For the first time since the bulk of votes were tallied in Virginia on Election Night last Tuesday, the Democratic candidate for Attorney General, state Sen. Mark Herring appears to now have taken the lead over Republican state Sen. Mark Obenshain in the razor-thin results of more than 2.2 million votes cast.

Herring just barely leap-frogged Obenshain's totals on Monday afternoon after tallies from a voting machine in the city of Richmond --- the results of which had been previously missing from official tallies since Election Night --- were added to the running totals. The addition of 190 votes from electronic voting machine #3791, plus a few other votes from seven other precincts re-reviewed by Richmond City's Electoral Board on Monday, resulted in what now appears to be a 115 vote lead for Herring over Obenshain.

While the results posted by State Board of Elections (SBE) do not yet reflect that change in the state tally (showing, instead, a 17 vote lead for Obenshain for now), a number of election experts following and closely documenting the post-election canvassing and correction of vote tallies from across the state have confirmed Herring's new lead. Those experts have been consistently and accurately ahead of the SBE in reporting results in many cases over the past week.

[Update, 9:50pm ET: The SBE website now shows Herring up by 117, as predicted. The extra two votes were from provisional ballots added to the tally in Montgomery County.]

Ironically, the review of the poll tapes printed out by the tabulation computers from eight different precincts in very-heavily Democratic-leaning Richmond City today, came at the request of the Republican Party...

As the disturbing report from Chris Ramirez of KOB Eyewitness News 4 in Albuquerque, New Mexico reveals, police in nearby Deming have given new meaning to the concept of an unreasonably intrusive search.

A routine traffic stop for failing to come to a complete stop upon exiting a Wal-Mart parking lot turned into an extraordinary, fourteen-hour, unbelievably invasive ordeal that Ramirez appropriately describes as "a humiliating violation of a New Mexico man's body by police and doctor."

Deming police officers, according to Dennis Eckert's attorney, Shannon Kennedy, claimed that when Eckert obeyed the command to get out of his car, "he did so in a manner that looked as if he was clenching his buttocks."

Based on, apparently, no more than that, police obtained a warrant to do an anal cavity search for drugs. The police first sought to obtain the cavity search from a nearby emergency room, but the ER doctor refused to conduct it, stating it would be unethical to do so. Police then drove the man to the Gila Regional Medical Center, located in a different county (and outside the scope of the warrant).

KOB4 summarizes the incredible content of the Gila medical records, as they pertained to procedures conducted without Eckert's consent thereafter...

As of late Saturday, just 55 votes separated the Democratic candidate from the Republican in the Virginia Attorney General's race, according to the State Board of Elections (SBE) website. 55 votes out of more than 2.2 million cast after four days of canvassing, double-checking and processing a number of provisional ballots cast across the state during last Tuesday's election.

The state's 55 vote spread, however, is still larger than the margin cited by the election geeks who have been following this race on a county-by-county and often precinct-by-precinct (even ballot-by-ballot) level. And they have been consistently and correctly ahead of the SBE-posted numbers. One of them, Virginia political expert and self-identified "vicious campaign insultant," Ben Tribbett declared just a 15 vote margin earlier Saturday, after the spread had been just several hundred over the last few days. Late tonight, after a few more provisionals were tallied in the City of Richmond, Tribbett adjusted his tally to a 44 vote margin.

Another one of those geeks, Dave Wasserman of the non-partisan Cook Political Report, predicted Friday night on Twitter that, after all provisional ballots are added in, "this thing could be single digits." It looks like he wasn't kidding.

For what it's worth, it's the Republican state Sen. Mark Obenshain currently leading the Democratic state Sen. Mark Herring by either 55 votes or 15 votes or somewhere in between right now. But there still remain between 400 and 500 provisional ballots to be adjudicated and possibly added to the totals in heavily Democratic-leaning Fairfax County as of Saturday night, according to Michael McDonald, a specialist in American elections at George Mason University in Fairfax.

Indeed, it was a surprise edict concerning provisional ballots, as issued by the Republican State Board of Elections, that stopped the Fairfax County Electoral Board dead in their tracks on Saturday before they were able to adjudicate all of the county's provisionals as previously planned.

All of this, before a likely "recount" --- of 100% unverifiable touch-screen votes in most VA counties and, barring a court order, no more than a computer re-scan of most of the paper ballots in the others --- that is almost certain to be requested by whichever state Senator named Mark finds himself "the loser" of the final canvassed tally as of midnight, Tuesday, November 12th, the deadline for certification of the election...

