Duckin' brilliant...

[From Rebellious Pixels, by way of Boing Boing and Will Shetterly with hat-tip to Ana Marie Cox.]

Not to say "we told ya so," but we did tell ya so, the day after Obama's election in 2008...

Anyway, now he's gone. Perhaps this will be the change we can believe in. Though we are not holding our breath.

CNN's Sr. National Editor Dave Schechter had this to say about The BRAD BLOG on their "Election Center" page yesterday, in regard to our coverage of election integrity [emphasis added]...

And also, "needless to say", no matter what the voting machine manufacturers have to say --- and no matter whether their systems are secure (they're not) or accurate --- there remains no way for us, we, the people, to actually know that, particularly on 100% unverifiable DRE (Direct Recording Electronic, usually touch-screen) voting systems, since it remains impossible for anybody, including the companies, to produce a single piece of evidence to prove that even one vote, ever cast on any of them during an election, for any candidate or initiative on the ballot, has ever been recorded as per the voter's intent.

Our thanks to CNN's Schechter for the kind notice, and we hope our squeaky wheels bring some much-needed grease to our ridiculously perilous and undemocratic system of concealed vote counting in this nation.

I'll also take this opportunity to ask for some grease from you folks. We haven't posted a plea for contributions in many, many months --- yet, boy howdy, do we need it! Please help us refresh the completely empty coffers --- since I really hate to ask at all, frankly, particularly since I've got so much else to do in this election season --- with an online donation via credit card or PayPal!

Alternately, snail mail donations are also much appreciated, as sent to: Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594, Los Angeles, CA 90028.

Finally, most appreciated of all, are monthly subscriptions of any amount you like. Please see the light-blue box halfway down our right sidebar on any page, where you can specify any amount you can afford, to sign-up in about 60 seconds to become a monthly sustaining supporter!

Thanks in advance guys! And now back to your regularly scheduled wheel squeaking...

CORRECTION: I had originally misspelled Dave Schechter's name in the above article. A fine thanks for his kind words, eh? Anyway, now corrected with my apologies for the error.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Koala Chlamydia; Coal protests around the world; New Rules for offshore drilling; PLUS: The Governator slams Big Oil and corporate campaign cash ... 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): Avatar director James Cameron says oil sands will become "curse"; DOE: Small solar power systems could provide enough power for big utilities; Chuitna and the Curse of Coal; Nissan LEAF already sold out in U.S. --- before it's even for sale; The Vatican goes green; EPA hits Illinois over factory farm water pollution; McCain now a climate conspiracy theorist; Lawmakers move to stop genetically modified salmon; One-fifth of world's plants at risk of extinction; Biochar could help climate change fight; California raises Renewable Portfolio Standard to 33% ...PLUS: Meet Generation Hot ...

Alexandra Petri writing on Dana Milbank's "Rough Sketch" blog at Washington Post:

For chrissakes, you're the WASHINGTON POST! Get the story straight please!

O'Keefe NEVER "dressed up as a pimp to interview members of ACORN." Never. Not once. Ever. It was a hoax. Period. Just like his criminal operation at Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans (for which he is still on probation), and the CNN sexual assault/wiretap scheme.

How many times are you guys gonna fall for it and keep misreporting the same damaging, inaccurate story?

That he NEVER "dressed up as a pimp to interview members of ACORN" has now been documented, in no uncertain terms, over and over again for nearly a year. Not just by The BRAD BLOG repeatedly, but by his own accomplice Hannah Giles (twice, including once on video tape!), and by one official investigation after another, going back nearly a year.

For example, here's former MA Attorney General Scott Harshbarger's report [PDF] from December of 2009:

For the record, when you issue your swift correction (which I hope you'll do immediately and transparently and loudly), before you make yet another mistake, as the NYTimes did when issuing theirs, O'Keefe also did not "represent himself as a pimp" to ACORN workers either. He represented himself as the boyfriend of the girl/prostitute (played by Hannah Giles) trying to save her FROM an abusive pimp who was trying to kill her.

