The much-debated Keystone XL pipeline could increase global warming pollution by as much four times the amount estimated by the U.S. State Department, according to a new study by an independent non-profit research organization.

Without mentioning that the State Department's own environmental impact report may have been hopelessly compromised by "corporate conflicts of interest," Los Angeles Times offered an important article discussing the findings of the new report published Sunday by the journal Nature Climate Change.

The State Department's dubious estimate of the Keystone XL's anticipated impact on increased carbon emissions is critical to President Barack Obama's determination as to whether he will approve the controversial tar sands oil project since, as noted by the scientists who authored the report at the Stockholm Environment Institute, the President has stated that "he would only approve the Keystone XL pipeline…if it 'does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.'"

This new report may alter his calculation of exacerbated emissions expected to occur from building the massive pipeline that would ship dirty tar sands crude from Alberta, Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico for export, as the LA Times' Neela Banerjee explains in her article, headlined in the print version as "Grim estimates on pipeline"...

We're on the road this week, so can't get into great detail. But not much is needed, as Justin Levitt's piece at Washington Post's "Wonk Blog" does all the heavy lifting.

We've previously reported on the exhaustive study by the non-partisan News21 consortium which found just 10 incidents of possible voter fraud that might have been deterred by polling place Photo ID restrictions in all 50 states from 2000 to 2012. That report was based on all of the official actions filed in each state during that time period, of all forms of potential voter fraud or voter registration fraud or, more broadly, election fraud in general.

But now Levitt --- a constitutional and democracy law professor at Loyola University Law School, who also works on related issues with NYU's Brennan Center for Justice and frequently testifies as an expert in various law suits and hearings regarding voting rights --- offers an update to those numbers. The results are remarkable, though unsurprising to those who have followed the creation of this Republican stalking horse for the past decade.

Levitt's offers an even more expansive investigation than News21's, and includes all known incidents and allegations, even those which haven't been filed formally with election or law enforcement officials.

"To be clear," he writes, "I'm not just talking about prosecutions. I track any specific, credible allegation that someone may have pretended to be someone else at the polls, in any way that an ID law could fix."

His explanation of what he has found --- from every known allegation of this type of voter fraud between 2000 and 2014 in all 50 states --- is staggering, to say the least...

[This article now cross-published by Salon...]

Washington Posts' "The Fix" blog describes Rep. Justin Amash's (R-MI) victory speech after his primary election on Tuesday as "absolutely amazing", noting that "Politicians who win campaigns, no matter how dirty, will almost always kiss and make up with their political opponents in their election-night speeches."

Amash did no such thing, as his remarks highlighted, once again, the growing, deep and bitter divide running straight through the Republican Party.

The libertarian-leaning ally of former Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) and co-sponsor, with Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) of last year's narrowly defeated bi-partisan attempt in the U.S. House to end blanket, warrantless NSA spying on Americans following the initial Edward Snowden disclosures, unloaded last night on the failed U.S. Chamber of Commerce-backed campaign to unseat him with an "establishment-approved" candidate.

In particular, Amash targeted Michigan's former Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra, a long-time Chamber-backed candidate himself, now a Chamber-funded political lobbyist and supporter of Amash's Republican opponent Brian Ellis. "I want to say to lobbyist Pete Hoekstra," Amash told the crowd, underscoring the L-word to much applause, "you are a disgrace. And I'm glad we could hand you one more loss before you fade into total obscurity and irrelevance."

Ouch. As "The Fix" notes, "Hoekstra lost the state's 2012 Senate race --- and in the 2010 gubernatorial primary."

And then Amash zeroed in on his direct opponent, businessman Ellis: "You owe my family and this community an apology for your disgusting, despicable smear campaign. You had the audacity to try and call me today after running a campaign that was called the nastiest in the country. I ran for office to stop people like you. To stop people who were more interested in themselves than in doing what's best for their district."

The Ellis campaign ran an ad earlier this summer, citing Amash's support for shutting down the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay (just as both George W. Bush and John McCain once supported) and his attempt to stop warrantless spying on Americans (a bill that narrowly failed with a bi-partisan 205 to 217 vote, which included 94 votes from fellow Republicans).

The Ellis ad referred to Amash, who is an Arab-American, as "Al Qaeda's best friend in Congress."

His blistering remarks about Hoekstra and Ellisn come just after the 3 minute mark in the video below...

