On my Pacifica Radio show today on KPFK in Los Angeles, I discussed yesterday's report at The BRAD BLOG concerning the woman who was forced to jump ridiculous hoops while trying to help her son get Photo ID at the Wisconsin DMV in the wake of the new GOP voter suppression law there which institutes polling place Photo ID restrictions before legal voters are allowed to cast their legal vote.

By the way, I spoke to the woman today --- who'd like to be identified only as Nicole --- and she made clear that her video was not secretly taped (as, for example, James O'Keefe's ACORN hoax tapes were). Her video camera was on the table and in plain sight the whole time, she told me.

As seen (and heard) in her video tape, during the process of trying to get the Photo ID for free at the DMV, as allowed by the new statute, the son's bank statements were rifled through, and questioned as to whether they showed enough "activity" on them. Also, they were almost charged $28 for the "free" ID, which brought up questions as to why the WI DMV policy is to charge applicants, unless they know to "request" the ID for no charge.

I also took the opportunity during the show to offer a bit more background context, including a 1980 sound clip from Paul Weyrich, one of the "conservative" movement godfathers, during which he calls for fewer people to be allowed to vote. "Quite candidly," he said to the convention of Baptist ministers where Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell also spoke, "our leverage in elections goes up when the voting populace goes down."

That's what all of this is about. He says it quite plainly in the video tape.

Weyrich went on to found the non-profit American Legislative Exchange Counsel (ALEC), the group of Rightwingers said to be responsible for writing the polling place Photo ID restriction laws being passed by Republicans now in state after state. I also share some hard stats on who will actually be affected by these laws (and who will not.) And, for good measure, I tossed in some Stephen Colbert speaking about Photo ID and "voter fraud" as well.

Enjoy!

Download MP3 or listen online below [appx 28 mins]...

"This is what voter suppression looks like."

Those are the words on the final title card in the video [embedded below] shot by a Wisconsin woman documenting her experience at the DMV in Madison last week. The video purports to illustrate the ridiculous extra, and invasive, efforts many previously-legal voters in the Badger State will now likely face in order to exercise their right to vote in the state since the passage of the GOP majority's newly enacted voter suppression laws.

In this case, the woman was trying to help her son get a free Photo ID at the DMV, as is his right under the new statutes. At first she was told the charge for the supposedly-free ID would be $28, and that was only after she convinced a clerk that there had been enough "activity" in her son's bank account, as used by the clerk to determine whether or not he actually resided in the state.

And that was for an affluent white resident. If you're a homeless person in WI, as the woman's interview with another clerk in the video suggests, you can pretty much just forget about being able to vote at all under the new law.

An official at the Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation confirmed to The BRAD BLOG that those seeking the Photo ID for free must actually know to request it during the application process, as required by the language, she told us, in the new state statute...

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Appalachian Poverty Concentrated Around Mine Sites; More big Yellowstone fires predicted with climate change; Biting the Bullet, VT Yankee Orders Fuel; Smart Grid Stimulus Creates a Global Player in CO; GA's coastal infrastructure under threat; 'Toxic 20' list released of states with most air pollution; Painting roofs white keeps buildings cool, save $$$; Alarming 'Dead Zone' Grows in Chesapeake Bay; Coal Ash Taints Groundwater at TVA Sites; EPA Program on Children's Toxic Exposure "Flawed"; Natural Gas Drillers Lowball Leases; New Rules Put Pressure On Outdate Power Plants ... PLUS: The true cost of gasoline? $13 a gallon ...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below...]

We're back in one more night, as Mike wings his way back from Seattle's weekend Progressive Voices conference, filling in to guest host the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show starting tonight (through Monday)!

We'll have another big night (unfortunately), as both President Obama and House Speaker Boehner are set to give live addresses to the nation during our show! We'll cover as much as we can of both of them LIVE.

