Sarah Silverman does it again! Hilarious. Informative. And definitely NOT safe for work!...

More resources available here: LetMyPeopleVote2012.com

(Here's another polling place Photo ID law related video published this week. I'm in that one...though it's not nearly as funny.)

Meanwhile, as the War Over Which Americans Get to Exercise Their Right to Vote rages on, concern about how the votes of those who do get to vote, will (or won't) be tabulated, goes largely unnoticed. Again.

USA Today takes a moment to mention that point in an unbylined editorial headlined 'Electronic voting is the real threat to elections'. Their headline may understate the very real concerns about access to the polls, because these two issues --- both access to the polls and accurate, transparent tabulation of ballots --- have always been two sides of the same coin.

Both issues must be assured for an election with anything close to integrity.

But, given the, necessarily, extraordinary focus on the first issue this year, access, it's nice that the paper has taken a moment to highlight just a few of the continuing causes of concern for the actual tabulation of votes. Nothing has gotten better since 2010 or 2008 or even 2004. We've covered all of the examples for reasons to be concerned that they point to in the editorial, of course, and many more, over the years here at The BRAD BLOG.

And, naturally, since the paper is still a corporate media outlet, they just had to "balance" their fairly decent, fact-based editorial with an additional "opposing view" editorial, filled with a bunch of misleading, dishonest bullshit about Internet Voting, of all things, from a corporate lobbyist hack...

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
FACEBOOK: Green News Report
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: One day later, Japan reverses planned nuclear phase-out; Romney and Republicans fight for Big Coal - with unpaid labor; New record HOT ocean temps cause lobster glut in Northeast; PLUS: Putting their bodies on the line to stop the dirty Keystone XL pipeline ... 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 wind industry withers with end of tax credit; False balance lives: PBS FAIL on climate science; Bolivia protects unique pink dolphins; FDA to investigate arsenic in rice; Insurance companies won't pay for climate disasters; UK slams Trump's misleading anti-wind ad; Mexico pipeline explosion kills 28; GM corn study draws skepticism ... PLUS: Existing technologies could halve fuel efficiency. So why aren't we using them? ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Both The Daily Show and the Colbert Report have been absolutely en fuego this week in the wake of Romney's "47%" disaster.

But last night's "Chaos on Bulls#%t Mountain," on The Daily Show, documenting the crisis that has struck "Romney Election Headquarters (the Fox "News" Channel)" in the wake of the disaster, is almost certainly an instant classic. Part 2 (both are posted below) and its stinging final button, may be among the show's smartest moments of all time.

As The Daily Show's website summarizes Part 1: "In the 48 hours since the Romney video first gained wide exposure, turd containment crews at Fox News have been working overtime on Bullshit Mountain."

As Jon Stewart concludes at the end of Part 2: "The biggest problem with the denizens of Bullshit Mountain, is they act like their shit don't stink. If they have success, 'they built it'. If they failed, the government ruined it for them. If they get a break, they deserve it. If you get a break, it's a 'handout' and an 'entitlement'. It's a baffling, willfully blind, cognitive dissonance, best summed up by their head coach, in what is, perhaps, my favorite sound bite of all time..." (You'll have to watch to hear the sound bite)...

No doubt Fox 'News' is going wall-to-wall with this today, so you've got no need for us to tell you about it, right? ... What? They're not? Huh. How strange.

Well, then, if you haven't heard, Lorianne O'Brady, a former staffer to Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) has pleaded "no contest" to five misdemeanor counts of election fraud yesterday, related to creating and submitting fraudulent signatures in a failed conspiracy to qualify McCotter for the ballot this year.

O'Brady is just one of four of top McCotter aides who were charged last month with a total of 36 federal felony and misdemeanor election fraud-related counts in the alleged ballot petition forgery scheme. McCotter abruptly resigned last July as the scandal began to emerge.

While U.S. House candidates in Michigan are required to submit just 1,000 valid voter signatures, McCotter's campaign turned in some 2,000. Investigators discovered, however, that just 244 of them were actually valid. The rest were forged or photo-copied from previous petitions.

Submitting false signatures is the same thing that Fox "News" has spent years falsely claiming the community group ACORN was engaged in. The difference, of course, is that ACORN was the one to have discovered and turned in the handful, among their tens of thousands of voter registration workers, found to have defrauded them in such schemes. ACORN itself was never found to be involved in such fraud, and in every case, it was ACORN themselves who discovered the fraud and sought prosecution for the workers.