On Thursday night, we explained as much as we could figure out about thousands of seemingly "missing" votes suddenly "discovered" in the incredibly close Attorney General's race in Virginia between Mark Obenshain (R) and Mark Herring (D).

Some 2.2 million votes were cast on Tuesday in the contest, yet just a few hundred (depending on what time of day one checked, as tallies were being canvassed and double-checked and corrected from around the state) separated the two on Thursday. Obenshain was said to be in the lead, according to the State Board of Elections (SBE) website, by a few more than 700 votes at night's end.

That's when several election porn geeks --- like Dave Wasserman of Cook Political Report and Ben Tribbett --- who had been combing over the results for the past several days, confirmed with elections officials an unusually low rate of absentee votes in Congressional District 8 in Fairfax County, VA. If accurate, it would have been the lowest return rate for absentees in the state, and it was considerably lower than adjacent districts in the same county. Fairfax leans heavily Democratic and, if absentee ballots were cast at the same rate there as other districts in the county, Wasserman and Tribbett concluded, there were about 3,000 votes unaccounted for in the SBE tallies. Those "missing" votes, if tallied, would be enough to give Herring the lead and, potentially, the first AG victory for a Democrat in the state in twenty years.

So what happened to those 3,000 or so absentee votes? Why were they seemingly 'missing' from the tally? By late Thursday, one of the Republican officials on the Electoral Board, Brian Schoeneman, said he was "convinced now too that there is an issue" and promised to "figure this out". Late late Thursday night, Wasserman had received an email from Fairfax County General Registrar Cameron Quinn acknowledging that VA08 totals were "in error" and that she suspected "machine totals that either didn't print tapes, or didn't show full tallies on the tapes." She said that the Electoral Board would "make figuring out what happened the first order of business in the morning" on Friday.

Unlike much of the state, which votes on 100% unverifiable touch-screen systems, Fairfax, the largest single voting jurisdiction in the state, uses paper ballot optical-scan systems made by Diebold. Those same systems --- as we described last night --- have a long history of failure, including dropping entire stacks of votes from the totals without notice to the system administrator. Could that be what happened?

Well, there were a few more twists and turns today, as the Fairfax County Electoral Board attempted to figure out what had gone wrong with their tallies, and as other counties wrapped up their canvass of the election. The Board plans to meet tomorrow to offer their official findings (their full statement below), but the only thing we know conclusively for the moment, is that one of Wasserman's tweets this afternoon was absolutely correct:

"Folks, I've been neck deep in MS Excel for 3+ days & I'm ready to make a projection," he said. "The next Virginia AG will be...Mark"...

We reported yesterday on the incredibly close race for Attorney General in Virginia. With more than 2.2 million votes cast, the margin between Mark Obenshain (R) and Mark Herring (D) has been within a few hundred votes since Election Night on Tuesday.

Within the last few hours, an unexplained discrepancy has been discovered by those combing over the reported numbers in Fairfax County. The county leans heavily Democratic and, unlike much of the rest of the state which uses 100% unverifiable touch-screen, Fairfax uses optically-scanned paper ballots for its main vote tabulation system.

After Democrats reportedly won both the Governor and Lt. Governor races, only the AG's remains undecided at the top of the ticket. For the last 24 hours or so, the Republican Obenshain has been leading during the canvassing of ballots by about 700 votes, as absentee and provisionals are tallied and doubled-checked.

But now, thanks to some smart detective work by both a Democratic political team in Fairfax County and by Dave Wasserman of the non-partisan Cook Political Report, the fortunes for the Democrat candidate Herring may just have taken a big turn, even as a new mystery is added to the equation...

[UPDATED - Video added at bottom. CBS' Logan admits they blew the story. ALSO NOW: Simon & Schuster Rightwing imprint pulls book off shelves.]

A full week after serious doubts were raised concerning 60 Minutes' report on a supposed eye-witness to the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, CBS has finally issued a terse two paragraph statement tonight to announce they are "currently looking into" whether they were "misled" by their star witness.

Here's the full statement:

The statement coincides with new information this evening that appears to further undercut the 60 Minutes report...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: ELECTION 2013: the first climate election? Climate science denier Ken Cuccinelli defeated in VA; Local races with big environmental impacts for the country; PLUS: We're goin' the wrong way!!! Greenhouse gas emissions rise to record levels... 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): Fukushima cleanup enters dangerous phase; Western black rhino now extinct; Fossil fuels get $500B annual subsidies; China solar panel makers invest in solar farms; New investment project for North Africa solar; Whopping CO2 footprint for Australian coal mines; Debating 'Pandora's Promise'; PA gives fracking industry $1 billion; ExxonMobil fined $2 million for AR pipeline spill ... PLUS: It's time to adapt to unstoppable climate change, say scientists ... and much, MUCH more! ...

