Speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate last week, on the third day of the federal government shutdown, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) excoriated Republicans in the House of Representatives as "extremists" and "anarchists", while offering an impassioned case for why "government matters."

[See video and transcript below.]

"When I hear the latest tirades from some of the extremists in the House, I am struck by how vague these complaints are," she said. "The anarchy gang is quick to malign government, but when was the last time anyone called for regulators to go easier on companies that put lead in children's toys, or for food inspectors to stop checking whether the meat in our grocery stores is crawling with deadly bacteria, or for the FDA to ignore whether morning sickness drugs will cause deformities in little babies?"

She went on to argue that the American system of governance, though far from infallible, can carry out the will of the people who are positioned to correct it and make it better. "Our democracy is an experiment, and it's always evolving. We constantly redesign and re-imagine and improve on what we do together."

"You can do your best to make government look like it doesn't work when you stop it from working. You can do your best to make government look paralyzed when you paralyze it. You can do your best to make government look incompetent through your incompetence, and ineffective through your ineffectiveness. But sooner or later, the government will reopen. Because this is a democracy, and this democracy has already rejected your views," she said, before concluding with a message of optimism.

"Today," Warren said, "a political minority in the House that condemns government and begs for this shutdown has had its day. But like all the reckless and extremist factions that have come before it, their day will pass, and our democracy will return to the important work that we have already determined to do together."

Here's a video of the key section of Sen. Elizabeth Warren's powerful 10/3/2013 remarks on the U.S. Senate floor, (a longer version can be viewed here) followed by a text transcript...

Just chanced across this note I wrote to myself on my iPhone in June of 2010...

Too bad this wasn't published previously...before California's ill-considered and incredibly dangerous and deceptively sold SB 360 was signed by CA's Gov. Jerry Brown over the weekend (despite our advocacy and warnings against it.)

In his syndicated "California Focus" column (appearing in 93 papers around the state), Thomas D. Elias opines today on the partisan-passed election reform bill we've been yelling about for months now here at The BRAD BLOG. He accurately describes SB 360 as "a prominent entry in the unofficial sweepstakes to determine this year's worst new state law".

From his column, "New law threatens vote-counting reliability", today...

Elias continues by pointing out the dishonest way in which the bill was represented to lawmakers and the public by its main sponsor, state Sen. Alex Padilla (D) who also happens to be a leading 2014 candidate for CA Secretary of State and, therefore, a potential main beneficiary of the unprecedented, sweeping new executive powers that the law will grant to the state's SoS.

As he writes...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Government shutdown doesn't stop record blizzard or National Weather Service meteorologists in Upper Midwest; 'Energy is the solution': making the economic case for climate action; Climate change denial industry harassing academics --- again; PLUS: Bright side to accidental power outage at Fukushima: at least we know the back-up systems work ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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[This is article has now been cross-published by Salon...]

The man who wrote Arizona's "Papers Please" law before running for Kansas Secretary of State in 2010 on the premise of stamping out "voter fraud" there ... before winning and subsequently not being able to find much, if any of it, at all, is nonetheless still at work attempting to keep legitimate voters from being able to cast their vote under the premise that thousands of non-citizens are somehow, secretly, illegally voting in the state of Kansas.

"In Kansas, the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive," Kris Kobach's personal website still reads today. He just can't seem to find any.

Despite that annoying little truth, he now has a new plan to try and keep those "alien voters" from voting, even if it involves keeping 17,500 or more perfectly legal U.S. citizen residents of Kansas from voting as well...

The radically activist Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia --- who, despite his increasing tendency to legislate from the bench, likes to pretend he's not an activist and not legislating from the bench --- was asked about his personal sources for news in a New York interview by Jennifer Senior published over the weekend.

His answer, while perhaps the least surprising news of the day, may explain a lot...

His "favorite" "talk guy", he says, is former Reagan official, Bill Bennett, who once declared "you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." That's the type of person that Scalia looks to for his "news", apparently.