Jesus. It's not the first time WaPo has misreported on this matter. But we figured they'd have figured out the scam by now. Apparently not.

Please issue a correction immediately. Thank you. And good lord. (This is how James O'Keefe, Andrew Breitbart, and the rest of their crew get away with lying again and again and again. Incredible.)

P.S. If you want to report on the story --- in your own MD backyard, Washington Post --- why don't you cover the fact that O'Keefe has now violated Maryland's Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act again and again (and now, likely, the terms of his federal criminal probation), as we laid out yesterday, and the fact that MD law enforcement officials seem to be doing absolutely nothing about it?!

UPDATE 10/1/10, 12:50pm PT: It has been nearly 48 hours since the Petri/Milbank story was posted containing the egregious mistakes noted above, and yet there has still be no correction. Over the past 24 hours we've notified both @Milbank & @Petridishes via Twitter multiple times; have notified WaPo's "Corrections" address (Corrections@WashPost.com); and have notified their Ombudsman Andy Alexander who has responded with Alexandra Petri's email address so we could contact her that way directly, which we have. And yet, still no correction for the blatantly innaccurate reporting.

During those same 24 hours, Milbank has posted one item, and Petri has posted two --- one as recently as two hours ago, another a few hours earlier than that today --- so we know they are both around to make the corrections. They have apparently chosen to not correct their inaccurate reporting.

Next time you are told how the "professionals in the MSM fact-check their work, but bloggers don't," please feel free to keep this incident handy.

(Thanks to Eric Boehlert at Media Matters for picking up this story today!)

UPDATE 10/1/10, 3:46pm PT: Incredible. Petri has just posted yet a third item on Milbank's blog without bothering to correct the O'Keefe "pimp" story. I've left a comment on every one of her blog items since, pointing back to this article and asking her what gives and if she ever intends to correct her blatant inaccuracies. Hope you'll consider doing same until she accurately and transparently corrects the story. Milbank's blog is here.

UPDATE 10/3/10, 11:36am PT: It has now been four days since Dana Milbank allowed Alexandra Petri's complete inaccuracies about Rightwing con-man James O'Keefe and ACORN to be posted on his WaPo blog without correction. The paper's corrections editor, their ombudsman and both Milbank and Petri have been notified many times. They continue to appear not to give a damn that they are blatantly misinforming their readers and the nation.

UPDATE 10/5/10: SUCCESS! After nearly a week of prodding, Petri has finally issued a correction! Though even older WaPo misreports, by other journalists, on this same matter, are still unaddressed. Full details now posted here...

Convicted federal criminal and Rightwing dirty-trickster James O'Keefe appears to have flagrantly run afoul of the rule of law yet again. This time, he appears to have violated and/or conspired to violate Maryland's Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act. It would not be the first instance of him having done so.

The apparent violation(s) of state felony laws, revealed today as part of what is being reported as O'Keefe's "botched" attempt to "punk CNN", comes on the heels of O'Keefe's previous apparent violations of the very same laws in MD, though law enforcement officials have yet to hold him accountable, to date, for those previous offenses.

Documents and other material produced by CNN today suggest that O'Keefe secretly, and illegally, taped phone calls he had with CNN's investigative journalist Abbie Boudreau, and conspired to secretly video tape her in a compromising situation, also in violation of MD law.

O'Keefe, who is currently on probation after pleading guilty to a federal misdemeanor following another botched scheme in Louisiana earlier this year, seems to have broken similar laws last year in a number of states, including Maryland, where he secretly video taped employees at the offices of the community organization ACORN in Baltimore. Despite requests to MD law enforcement by a non-profit watchdog organization for a criminal investigation into the previous apparent violations of the state's felony wiretap laws --- and despite recognition of the "possible" violation of those laws in a number of law enforcement investigations elsewhere --- no action has been taken to date by state officials...