This week on the KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast, I was joined by Eric Boehlert of MediaMatters.org to discuss: a) The serious questions about CBS' 60 Minutes "train wreck" on Benghazi and the media's dreadful double-standard in comparison to the reaction to the Dan Rather/George W. Bush Air National Guard story from 2004 b) Media failure in reporting on "Obamacare" c) The double-standard at Fox "News" in covering the alleged "pissed-off patriot" who shot up LAX Airport last week and d) Rand Paul's plagiarism disaster.

Then, I was joined by the great Howie Klein of DownWithTyranny.com and the Blue America PAC to discuss the various progressive victories from Tuesday's elections (and a few of the failures), as well as concerns about the still incredibly close, 100% unverifiable Attorney General race in Virginia and its likely "recount".

Plus, Desi Doyen joined us as usual for the latest Green News Report. Enjoy the show!

Download MP3 or listen online below [appx. 58 mins]...

[This article now cross-published by The Progressive...]

As of today, following yesterday's off-off year Election Day 2013, the race for Virginia Attorney General is still uncalled by the media, and for good reason. Out of some 2.2 million votes cast in VA yesterday, the Democratic candidate for AG, Mark Herring and the Republican candidate, Mark Obenshain are now reportedly just a hair's breadth apart.

Depending on whose numbers you look at, as of 2p ET this afternoon, Obenshain is reportedly ahead by either 965 votes, according to the State Board of Elections (SBE), or by 286 votes, according to AP (which was often well ahead of the SBE numbers during reporting of results last night), with all precincts now said to have been accounted for in unofficial results.

The last numbers I had seen before going to bed last night at around 4am ET, showed Herring up over the Republican by 616 votes, but there were still said to be about 4 precincts out at that time, according to AP. The SBE's numbers had several more precincts unreported at that hour, as it looks like they had knocked off for the night several hours earlier.

Given the tightness of these reported numbers, and the fact that Republicans are certainly hoping to deny Democrats of a "clean sweep" win last night (the Ds took both the Governor's and Lt. Governor's race), a Commonwealth-wide "recount" is almost certain in the Attorney General's race. Current AG, and last night's failed Gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli will likely oversee that "recount," as luck would have it.

But a "recount" in VA, may offer much less than one would think. So, here's why I put the word "recount" in quotes. This is what the map of Virginia looks like, courtesy of Verified Voting's 2012 database, as identified by types of voting systems used across the state...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate scientists go nuclear; Coal spills & kills; Obama announces major new climate action; UN's latest warning; PLUS: Germany breaks its own clean energy record --- again ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Video: Why GMO labeling is a 'Story of Solutions'; Britain’s new flood protection plan is to surrender to the ocean; Antibiotic resistance spreads to birds, wildlife; Even LBJ knew about climate change; The secret, dirty cost of ethanol; Oops: carbon capture and storage causes earthquakes; US natural gas reserves wildly overestimated; Facial scrub plastic micro-beads polluting Great Lakes ... PLUS: The caveman dilemma: Why we take such lousy care of ourselves and our planet ... and much, MUCH more! ...

These tweets are from Col. Morris Davis, the former Chief Prosecutor at Gitmo, on how things went for him today as he was trying to vote in Virginia...

Took 4 tries to vote for McCauliffe. I'd touch his name but it would mark Cuccinelli. Had to touch above the name to get mark in right box.

— Col. Morris Davis (@ColMorrisDavis) November 5, 2013

Voting prob: Screen had McAuliffe w/aspirin size bubble then Cuccinelli. 3x touched M, checked C. 4th touched very top of bubble & got M.

— Col. Morris Davis (@ColMorrisDavis) November 5, 2013

In another tweet, Davis notes that he "voted in Buckland Precinct in Prince William County, Virginia," and then noted to others that he "Hope[s] voters will double check their ballots before pushing submit to make sure they're right."

Good advice, of course. But, unfortunately, given the 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems used in Prince William County (and across much of Virginia and most of New Jersey), even checking the onscreen "ballot" for accuracy is no guarantee that the vote will be counted accurately, or even at all, unfortunately.

The same is true on systems that have so-called "paper trails" that print out for voters to examine before "casting" them. (On those systems, the "Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail" or VVPAT, is largely to make the voter feel better, somehow. In truth, those "paper trails" are almost never actually tallied. The internal computer numbers are used instead. And, even if the VVPATs were to be tallied by humans, there would be no way to know for certain that they actually reflect the intent of any voter.)

