Just in, via HuffPo, a federal judge in California has ruled that the state's death penalty system violates the U.S. Constitution's restriction against "cruel and unusual punishments"...

The story goes on to note that the judge also vacated petitioner Ernest Dwayne Jones' death sentence --- he had been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to die in 1995, and that "an analysis by the Los Angeles Times found that the state spent $308 million on each execution." That analysis underscores what critics of the death penalty have long pointed out, that the cost of killing prisoners far outpaces the cost to the state of keeping them imprisoned for life.

UPDATE: MSNBC's Adam Serwer notes that Judge Carney "was nominated to the federal bench in 2002 by President George W. Bush."

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Huge Christian organization divests from fossil fuels; Germany pledges $1 billion to international climate fund; Australia slides backward to repeal carbon tax; Step aside, Formula One racing: all-electric Formula E is on your tail; PLUS: Climate denier Rupert Murdoch's Big 'But' ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): How long will world's oil reserves last? 53 years, says BP; Clear differences between organic and non-organic food; Chevron admits oil shale will use huge amounts of West's water; US oil consumption still rising; Nuclear waste plan unsafe, panel told; Midwestern farmers fight 'superweeds' of their own making; 7 earthquakes in OK in 1 day; Early fire season destroys homes in PacNW ... PLUS: Neverglades: Sorry, Time Magazine, South Florida IS Drowning ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Here's a perfect example of why people watch cable news --- and, also, why they don't.

As TPM's Josh Marshall describes it: "Rick Santelli, famously in 2009, by one measure launched the 'Tea Party' with an epic rant about how big government was crushing capitalism while it was actually in the midst of saving it. Since then he's been wrong about every economic question worth being asked. One of the CNBCers got tired of his nonsense today and this happened."

Or, as Vox.com's Ezra Klein tweeted it (with a pretty perfect allusion for old school Real World fans): "What happens when CNBC hosts stop being polite and start getting real"...

Matthew Yglesias describes Santelli, in citing the video above, as a "big time inflation fearmonger" and adds that fellow CNBCer "Steve Liesman absolutely took him to school pointing out that anyone who'd listened to his inflationista advice over the years would have lost a ton of money."

I'm not nearly expert enough in monetary policy to appreciate who's actually right and who's actually wrong in this made-for-cable pissing match. While I'd happily bet against the yutz Santelli on just about anything, the rest of his network has also been notoriously wrong in just about every bit of corporate log-rolling and back-slapping they've engaged in over the last decade or more. In any event, if you want a bit more of an explainer on what the hell these people are actually yelling about, Time's Pat Regnier offers this one.

Missouri's Democratic Governor Jay Nixon had an opportunity to encourage people to quit smoking. He didn't take it. In fact, he actually made the choice to help encourage people to continue smoking, despite the fact the deadly habit kills nearly half a million people in the U.S. alone each year.

On Monday, the Governor vetoed Senate Bill 841. While the legislation would have restricted the sale of nicotine vaping products such as e-cigarettes to minors, and required sellers to receive a license from the state, it also exempted the non-lethal devices and products --- which are quickly becoming very popular as a method to quit smoking --- from existing laws and taxes levied against harmful tobacco products.

"This bill appears to be nothing more than a thinly disguised and cynical attempt to exempt e-cigarettes from taxes and regulations protecting public health," Nixon said in his veto message.

This sort of dangerous short-sightedness, unfortunately, is not unusual for Democrats, of late. It also flies in the face of both science and common sense...

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

Funny thing. For some reason, professional, weapons-grade Rightwing troll Ann Coulter doesn't think her fellow Republicans should waste their time looking into issues of vote fraud. We wonder why.

Coulter, writing an op-ed in Jackson, Mississippi's Clarion-Ledger yesterday, is hoping to urge Republican "Tea Party" Senate candidate Chris McDaniel to not challenge the results of his very close, June 24th primary runoff election against six-term incumbent Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, warning that doing so is a "primrose path to political oblivion."

The irony here --- and the hypocrisy --- and even the criminality, as those familiar with The BRAD BLOG's years of exclusive reporting on Coulter's own personal problems with voter fraud --- is extraordinary...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Debunking Neil Cavuto of Fox 'News' and the 1970's 'global cooling' myth; Anti-science nuttery alive and well in Kentucky...and Mars; BP oil still contaminating fish in the Gulf; Canada's tar sands linked to cancer spike in First Nations tribes; PLUS: Popular pesticide may be killing off the birds and the bees ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Federal government still spending billions to subsidize fossil fuels; Global warming at root of 'utterly unprecedented' summer flood; Helsinki's ambitious plan will make cars obsolete; Most Americans say they'll vote against climate change deniers; Carbon pollution standards reduce electricity rates; Greenpeace tells Lego 'everything is not awesome'; Fossil fuels are the new subprime investments; Australia climate politics stranger than fiction ... PLUS: Even if coal were free, it couldn't compete with solar ... and much, MUCH more! ...

