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...

TWITTER: @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

This must drive the Neo-Cons even crazier than they are already. From the Southern Republican Leadership Conference (SRLC)'s straw poll over the weekend:

Yes, Ron Paul lost to Mitt Romney, the man who signed legislation into law mandating health insurance policies for all Massachusetts citizens, by just one vote. That, after Paul easily won the straw poll at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) in D.C. in February.

Paul's positions, however, are actually conservative, and thus run antithetical to most of the Neo-Con, Big Government, Bush/Cheney-era Republicanists who now call themselves Tea Baggers, as RAW STORY notes today here. How many more "Democrats in Disarray" articles will we have to read before the "Republicans in Disarray" articles finally begin in the corporate media?

One other related thought: When Palin came in a distant fourth at CPAC's straw poll, the Republican and Republican-enabling and TeaBag-promoting Chattering Class instructed us via the corporate media that she would have done better had she actually showed up and spoken at the event. Well, she showed up and spoke at the SRLC, received a larger percentage of the vote, but still managed to do no better than third place among the dyed-in-the-wool, hard Right Southern Republicanists at the conference. Go figure.

Closing out another week of guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show LIVE tonight from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 9pm-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT). Hope you'll join me by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in!

Our LIVE chat room will be up and operating here during the show, so jump into the conversation there as well! (We''ll open it a few minutes before airtime, see down below.)

So far scheduled for tonight...

• JODIE EVANS, co-founder of CODE PINK joins us live from a Rove protest at UNLV following the group's attempted citizens arrest of the "war criminal" Rove this afternoon at a book signing event in Las Vegas (See our exclusive coverage here)...
• BOB KINCAID, WV environmental activist and founder of the Head-On Radio Network (HORN) on the recent Massey Energy mine disaster, and their disastrous CEO Don Blankenship...
• PLUS: Everything else we didn't get to previously this week (and there's plenty!), your calls at 877-520-1150, your tweets to @TheBradBlog, and lots of other stuff sure to come up along the way...

Malloy's show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates around the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio streams. Here's a few to choose from: GREEN 960 in San Francisco • KTNF in Minneapolis • KPOJ in Portland • KPTK in Seattle or at MikeMalloy.com.

Click here to jump into our LIVE Chat Room during the show. Or just see below!...

POST-SHOW UPDATE & AUDIO ARCHIVES: Had a great week, ya'll! My thanks to you, and to the Malloys for inviting me back behind their big microphone! Mike returns Monday! The audio archives from tonight's BradCast are now posted below, along with the archive of tonight's chat room. Enjoy 'em all until we next meet this way again...

I just spoke with CODE PINK co-founder Jodie Evans who tried again --- as she did last month in Los Angeles --- to file a citizen's arrest against Karl Rove. This time Rove, whom she accuses of war crimes, was at a Barnes & Noble book signing event in Las Vegas. Last time, Rove was forced to cancel his plans to sign books after his speech in L.A.

Evans writes to say that she and several others from CODE PINK, including an army vet who is a member of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), attempted to hand-cuff Rove at the table where he was signing copies of his new book, while unfurling a "Rove is a War Criminal" banner.

"We get to the table, he looks up to take my book and jumps back against the book shelves," Evans says. He then points to three security guards and says "it's her," before the guards "pile in," according to her account.

One member of the team then takes out the banner --- which had been hidden in her skirt, since purses were confiscated before citizens were allowed in line --- "while I pull out the handcuffs and try to reach for him and then pull the arrest complaint out of the book, trying to argue that he needs to be arrested and I have a right to be there. They argue private property and lead us out."

She went to add that he was "standing freaked against the books" before he was then handed the next book to sign "as we are ushered out. We were physically pushed out the door with our unsigned book."

"The women behind us tell us we are 'rude,' to which I answer not as rude as Rove who has killed over 4,000 of our US Soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi," writes Evans.

She indicates there may be video available of the event later. We'll try to update this item with it, if so. [Update: A bit of video from the encounter is now posted at the bottom of this item.]

Evans and the "Pink Tank" crew will be protesting Rove again tonight at the Performing Arts Center at UNLV where he is scheduled to speak.