For the record, Prince William County uses touch-screen systems made by Sequoia Voting Systems, which is now owned by the Canadian firm Dominion Voting. To get an idea of the many problems and concerns over the years with Sequoia touch-screen systems, see this article detailing the day that Barack Obama early voted on one of them in Chicago last year. Those are also the same systems which managed to flip Oprah Winfrey's Presidential vote back in 2008. (The Obama piece also includes links to our articles detailing things such as Sequoia's "yellow button" on the back of each touch-screen system which, if pressed correctly, as an election official explained to us back in 2006, allows a voter to "vote as many times as you want. You won't ever have to stop until someone physically restrains you from voting.")

[Update: VA voter David Hutchinson reports similar problems with touch-screen flips today in BRAD BLOG comments below.]

Want to maximize the possibility that your vote will be counted and counted accurately? Try to vote on a hand-marked paper ballot where available. We were told today that, for the first time, some locations in Virginia are allowing voters to vote on paper if they like, though Charlottesville, VA voter David Swanson reports than when he voted at the precinct today, "Most people chose not to."

Of course, paper ballots are also almost always tallied by computers, instead of humans, so those are causing big problems for voters as well today...

How precarious has our climate predicament become? Bad enough that four prominent climate scientists --- including one very prominent activist --- are now publicly calling on major environmental advocacy organizations to embrace nuclear power. Yes, nuclear power.

They say nuclear energy must be included as a necessary tool in meeting rising global energy demand while reducing global greenhouse gas emissions if humanity is to have any hope of keeping global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and that "continued opposition to nuclear power threatens humanity’s ability to avoid dangerous climate change."

In a letter, authored by James Hansen (retired NASA scientist, now with Columbia Univ.), Ken Caldeira (Carnegie Institution), Kerry Emanuel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Tom Wigley (National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Adelaide), the four assert that renewable energy sources such as wind and solar cannot be deployed fast enough to meet global energy needs while still avoiding dangerous, potentially catastrophic, climate destabilization.

Not everyone agrees, but they've certainly grabbed the attention of environmentalists.

The four scientists ask the nation's largest, most prominent environmental organizations to support development of new nuclear technology because, they say, "there is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power"...

[This article now cross-published by The Progressive...]

Former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright (D) was denied a Photo ID for voting purposes in Texas over the weekend by the state's Department of Public Safety (DPS).

The 90-year old Wright, who is lucky enough to have an assistant to drive him to and from the DPS office, says that while he believes he'll be able to get an ID in time to vote in this Tuesday's election, he's concerned the state's "unduly stringent requirements on voters" will reduce turnout.

According to the Star-Telegram, Wright's driver's license expired in 2010 and --- because he no longer drives --- he didn't bother to renew it. That expired license, he learned Saturday, is not good enough to obtain a Photo ID to vote under the law TX Republicans passed in 2011. That law will be in effect, for the first time, on Tuesday. The state statute had previously been nixed just last year by the U.S. Dept. of Justice and by a 3-judge federal court panel after being found discriminatory, in violation of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), as based on statistics supplied by the state itself.

Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court gutting a key provision of the VRA over the summer, however, Texas announced the law would finally be enforced for the upcoming election.

Wright is hardly the only well known figure to be stung so far by the Lone Star State Republicans' purposely disenfranchising law. And the hoops that many voters --- even ones like Wright, who says he's voted in every single election since 1944 --- must now jump through in order to have a chance at their vote even being counted at all, is remarkable...

Really. And kudos to Daily Show correspondent Al Madrigal...

In what Washington Post's Karen DeYoung describes as an "explosive report" on CBS' 60 Minutes on Sunday, the venerable TV news magazine offered "a harrowing account of the extremist attack that killed four Americans" at the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya last year.

Naturally, Fox "News" and others on the Right --- such as Sen. Lindsey Graham who promised on Wednesday to block all of President Obama's nominees following the report --- have been trumpeting it all week.

In the report, CBS' Lara Logan interviews a man pseudonymously identified as "Morgan Jones", a British supervisor of security guards protecting the mission. He tells Logan that, as the attack that night went on and four U.S. officials were ultimately killed, he scaled the compound's 12-foot wall, took out an al-Qaeda terrorist "with the butt end of a rifle" and eventually was at the hospital to witness the lifeless corpse of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

But, as reported by DeYoung at WaPo today, that story by "Jones", as offered on 60 Minutes, appears to be completely untrue. That "harrowing account" by "Jones," whose real name is reportedly Dylan Davies, is completely at odds, according to the Post, with the written account that he "provided to his employer three days after the attack" when he said he was nowhere near the diplomatic compound on the night of the deadly tragedy...