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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Oil industry on the hot seat --- again --- fighting to hold on to their billion-dollar taxpayer "incentives" (a.k.a. corporate welfare); Renewable energy can replace fossil fuels by 2050; PLUS: Satirists Attack! And fossil-fuel companies cry foul! ... 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): Sec. Clinton at Arctic Council mtg. for treaty on climate change, drilling; Wikileaks cables show race to carve up the Arctic; Now the Pope is down with climate change; There is NO 'rebound effect'; Yucca Shutdown Was Political; Unusual "Mishaps" At 3 U.S. Nuclear Power Plants; NRC Waives Enforcement of Fire Rules; Panel Urges Germany to Close Nuclear Plants ; 'People power' blocks dam construction in India; Mega-Fire risk is global and growing; The psychological roots of resource over-consumption; LOL: Oil front group argues against tax breaks for natural gas; Surprise! Fox News lies again about climate science; Oil CEOs Among Highest Paid ... PLUS: Bill Gates' [big glaring] Blind Spots [climate change, energy, efficiency]...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The Mighty Mississippi crests in Memphis (but Graceland is spared!); Record drought dries out Texas (the Governor's prayers are not answered); What The Frack? - Flammable drinking water near natural gas wells; Japan scraps nuclear plans; Florida nixes high speed rail, other states rejoice; PLUS: Guess who leads the world in clean energy? (hint: it ain't us) ... 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): How to profit from the coming eco-pocalypse; Green energy can wean off subsidies; Right-Wing media freak out over nonexistent mileage tax; Study: climate change impacts on SF; Arctic meltdown accelerates; Ambitious renewable energy goals and war-zone realities; US Military: global dominance through solar panels; Republican claims credit for oil price tumble; the Truth about rising gasoline prices; Obama: Clean energy delivers the ‘jobs of the future’; Robot sorts trash for recycling; Self-cleaning, smog-eating buildings; Greening America’s schools ... PLUS: Scaling UP: Renewables Could Meet Most of Energy Needs by 2050 ...

At the end of the "New Rules" segment on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher last night, Maher called out Republicans for being "neither fiscally conservative nor strong on defense," adding "they have to tell us what exactly it is they're good at."

"How many Muslims does a black guy have to kill in one weekend before crackers climb down off his ass?" Maher asked, before offering a flashing "FACTS" light at the bottom of the screen so Fox "News" viewers would know to keep the sound turned down until it disappeared. He then went on to call out the GOP for, among other things, implementing policies over the past decade that revealed them to be anything but fiscally responsible.

"When Bill Clinton left office in 2001," Maher said, "the Congressional Budget Office predicted that by the end of the decade, we would have paid off the deficit and have a 2 trillion dollar surplus. Instead, we have a 10 trillion dollar public debt, and the difference in those two numbers is mostly because the Republicans put tax cuts for the rich, free drugs for the elderly, and two wars on the layaway plan and then bailed on the check."

Maher then criticized George W. Bush's failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, after his admission that he "didn't spend that much time on Osama, [and] that he was no longer concerned about him, just as he wasn't before 9/11 when he blew off that mysterious, inscrutable memo entitled 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the U.S.'"

"Why focus on the terrorists who reduced Wall Street to rubble, when you can help Wall Street reduce the whole country to rubble?" the satirist asked rhetorically.

Near the end of his "New Rule," after eviscerating Republicans such as Bush for his "War on Terror" strategy, and Sen. John McCain for being "naive" in his criticism of Obama's promise to focus on bin Laden during the 2008 Presidential election, Maher went on to declare President Obama "one efficient, steely-nerved, multitasking, black ninja gangsta President." WATCH...

Reportedly a photo of President Obama and his national security team watching the U.S. Special Forces operation to capture/kill Osama bin Laden, live yesterday in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The photo is described this way on the White House Flickr stream...

UPDATE: White House reporter Paul Brandus quotes Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor John Brennan (seen second from top-right) as saying about the moment in the Situation Room: "It was clearly very tense, a lot of people holding their breath."

UPDATE 7:34pm PT: More details on what was going on in that room during that picture from CBS News.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: It's hard to believe it's only been a year: Our not-at-all fond look back over 87 days of the BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf, and its aftermath ... PLUS: In honor of Earth Day, a message from the past about our shared future ... 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): Google invests $100 million in OR wind; Massive fracking blowout at PA natural gas well; Big Break for Big Oil leads to larger burden for taxpayers; Watch Van Jones' inspiring keynote speech at Power Shift 2011; TX burning 'from border to border'; Chevron mines solar energy at mine waste dump; Report: poisonous chemicals injected into the ground; More than 3,200 Gulf wells unplugged; Charles Manson does his best to kill green credibility; Cape Wind approved to begin construction; Koch Industries Buying Ads To Refute News Stories; Supreme Court skeptical of allowing global-warming case to move forward ... PLUS: Hypocrisy: Rupert Murdoch is totally against the global warming he told you not to believe in ...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives from tonight below.]

What? The week is over already?! It's our last night for a while sitting in as guest host for nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show. It's been a great, if exhausting week since we began last Friday. (We're schedule to return in June, if not before.)