Ian Millhiser who, after quaintly describing the aging Justice as "Archie Bunker in a less comfy chair," citing the remarks from the interview above, as well as Scalia's statements that he believes the Devil is "a real person", and his being troubled by Hollywood "ladies" using "the f-word" in movies, notes a more disturbing revelation from the interview...

When running a series of stories like the one that seems to have ended (for now) in yesterday's quiet signing of SB 360 by CA's Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, I'm reminded again of the importance of independent media outlets, and the difficulties inherent in being one, as we strive to be. But we can only continue to do so with your help. Seriously.

I'm also reminded of what legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersch was quoted as saying just last week in The Guardian [emphasis added]...

In short, when it comes to our work as independent journalists here, I take that as: "If you're not pissing someone off, you're doing it wrong."

Please help The BRAD BLOG continue to piss people off, because "trouble makers don't get promoted." Nor do they receive support from corporations or partisan foundations. We do, however, hopefully have folks like you to generously help us continue what we have done, tirelessly, for almost a decade now. And I thank you again for that help in advance...

/table>

Over the weekend, Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA) signed SB 360, a radical new election reform bill, that will, for the first time in decades, end all federal testing of new e-voting systems approved for use in the state of California.

The measure, sold dishonestly by its supporters to the public and lawmakers, is expected to have an impact across the rest of the nation as well. It's enactment paves the way for the final development of a new, unverifiable touch-screen voting system for use in Los Angeles County, where it is then slated to be sold for use in jurisdictions elsewhere in the state and country.

Before the adoption of SB 360, new voting systems in California required two independent levels of testing, both at the federal and state levels before they could be used in an election here. Even with those two independent testing regimes in place, the systems certified by the Sec. of State over the past decade or more have been riddled with errors and security flaws that were later discovered. For those reasons, and others, The BRAD BLOG had been calling, unsuccessfully, for Brown's veto of SB 360.

As we've documented on these pages, the new law also affords sweeping new executive powers to the Sec. of State to approve new e-voting systems for use in so-called "pilot programs" without any certification testing at all, even from state auditors. Those "pilot" e-voting and tabulation systems, according to the new law, may now be used in "a legally binding election" at the sole discretion of the Sec. of State.

The BRAD BLOG has reported in great detail on this dangerous new bill, which was eventually passed along partisan lines with almost no debate in either chamber of the state legislature. It was supported by all the Democrats in both the state Senate and Assembly, and opposed by all but one Republican.

The bill, granting unprecedented power to the California Sec. of State, was authored by state Senator Alex Padilla (D) --- himself a leading 2014 candidate for California Sec. of State. It was also supported by one of his two main rivals for that job, State Sen. Leland Yee (D), who has also gone on record calling for Internet Voting systems in California.

The only one among the top three Democratic contenders to replace CA Sec. of State Debra Bowen (who is termed out in 2014), who did not go on record in support of SB 360, is former Common Cause official Derek Cressman.

As we also reported, the bill was sold dishonestly by Padilla to both lawmakers and the public...

As the government shutdown began, the corporate U.S. media played its usual unhelpful role by not taking sides in what was clearly a one-sided argument.

"In shutdown blame game, Democrats and Republicans united: It's the other side's fault," declared Washington Post's headline. "Shutdown: Obama and Republicans Trade Blame as Deadline is Crossed," TIME unhelpfully noted, sounding much like the pretend news outlet Fox "News", which declared similarly "Partial shutdown begins: Can Congress, White House compromise?"

Never mind that Democrats had already compromised by agreeing to "Sequestration" level budget cuts, the only question was how would the two sides "compromise" on the Affordable Care Act which had nothing to do with the budget resolution itself, but has long been a bete noir for Republicans.

Meanwhile, the non-U.S. news outlet, The Guardian in the UK, accurately reported that the U.S. government shutdown occurred because Democrats refused to give into the Tea Party's extortion-like demands. Specifically, they wrote, it occurred after "Republicans staged a series of last-ditch efforts to use a once-routine budget procedure to force Democrats to abandon their efforts to extend U.S. health insurance."