As usual, we're BradCasting LIVE again 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT) tonight, coast-to-coast and around the globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE and lively chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight (so far):

• OBAMA/BOEHNER, live coverage of each one giving their addresses to the nation on the GOP's hostage crisis "Debt Ceiling" crisis, as the Republican's put a gun to the nation's head and continue their fiscal terrorism, in lieu of actual governing, jobs and all the rest. What will the Dems give away in response to the terrorists? Perhaps we'll find out tonight.
• ROBERT SCHEER, the great veteran journalist, columnist and now Editor-in-Chief of Truthdig.com joins us with perspective on the entire fine mess, from his unique perspective.
• JOHN AMATO from Crooks and Liars joins us to make sense of the President and Speaker's dueling addresses on the "debt ceiling" crisis. Or at least to try to!
• PLUS: In whatever time we'll have left over: Rightwing extremist mass murder/terrorism in Oslo, the GOP games the polling place w/ their Photo ID restrictions in WI; and anything you'd like to tell me about via calls to 877-520-1150 and tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Thanks for another great three days on the Malloy Show! Tonight's audio archives (commercial-free) are now posted below, along with the chat room archives as usual! Until we meet again in MalloyLand, thanks, Truthseekers! Enjoy!...

Last night, at Niagra Falls, where two grandmothers were the first to be married at one second after midnight, as New York welcomed marriage equality to the Empire State...

[Photo courtesy Lance Bass of 'N Sync.]

P.S. Yes, I'm still buried in work on the series of exclusives I've cryptically alluded to previously (here and here), even while prepping to guest host tomorrow night's Mike Malloy Show again. So your patience while I'm otherwise distracted with those important items continues to be much appreciated!

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below!]

Mike is in Seattle for the Progressive Voices conference this weekend, sponsored by local show affiliate am1090, so I'm back in the saddle guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show again tonight (and Monday)!

Once again, we'll be BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT) tonight, coast-to-coast and around the globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE and lively chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight (so far):

• DAVID DAYEN, from the news desk at Firedoglake, on the late breaking news out of DC on the debt ceiling meltdown, Beohner's walk-out from negotiations, Obama's angry evening presser, and other late news on the GOP's manufactured "crisis"...
• BOB FITRAKIS, attorney, political-science professor and award winning investigative journalist and editor of Ohio's FreePress.org, on the latest court filings in the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville v. Ohio Sec. of State (2004 Ohio election fraud) lawsuit, the finally-unsealed 2008 pre-Election Day deposition [PDF] of the mysteriously-deceased GOP IT guru Mike Connell, the ongoing battle over the 2010 subpoena to depose Karl Rove in the case, and what it all now means to Ohio and the Presidential election as a whole in 2012.
• PLUS: Latest on the GOP's fake crisis over the debt ceiling; Obama's late presser tonight; More madness, and anything you'd like to tell me about via calls to 877-520-1150 and tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Lots of interesting (and breaking) news, and occasional rants, in tonight's show, which is now available, commercial-free, in three swell archive "hours" for you below! Enjoy! And we'll see ya again right here, Monday! Same Brad Time! Same Brad Channel! For another thrilling episode of the Mike Malloy Show!

Prepping for tonight's Malloy Show, so very quickly, this from Wednesday night's Colbert Report. Can't tell you how nice it is, after so many years, that I'm no longer one of the very few yelling and screaming about this shit...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives of tonight's show below...]

Mike is off to Seattle for a Progressive Voices conference this weekend, sponsored by local show affiliate am1090, so I'll be filling in for a few days to guest host the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show starting tonight (through Monday)!

As usual, we'll be BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT) tonight, coast-to-coast and around the globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE and lively chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight:

• HOWIE KLEIN of DownWithTyranny.com with a big scoop (so he tells me) on the debt ceiling showdown (or, as I call it, fake crisis.)
• ERIC BOEHLERT of MediaMatters.org on Murdochaplyse! The quickly growing Rupert Murdoch/News Corp. hacking scandal, and on James O'Keefe's latest, lamest video scam.
• PLUS: Much, much more, and anything you'd like to tell me about via calls to 877-520-1150 and tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: If you missed the show tonight, or any portion, the audio archives are now posted below (along with the chat room archives). Enjoy!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Deadly heat wave in the Midwest; Deadly famine in Somalia; More American jobs in clean energy than in oil & gas; Meet America's newest oil spill, now in Alaska (Thanks again, BP!) ... PLUS: It's the end of the line for NASA's space shuttle program --- Can America still do Big Things? ... 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 change 'threatens peace', UN official warns; Most of the U.S. could be energy self-sufficient; Judge denies BP request for White House emails; The true cost of gasoline? $13 a gallon; Polluted China plans carbon emissions trading scheme; Koch brothers declare war on offshore wind; OH Leads List of Top 20 States with Toxic Air; Can Bluefin Tuna Farms Work?; GAO: States Underreporting Violations of Drinking Water Standards; Fracking At Drinking Water Source for 80k in PA Raises Alarms; Staff Tells N.R.C. That U.S. Rules Need Overhaul After Fukushima; Japan Links More Cattle to Cesium-Tainted Feed; Mapping mercury fallout from coal-fired power plants ... PLUS: It's HOT! But Fox only talks about global warming when it's snowing ...