McCotter's campaign was hardly the only Republican team involved in submitting fraudulent signatures in hopes of winning a place on the ballot this year. As The BRAD BLOG reported exclusively last January, the Presidential campaign of former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich was being investigated by the Virginia State Attorney General after the former GOP Presidential candidate's campaign was discovered to have turned in fraudulent signatures in their failed bid to qualify for the Republican Presidential Primary Election in VA, Gingrich's home state. Gingrich was caught on tape claiming to a supporter, after the forgeries were discovered by the state Board of Elections: "We turned in 11,100 --- we needed 10,000 --- 1,500 of them were by one guy who, frankly, committed fraud."

In May of this year, it was discovered that Momentum Political Services, a group hired by the Sacramento GOP and headed by a "professional con artist" to carry out their voter registration campaign for Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA), had turned in thousands of fraudulent voter registrations as part of a $50,000 bounty paid for Republican-only voter registrations. That is, of course, exactly what ACORN was falsely accused of, even though --- unlike in the Sacramento GOP case, and in a very similar scheme by a firm hired by the California Republican Party in 2008, where the head of the firm itself pleaded guilty to charges of voter registration fraud --- the former four-decade old community organization was never actually involved in.

For more on the McCotter staffers charged with 36 election fraud-related counts, see our August coverage. As an added bonus, that article also includes a quick round-up of more than 10 recent cases of alleged and confirmed voter fraud and election fraud by a number of very high-profile Republicans, including Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Todd Akin, James O'Keefe, the Sec. of State of Indiana and, yes, the high priestess of GOP Voter Fraud, Ann Coulter.

Of course, none of the fraud detailed above would have been prevented by the disenfranchising polling place Photo ID restriction schemes Republicans are enacting around the country under the guise of deterring "voter fraud" --- not even Coulter's, since she also committed a felony to create a fraudulent drivers' license with the faked address she submitted to election officials when she committed fraud on her voter registration form, before later, knowingly, voting at a precinct in an area where she did not live in Florida. That, even though there are just 10 known cases of in-person voter impersonation --- the only type of voter fraud that can possibly be deterred by polling place Photo ID restrictions --- in the entire country, out of hundreds of millions of votes cast since 2000.

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
FACEBOOK: Green News Report
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Japan to phase out nuclear power --- sort of; US nuke whistleblower warns of new risks; Shell gives up on Arctic drilling --- for now; PLUS: It's official: August 2012 was hot --- really hot ... 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): Fox Stumbles Over The Truth On Gas Prices; Ruptured pipe at Chevron refinery fire 'thin as a penny'; Crop insurance losses begin to mount amid drought; National Guard aids Halliburton in search for missing radioactive rod; Alaskans to get $878 in yearly oil wealth payout (socialism!); Wind industry cuts jobs while Congress dawdles; Africa elephant slaughter funds conflicts; Freaked-out climate scientists urge other freaked-out climate scientists to speak up ... PLUS: Victory: Judge rules scientist Michael Mann's emails off-limits ... and much, MUCH more! ...

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in a 4 to 2 decision this afternoon, has vacated a Commonwealth Court's earlier ruling, which had denied a temporary injunction on the state GOP's polling place Photo ID restriction law. Rather than issuing their own injunction, they have has sent the matter back to the lower court for review.

According to the high court's 7-page order [PDF] issued today, if the lower court finds that the state is unable to implement "liberal access" to the supposedly free Photo IDs to be issued by the state, as dictated by the General Assembly's requirements detailed in the statute itself, "or if the Commonwealth Court is not still convinced in its predictive judgment that there will be no voter disenfranchisement arising out of the Commonwealth’s implementation of a voter identification requirement for purposes of the upcoming election, that court is obliged to enter a preliminary injunction."

We'll try to unpack that for you in a moment. As well, there were two scathing dissents to today's ruling, both highly critical of the majority for not ending the ongoing "chaos" immediately, instead of remanding it for another round to the lower court. But, in general, and depending on how Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson, a Republican, reviews the case as ordered, this is may be good news for voters in the Keystone State.

"It's certainly a very positive step in the right direction in that the court recognizes that the state does not make adequate provision for people to get the ID that they would need to vote," said David Gersch, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs challenging the law's state constitutionality, according to CBS. "In addition, there is a practical problem with getting the ID to people in the short time available."

