With New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) up for re-election next Tuesday, we've been getting quite a bit of traffic here from Mother Jones where I originally broke my series of exclusive reports on audio recordings from inside the Koch Brothers' secret 2011 Summer Summit near Vail, CO that year.

As a quick reminder of what was heard on those tapes, and what happened there, Christie --- literally --- had snuck out of New Jersey to fly to Vail for the day to perform as the keynote speaker at the super-secret Koch Brothers gathering with a few hundred very select Republican millionaires and billionaires who were meeting to plot what Charles Koch described to the assembled as "the mother of all wars...for the life or death of this country." That, along with comparing President Obama to Saddam Hussein, was how he described what would be their fight for the 2012 Presidential election.

Billionaire brother David is heard introducing Christie at the event as "my kind of guy", describing him as "a true political hero". He boasted that he'd met with Christie secretly, not long before, "for about two hours --- just the two of us," in David Koch's New York City office, and that he was hoping the NJ Governor would some day have "a larger stage where, God knows, he is desperately needed."

Given that this week also happens to be the one year anniversary of "Superstorm Sandy" and Christie is out taking curtain calls for his performance in its wake, it's also well worth noting that, during his effusive introduction to Christie, David Koch also went on to laud him for pulling out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a landmark agreement by a number of northeastern states to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the region...

Christie's surprise withdrawal from RGGI was met with great applause in the banquet hall in Colorado, as well as from Rightwing climate change denialists when it actually occurred. He pulled out of the landmark pact just weeks after Koch and Christie had their secret meeting in New York City, a little over a year before the global warming-linked Sandy would result in the loss of more than a hundred citizens and billions of dollars worth of damage. After we published the secret Koch tapes, Christie would claim that he never discussed RGGI with the Kochs --- it "never came up", he said --- though the Director of the NJ Sierra Club told me that Christie should not be believed.

As to Christie's secret speech itself that night in Colorado --- the security for which was so extreme there were speakers set up around the perimeter of the dining hall to pump "pink noise" into the mountainside to stymie long-range parabolic microphones --- the NJ Governor delivered a stem-winder to the Kochs' assembled high and mighty. He bragged about how he'd fooled Democrats in the state legislature into supporting massive cuts to state pensions, and how he'd planned next to "take on the teachers' union once and for all."

The full audio and text transcripts of the remarks by Charles and David Koch, as well as the speech by Christie, are posted in full here, in case New Jersey voters would like to review the record before heading to the polls next Tuesday.

The full series of stories and their fallout can be perused here.

New revelations and global protests by ordinary citizens and world leaders --- including U.S. allies --- over NSA surveillance, have now settled into an almost daily affair.

In the meantime, during an interview on Democracy Now! this week, journalist Glenn Greenwald offered up an analysis that may help explain what he now describes as an "institutional obsession" with surveillance by the U.S. government.

"If you reveal to populations around the world that their calls are being spied on by the millions, they’ll first wonder, 'Why are my calls of interest to the U.S. government?'," Greenwald observes. "But when it becomes apparent that the United States government is doing this for economic advantage, they start to feel personally implicated, like they’re being actually robbed."

While readers would do well to watch the entirety of the interview (see video below), the analysis offered within by Greenwald is especially poignant because it ties the NSA’s massive surveillance state in many of these foreign countries, not to the prevention of terrorism, but to the seemingly insatiable quest on the part of the U.S.-based, corporate global empire to secure economic advantage...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: One year later: the lessons of Superstorm Sandy - Scientists question rebuilding in coastal areas, warn of future climate impacts & of sea level rise; PLUS: It's official: the Poles are having a heat wave! (No, not the Polish people) ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Leaked Documents Reveal the Secret Finances of a Pro-Industry Science Group; Voters in 2014 swing states favor EPA carbon rules; Washington State county to vote on Big Coal's future; Coal industry lawyers hid evidence of black lung among sick miners; Most Powerful Storm in 14 Years Sweeps Northwestern Europe; Wireless electric car charging works, researchers show; BBC criticized for promoting climate science deniers; Battery breakthrough with graphene-coated power cell; BP Oil Disaster: Gulf fishermen say 'there's no life out there'; Western governors sign climate agreement ... PLUS: The National Review’s worst nightmare: Climate activists might win ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

Okay. Now this is beginning to get completely absurd.