We were off the grid for much of last week, blissfully ignorant somewhere in the mountains of Arizona, as the first of Wisconsin's series of state Senate recall-related elections took place last Tuesday. Thanks to, quite literally, "fake Democrats" put up by the state Republican Party, the six elections held last Tuesday were forced to be Democratic primary elections, instead of Republican recall elections, as the state GOP hoped to game the system to buy more time before six of their state Senators will be forced to face the real recall elections.

Last week's, largely pointless elections cost the state nearly half a million bucks. Remember that fake "budget emergency" the GOP and Scott Walker claimed as their reason for the need to strip the right of citizens to collectively bargain with the state? Guess the state wasn't in such dire straits after all, since they could afford to blow money on elections meant only to buy Republicans time to stave off the unprecedented recall challenges.

The real recall elections to unseat six Republican state Senators are now scheduled for August, as all six of the real Democrats soundly defeated each of the Republicans' "fake Democrats" in last week's primaries. At least according to Wisconsin's unverified, computer-tabulated results. 5 of the 6 real Dems reportedly received over 60% of the vote against their fake opponents. One received 54%.

Yesterday, there were three more elections in the Badger State. One actual recall election against a Democratic state Senator, and two Republican primaries featuring real GOP candidates vying for the nomination to take on the other two Democratic state Senators facing recall elections scheduled for August.

The Dem facing the recall yesterday handily defeated his Republican challenger, but we'll defer to Daily Kos' David Nir for his smart summary of the computer-reported results...

If the state Dems are able to pick up just three of the Republican seats, out of the six in contention next month --- without losing either of the two remaining recall elections that the Dems still face --- they'll take the majority back from the Republicans to effectively neuter the hard Right Republican Gov. Scott Walker agenda until he too is likely to be up for his own recall election next year.

In Wisconsin, however, as in all of our states at this point, the wild cards are always the electronic voting systems and access to them. To that end, there are a few more recently-related items of note to make sure you have on your radar. At least two of them involve "our old friend" and transparent democracy's enemy, Kathy Nickolaus, the now-infamous Republican County Clerk of Waukesha County...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Another record heatwave for the Midwest (now with crop failure!); "Carmageddon" becomes "Cartopia"; Australia launches nationwide carbon tax --- World doesn't end; PLUS: Dim bulbs (and Fox "News") fight to build a bridge to the 19th century ... 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): $485B a yr: What extreme weather costs US; Sea levels could rise for centuries to come; Lufthansa begins world's first regular biofuel passenger flights; Phosphate: A resource critical to farming, now starting to run low; U.S. Could Drop Screening For Deadly Strain of E. Coli; GOP Denies Global Warming as Polar Bear Cubs Die in Melting Arctic Ice; Study: Changes to ocean expected to damage shellfish around world; Europe Opens First Electric Car Battery Switching Station; Heatstroke deaths quadruple in Japan; Analysis: A severe EV battery oversupply on the horizon; Volvo, Jaguar testing flywheels as potential substitute for batteries in EVs; New Climate Study Models Potential for Rapid Onset of Catastrophic Climate Changes ... PLUS: More Americans now employed in "green" jobs than oil or gas jobs ...

Good grief. So, this happened today...

No, Rupert Murdoch didn't really die. But The Sun, another paper owned by his News International, was hacked by the "hacktivists" of Anonymous and/or LulzSec. At least one of the hackers involved is said to have also been involved in the HBGary Federal hack earlier this year in which some 70,000 emails were stolen, posted on the Internet, and turned out to reveal they were working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to develop a plot which included targeting me and my family, among other progressives perceived to be enemies of the U.S. Chamber.