The case, Applewhite v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania [PDF], was originally filed in May by the ACLU, the PA League of Women Voters, and other civil rights organizations on behalf of 92-year old Viviette Applewhite and 10 other petitioners who were facing potential disenfranchisement under the new law, along with hundreds of thousands of other legally registered and otherwise eligible voters in the state. Before the trial even began, the Commonwealth admitted that they were unaware of a single instance of polling place impersonation --- the only type of voter fraud that can possibly be deterred by their polling place Photo ID restrictions --- in the history of the state.

Last Thursday, during their hearing in Philadelphia, the PA Supremes indicated they had some skepticism about the law, as we detailed here. The court was reviewing an appeal by the plaintiffs filed last week after the Commonwealth Court had stunned many of those following the case, including the plaintiffs who had predicted a "slam-dunk" win, by upholding the law last month and refusing to grant a preliminary injunction in advance of the November Presidential election.

But now Judge Simpson will have another crack at deciding the case, as the high court has punted it back to him. This time, however, he has been ordered by the high court to issue a preliminary injunction on the law if he cannot determine that the state is able to meet two very specific conditions...

As we noted late last Friday, as the news was just breaking, a WI judge has overturned Republican Gov. Scott Walker's controversial anti-union law which had taken away most collective bargaining rights from most citizens who are employed as public workers in the state. In his ruling, Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas found the law to be in violation of both the state and U.S. Constitution and is, barring overturn by appeal at the state Supreme Court, now "null and void."

As is expected in such cases by now, rather than critiquing the ruling itself, Walker immediately attempted to smear the Dane County Judge who issued it as a "liberal activist judge." Nothing new there. When Republicans don't have their way in court, it's always due to "liberal activist judges," even when the courts are not quite activist enough for their tastes in other instances (see their fury after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to overturn "ObamaCare," for instance).

But there was another interesting response to the ruling from Walker and his fellow partisans following the ruling on Friday, which seems to suggest they haven't a clue about how the court system works, how the U.S. Constitution is supposed to work, or even how representative democracy works. Either that, or they simply don't care and feel it's just more important to continue scamming their gullible constituencies then it is to be honest about what actually happened on Friday.

Making matters worse though, not only are they wrong about matters of how democracy and the court system works, they are also wrong on their facts as well, even if they hope nobody will notice...

On Friday, ABC's George Stephanopoulos caught Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney speaking out of both sides of his mouth. (Not that it's all that hard to do.)

As TPM's Josh Marshall described the remarks --- tongue only somewhat in cheek --- "Romney Apologizes to Muslim Rioters".

Romney, over the course of his lengthy ABC interview, finally acknowledged that the statement issued by the Cairo Embassy condemning "the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims --- as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions" was made before the protests began.

However, the GOP candidate, who had shamelessly seized upon that statement to falsely accuse the Embassy and President Obama of having "sympathize[d] with those who waged the attacks," evaded a direct answer to Stephanopoulos' direct question: "Where do they show sympathy for those who waged the attacks?"

Instead, Romney insisted it was "inappropriate" for the Cairo Embassy to leave the statement up on its website after its wall was breached. "The statement was reiterated after they had breached the sovereignty of the embassy," Romney proclaimed.

After its wall was breached, the Cairo Embassy tweeted: "This morning's condemnation (issued before protest began) still stands. As does our condemnation of unjustified breach of the Embassy."

Without explaining why he felt it was inappropriate for the Embassy to retain its condemnation of the film's scurrilous slander of the prophet Muhammad while simultaneously condemning the "unjustified breach of the Embassy," Romney followed up with a criticism of the film that was virtually indistinguishable from that which had been initially issued by the Cairo Embassy...

I'm in this short video --- just out tonight from John Wellington Ennis, filmmaker of one of my favorite Election Integrity documentaries, Free For All: One Dude's Quest to Save Democracy and the forthcoming Pay to Play: Democracy’s High Stakes --- but don't let that keep you from watching it. It's very good and has a bunch of other folks in it who are really smart.

Ennis, who is also one of the founders of the very important Video the Vote project, has a way of making difficult ideas easy to understand and entertaining to watch. He does so again here...

I almost feel sorry for Mitt Romney. Almost.

It turns out Mitt was for the climate before he was against it. And not very long ago, according to his own 2010 campaign book.

Poor (yeah, right) Mitt is apparently trying to serve two masters when it comes to environmental and energy policy. On the one hand, he's surely aware of recent polling data indicating that candidates who favor climate protection earn the support of Democrats, independents, and moderate Republicans.

On the other hand, he must appeal to a Republican base that not only looks down upon him, but also looks down upon climate science, thanks to 25 years of being bamboozled with balderdash from the same folks who once claimed cigarettes didn't cause cancer.