In an article at New Republic headlined "I Did Not 'Recant' on Voter ID Laws'," published Monday, 7th Circuit Appellate Court Judge Richard Posner now claims he hasn't actually disavowed his landmark majority opinion in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board after all!

The record will show, however, the Reagan-appointed judge may have a bit of a faulty --- or, at least, selective --- memory.

The Crawford case is the now-infamous 2007 challenge to Indiana's then new polling place Photo ID restriction law which Posner voted to uphold in a 2 to 1 decision. The law was subsequently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008. It is the only high-profile case to uphold such laws as Constitutional, even though Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the controlling opinion at SCOTUS, now believes dissenting Justice David Souter "got the thing correct."

Despite recent comments by Posner, in both his new book and at HuffPo Live, appearing fairly clearly to suggest he now believes he was wrong about his original decision in the case (which is often incorrectly cited by Republican supporters of such disenfranchising laws); and his expressed belief that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals dissenter Judge Terrence Evans "was right"; and his assertion that such laws are "now widely regarded as a means of voter suppression rather than fraud prevention," Posner now appears to be wobbling back again in his latest response to his own controversy...

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

Perhaps predictably, the Rightwing is now turning on the otherwise well-respected, Reagan-appointed appellate court judge who recently admitted his majority opinion in Crawford v. Marion County Board of Elections (2007), the landmark polling place Photo ID restriction law case, "was wrong."

Sergio Munoz at Media Matters details the recent --- and, frankly, absurd --- attacks being leveled against Judge Richard Posner by such outlets as National Review Online and long-time discredited GOP "voter fraud" fraudsters like Hans von Spakovsky.

See Munoz for all the details on the sleazy efforts being put forward by the Right's propaganda machine in their desperate attempt to salvage the only high-profile case they are able to cite that supports --- very meekly --- the disenfranchising Photo ID restriction laws they are trying to enact in state-after-state in order to keep Democratic-leaning voters from casting their otherwise legal votes. That, even though Crawford doesn't even actually say what its GOP advocates pretend that it says. (See our coverage of the DoJ's pending case against the Texas GOP's Photo ID law, to get an idea of how the Lone Star state's own Attorney General Greg Abbott is either lying about Crawford, or simply doesn't understand it. Take your pick.)

But I want to highlight a point or two that I haven't been able to cover previously on all of this, including comments given to The BRAD BLOG by one of the Democratic Party's lead attorneys on the original case, after what he describes as Posner's "stunning" admission.

Also, Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the U.S. Supreme Court's controlling decision in Crawford affirming Posner's lower court ruling, offered noteworthy comments as well recently, when he was asked about Posner's admission. Justice Stevens now offers a similar admission about his own SCOTUS ruling in the case...

A headline in the bi-monthly magazine, Pacific Standard declares: "The Scientific Debate About GM Foods Is Over: They're Safe". The article cites multiple scientific journals and governmental organizations to support the assertion.

Anyone reading the article might assume that, like global climate change, there is a consensus within the scientific community that food made of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are perfectly safe for human consumption; that there's no need for a debate; that the now-pending initiative to require GM foods to be labeled as such in Washington State is just silly.

After articles like the one offered by Pacific Standard --- and a $17.2 million ad campaign by Monsanto and the Grocer's Manufacturing Association --- enough Evergreen State voters are seemingly now convinced that there is no need to label GMOs that pollsters have declared the initiative "too close to call" at the moment. Why, after all, should we bother to label food in the face of a scientific consensus that GMOs are perfectly safe?

The problem is, according to the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Studies (ENSSER), no such scientific consensus exists...

When Don Yelton, North Carolina Republican Party Executive Committee Member and GOP Precinct Chair of Buncombe County, NC tried to explain to The Daily Show that the state's new polling place Photo ID restriction law wasn't racist at all, things went from bad to worse.

