A federal District court judge has nixed a rightwing "voter fraud" group's Motion to Intervene on behalf of the state of Texas in the U.S. Dept. of Justice's lawsuit to block the Lone Star state's polling place Photo ID restriction law.

Last month, The BRAD BLOG reported on the DoJ's Opposition motion filed in response to the motion by the Republican "voter fraud" fraudsters who call themselves "True the Vote" (TTV). In its motion, TTV sought to become a party to the DoJ's federal legal challenge to SB-14, the state's polling place Photo ID restriction law which TX Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) instituted just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court demolished one of the central protections of the long-standing federal Voting Rights Act this past summer.

Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos tersely dismissed TTV's motion, issuing a two-page order [PDF] finding that the organization's "interests are generalized and are adequately represented by the State Defendants."

"The Court finds that True the Vote's intended contribution to this case may be accomplished without the necessity of, or burden incident to, making it a party," Ramos said.

The Judge's ruling was in line with the DoJ's own response to TTV's motion. They had argued that the group had not established a right to intervene because their motion detailed little more than a generalized grievance and because its allegation "that illegal voting might be prevented by enforcement of SB 14 is, at best, speculative." Permissive intervention was inappropriate because, the DoJ argued at the time, since the group was adequately represented already by the State of Texas itself. Its participation in the case, the DoJ claimed, would be unduly burdensome in that the group seeks to divert the court's attention from the legal issues relating to polling place Photo ID restriction laws "to issues concerning True the Vote's numerous allegations of purported voter registration irregularities."

In our previous piece on the DoJ's response to True the Vote, we highlighted the group's extraordinary track record of deceptive voter suppression tactics and noted that it would be "absurd" that the hapless TTV should be ever be taken seriously by anybody, much less allowed to intervene in a critical federal lawsuit.

Although the court will still permit TTV to file amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs, last week's ruling should serve to help expedite the proceedings without unnecessary diversionary tactics from this unreliable, deceptive Republican voter suppression front group.

Judge Ramos has set a September 2014 trial date in the case, which will come just two months before Abbott, defending the state as AG, will likely face his own election contest for Governor as the Texas Republican Party's currently-presumptive nominee. This past September, we detailed how the TX law at issue had already been found in violation of both federal law and the Constitution in previous cases that had come before the courts prior to the U.S. Supreme Court carving out the heart of the federal Voting Rights Act in late June of this year.

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

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 


(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Scientists warn of abrupt climate change; Prominent scientists call for a carbon tax... while Big Oil is secretly planning for it; FDA moves to ban some antibiotics in factory farming; PLUS: After moving to claim the North Pole as their own, Canada promises to protect Santa from the Russians ... All those new fronts in the War on Christmas 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): Can We Avert the End of Elephants?; Competitive hunting of wolves, coyotes in Idaho sparks outcry; We can get 100% of our aluminum from recycling using only 5% of the energy; US fracking boom destroying homes' real estate value; Extreme weather worries insurers, farmers; Arctic Warming Drives More Extreme Summer Heat Waves, Droughts And Deluges; Japan to store radioactive Fukushima soil; Chinese media touts the 'benefits' of extreme pollution, while government trains airline pilots to land in extreme smog; EPA to cut back on inspections ... PLUS: Iraq and Climate Change are both case studies in the failure of journalism ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Yesterday, nearly five years after President Barack Obama first assumed office, the U.S. Senate removed what has been described by some progressives as the "single largest obstacle to meaningful economic recovery" when it was finally allowed to vote for the confirmation of Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) as the new Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).

In a vote allowed by a recent change to filibuster rules in the U.S. Senate, Watt will now replace Bush appointee Edward J. DeMarco, who was first appointed in 2008 and became the acting Director of the federal agency in 2009.

The FHFA oversees the government-sponsored mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which collectively own 60% of all mortgages in the United States. The agency also oversees 12 Federal Home Loan Banks, which, according to the Washington Post, "serve as major sources of funding for hundreds of banks."

In a statement issued late yesterday, praising Watt's confirmation and chiding Senate Republicans for their obstructionism in holding up this and many other uncontroversial Presidential nominations, Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, highlighted the importance of the FHFA's intended role in safe-guarding homeowners.