While we covered yesterday's all-time hottest day in recorded history here in Los Angeles (and that it happened in late September!) during today's Green News Report, I was later informed that, in fact, when the temperature got to 113, the thermometer actually broke!...

Did it actually get hotter than 113 here thereafter? Sure felt like it while working outside yesterday where it was, literally, a 100 degrees in the shade.

If you didn't catch today's Green News Report, it's worth a quick listen if only because the Fox "News" flashbacks to last January and February are worth their weight in Global Warming Denialist gold.

[Hat-tips to @GottaLaff and @RoseMarieHolt on the Twitters, where you can also follow @TheBradBlog here.]

Along with the madness of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) and Vote-by-Mail, Internet Voting is the other scheme/virus that makes my head explode --- as if the existing e-voting system we already use in the U.S. isn't unverifiable, unoverseeable and susceptible enough to malfeasance and malfunction as is.

So with the little patience I can muster to even mention this latest particular nightmare at all today, I'll defer to Washington Post's coverage yesterday --- sure to be ignored until it's too late ("Who could have foreseen it?!") --- of the experts' latest warnings against D.C.'s planned live democracy experiment of using an untested and unverifiable Internet Voting scheme on real voters, in a real election, beginning in just a few weeks.

The WaPo column includes this explanation of two letters sent to D.C. officials this week, urging them to take a different path...

Four advil and three shots of vodka please.

UPDATE 10/4/10: Aaaaand...whaddaya know, D.C. Internet Vote scheme --- the one experts above were warning about --- gets hacked. Who could have forseen it?! Details here...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: SoCal is sooo hot - all-time record heat in L.A. this week, leads us to a Fox "News" February flashback; "Hockey Stick" graph vindicated - again; Half a billion corporate dollars to kill clean energy legislation ... PLUS: DOJ gives a pass to BP ... 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): Halliburton Makes the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (and pigs fly); More than 100 Arrested at White House Demanding End to Mountaintop Removal; Australian climate activists close down world's largest coal port; 100% green electricity in Scotland 'achievable' by 2025; For U.S. Wildlife, a Climate Change Blueprint; Reported leak rate for PG&E's 'high-consequence' gas lines far exceeds national average; California raises Renewable Portfolio Standard to 33%; The Perils of Hydro-Fracking; Water Use in Southwest Heads for a Day of Reckoning ...PLUS: Energy Production Pushing Water Supply to Choke Point ...

The political positions of those describing themselves as sympathetic to the "Tea Party" represent a vast minority view, far outside of the mainstream positions represented by 2008 voters, according to a new poll commissioned by Project Vote.

The study finds self-described "Tea Partiers," and their political concerns, are far outweighed by the views of everyone else, despite the absurdly out-of-proportion coverage granted to them by the corporate mainstream media.

Analysis of the findings from around the net also underscores what we've long argued here at The BRAD BLOG: the Tea Baggers don't actually give a damn about "the deficit" or even the Constitution. If they did, they wouldn't have waited until after Republicans lost the elections in 2008 to start marching and decrying the deficit explosion (and supposed concerns about Constitutional rights) brought about under the previous Administration. They would have been out marching along with the real Tea Partiers, those who supported Ron Paul as long ago as 2007, and his concerns about unbridled deficit spending and the trampling of Constitutional rights during the eight years of the Bush Administration.

Here are some of the key findings from the new poll. In them, we learn what every MSMer should have endeavored to figure out and take into account long ago, before granting so much free exposure to the radical extremist fringe represented by these people...

-- Brad Friedman

As horrible as things seem right now --- with sociopathic loons on one side of the aisle, cowardly failures on the other, a mainstream corporate media completely out of touch with virtually everything that matters, an economy in which everyone but the rich are gasping for air --- there is one very bright spot on which we can all take great comfort.

Rights win.

