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

BRAD BLOG reader "Plumb Bob" left this comment recently, following our short piece on concerns about the results of last week's Mayoral race in Chicago:

"Plumb Bob" is, of course, absolutely right.

But there's far more to this story that should be used as a huge takeaway for those partisans and profiteers who continue to push not just for electronic voting, but for Internet Voting, even as a recent Internet Voting scheme in Australia's New South Wales was found to be vulnerable to manipulation and has resulted, as predicted, in an election with some 66,000 votes that many feel may have been tampered with...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Another GOP climate science denier enters the 2016 race; And a non-denier jumps in on the Democratic side; Bad news for Big Coal in China; PLUS: Florida's denier disease is spreading --- now officials in Wisconsin barred from work on climate change... 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): Climate censorship gains steam in red states; Rapid global warming may be coming sooner than you think; The last time oceans went acidic this fast, 96% of marine life went extinct; Why new study on Arctic permafrost is so scary - it's the microbes; L.A. mayor envision greener city where people walk and use mass transit; 5 years after BP Oil Spill, Obama Admin proposes new safety rules... PLUS: Republican Wins Award For Believing In Climate Change... and much, MUCH more! ...

How little do the Koch Brothers' "local" apparatchiks actually care, or even know, about the denizens of the various localities they are hoping to scam, with millions of dollars of misleading propaganda (lies), into voting against their own interests?

This little:

The non-partisan, non-politicized data concerning the effects of the "job-killing", "failed" Affordable Care Act (ACA or "ObamaCare") continue to pour in, underscoring the indisputable success, to date, of the program's intended objectives.

Based on a longterm national tracking survey conducted by the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, including responses from some 500 random Americans per day since 2008, the number of adults now covered by health insurance has reached 9 out of 10...

The videos were good for a barrel of laughs. The Director of Florida's Div. of Emergency Management, Brian Koon was forced to engage in verbal gymnastics so as to avoid violating a state ban on using the words "climate change."

In another clip, replayed by Comedy Central's John Stewart, former FL EPA employee Kristina Trotta uses the words, "nuisance flooding," to evade the ban on mentioning "sea level rise." That drew an amusing Stewart suggestion that, in order to evade mentioning that a global warming-connected rise in sea level could eventually lead to an underwater Miami, state employees could refer to "moisture inconvenience!"

The exchanges were hilarious. But there is nothing funny about the attempt to erect thought control regimes, first in Florida and now in Wisconsin. In both states, the practice is verging on that deployed by Oceania's Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's 1984. In that classic but ominous work of fiction, written accounts of inconvenient truths were incinerated inside "memory holes."

While ominous, the clumsy efforts at "thought control" are quite useful. They underscore the warnings we offered nearly five years ago that the real future offered by the so-called "Tea Party" and the Koch Brothers' brand of "libertarianism" includes "Fascism [and] Feudalism --- an authoritarian reality that has already come to fruition in states like Florida and Wisconsin where Charles and David Koch, along with other rightwing billionaires, have already tightened the reigns of oligarchic control over ostensibly "public" institutions...

You're welcome!!!

[Hat-tip @BuddyStone on the Twitters, who describes this fantastic 1970 performance as "prophetic in spite its oddity". Sounds about right.]

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate change-denier Sen. Rand Paul is running for President (and Brad is delighted about it!); Climate denial a looming problem for the GOP; Thawing permafrost a looming problem for the planet; PLUS: Greening the City of Angels: Mayor Garcetti's ambitious sustainability plan for L.A.....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): The Arctic has melted so much that now people want to race yachts through it; Tea Party hires actors to feign indignation over plan to save Everglades; Plummeting sardine numbers could prompt U.S. West coast fishing ban; New York just quietly raided its climate program for cash; Michael Bloomberg puts up $30m to kill coal; Utility sales may drop by half as homes make their own power... PLUS: VIDEO: Is "Game of Thrones" Cli-Fi... and much, MUCH more! ...

A Letter to the Editor on Saturday in Louisville's Courier-Journal...

[Hat-tip D.R. Tucker on the Twitters...]

On this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio (and many other fine affiliate stations), we talk to physicist, former Clinton Administration official and founding editor of ClimateProgress.org Joe Romm about Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell's "immoral" attempt to undermine the U.S. in international climate talk negotiations as the big U.N. treaty summit is set for Paris later this year.

Romm, who served as Chief Science Adviser for last year's Emmy-award winning Years of Living Dangerously series on Showtime, also breaks a bit of news on The BradCast by confirming that there will be a season two for the groundbreaking environmental documentary series. He promises that "it will be on a cable network that has a far greater reach" than Showtime, though he can't let us know which one yet.

PLUS: Rand Paul jumps into the 2016 GOP Presidential circus; Ohio's Republican Gov. John Kasich does the right thing (sort of) in vetoing a new GOP voter-suppression scheme in the state; Jeb Bush appears to have committed a felony in Florida; California's Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom does the right thing before everybody else (again) in announcing support for full legalization of marijuana in the Golden State; and much more, including Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report.