Was that so hard? Apparently so, for the U.S. corporate media anyway...

Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) --- we're inclined to write "(R-Asshole)" --- makes a national disgrace of himself on the Republican Grandstanding Stage that has become the national WWII Memorial...

And speaking of assholes...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Non-essential FEMA workers essential after all, as potential hurricane threatens Gulf Coast; Russia charges Greenpeace activists with piracy; Tesla electric car battery catches fire; Do cities have a right to ban plastic bags?; PLUS: What the corporate media didn't tell you about the new UN climate report ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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Here's the statement from Alabama's former Governor Don Siegelman (D), now a political prisoner being held in a federal correctional institution in Louisiana, that we obtained and published last week, as discussed in my conversation above on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture this week.

If you're looking for Tom DeLay and Karl Rove, they're still on the lam, fugitives from justice, as Siegelman serves out 6.5 years for something that was never considered a crime before in the history of this nation.

Oh, and I do love this graphic that Thom's folks used at the top of our segment...

Sign the petition asking President Obama for a pardon for Siegelman right here...

UPDATE 10/5/13: I was also on Hartmann's radio show the day before the TV show appearance seen above. We talk about largely the same things, though with a few additional details here and there, such as more info on Siegelman's 2002 "stolen" re-election. Thom's radio show is also video taped (and played live on Free Speech TV and elsewhere). The video segment of my radio appearance with him follows below...

Have we hit rock bottom yet? Sadly, I don't think so. Not yet.

The Republicans still have much more to burn down, it seems. Starting with themselves. But they're well on the way. And they have only themselves to blame.

The good news...Perhaps the only good news: It all made for a very lively BradCast today on L.A.'s KPFK/Pacifica Radio, as we stomped out the myths that Chuck Todd refuses to, and heard from tons of callers in the bargain.

Oh, and there was much more, but you'll have to listen to find out about it. Enjoy! I know I did!

Download MP3 or listen online below...

In late August, climate hawk and too-occasional BRAD BLOG contributor D.R. Tucker reported how MSNBC's August 16th Chris Hayes hosted documentary on climate change and the global warming denial industry, was nowhere to be found online. Unlike previous docs from the cable net, this one had not made available online after its initial airing.

Despite our best efforts at the time to receive an explanation from MSNBC or Chris Hayes or the producers of his nightly prime-time show, All In (which produced and presented the doc during their normal hour), as to why the special had not been posted online, several weeks went by and we received no response.

The unexplained online "black out" of Politics of Power led Tucker to wonder, by August 29th, if "certain entities" (such as ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel industry corporations, global warming deniers and other similarly big advertisers on MSNBC) "might not be happy with the prospect of the video being widely available and, who knows, maybe even going viral."

Well, we've still received no direct response to our queries from Hayes or anyone at MSNBC as to the whereabouts of the "missing" documentary, or the explanation for it. But while browsing some video clips recently at the MSNBC website, I just happened to come across this graphic amongst a list of video clips available on the site...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Government Shutdown-palooza begins, and it affects a lot of 'green' stuff; It's Yosemite National Park's 123rd birthday - but Yosemite's now closed, too; Florida sues Georgia over water; India to build world's largest solar plant; PLUS: BP back in court over Gulf Oil Disaster ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The real budget crisis: our 'carbon budget'; Exploding Fuel Tankers Driving U.S. Army to Solar Power; NBC cancels show after NRA lobbyist shoots elephant in face, compares critics to Hitler; Fracking chemicals unknown, even to drillers; Billionaires Steyer, Paulson, and Bloomberg begin climate change campaign; NC man who made sea level rise disappear; Chile invests in tidal/wave power; FERC nominee Ron Binz withdraws amid coal pushback ... PLUS: VIDEO: What our idyllic, non-dystopian future would look like if we fixed the world ... and much, MUCH more! ...