We had a very enlightening conversation with The Nation's Ari Berman, straight out of the courtroom in North Carolina, on today's KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast.

Ari is in NC covering this week's hearings in federal court challenging what we've described as "the nation's most restrictive voter suppression law", as enacted by state Republicans just days after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act last summer.

This case --- and NC's law --- are really amazing. Most importantly, the results of this challenge, and the way the VRA must now be used to fight to protect voters from discriminatory laws, will be very important to similar challenges now pending across the country. In other words, this fight is important to NC, but it's arguably even more important to the entire nation.

Next up, we discussed the Rightwing stooge "reporter" Matthew Boyle, responsible for the fake 2012 story about a U.S. Senator and Dominican prostitutes, and my run-in with that same fake journalist back in 2011.

Then, Desi Doyen joins us for a few thoughts on Kentucky's genius climate change denying state Senator Brandon Smith and, as usual, for the latest Green News Report.

As a listener noted on Facebook tonight: "What a heavy duty broadcast today's was!", before adding: "It. Was. Awesome. And scary." Well, thanks! And you're welcome!

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With the story about the 2012 hit job against NJ's Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez back in the news, it seems a good time to remind folks about the clown, Matthew Boyle, who originally wrote the now-discredited article breaking the fake "news" at Tucker Carlson's The Daily Caller.

We had a run-in with Boyle in 2011, posted below, that may give you an idea of just how this pretend journalist sources his stories --- or doesn't.

For those who may not recall, Boyle wrote a story for The DC, just before the 2012 election, claiming that Menendez had been enjoying the services of Dominican hookers while on a number of vacations down there. The supposed hookers were featured in a video including with Boyle's original reporting, claiming that they hadn't been paid properly by Menendez and were seeking revenge...or something.

The whole story turned out to be phony and was eventually pulled off line by Carlson's "news" site. The women on the video admitted they had been paid by someone to make their claims, and not long thereafter Boyle left The Daily Caller. He is now a featured "investigative journalist" at the even less credible Rightwing "news" site (if there can be such a thing), Breitbart.com.

The Menendez story has resurfaced once again, as the Washington Post ran an exclusive this week, claiming that an unnamed government source had evidence that the entire matter was a hit job planted by Cuban intelligence agents, intended to hurt Menendez just before the election, as the Senator is reportedly an ardent opponent of Cuban and was set to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. WaPo claims that someone identifying themselves as "Pete Williams" had been shopping the story around to a bunch of media outlets, unsuccessfully, until Boyle was happy to fall for it at The Daily Caller. So-called "Pete Williams," WaPo reports, was actually a front for a Cuban agent.

Boyle now claims that he worked "with a wide array of sources in reporting on the story" originally, and that "there were no indications that they were connected to or working for the Cuban government." He also claims that the "Pete Williams" character "was not a source for the original story and never provided non-public information to this reporter."

But Boyle claims a lot of things. And the problem is, he appears to simply make shit up out of whole cloth as needed to defend his crappy "reporting". That point became pretty clear during a conversation I had with Boyle on Twitter back in 2011, in response to another terribly sourced story that he had run that day at The DC...

Via UC Irvine election law professor Rick Hasen...

So there's some encouraging news to start your day.

For much more on the pending federal challenge to the TX Republicans' attempt to institute their disenfranchising polling place Photo ID restriction --- a law which had otherwise been repeatedly rejected as discriminatory by both the DoJ and federal courts until SCOTUS gutted the central protections of the Voting Rights Act last year --- see just some of our recent previous coverage here:

• "Wisconsin Federal Court Decision Could Mark Beginning of End For GOP Photo ID Restrictions" (5/2/2014)

• "Federal Judge Orders TX to Produce Legislative Docs That May Prove Polling Place Photo ID Restriction Law Was Racially-Motivated" (4/7/2014)

• "Texas GOP's Polling Place Photo ID Law Almost Certain to Get Nixed. Again. Here's Why..." (9/4/2013)

• "Texas AG Defrauds Texas in Response to DoJ Lawsuit Against Polling Place Photo ID Law" (8/23/2013)

Please help support The BRAD BLOG's fiercely independent, award-winning coverage of your electoral system --- now in our ELEVENTH YEAR! --- as available from no other media outlet in the nation...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Japan hit with monster typhoon, while Hurricane Arthur breaks a record on the US East Coast; No time for deniers: BBC smacked for false balance in climate change coverage; Voters reject climate change-denying politicians; Paltry fine for Freedom Industries poisoning drinking water in WV; Oklahoma now the nation's earthquake capitol - thanks, fracking!; PLUS: NASA's new climate eye in the sky ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Pope calls exploitation of nature a sin; Solar cheaper than coal in Australia; Renewable energy provides 1/3rd of Germany's electricity; More US jobs in solar industry than coal industry; Deniers denyin' again in the Daily Mail; Extensive soil pollution in China; Court upholds cities' right to ban fracking ... PLUS: KY State Senator: Mars temperatures exactly the same as Earth ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Last week, the state of Kentucky's Interim Joint Committee on Natural Resources and Environment held a hearing to discuss the EPA's new, proposed "Clean Power Plan" rule [PDF] to reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants by 30% by 2030 from 2005 levels.