She'll also be joining me on the Mike Malloy Show, which I am guest hosting again tonight from 6p-9p PT (9p-Mid ET), just before the event begins. So please tune in! We'll have live listening links posted here before show time, or see Malloy's site above.

CNN's video report of Evans' attempt to arrest Rove last month --- during which Rove ironically (in more ways than we have the time to point out right now) declared "with all due respect, this goes to show the totalitarianism of the Left. They don't believe in dialogue. They don't believe in courtesy. They don't believe in First Amendment rights for anybody but themselves" --- is reposted below...

UPDATE 4/10/10: Here's my interview with Evans from last night's Mike Malloy Show [appx 17 mins]...
Download MP3 or listen online here...

The CNN video from Evans' previous arrest attempt follows below...

[UPDATED with audio archives below. Enjoy!]

I'll be Guest Hosting the The Mike Malloy Show again tonight and tomorrow, LIVE from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 9pm-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT) each night. Please tune in and call in!

Our LIVE chat room will once again be up and operating here during the show, so jump into the conversation there as well! (We'll open it a few minutes before airtime, see down below.)

So far scheduled for tonight...

• KATE SHEPPARD, energy and environmental politics journalist from Mother Jones' Washington bureau, on Obama's off-shore drilling plan, the Massey mine disaster (and their disastrous CEO Don Blankenship), and where we stand on Climate Legislation in Congress.

• MARCY WHEELER, the great accountability blogger from Firedoglake's emptywheel, on accountability, the DoJ and Yoo!
• PLUS: My rants on all of the above and more, your calls at 877-520-1150, your tweets to @TheBradBlog, and lots of other stuff that will come up along the way...

Malloy's show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates around the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio streams. Here's a few to choose from: GREEN 960 in San Francisco • KTNF in Minneapolis • KPOJ in Portland • KPTK in Seattle or at MikeMalloy.com.

Click here to jump into our LIVE Chat Room during the show. Or just see below!...

POST-SHOW UPDATE & AUDIO ARCHIVES: A lively show tonight with lots and lots of callers (for a change) to boot! The audio archives follow below, and the archive of last night's live chat room follows below them...

A reader alerted me this morning to these misleading, inaccurate, propaganda anti-ACORN "editorials", duplicates of which have been appearing, unbylined, in a bunch of papers under different headlines. Before I was able to get to them, it looks like Muriel Kane at RAW STORY was able to jump on it. (Thankfully! Since I've been busy with both today's Green News Report today, and putting together tonight's Mike Malloy Show!) . Here's the lede from Kane's coverage today...

Like the GOP's years-long hit-campaign against ACORN, the GOP's ACORN "voter fraud" fraud, and their ACORN "Pimp" Hoax, these "editorials" are similarly faked propaganda, meant as a part of that same, blatant, shamefully partisan, anti-Democratic and anti-democracy scheme. See RAW's full story here.

And in related-ish news, the audio archives from last night's Malloy Show, in which we covered (as I was guest hosting) the anti-ACORN "Pimp" Hoax scam in some detail --- including a pretty tough live interview with ACORN's CEO Bertha Lewis --- are now posted here for download and/or online listening.

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport

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Welcome aboard to our latest new affiliate partner: Rational Broadcasting in Dallas!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: A setback in the search for missing WV miners; Massey Mine Explosion: Who is to blame? ... PLUS: Record snow, record landslides, record rain, record heat & predictable silence from the Global Warming Denialist Industry ... 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': A Modest Proposal for hacking the planet; CO law to require uranium mining cleanup; Study says U.S. waterways are warming; Pipeline leaks oil into Louisiana wildlife refuge; Global Warming's Big Winners: fire ants, poison ivy, ticks; Fox News Tries to Re-Ignite Attacks on Exonerated Climate Scientist; Melbourne smashes record for run of warm days; Race to introduce GM corn before Africa's climate worsens ... PLUS: Oil and Gas Industry Launches Ad Campaign to Target 'Energy Industry Taxes' ...

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

[UPDATED with audio archives now posted below! - BF]

I'm Guest Hosting the The Mike Malloy Show LIVE again this week through Friday, LIVE from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 9pm-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT) each night. Please tune in and call in!

Our LIVE chat room will be up and operating here during the show, so jump into the conversation there as well! (We''ll open it a few minutes before airtime, see down below.)

