21, 2010 is, "a date which will live in infamy." Yet, unlike Pearl Harbor and 9/11, most Americans do not recognize it as such. This attack came not by way of planes or bombs delivered by some foreign menace. It came from within courtesy of what Professor Cass Sunstein aptly described as "radicals in robes" --- four directly connected to the Robert-Bork founded, billionaire-funded Federalist Society; all five as appointees of the Reagan and two Bush administrations. Men bent on unraveling the very constitution they had all solemnly sworn to uphold.

Their assault, though subtle, wrought far greater devastation than either Pearl Harbor or 9/11. They did not merely attack planes, ships and buildings. They assaulted the very foundations of our constitutional democracy...

Any remaining doubts about just how deeply detatched wingnuts are from Reality should pretty much be obliterated by this piece by Christian Toto at the far Rightwing website "Human Events."

I'm on the road today, so no time to offer details and/or direct rebuttal, but I suspect that, by now, BRAD BLOG readers should be able to both debunk and create your own punchline for just about each and every graf!

I'm also pretty sure that Toto wrote that article with a straight face (it's not April 1 still, right?), as incredible as that might sound. I don't believe I've read any story of late, in regard to the utterly debunked and disgraceful ACORN "Pimp" Hoax --- even from the pseudonymous rightwing blogger, O'Keefe/Breitbart dead-ender and (shockingly) L.A. County Dep. DA Patrick "Patterico" Frey --- which is so singularly disconnected from Reality.

A "Pulitzer Prize" for the fully disgraced and accused federal criminal James O'Keefe for fake reporting? That'd be roughly the equivalent of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Timothy McVeigh or a Grammy Award to Richard Nixon for "Best Spoken Word" for his superb work on the Watergate Tapes!

Fun stuff. Crazy. Batshit crazy. But still fun!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The First Lady goes to Haiti; Earthquake in Tibet; Volcano in Iceland; Climate scientists cleared of wrongdoing --- AGAIN ... PLUS: A War on Coal? Coal industry in the hot seat on Capitol Hill... 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': Biotech crops create pesticide-resistant weeds; March 2010 hottest on record; US South could save billions with energy conservation; FDA to study popular sanitizer ingredient triclosan; EU satellite to check climate impact on ice; Last US sardine cans being packed in Maine; GAO again faults interior for royalty collection efforts; Europe generates electricity from trash, U.S. lags ... PLUS: Offshore Drilling: How much oil really is off the Atlantic Coast? ...

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

House Judiciary Chair Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has just issued a statement [posted in full below] calling on the FBI to fire those who broke the law by issuing improper letters from the FBI in order to receive access to thousands of Americans' phone records from 2003 through 2006 under the guise of "national security."

"I call upon FBI Director Mueller to take immediate action to punish those who violated the rules," Conyers says in the statement, "including firing them from the agency."

"Today's hearing showed that the FBI broke the law on telephone records privacy and the General Counsel's Office, headed by Valerie Caproni, sanctioned it and must face consequences," said Conyers. "In some cases agents sent letters with information known to be false."

His statement even quotes the former Republican chair of the Committee, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), sharing the sentiment:

In a related matter, late last month a federal judge found the Bush Administration's warrantless domestic wiretapping program to be illegal. So this would be the second time in several weeks where the former administration was found to have violated the law and the U.S. Constitution in order to spy inappropriately and illegally on American citizens.

Will those Tea Baggers who claim to believe in the Constitution and the Rule of Law join the call for accountability yet? (Careful: It's a trick question, Tea Baggers, since the accountability would include members of the Bush Administration, and we realize your calls for "accountability" only go so far. On the other hand, if it's okay for Bush to have done it, we'll presume you don't mind if Obama spies on you either.)

Conyers' complete statement, issued late this afternoon, follows below...

Our old friend, the disgraced and disgraceful ACORN "Pimp" Hoax con-man Andrew Breitbart, is up to the same old tricks, according to AP. But this time they don't seem to be going as well for him.

In a deceptive effort to prove that Tea Baggers did not yell racial epithets at Democratic lawmakers during demonstrations against health insurance reform last month, Breitbart posted "VIDEO PROOF" from a different moment during those protests, the news service has found.

We're shocked he'd try to pull off such a scam. Even more shocked CNN hasn't hired him as a contract player yet.

Could the media finally be catching on to Breitbart's scams now that he's been caught lying time and again?