"Republicans in the U.S. Senate callously blocked the confirmation of the supremely qualified Congressman Mel Watt to be our nation's Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency," Becerra said. "Today, by a bipartisan vote of 57 to 41, Rep. Watt is on his way to lead the FHFA as America's watchdog over the American Dream. What a difference a day makes when the Senate is free of the mischief of exploitive filibusters"...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 


(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The climate action legacy of Nelson Mandela; Historic water compact in the volatile Middle East; Air pollution linked to autism; Water pollution linked to miscarriages; PLUS: Canada is claiming the North Pole because... drill baby drill ... 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): Arctic warming drives more extreme summer heat waves, droughts & deluges, study finds; Ask Ft. Worth why so many towns are banning fracking; Falling stars: mystery disease killing starfish; Mounting evidence against BPA; EPA chief visits China amid record air pollution; TransCanada oil begins flowing through southern Keystone XL; Wind farms allowed to kill eagles for 30 years; New greenhouse gas discovered, 7k times more potent than CO2; CA releases plan for massive water tunnel ... PLUS: Heart of gold: Neil Young helps bankroll First Nation’s tar sands battle ... and much, MUCH more! ...

The Ventura County Star reports that my CA Assemblyman Jeff Gorell (R-Thousand Oaks), and three other members of the California Republican Assembly Caucus abused their public mailing privileges by sending nearly 260,000 deceptive mailers to their constituents.

According to a former opponent of his that I spoke with, it wouldn't be the first time Gorell has been linked to deceptive mailers.

Instead of directing constituents who desire to take advantage of the state's Affordable Care Act health insurance exchange, the mailer "labeled as 'A California Resource Guide' to explain federal health care reform", points constituents to a fake website created by state Republicans. Rather than the official CoveredCA.com website, the new mailers direct the recipient to CoveringHealthCareCA.com, a bogus Republican site which, though attempting to appear to be the official CA health care exchange site, doesn't actually provide the ability to shop for or purchase policies.

"Though it launched in August," ABC News reports, "the site made waves this week after a number of GOP Assembly members sent out mailers to their constituents, highlighting the page as a 'resource guide' for information on the Affordable Care Act."

The deceptive, publicly funded mailers sent by the self-described "fiscal conservatives" cost CA taxpayers $77,496, according to the Star's public records request. The money, they report, came from the state Assembly's "taxpayer-funded operating budget."

Since the fraud was exposed, the LA Times reports, the GOP site has added some links to the official CA health care site. The original site, according to Karoli at Crooks and Liars who helped expose the scam, included "links to negative articles and twisted messages intended to sour people on signing up for health insurance before they ever land at the official health exchange site."

The effort comes on the heels of a what ABC describes as an "onslaught of fake insurance sites popping up in the state --- 10 of which were shut down by Calif. Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris in November --- since the implementation of Obamacare."

This is not the first occasion in which Gorell, an outspoken opponent of the Affordable Care Act, has been tied to deceptive constituent mailers. Last year, the chairman of a local Democratic Club asked me to speak on the subject of GOP voter suppression laws and e-voting issues. While there, I was approached by Democrat Eileen MacEnery, Gorell's unsuccessful 2012 Assembly opponent. She was still miffed by what she described as a deceptive Gorell mailer. In it, she told me, Gorell included his name and photo, alongside those of Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein and Rep. Julia Brownley. MacEnery claimed the mailer falsely implied that the Democratic Party supported all three, even though Gorell is a dedicated member of the GOP.

Gorell was the only local Republican who retained a seat in my area after state redistricting converted what had been a Republican-majority district into one where registered Democrats hold a slim majority. Last month, Gorell announced that he will challenge Brownley for her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Hopefully local voters will keep his deceptive record in mind when any of Gorell's mailings show up in their mailbox.

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 


(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Obama 'finds the courage': orders federal government to increase use of renewable energy; Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) celebrates melting Arctic; ALEC and Koch Bros. launch an attack on solar; Solar panel maker takes on Germany's electric utilities; PLUS: The Heartland Institute is lying again, this time about the American Meteorological Society ... 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): No climate change deniers in the global re-insurance industry; Abrupt climate change: what's in store for us?; Big Oil already prepared to pay carbon tax; Massive winter storms assault UK, EU, US; Experts worried rise in TX earthquakes caused by fracking injection wells; Hitachi unveils storage for solar, wind; Chicago tests pollution-eating concrete; We're #1: Lake Superior heating up faster than any other lake on Earth ... PLUS: Nelson Mandela led coalition of global elders to halt climate change ... and much, MUCH more! ...

At this point, the slogan for Republican Secretaries of State around the country seems to be: "If it ain't broke, break it!"