Mind you, the "bad" was when he (actually!) claimed that one of his best friends was black! So...you can only imagine what the "worse" was...

Yeah. Pretty amazing. In an interview with Mountain Xpress after the show aired Wednesday night, Yelton said he was pleased with the way the Daily Show had edited the conversation. "The comments that were made, that I said, I stand behind them. I believe them," he told the paper. "To tell you the truth, there were a lot of things I said that they could’ve made me sound worse than what they put up."

But the Republican Party --- currently fighting in court to support the most restrictive voter suppression law to be passed in the nation since the Jim Crow era --- is not quite as pleased. The Buncombe County GOP said in a statement on Facebook, that "Mr. Yelton’s comments do not reflect the belief or feelings of Buncombe republicans, nor do they mirror any core principle that our party is founded upon."

And, late Thursday, as Prachi Gupta at Salon reports, despite initially standing behind his comments, Yelton has now stepped down as the GOP precinct chair in Buncombe County:

Um, artificial damage?

Gawker reports that Yelton has now also stepped down from his state Republican Party leadership position as well. Moral for Republicans: It's okay to think it and pass laws based on it, just don't say it out loud, please and thanks, and certainly not in front of a TV camera!

UPDATE: Yelton has a new story. He now says The Daily Show took him out of context (in contrast to what he said previously, as seen above), then goes on to use the n-word to defend himself and calls his local Republican Party "gutless" because says they could have "turn[ed the interview] into a positive" by using it to show they accept all points of view. Seriously. See TPM for more...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Arizona electric company's secret plot to kill solar industry; Hawaiian island rejects being a testing ground for GMOs and pesticides; Washington State fighting GMOs, too; Another U.S. city breaks up with coal; PLUS: Warning: fossil fuels may not be a good investment ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): NYC hurricane expert: "Sandy wasn't the Big One"; Top 10 Food Facts on World Food Day; Australia: Thousands evacuate as conditions worsen; Exposure to DDT may be passed down through subsequent generations; Invasion of the False Widow Spider media stories!; Tea Party Republicans back water infrastructure bill; Monsanto insists Roundup is 'safe' after cancers spike in Argentina; ND pipeline spill raises questions on oversight, inspections; Canada: Spike in carcinogens downwind of petrochemical plants; FDA asks for help as pet deaths spike ... PLUS: Why we don't care about saving our grandchildren from climate change ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

One of the world's largest ATM manufacturers and, formerly, one of the largest manufacturers of electronic voting systems, has been indicted by federal prosecutors for bribery and falsification of documents.

The charges represent only the latest in a long series of criminal and/or unethical misconduct by Diebold, Inc. and their executives over the past decade.

According to Cleveland's Plain Dealer, a U.S. Attorney says the latest charges are in response to "a worldwide pattern of criminal conduct" by the company....

Despite at least $1.75 million in bribes said to have been paid the company around the globe, nobody will go to jail for what U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach describes as their "worldwide pattern of criminal conduct," because they are a corporation --- and you are not.

The $50 million the company has agreed to pay is a mere fraction of the firm's $3 billion in annual revenues. That, even though Diebold is a repeat offender --- which may be describing it mildly...

Yes. Seriously.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' conspiracy theory website InfoWars decries "tin-foil hat"-wearing "nut-jobs" for citing a "nefarious conspiracy" and "baseless theories" for which "there is no actual evidence."

I quit.

[Hat-tip @DaveWeigel...]

After what he describes as the Republican Party's victory of "pettiness and bigotry" over "pragmatism and principle", Bexar, Texas County Criminal Court Judge Carlo Key has decided to leave the GOP to run next year as a Democrat instead.

In a video posted to his website, Key, who was first elected in 2010, echoed and reversed Ronald Reagan's explanation for leaving the Democratic Party to become a Republican in 1962. "Make no mistake," Key says, "I have not left the Republican Party. It left me."