Romney's slogan is "Believe in America." I have to ask: which America? The fictional "center-right nation" created by Fox "News", or the America where facts, logic, reason and science matter? Can Romney even tell the difference at this point?...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below! Enjoy! I did! - BF]

We're back guest hosting the nationally-syndicated Mike Malloy Show once again tonight as Mike and Kathy take another rare night off.

As usual, we're BradCasting LIVE from 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the globe from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open, at the bottom of this item, a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight:

• KURT EICHENWALD, contributing editor at Vanity Fair and former reporter for The New York Times on his bombshell NYTimes report this week detailing months of classified briefings given by the CIA to the Bush Administration, warning about an attack by al-Qaeda long prior to 9/11 and on his new book, 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars.
• STEPHANIE SINGER, former Election Integrity advocate with VotePA.us, now the Chair of the Philadelphia City Election Commission on yesterday's state Supreme Court hearing on the new GOP-enacted polling place Photo ID restrictions which could stand to disenfranchise nearly a million otherwise-eligible voters in the "Birthplace of Liberty" this November.
• DANA SIEGELMAN, daughter of former AL Gov. Don Siegelman who has organized a Presidential pardon campaign for her father, who reported back to federal prison last Tuesday, after his political prosecution at the hands of Karl Rove for something that has never been a crime before in this country. We'll also discuss her bizarre meeting with Karl Rove at last week's RNC, which she guest blogged about earlier this week at The BRAD BLOG.
• PLUS! Breaking news out of WI, the Middle East and much much more in an incredibly busy news week! Along with your phone calls on all of the above over your public airwaves at 877-520-1150 and your tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at our Sante Fe affiliate KTRC 1260, or our Minnesota affiliate KTNF 950 (tell it your from "Minnesota" when asked!) Also, you should be able to listen live at WhiteRose Society if the radio gods are with us.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Holy cow! Was that a crazy, busy, insane, fast moving show! TONS of breaking news and some great guests. Check all the ad-free archives out below! And read the chat room archives along with it if ya like. Good luck! I need a nap...

Just breaking from AP:

UPDATE: In a series of tweets posted just moments after the verdict was announced by AP, Walker responds to the ruling:

UPDATE 9/15/12: Much more now on the Judge Colas' ruling now from Milwaukee's Journal-Sentinel...

Today, in a courtroom in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held a hearing to determine whether Republican Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson was correct in his verdict [PDF] last month when he stunned plaintiffs by upholding the state GOP's polling place Photo ID restriction and refusing the ACLU/Advancement Project's motion for a temporary injunction before this November's Presidential Election.

The voting rights groups are challenging the law on behalf of eight, mostly elderly, plaintiffs plus the League of Women Voters of PA and the NAACP and other civil rights groups, as a violation of the state Constitution's guaranteed right to vote. Last week, The BRAD BLOG's Ernie Canning detailed their powerful appellant's brief, arguing that Simpson erred in his ruling.

The plaintiffs had originally predicted a "slam dunk" victory in the lower court case, given the remarkably poor presentation offered by the Commonwealth, and the myriad of evidence presented in their favor, showing that some 1.6 million otherwise eligible voters could be disenfranchised this November, in addition to the state's own admission before the trial began that the Commonwealth was unaware of any "investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania" and that no "in-person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absence of the Photo ID law."

So today's hearing was key and, according to The Nation's Ari Berman, was played out before "a packed, standing room only courtroom."

While the state Supreme Court currently consists of three Democrats and three Republicans (the fourth Republican judge on the bench is currently suspended, pending a corruption investigation), a split verdict would mean the lower court's decision to allow the GOP's restriction on voting would stand.

But there were hints today that at least one Republican judge may be skeptical about the state's claims that nobody need be disenfranchised by the GOP-enacted law which would take effect, for the first time, in the November Presidential election, just 54 days from now...

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
FACEBOOK: Green News Report
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: US solar industry fights off Republican attacks; US wind industry does, too; PLUS: Rightwing media FAIL in attacking the Chevy Volt --- again ... 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): NW wildfires vex crews; $50 solar-powered water purifier is so green it’s like a joke; America's first ocean-energy project now delivering; Arctic ice melt 'like adding 20 years of CO2 emissions'; Ice floes continue to shut out Shell's Arctic drilling; Gaps in US nuclear regulations; US media climate change coverage drops further; Common railroad car increases risk of hazmat spills; Canadian mining company admits 100 years of polluting WA's Columbia River ... PLUS: Calculating the true cost of electricity ... and much, MUCH more! ...