It rarely happens immediately, and almost never without a far-too-long struggle, but rights for we, the people, almost always eventually win in this nation --- usually against all odds, avarice, greed and ignorance --- but our Constitution is brilliant enough that rights eventually win out.

If you have any doubt, look no further than the latest news (video posted below) heralding the last dying gasps of institutionalized homophobia in our laws and in our military.

The good news is: the haters have lost. The question which played such an enormous --- if entirely trumped up --- role in our Presidential elections just 6 years ago has been all but finally settled.

Well before the end of this decade (and likely far sooner than that, perhaps even before the end of Obama's first term in office), marriage equality for gays and lesbians will be recognized in every state in the union, and homosexuals will be as welcome in our nation's military as African-Americans.

It's over. The good guys have won. In these quiet victories of rights over wrongs, we can all take some quiet comfort, even in these maddening, ugly days...

If you're anywhere near the L.A. area, I'd be delighted if you came by to say hello this Sunday at the 9th Annual West Hollywood Book Fair.

I'll be on a panel discussing "The Death & Life of American Journalism," along with fellow journalists Jason Leopold, Marc Cooper, Bill Carter, and Kathleen Sharp. I'm told I'll be able to sign DVDs of Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story afterward.

It should be an interesting and lively discussion, as moderated by Jason, and as described this way on the WHBF's website:

Our panel is 2:00pm - 3:00pm at the fair's "Current Events & Hot Topics Pavilion" in West Hollywood Park, 647 N. San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA. The event is FREE, there's lots of other stuff going on there as well, and you can get more info here...

Hope you can make it by!

As comedian John Fugelsang wryly tweeted recently: "My only real beef with the Republican Party is that they keep forcing me to vote for Democrats."

As horrendous as the Democratic leadership (particularly in the Senate) has been over the last several years --- little better underscores that horrendousness than the embarrassing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's announcement yesterday that he'd be putting off a vote for overwhelmingly popular middle-class tax-cuts until after the election --- the Republicans still remain far worse...and far more dangerous to both the country and the world.

Where the Ds are hapless, short-sighted, and cowardly, the Rs remain apologetically insidious, dangerous, shameless, and disingenuous.

The Daily Show's brilliant video montage last night, marking yesterday's thud-like introduction of the GOP's "Pledge to America" (which, we'd wager, is likely to be all but abandoned and forgotten by Rs by the time November 2 rolls around), illustrates that point as ingenuously as we've ever seen.

If Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) --- likely to become Speaker of the House if Republicans take it over this year --- had any shame, he'd be ashamed of himself. But he doesn't. So he won't...

The most amusing comment left here in a while. Apparently, it comes from the self-described "critical thinker" who runs this blog (which is not-ironically-at-all titled "Avoiding Political Deception," which describes itself as "Cutting through the mustard. We see so much propaganda on all sides, and people quote half-truths and lies as though they are the gospel. I look through the lens of the Bible and a Christian worldview.")

As posted in comments by "John A" here a few days ago, in response to our article about challenges Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces on Alaska's Diebold voting system in her write-in Senatorial bid...

We particularly object to John A's outrageous charge that we are "ignorant lap dogs" for the Bush administration.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Look out 1998 and 2005: 2010 shaping up to be hottest year evah; Coral reefs totally stressed out --- wouldn't you be?; More questions on the safety of Gulf seafood; Labeling "Frankenfish" ... PLUS: House panel investigates which came first: the chicken --- or the tainted eggs? ... 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):
Cyprus facing up to life after 'peak water'; Green Marines phase out fuel, bring solar panels to war; Global warming may have slowed in the 1970s: study; China blocks rare earth exports to Japan; UK launches World's Largest Wind Farm; US losing renewable energy race to Asia; GOP 'Pledge To America' is an oath to Big Oil; Meg Whitman would 'probably' veto CA global-warming law; How Hillary Clinton's clean stoves will help African women; US "oblivious" to Canadian oil sands impact ...PLUS: "Global warming" vs. "Climate disruption" ...