"I cannot tolerate a political party that demeans Texans based on their sexual orientation, the color of their skin or their economic status," Key explains in detailing some of his reasons for the party switch. "I will not be a member of a Party in which hate speech elevates candidates for higher office rather than disqualifying them. I cannot place my name on the ballot for a political party that is proud to destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands of federal workers over the vain attempt to repeal a law that would provide health care to millions of people throughout our country"...

Key's brief video, along with a text transcript of his remarks, follow below...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: China choking on toxic air; Air pollution causing lung cancer everywhere; Anti-fracking protests spread across Europe...and turn violent in Canada, while France holds the line; PLUS: Some good news: US carbon emissions falling for the 5th year in a row ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Koch Brothers Could Make $100 Billion if Keystone XL Pipeline Approved; Another oil train explodes in Canada; Fukushima: toxic water overflows after storm; State Dept. officials warns 'rigid' climate deal won't fly; Paper giant funds secret science to deflect asbestos lawsuits; 'Divest now from ‘sub-prime’ coal, oil before carbon bubble bursts'; Gulf ecosystem still in crisis 3 years after BP spill; Koch-owned BP refinery waste piles up in Chicago; $26b to build UK's first new nuclear plant; 300 elephants poisoned ... PLUS: "The ocean is broken" ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

I finally found a moment recently to watch The Central Park Five, a documentary film by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon which aired on PBS earlier this year about the travesty of justice following the infamous 1989 Central Park Jogger case.

The word "travesty" here isn't really strong enough to properly describe what happened in this case if the film and the available evidence are accurate.

The film details the story of the five young African-American and Hispanic boys from Harlem, aged 14 to 16, who had absolutely nothing to do with the brutal beating and horrific rape of a white, affluent, 28-year old female jogger, but who ended up serving some seven years each (more in the case of the one 16-year old) after false confessions were apparently coerced out of them by New York City police detectives in the days immediately following the crime.

According to the documentary, one of the kids who was falsely convicted wasn't even considered a suspect when a NYC detective in Harlem, seeking to bring the boy's friend into the station for questioning, suggested the boy come along for the quick ride downtown and back. He promised him he'd be home in an hour or so. It would be years before either of them were allowed to go back home for good.

The film, frankly, is extraordinary disturbing, heart-breaking and infuriating on several different levels, not the least of which was that I lived in NYC when the horrible rape and violent assault --- attempted murder, actually --- took place. I remember the supposed "wilding" incident well, along with the fear and furor that subsequently gripped the city. Yet, I had no idea, until this film, that the boys tried and convicted for the crime were, years later, found to have been completely innocent. They had absolutely nothing to do with the crime they were each convicted of...

Not sure, but this may be my favorite video of the year to date. This would be Jim Bob Duggar, former Arkansas state Rep. and genius patriarch of TLC's 19 Kids & Counting fame, attempting to serve as a spokesperson for the Ken Cuccinelli (R) gubernatorial campaign in Virginia against Terry McAuliffe (D)...

With spokespersons like that, who needs McAuliffe?

By the way, Duggar is not only fabulously "tongue twied", he's also not too terribly bright. Citing the same video above, "Scarce" at Crooks and Liars asks: "What can you really expect from people who compare the United States to Nazi Germany?" For the record, People for the American Way's Rightwingwatch says Duggar stands by the holocaust comparison he made at last week's Values Voters Summit in D.C..

With the 81 - 18 vote in the U.S. Senate and 285 - 144 tally in the U.S. House, Congress averted a worldwide economic disaster this week by finally voting to end the 16-day, 'Tea-Party' manufactured shutdown and debt ceiling crises.

As CNN noted, shortly after President Barack Obama signed the measure into law, Congress has furnished only a "temporary bandage," which leaves the draconian "sequester" cuts in place, authorizes government spending at current levels through Jan. 15, 2014 and postpones the same threat of a default on the nation's financial obligations until Feb. 7, 2014.

Meanwhile, radical 'Tea Party' Republicans, like Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, insisted "this was worth having the fight," even as they were conceding absolute defeat.

Worth it? Well, not to actual fiscal conservatives, according to the numbers...