While I couldn't care less about Bill Maher's 'Obama being on TV too much' schtick here, as seen on last night's Real Time on HBO, his scathing criticism of Obama which follows it is dead on the money.

Some highlights:

Maher continues by arguing that "if you can't shove some real reform down [Republican] throats now, then when?" before adding: "I never thought I'd say this, but what he needs in his personality is a little George Bush. He needs to stop worrying about being loved, and bring out that smug, insufferable swagger that says, 'Suck on it, America!'"

"I'm glad Obama is President," Maher concludes, "but the 'Audicity of Hope' part is over. Right now, I'm hoping for a little more audacity..."

UPDATE 6/20/09: Maher follows up this monologue with another, equally as scathing, the following week. Details and video here...

Video of this week's scathing monologue is above right, the complete text transcript follows below...

It sounds a lot like Ohio 2004. A less than popular old-line incumbent facing massive public demonstrations against him and in favor of his main progressive challenger promising reform; polls that suggest a swell of support for the challenger; unprecedented turnout on Election Day; long lines at polling places; paper ballot shortages and names missing from voter rolls; widespread rumors, concerns, and evidence of voter intimidation and vote-rigging, all accompanied nonetheless by a general feeling among the populace that the incumbent has been turned out, only to learn from officials, late on Election Night, after secret vote counting, that the incumbent has been declared the winner of a second term.

The most substantive difference from Ohio 2004, however: the declared winner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is said to have defeated his main opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi by a 63% to 34% "landslide," instead of the razor-thin margin seen in Ohio (and across the popular vote in the rest of the nation). In Iran, a result of anything less than 50% + 1 for the leading candidate would have triggered a national runoff election.

The other main differences between Iran '09 and Ohio '04: New York Times is already asking "Landslide or Fraud?" this morning; in Iran, supporters of the challenger are taking to the streets; and the challenger himself has already called the election results a "fraud"...

Co-Editors: Dave Klein and John Washburn

Iranians the world over, including women, voted for President today by writing their candidate's name and number and on a ballot paper and dropping the paper into a ballot box. With the Philippines starting to use electronic optical scanners in 2010, election watchdogs are recognizing they need new techniques to observe election activities....

TPM's Eric Kleefeld offered this 'Deep Thought' gem yesterday:

And, speaking of denialist wingnuts, where up is down, Right is now Left. TPM offers actual reportage (versus satire, as above) on mainstream wingnutters who are becoming more and more indistinguishable from their loony, extremist, denialists brethren just barely to their right. The "respectable" Righties are now actually trying to make the case that James von Brunn, the Obama-hating, Nazi-loving, accused gunman from this week's Holocaust Museum assassination is a Lefty. Seriously, that's the case they're pleading...

• Related BRAD BLOG investment tip...

Remember, these are 'the worst of the worst,' right?

Mohammed El-Gharani, the youngest prisoner at Gitmo, just 14 when he was captured in 2001, is finally being "freed five months after a U.S. federal judge ordered him released having reviewed the evidence against him and ruled that there was nothing to suggest he was ever an 'enemy combatant.'" El-Gharani has never been charged.

Andy Worthington, the man who literally wrote the book on the Guantanamo travesties, offers the sad background on the breaking news of the release of “Guantánamo’s Forgotten Child,” including details of alleged abuse such as being hanged by his wrists, and scissors held to his penis with threats of cutting it off. But we're supposed to look forward, not back, right?...

Co-Editors: Dave Klein and John Washburn

Does a polling place have an accessible voting system (as required by federal law) just because it contains "accessible" equipment, or do you have to be able to get into the building to use it?

Nearly seven years ago, the federal government provided billions of dollars for states to use to --- among other things --- make voting in every polling place accessible to people with disabilities. States rushed to purchase now-discredited electronic voting machines that the vendors claimed allowed people with disabilities to vote privately and independently. States put the machines in every polling place, but what did they do to make the polling places physically accessible? Very little, according to a new report from the GAO. 73% of the nation's polling places remain physically inaccessible to many voters --- an improvement of 11% since 2000....

Guest Blogged by Sibel Edmonds

As noted in its announcement, 'Project Expose MSM' invites all members of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), other active (covert or overt) government whistleblowers, and reporters, to publish their experiences in regard to their own first-hand dealings with the media, where their legit disclosures were either intentionally censored/blacked out, tainted, or otherwise met with a betrayal of trust.

The first report, exposing Michael Isikoff and Newsweek was posted here.