The hackers say they have also stolen thousands of emails from The Sun and News of The World and plan to release them tomorrow according to Andy Greenberg at Forbes...

No word yet on whether we'll learn tomorrow, when the emails are released, that Murdoch also had a $12 million plot in the works to try and undo me, as the Chamber did.

Later in the day News Corp.'s Times of London was also reportedly taken down by the hackers, and at this hour, the website of News International, the British arm of News Corp., is inaccessible.

But all of that is the "fun" part. Here comes the troubling part. While Murdoch didn't actually die today, one of the whistleblowers at the heart of Murdoch/News Corp.'s News of the World hacking scandal, apparently did...

I found being off the grid over much of the past week, just about as confusing as being on it. See above.

But we've made it back from our brief stint into the wilderness and now have much catching up to do (along with a few days of Mike Malloy Show guest hosting later this week and a few big stories I've been working on for a while) in the days ahead.

So please stay tuned...Back at full speed shortly...Please chat amongst yourselves until then...

Guest blogged by Emily Levy

Two national election integrity organizations jointly conducted exit polling at a pair of poll sites yesterday, during round one of Wisconsin's recall elections. Election Defense Alliance (EDA) and Protect California Ballots teamed up with local activists to poll voters as they exited from voting in now-infamous Waukesha County, with the goal of checking the accuracy of the official election results.

According to a press release (see below) issued yesterday by EDA, despite local volunteer pollsters being equipped with copies of regulations from Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.), the state's top election authority, and a letter from the agency's Executive Director outlining permission for exit polling, the rules were apparently changed during the day and pollsters forbidden to hand out the exit polling 'ballot' voters were asked to complete anonymously.

EDA National Chairperson Sally Castleman told The BRAD BLOG, "The numerous red flags that came to light in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election this spring alerted many Wisconsinites to the need for citizen oversight in their elections. With official vote counts being conducted secretly inside computers, exit polling is one of the very, very few mechanisms left to the public for assessing the legitimacy of official outcomes." Castleman added, "We need to see this level of public participation all over the nation in order to halt the privatization of our elections."

Full text of press release:

See Eric Kleefeld's coverage at TalkingPointsMemo for background on the WI recall elections and the announced outcome of yesterday's Democratic primary recall elections. Round two of the recalls will be held next Tuesday, July 19, when two more primaries and one general recall election (two Republican primaries, and one Democratic state Senator facing a recall) will be held.

UPDATE 7/15/11: Reid Magney, spokesperson for Wisconsin's G.A.B., wanted to offer the board's point of view on their ruling which effectively shut down the EDA's exit polling by forcing pollsters to move outside of the 100 ft. zone around the polling place, as the group noted in their press release posted above. His response follows in full below, along with EDA's response to Magney's remarks...

I'd like to take the opportunity, before we get closer to the 2012 election cycle and things change for the worse in the Buckeye State (and as I prepare to step off the grid, and into the mountains for the bulk of the week), to laud Ohio's new Republican Sec. of State Jon Husted for his willingness to stand up for voters by bucking his party and standing against the polling place Photo ID restrictions the GOP is working to implement in his state.

Husted made his opposition plain in a statement late last month, after attempting to work with the General Assembly in order to craft an acceptable election reform bill [emphasis added]:

As The BRAD BLOG has had to explain far too many times over the years --- as based on empirical academic studies and even hard data from George W. Bush's own Dept. of Justice --- legislation implimented in order to restrict access to the polling place as based, ostensibly, on assertions of the incredibly rare crime of voter impersonation at the polls, is meant to do nothing more than suppress voters --- specifically, minority, urban, elderly, and student (read: Democratic-leaning) ones.

Some 18% of the country's legal electorate in this country do not possess the type of IDs required by these laws, and are likely to be disenfranchised or forced to pay a poll tax in order to exercise their legal right to vote, even though polling place impersonation is almost as rare as unicorns and leprechauns.

To that end, while I suspect we may end up taking various issue with Husted's positions or rulings in the future on related matters as the 2012 Presidential election looms in the always contentious state of Ohio, we'd just like to go on record for the moment here, to congratulate him for his intellectually honest stand on behalf of the voters of his state on this particular issue.

Thank you, sir.

P.S. Here's a slightly --- but only slightly --- more cynical take on the above.