That's certainly the case in Florida, where Sec. of State Ken Detzner --- fresh off his and Governor Rick Scott's embarrassing and failed 2012 purge of supposed "non-citizen voters" from the rolls (with another more recent attempt underway since then) --- is at it again. And this time, Detzner seems to be facing a full-blown uprising from county Supervisors of Elections (SOE) refusing to carry out a new directive which would make it more difficult for absentee voters to cast their ballot.

The elected SOEs are claiming that the new directive by Detzner, an appointee of Gov. Rick Scott (R), was neither asked for nor necessary under state law. They Supervisors have also denied Detzner's initial claim that the directive was issued in response to requests by two SOEs.

Last week, Detzner issued a directive [PDF] to county SOEs instructing them that they may no longer allow voters to use secured remote absentee ballot drop-off stations created at locations like public libraries and tax-collectors offices. Suddenly, according to Detzner's new rules, all absentee ballots must either be mailed in, or dropped off at county election offices.

The directive was issued just prior to an upcoming special election to replace the late, long-serving Republican Congressman Bill Young in the 13th Congressional District, and it has led to both suspicion for its motives, and somewhat of a bi-partisan mutiny from election officials, leading one well-known Florida SOE to respond tersely to The BRAD BLOG's request for comment last week this way: "I do have a comment, legally it's not worth the paper it's printed on"...

Hope you'll grab this one for some Thanksgiving weekend listening!

My guest on this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio was the Center for Corporate Policy's Gary Ruskin, author of the new report, "Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage of Nonprofit Organizations" [PDF]. The report is "spooky" for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I am named in the report, as one of the targets of an extraordinary $12 million espionage plot by the loathsome, rightwing U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

[The scheme involved the U.S. Chamber, their powerful and sleazy law firm Hunton & Williams, LLP and three grifter U.S. defense/intel contractors, HBGary Federal, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies. It was meant to use tools developed for the "war on terror" against me, my family and a number of progressive organizations. None of the parties involved have been held accountable to this day. Read more about it here...]

Ruskin's report is chilling and the interview is disturbing. But the second half of the show is (largely) much less troubling! We update a lot of the stories we've been covering of late on The BradCast, most of them with good news updates!

So, curl on up to the holiday radio hearth and give it a listen...and all of my best to you and yours for Thanksgiving! (Or, as we call it around here since Chanukah falls on the same day this year: Thanksalatke!)

Download MP3 or listen online below...

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

In the wake of 60 Minutes' bogus Benghazi report, starring an eye-witness who, as it turns out, appears to have completely lied about being there during the 2012 attack on the U.S. compound which resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. personnel, rightwing reporter Lara Logan and her producer will be taking a "leave of absence" of unspecified length.

Via Michael Calderone at HuffPo...

See Calderone for the text of the memo from Fager, which includes the summary of the internal report by Fager's underling Al Ortiz, Executive Director of Standards and Practices at CBS News. Fager is both CBS News Chairman and the Executive Producer of 60 Minutes. Apparently, he has not required himself to take a leave of absence, even though, as Executive Producer, he is ultimately responsible for what goes on the air.

In the memo, Fager describes what happened as "a regrettable mistake"...

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

It took awhile. A few years even. But, on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) finally decided he'd had enough.

By a majority vote of 52 to 48, the U.S. Senate changed their rules to partially end the filibuster, invoking what some refer to as the so-called "nuclear option". The rule change, which will permit an up-or-down majority vote on all Presidential nominations for executive and judicial office (with the exception of Supreme Court nominations), is better described as the "democracy option".

The rule change, for now, would have no effect on the use of the filibuster by the minority to block legislation. Three Democrats, Carl Levin (D-MI), Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Mark Pryor (D-AR), voted with Republicans to sustain the previous filibuster rules, last changed in 1975 when the Senate amended their Standing Rules to reduce the number of Senators required for cloture --- to end debate --- from two-thirds to three-fifths.

Although there had been noise, and urging from many quarters, for a dramatic change of the filibuster rules for some time, especially after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) drew the dubious distinction of becoming the first U.S. Senator in history to filibuster his own bill, the impetus became particularly strong over the past several weeks with the outrageous block put on the nominations of every one of President Obama's nominations to the important D.C. Circuit Court of Appeal, the court which oversees federal regulations.