While the committee is chaired by Democratic state Rep. Jim Gooch, a "proud climate change denier" (it is the coal state of Kentucky after all), according to Joe Sonka at Louisville's Leo Weekly, it was Republican state Sen. Brandon Smith who stole the show with this amazing assertion...

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

The case against North Carolina's radical voter suppression law begins hearings today, as the U.S. Dept. of Justice, the ACLU, the League of Women Voters and other plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction on the most sweeping and restrictive "election reform" bill in the nation.

After Republicans took over both the legislature and the Governor's office in the Tar Heel State for the first time since Reconstruction, they instituted what we described after passage of the law in 2013 as "the nation's most restrictive voter suppression law".

In addition to draconian polling place Photo ID restrictions (despite any evidence of in-person voter impersonation in the state), the legislation also shortens the early voting period; eliminates NC's very successful same-day voter registration program; eliminates pre-registration for 16- and 17-year olds; bars counting provisional ballots cast in the right county but wrong precinct; prohibits extending poll hours even for extraordinary circumstances such as long lines; allows any registered voter in a county to challenge the eligibility of anyone else to vote in the same county; and much more.

Virtually every anti-voting provision that has been passed or attempted to be passed by Republicans across the country was included in NC's legislation. After House Bill 589 --- known officially as the Voter Information Verification Act (VIVA) --- was originally adopted in July of 2013, then signed days later by Gov. Pat McCrory (R), we explained it to be "the whole ball of wax. Everything that a Republican desperate to stay in power by keeping legal (Democratic-leaning) voters from being able to cast their legal vote could ever want, short of a provision declaring outright that 'Non-Republican voters need not apply'."

As the hearings begin, the Winston-Salem Journal's coverage over the weekend drew a bead on just how transparently partisan this legislation is, as it ballooned from 16 to 57 pages just days after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the federal Voting Rights Act, before the law was adopted by both the state House and Senate in just two days...

Happy Independence Day weekend! Stay safe! And we'll see ya on the other side...or as events warrant...

[Tricorner hat-tip to @BuzzFeed for the graphic...]

If the race for Sec. of State in Ohio is any indication, we may have still more evidence now to suggest that the decade-long Republican effort to enact disenfranchising poling place Photo ID restrictions, under the guise of fighting "voter fraud", may be turning a corner toward its final end as a viable GOP voter suppression strategy.

In May we wrote an article titled "Peak GOP 'Voter Fraud' Fraud?", offering several disparate clues to suggest that the well-funded, well-organized, initally under-the-radar national effort by Republicans to disenfranchise Democratic-leaning voters by requiring state-issued Photo ID they knew that many of them did not have, was headed towards a slow, but inevitable death.

That article followed on the heels of a seemingly devastating blow to Wisconsin's Photo ID restriction law by a federal judge who struck it down, finding in his landmark ruling that the statute was in violation of both the U.S. Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act, and that it was "absolutely clear" that the GOP-enacted law in the Badger State would "prevent more legitimate votes from being cast than fraudulent votes."

Our legal analyst Ernie Canning analyzed the WI ruling along side the other federal challenges against similar laws that are still pending in states like Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas, to suggest the WI decision "does not bode well for Republicans who have been attempting to advance such electoral schemes in recent years, as based on misleading 'facts', wild claims and dishonest interpretations of case law and court precedent." His legal analysis attempts to explain why the WI case "would likely mark the beginning of the end for Republican-enacted, polling place Photo ID restrictions."

We'll see if we're right in the months ahead, but the race for Secretary of State currently under way in Iowa to replace the incumbent Republican SoS --- one who had been embarrassed to find next to no "voter fraud" after running in 2010 on the notion of stamping it out --- suggests that even Republicans are moving on to other ideas...

We've long regarded Maine's Republican Gov. Paul LePage as giving Arizona's Republican Gov. Jan Brewer a run for her money as the dumbest Governor in the nation, if not the dumbest in history.

But it appears that LePage has been making a real run for that latter title all along.

As early as 2011, we took notice just after LePage took office and immediately ordered the removal of a mural from the state's Dept. of Labor because it was too pro-uniony, or something. That and other "Tea Party"-ish behavior by the then new Governor resulted in a bunch of state Senators from his own party asking him, publicly, to tone it down a bit. "Were these isolated incidents, we would bite our collective tongues," the Republican lawmakers wrote in an op-ed at the time. "But, unfortunately, they are not isolated but frequent. Therefore, we feel we must speak out."

But that was just a taste for what was to come and what's been revealed about him this week...