Scheduled tonight...

• BERTHA LEWIS, CEO and Chief Organizer of ACORN on the now-infamous ACORN "Pimp" Hoax, mainstream media failure, their own failure, and the future for the four-decade old anti-poverty national community organization.
• PLUS: My rants on the New York Times failures, your calls at 877-520-1150, your tweets to @TheBradBlog, and lots of other stuff that will come up along the way...

Malloy's show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates around the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio streams. Here's a few to choose from: KTNF/Minneapolis • KPOJ/Portland • GREEN 960/San Francisco • KPTK/Seattle or at MikeMalloy.com.

Click here to jump into our LIVE Chat Room during the show. Or just see below!...

POST-SHOW UPDATE & AUDIO ARCHIVES: Lots and lots of ACORN and accountability and ass kicking. Hope you enjoy the archives as much as we enjoyed making 'em for you!. You can also read the rerun of the night's chat room. It all now follows below...

Finally, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow covers the actual phony ACORN tapes themselves by airing the newly release unedited versions, since CA AG Jerry Brown forced hoaxsters O'Keefe and Giles to turn them over in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution, as we noted in our coverage last Friday. (That coverage also includes links to the full, unedited versions of the tapes, clips of which Maddow aired last night, as seen below.)

Maddow slams the entire hoax as pulled off by O'Keefe, Giles and their employer/publisher/con-man Andrew Breitbart, and aptly describes it as "a dishonest political stunt that bears no resemblance to journalism"...

For the record, yes, as Maddow notes, Fox "News" endlessly pimped the phony ACORN tapes and got the story completely --- and likely purposely --- wrong. But it should also be noted that so did New York Times, AP, Baltimore Sun, CNN, New York Post, Washington City Paper, Philadelphia Daily News, NPR, Dallas Morning News and many many more, some of which are listed here. Haven't checked, but I'm guessing somewhere along the line on MSNBC they got it wrong as well. All should correct the record and issue apologies the many folks who were damaged by the utterly irresponsible coverage, or, as O'Keefe and Breitbart might describe it (but only when it adversely affects their partisan political agenda), "journalistic malpractice".

Almost none have issued such corrections and apologies to date. Though the NYTimes pulled a neat trick recently by completely disappearing the "pimp" from their latest coverage.

And, no, since several have brought this up to us via email and in comments, Maddow didn't mention The BRAD BLOG in the report above or in her blog item/text transcript, or her similarly excellent report filed on the show last Friday. Should she have? I'll leave that to others to decide. We don't cover this stuff for either credit or attribution, though it's true that appropriate attribution can make it easier for folks like us to continue the type of independent, progressive, investigative reporting that we suspect Maddow appreciates.

(On that note, our thanks to John Tomasic of the Colorado Independent who has been particularly generous towards our coverage in his recently related articles, both last night in his story on Maddow's coverage, and several days ago on the CA AG's ACORN findings. We also appreciate the far-too-kind closing thoughts in this post from Jill at "Brilliant at Breakfast".)

Yesterday, Peter Hart, of the media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), flagged the New York Times' latest ACORN-related report for us and notes "how far the Times is from where it started on this story."

Yes, after a full six months of out-and-out misleading the public on the now-infamous ACORN "Pimp" Hoax by repeatedly misreporting that disgraced rightwing prankster and activist James O'Keefe had dressed as a 70's-era blaxploitation pimp while scamming low-level workers in ACORN offices --- and even as the Times finally conceded it was wrong on at least that point just two weeks ago --- the paper has still been standing by the misleading assertion that O'Keefe "clearly presented himself as" a pimp in those offices.

But the NYTimes' latest story is decidedly "pimp"-less and seems to tacitly serve as an admission that even that false narrative was previously misreported. Of course, they've yet to issue a public acknowledgment --- much less a correction, retraction, apology, or explanation --- for having gotten that point so wrong, for so long.

Last week's finding by the CA Attorney General, that ACORN committed "no violations of criminal law" in any of the illicitly and likely-illegally taped videos that O'Keefe and his partner Hannah Giles created in CA offices, may finally have convinced the people running the paper they had it wrong. At least if one notices the glaring absence of what wasn't reported this time around by the Times in its most recent story...