Now, as to the use of the phrase, "ACORN workers counseling actors posing as a pimp and prostitute," in the article by AP's Jesse Washington...um, really? Still? Even the New York Times has backed off of that one. Hasn't the AP bothered to read the CA Attorney General's report, much less any of our own coverage, on that point?

Glad to see AP holding Breitbart accountable for his bullshit, finally, but it's time for them to knock off their own lazy coverage, and start issuing corrections and apologies for their own months of misreporting on the ACORN "Pimp" Hoax.

AP's email address for corrections is: Info@AP.org. We've already sent such a request ourselves, but haven't heard back. Perhaps it will help, as it did at the New York Times, if they hear from a lot of readers.

Following on Brad Jacobson's investigative expose last month at RAW STORY concerning GOP operative turned EAC commissioner turned FEC commissioner Caroline Hunter, Velvet Revolution.us (VR) has filed a complaint [DOC] with the DC Court of Appeals asking for her disbarment based on the purposely misleading statements she offered under oath in a federal court hearing concerning allegations of voter suppression by the RNC in Ohio in the final days of the 2004 election. RAW's Muriel Kane provides details here...

And in other accountability news, VR's StopTheChamber.com campaign called yesterday for the arrest of Massey Energy CEO and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Director Don Blankenship for being "criminally culpable as any mass murderer," following the deaths of 29 miners at Massey's Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia last week. RAW's Daniel Tencer covers that story here...

[Full Disclosure: The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution.us]

The heat is just beginning to build for Blankenship, and hopefully it will continue, as it should have long ago but for the millions he has spent to date to avoid virtually any and all such accountability. His ability to do so, using the abusive power of the U.S. Chamber to help in that effort, needs to end...

Follow and stream @GreenNewsReport!...



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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Are we gonna need a new name for Glacier National Park?; The Great Barrier Reef, endangered by shipping shortcuts ... PLUS: The history of safety violations in America's mines, and accountability for the mining industry's most powerful men, like Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship... 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': Most TX natural gas facilities release toxic pollution; U.S. Wind Industry Bullish on Offshore Potential; Who's in charge with geoengineering?; Flawed ballot proposition threatens CA's global warming law; Leaked: Obama's hardline US climate talk strategy; Judge awards damages in toxic Chinese drywall lawsuit ... PLUS: You Want Chicken Poop With That Steak? Why FDA Should Ban Feces From Feed ...

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

As we have long tried to get across to anyone who would listen, the greatest threat to "secure" computerized systems --- such as the electronic voting systems, incredibly, still in use in all 50 states for this year's crucial election cycle --- comes from insiders.

Late last week, another report, this one via ComputerWorld, underscored the point yet again:

The gullible are welcome to buy into the Rightwing propaganda that ACORN is somehow stealing elections, despite the complete dearth of any actual evidence that any vote has ever been illegally cast in any election vis a vis an improper registration by an ACORN worker.

But the facts, demonstrated yet again by the BofA story, are much as non-ideological computer scientists and security experts have been trying to warn for years in regard to electronic voting systems: the greatest threat to such systems comes from insiders, such as election officials who can manipulate results simply and directly and in such a way that they are unlikely to ever get caught doing it.

Even the sham 2005 Rightwing-created Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission --- created almost entirely to put an "official"-appearing imprimatur on the call for disenfranchising Photo ID restrictions at polling places --- was forced to admit as much in their final report...

A gentle reminder here that The BRAD BLOG runs almost solely on the support of donations from readers like you.

The BRAD BLOG receives no corporate or foundational support, has no deep-pocket "angel" contributors (though we'd welcome one or three!), and the ads running on this site cover very very little (extremely little!) of the actual costs we have to cover each month just to stay up and running.

It's been an exhausting last several months here as we've directly taken on, with some success, some absolute Goliaths. And while I think we've been instrumental in helping to substantially turn back the tsunami of corporate media distributed disinformation which has helped to undermine democracy in one of the greatest Rightwing Hoaxes of the modern era, I have failed to find time during it all to post a direct plea to help underwrite all of the work done here.

If you support that work, please consider donating as a vote for it to continue --- particularly in this crucial election year. While donations of any amount are always appreciated, monthly sustaining contributions --- also in any amount you chose --- are even more so. You can make such a contribution, security and quickly, via the light-blue "Please Help Support The BRAD BLOG" box you'll see if you scroll down our right sidebar.

Snail mail contributions are also welcome, made out to: Brad Friedman / 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 / Los Angeles, CA 90028.

I hate asking, try to do so as little as I can, and wouldn't do so at all unless it was necessary. So I thank you mightily in advance for your consideration... --- Brad