This week, MSNBC's Steve Kornacki, filling in for Rachel Maddow, discussed former President Ronald Reagan's stunning 1991 announcement that he supported the "Brady Bill" mandating a seven-day waiting period to purchase a handgun.

Reagan, who happened to be a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association (which virulently opposed the "Brady Bill"), nevertheless regarded the legislation as a common-sense effort to keep firearms out of the hands of dangerous individuals.

Marking the passing of Reagan's Press Secretary and the legislation's namesake James Brady, Kornacki observed that Reagan's support for the "Brady Bill" helped to ease the pathway towards its passage under President Bill Clinton in November 1993. However, after Congress passed a now-expired assault-weapons ban in August 1994, opponents of gun safety seized political power (beginning with the November 1994 midterm elections) and began to thwart any further efforts to decrease the carnage that turned children into corpses.

However, what Kornacki failed to mention was that the same Republican icon who boldly supported the "Brady Bill" also helped create, through one infamous Executive Order, the very circumstances that led to the demise of gun safety measures in the US --- as well as health and climate safety in the world...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Drinking water ban in Ohio's 4th largest city is over --- for now; Mine waste breach means British Columbia's water crisis is just beginning; California state of emergency over wildfires; Bee-killing pesticide now found in U.S. rivers; PLUS: Trees save lives ... 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): CO compromise removes anti-fracking measures from ballot; First 100°F Temperature on Record in the Baltics; Acidifying oceans killing oyster industry in the Pacific Northwest; The science behind the rise of deadly flesh-eating bacteria in the U.S.; Beijing to ban coal; 'Otherworldly' deluge causes deadly landslide in India; First-ever precip recorded in SoCal in August; Religious leaders call pollution 'an affront to God' ... PLUS: Texas V. EPA: Who in Texas wants tighter refinery regulation? ... and much, MUCH more! ...

NBC and Brian Williams on just how bad this drought, the worst one on historical record, is getting out here...

But all ya'll pretenders that "Global Warming is a hoax" (talking to you, crazy lady running for Congress from Louisiana and all your scammed friends!) can keep pretending this isn't gonna end up costing you and this nation and this planet a fortune, just so you can continue helping a few fossil fuel corporation owners fleece you...and your grandchildren's future.

Michele Bachmann may be on her way out. And Sarah Palin cut and run long ago. But make way for Republican state Rep. Lenar Whitney, who is now running for an open Congressional seat from Louisiana.

She cites Bachmann "as a political role model" and proudly accepts the monicker of "Palin of the South", according to Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, who wrote about her at Washington Post this week.

"I've personally interviewed over 300 congressional candidates over the course of seven years, both to get to know them and evaluate their chances of winning" he writes. "But never have I met any candidate quite as frightening or fact-averse as Louisiana state Rep. Lenar Whitney, 55, who visited my office last Wednesday."

Wasserman describes how she eventually "fled the room", after he'd asked her "repeatedly for the source of her claim that the earth is getting colder", as seen --- along with much more --- in the remarkable video below. He says "she froze and was unable to cite a single scientist, journal or news source to back up her beliefs."

Not surprising, given that her claims are all bullshit, until you see the confidence with which she presents that bullshit in the campaign video below. Get a load --- and I do mean load --- of this...

We're getting ready to hit the road, so no time at the moment to debunk each of her ridiculous --- and long ago debunked everywhere else --- assertions. Even the frequently absurd PolitiFact judged the claims in her otherwise hilarious video to be "Pants on Fire".

But the video seems worth highlighting here, nonetheless, if only so that folks can know who may become the next Congressmember from Louisiana's 6th district, and so we all might further appreciate just how far off the rails of reality the Republican Party has now gone, that a) this woman is even a viable candidate for U.S. Congress from any party and b) she's actually already been elected to something beyond Dog Catcher by voters in the state of Louisiana!

[Hat-tip TPM's Caitlin Macneal]

With each passing day it becomes more and more clear --- as if it wasn't from the get-go, when Republicans initially began objecting to Obama's advocacy for a Republican-created health insurance reform plan --- that the GOP's objections to "ObamaCare" have nothing to do with the plan itself and everything to do with the fact that they didn't pass it.

No matter that we'd prefer to see a single-payer plan, where every American enjoys a right to receive good health care, the Affordable Care Act's success in seeing millions of previously-uninsured Americans become insured is no longer debatable by serious people.

And now we begin seeing the upside for corporations like private hospitals as well...

Sounds terrible. No wonder Republicans are "furious" about it.