This second project report is based on the first-hand documented experience of Mr. Sandalio Gonzalez, retired Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Special Agent in Charge. Time Magazine reporters Tim Burger and Tim Padgett had an opportunity to speak at length with Mr. Gonzalez and several other veteran DEA agents with direct knowledge of a major corruption case involving several DEA agents on drug traffickers' payrolls in Colombia. The involved corrupt US officers were also directly involved in helping Colombia's paramilitary death squads launder drug proceeds. Further presented at the meeting with Time's reporter was the documented cover up of this major scandal by the DEA and Dept. of Justice Inspector General (OIG) offices. Despite direct corroboration by a number of other sources, including several veteran DEA agents and other government officials with first-hand knowledge of the case; documented evidence disclosed and provided; and despite being given an 'exclusive' to the story as insisted on by the magazine, Time never published the story, and no reasons were ever provided...

IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: It's official, it's a pandemic! (Go ahead and panic); Obama doubles down on mountaintop removal; Green jobs bring in the green; PLUS: Hot shingles! ... 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' (links below): "Food, Inc." opens Friday; Anti-oil protests turn deadly in Peru and extremely unpleasant in Ireland; "Bee Fences" in Africa; Wait, the U.S. is NOT 'the Saudi Arabia of coal?!?!'; Solar N' Salt, working together... PLUS: A Solar Explainer .... See below for more Green News!

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

Co-Editors: Dave Klein and John Washburn

"Netherlands-based" Smartmatic, the winning bidder in the Philippines, says their automated poll equipment is tamper proof.

Correction: An article from yesterday, "Witness says commissioners report that Bob Goldsack helped reprogram party ID card encoder on primary election day" was from PA, not DE as we mistakenly reported....

Co-Editors: Dave Klein and John Washburn

This from Harris County, Texas --- the third largest county in the US:

"George Tiller’s clinic will close in the wake of the Wichita abortion provider’s shooting death, lawyers for the Tiller family said today," the Wichita Eagle is reporting. "Lee Thompson and Dan Monnat, the family’s lawyers, said in a statement that the clinic, Women’s Health Care Services, will be permanently closed, effective immediately."

Waytago anti-choice terrorists! You're winning!

Even Tiller's accused murderer, Scott Roeder is celebrating, telling CNN that closure is "a victory"!

On Sunday, the assassin of the man Bill O'Reilly repeatedly described as "Tiller the Baby Killer," told AP "there are many other similar events planned around the country," prompting Keith Olbermann to wonder, appropriately: "Why is the far right not calling for him to be waterboarded to tell us against whom the next gun or bomb will be directed?"

Good question, though Dick Cheney could not be reached for comment.

IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: Protesting in Peru; Settling with Shell; Pollution solutions in Long Beach; PLUS: Republicans vow to block climate legislation in the Senate .... 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' (links below): Solar Everywhere! Innovations for roofs, roads & trains; Ocean trash hampering efforts in plane crash investigation; PLUS: High water footprint for biofuels.... See below for more Green News!

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

Two stories of thousands of "phantom votes" being added to election result totals by electronic voting system were in the news over the past couple of days.

One is some news in the older story of 1,500 votes added to a precinct's results in D.C.'s primary election last September. The maker of the failed voting system, Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc., originally tried to blame "static electricity" and then "human error" for the failure. But as the D.C. City Council was having none of it, the company has now agreed to allow an independent inspection of its hardware and software, in order to avoid yet another expensive court battle for the beleaguered company.

The other story concerns nearly 5,000 "phantom" ballots added by the ES&S AutoMark optical-scan system used in last week's Rapid City (Pennington County), South Dakota, City Council race, for some still unknown reason, currently chalked up for now to "software glitch." The discovery of the failure led to a change in the originally reported election results.

The skinny on both stories, and an extra observation or two on the Sequoia/D.C. matter, follow below...

Co-Editors: Dave Klein and John Washburn

We still have Georgia on our mind. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the NAACP lawsuit, filed in 2005, against Georgia's photo voter ID law (not to be confused with the recently passed Georgia law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, nor the Georgia database matching procedures recently struck down by the DoJ, nor the challenge currently before the Supreme Court to Section 5 of the National Voting Rights Act)....

Not sure whether to laugh deliriously or cry here. The 'death of media,' and the ensuing plummet in ad sales, don't help or please folks like us either...even if some believe we're somehow partially responsible for it all...

(Hat-tip Coleen Rowley.)