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

Most of the attention that will be paid today to this interview by NBC's Savannah Guthrie will, no doubt, focus on Sen. Rand Paul's dismissive and somewhat condescending treatment of the female Today anchor. It does echo, after all, a similarly condescending and arrogant tone he struck last February during an interview with CNBC's Kelly Evans when he, literally, "shushed" her and told her to "calm down a bit", as she asked him uncomfortable questions.

But what caught my eyes and ears in this latest video (posted below) was something else entirely. And it's something which reflects far more poorly on Guthrie and the corporate media in general than it does on the junior Senator from Kentucky and now 2016 Republican Presidential candidate.

While it's true Paul appears to have trouble dealing respectfully with female interviewers and is now wildly reversing many of his previously strongly held foreign policy positions in hopes of wooing GOP voters, it's the mindset behind Guthrie's opening question which disturbs me far more. And it's one that we've seen before in the supposedly "mainstream" media...

At In These Times, author and journalist Rick Perlstein covers reports from some Chicago voters claiming that they received paper ballots today that were pre-marked for Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) in his runoff election against the more progressive Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia (D):

Perlstein details a few other similar reported incidents of pre-marked ballots from around the city in the election which the local CBS affiliate is now calling for Emanuel. The Chicago Board of Elections website currently shows Emanuel leading Garcia 56% to 44% with over 79% of precincts reporting at this moment.

The website DNAInfo, however, dismisses the reports as "Facebook rumors", bluntly describing them as "false", based largely on a response from a Board of Elections official...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Shell Oil returns to the Arctic (buckle up!); ALEC now pretending it never denied global warming; Kansas moves to restrict fracking after stunning increase in earthquakes; Big Oil pressured Oklahoma to downplay link between fracking and earthquakes; Texas moves to ban fracking bans; PLUS: Obama moves to train veterans for solar industry jobs....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): When Cronkite warned America about global warming: The Way It Was; Climate activist Tim DeChristopher calls on churches to lead global warming fight; PA fracking study on water contamination now under ethics review; Duke Energy settles for $2.5m fine for 3rd largest chemical spill in US history; NTSB seeks stiffer standards for oil tank cars; Voters want next president to favor climate policies, poll finds; Spain got 47% of its electricity from renewables last month... PLUS: Keep showering, California. Just lay off the burgers and nuts... and much, MUCH more! ...

Auto racing, which has long served as both a testing ground and source of commercial development of automotive technology, is going green.

The formally sanctioned racing organization, FIA Formula E Championship, was formed for the express purpose of promoting sustainable automotive technology. In 2013, it commissioned a study that was designed to measure "the global value of Formula E to the EV [electric vehicle] market over the next 25 years (2015-2040) and its wider economic, environmental and social impact." The authors of the study concluded that an all electric vehicle racing circuit would "help sell an additional 77 million EVs worldwide, save 4 billion barrels of oil and help make savings of 2 billion euros [$2.179 billion] in healthcare."

Study in hand, in September 2014 the group kicked-off its inaugural Formula E race season in Beijing --- the first stop on an international 10-race calendar. Appearing at Long Beach State University in advance of the 6th race, the Long Beach ePrix over this past weekend, Formula E Series CEO Alejandro Agag told students that the goal was to "fundamentally change how the public sees electric vehicles" and that "Formula E is the future."

In its pre-event coverage of the April 4 race in Long Beach, California, the L.A.Times reported that fans would be spared the noise of ordinary racing and that, instead of refueling, pit stops would involve the changing out of batteries. Formula E Series cars have plenty of horsepower, however, accelerating from 0 to 62 mph in 3 seconds, with maximum speeds topping out near 150 mph.

FIA Formula E is not the first racing organization to raise environmental concerns. In 2013, the Indy 500 addressed emission concerns via race cars that utilized "ethanol blends."

However, as observed by the Colombia Water Center, a number of "scientists argue that when the life cycle of ethanol production is compared to that of conventional gasoline, there may be no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at all." Citing an Argonne National Laboratory study, they note that corn ethanol is water intensive, consuming between "20 to 324 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol."

Of course, if FIA Formula E really wishes to advance sustainable technology, it should rely upon photovoltaic solar to recharge the batteries used in its race cars. As noted by the Sierra Club, electric vehicles that rely upon coal power plants "may emit more CO2 and SO2 pollution than hybrid electric vehicles."

A provision added to Ohio's new transportation bill by Republican lawmakers would have made it more difficult --- and expensive --- for out-of-state students to vote in the Buckeye State. The scheme would have required anybody who registers to vote there to obtain an Ohio driver's license and register their car in the state (at a cost of at least $75) within 30 days, or risk losing their right to drive.

That provision, voting rights advocates warned, was likely to deter out-of-state students at Ohio colleges and universities from registering to vote there, despite a long-held U.S. Supreme Court determination that students may register to vote where they attend school.

The good news on this issue is that while Ohio's Republican Gov. John Kasich signed the transportation bill last week, he used a line-item veto to remove the offending provision. But more than a bit of potential confusion --- and the ability to deter student voters from exercising their right --- still looms...