The result of yesterday's rule change in the U.S. Senate could well be a return, at least in part, to the Constitutionally designed functions of three different branches of government, as envisioned by our founding documents. It may also mark an end to a thirty-year scheme by Republicans to pack the courts with radical, right wing jurists...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 


(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Impasse at the UN climate summit as developing nations walk out of negotiations; Just 90 companies responsible for most of man-made global warming emissions; 'Apocalyptic' rains strike again, this time in Sardinia; PLUS: Didja hear the one about the Polish environment minister who was fired in the middle of the UN climate summit in Poland? ... All of those hot messes 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): Shell Oil's self-imposed carbon pollution tax would crash coal; Superstorms cause spike in flood insurance rates; Jbets on hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars; 'Welcome to Las Vegas' sign goes solar; 70 taken ill after California chemical plant leak; Tesla: "3 fires received more headlines than 250k gasoline fires"; 'Digesting' food waste turns trash into cash; Developed countries spent $35 billion on coal plants since 2007 ... PLUS: BP back in the Gulf with largest-ever oil fleet ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Oh, what fun. This, of course, is just one of the reasons why it's important that you help support and fund the work we do here at The BRAD BLOG. We're up against the unaccountable hoodlums and thugs like the far rightwing U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest lobbying organization in the world. So we must be doing something right.

And there is no tactic too dirty for the slimeballs at the Chamber, as we're reminded again in a new report by Gary Ruskin released Wednesday by the Institute of Public Accuracy titled "Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations" [PDF].

As Ruskin notes on page 22 of the new report...

Long time readers will recall the sleazy, likely criminal, $12 million 2011 scheme plotted by the mafia-like thugs at the U.S. Chamber targeting me, my family (who have nothing to do with my work), and other progressive organizations and activists who dared oppose their corporatist, anti-American agenda in even the slightest way. Their plot involved using tools developed by private government contractors (with taxpayer dollars) for the so-called "War on Terror", and turning them against private U.S. citizens for their corporate espionage benefit...

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

Over the weekend, new Fox "News" lamestream media warrior Howard Kurtz was appropriately critical of the pathetic "apology" CBS' 60 Minutes offered for their bogus Benghazi report which was based entirely on a lying "witness" to the September 2012 attack. (The guy was never there, the story was completely made up.)

Fox doesn't seem to allow their videos to be embedded, but you can watch Kurtz' :97 second piece on "Why 60 Minutes apology isn't enough" right here.

While Kurtz is correct that CBS' "apology" was not nearly enough, and that the serious error requires a much more thorough investigation into and explanation for how Rightwing correspondent Lara Logan was so easily fooled by her source, and why nobody at 60 Minutes kept the false story from being aired in the first place, Kurtz completely fails to even mention one very important point. Fox "News" itself used the very same source for the basis of its own false narrative in its own series of misleading stories last year. Moreover, Fox, unlike CBS, has failed to even retract those similarly bogus reports, much less apology or investigate any of them...

Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a former Harvard Law Professor, argued that Senators not only have the right, but a constitutional duty to change the Senate filibuster rules. She argued, in no small part to her fellow Democrats, that the rules were being abused by Republicans as part of a "naked attempt to nullify the results of the last Presidential election [in order] to force us to govern as if President Obama hadn't won the 2012 election."

Her remarks (see video and text transcript below) were made in the wake of the third occasion in which Senate Republicans blocked the nomination of an extraordinarily well-qualified female nominee to the important federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeal.

"Republicans now hold the dubious distinction of having filibustered all three women that President Obama nominated to the DC Circuit," she said. "Between them, they have argued an amazing 45 cases before the Supreme Court and have participated in many more. All three have the support of a majority of Senators. So why have they been filibustered?"

"Well, the reason is simple," she explained, answering her own question. "They are caught in a fight over the future of our courts. A fight over whether the courts will be a neutral forum that decides every dispute fairly, or whether the courts will be stacked in favor of the wealthy and the powerful."

Yes. The minority party in the U.S. Senate is blocking these nominations, not because of the qualifications of these very well-qualified women, but because they are continuing a thirty-year Republican effort to "rig the courts", as Warren explains, by packing the U.S. federal bench, particularly the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals...

In a letter this week, twenty of the nation’s top climate scientists urged Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) to impose an immediate moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing (aka "fracking") as a means for extracting oil and natural gas in the Golden State.

Just days later, the state issued new draft regulations for "fracking". The new regulations were praised by the fossil fuel industry.

In the letter, the scientists warn Brown that "fracking," as applied to California's Monterey Shale Formation, would "exacerbate…environmental threats, particularly climate disruption, local air and water pollution, and resource consumption."

After noting that fracking "will likely rapidly increase fossil fuel development at a time when California is poised to transition to low-carbon renewable energy technology," the climate scientists expressed a number of specific environmental concerns...