Tonight, as ever, we'll be BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), 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 FireDogLake.
• NICOLE SANDLER of RadioOrNot.com.
• PLUS: The latest on the WI debacle, the DC Shutdown Showdown, everything we didn't get to, but wanted to, earlier this week, and whatever is on your mind tonight 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 Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. 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 all for a great, if exhausting week on the Mike Malloy Show! We're scheduled to be back for Mike in June (if not before). See ya then! Tonight's fun Friday audio (and chat room) archives follow below...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below.]

Late breaking news out of Wisconsin, and the continuing fight over a federal government shutdown in DC means we're going to have an even busier night than usual as my week guest hosting on the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show continues.

As usual, we're BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), 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):

• DAVE WEIGEL Slate.com journalist/blogger and MSNBC contributor with the latest on the DC budget standoff.
• JOHN WASHBURN Award-winning Wisconsin election integrity citizen advocate (and self-professed 'Ron Paul Republican' and Justice David Prosser voter!) of Fair Elections of WI with the latest news out of WI today and on GOP-floated rumors about "fraud" in the Supreme Court election. .
• TYSON SLOCUM Director of Public Citizen's energy program on the latest out of Fukushima and the dangers and pitfalls of nuclear power and other fossil fuels. Award-winning Wisconsin election integrity citizen advocate (and self-professed 'Ron Paul Republican') with the latest news out of WI today and on GOP-floated rumors about "fraud" in the Supreme Court election. .
• PLUS: Isn't that enough? Yes, there will be more! Plus your calls at 877-520-1150 and tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. 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: Wow. What a show. Especially on Wisconsin revelations tonight. The audio (and chat) archives all follow below...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: More U.S. Chamber of Commerce propaganda to support the GOP v. EPA in the House and Senate; Clean energy v. Oil in the budget shutdown showdown... PLUS: Signs of stabilizing at the Fukushima nuclear plant, as yet another earthquake rocks Japan's devastated coastline ... 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 breaks NASA temperature chart; Dangerous new antibiotic-resistant water bug found in India; OK return to Dust Bowl days?; TX worsening drought devastating wheat crops; GOP allows agribusiness to dump pesticides in water; Solar Costs May Already Rival Coal; Canceled Coal Plant's Aging Parts; Right-wing Group Writes Anti-EPA Bills For State Legislatures; What corporations really mean by profit and loss; Should 'smart grid' let smart meters make decisions for consumers?; Clean-Energy Investment Is Placed at Risk as UN Climate Negotiations Stall; Governments urged to move forward at UN climate meeting; Two Major Enviro Groups Join Forces ... PLUS: Boom-and-bust fossil fuels and the promise of cheap electricity ....

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Rep. John Mica (R-FL), Chair of the House Transportation Committee, inserted union-busting language into the 2011 Federal Aviation Administration Re-authorization bill.

His remarkable display of contempt for the democratic aspirations of working class Americans comes as little surprise, unfortunately. Mica, during his time in office, has received more than $620,000 in campaign contributions from the airline industry.

The Mica clause would block a rule adopted by the federal National Mediation Board which, according to the Communications Workers of America permitted airline and railroad workers to achieve "union representation based on a majority of votes cast, in line with the National Labor Relations Act rules governing union representation across all other industries." Instead of accepting the rules of a democratically held election of workers, Mica wants to count those who are eligible to vote, but who fail to do so, as votes against unionization.

Over the dissent of three Republicans and every Democratic member of the Committee, the House Transportation Committee rejected "an amendment by Rep. Jerry Costello (D-IL) to strip Mica's anti-union language from the bill."

Mica's new definition of "democracy" underscores the observations we set forth in "Gov. Walker's Wisconsin 'Union Busting' Exposes 'Tea Party' Scam, Duped Americans" as to how so many working class Americans have been "taken in by the lies and deceptions of billionaire sociopaths, like oil-baron David Koch...[whose] aim is not liberty, freedom, and jobs but American fascism, corporatocracy, and the 'eternal subjugation of the common man.'"

That subjugation flows from the disparity of power that accompanies a growing disparity of wealth, which, in turn, correlates with the demise of unions in the U.S...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Crisis in Japan: Compounding natural disaster, humanitarian disaster, and spiraling nuclear disaster --- desperate measures to hold off a nuclear nightmare ... 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): EPA moves to curb toxic mercury pollution; Battle-proof wind farms survive Japan disasters; Op-ed: 'Save US children from toxic mercury'; End of cheap food in US?; Koch Bros: property rights only for polluters; Gov. Kasich (R) wants fracking in OH state parks; Sec. Chu: Clean energy puts U.S. ahead; PA: Coal Exec Given Vast Environmental Authority; WV considering geothermal future; Google backs biofuel startup; If President Obama calls it safe, watch out; Germany's Merkel plans faster shift to clean energy ... PLUS: Irish scientists help Guinness go green...

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Eastern Cougar goes extinct; Climate activist Tim DeChristopher goes on trial for fighting to save public lands; "Slash & Burn" Republicans cut the EPA, despite the trillions in dollars it saves; PLUS: Radio. Active. Water. Frack that! ... 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): Navy Secretary says alt. fuels will save money and lives; Chevron employee: routine dumping of toxic chemicals in Ecuador; EPA Extends GHG Reporting Deadline; China's 5 year plans for green growth; Google backs climate-change insurance start-up; China faces up to 'terrible' state of its ecosystems; Underwater kite-turbine may turn tides; Combining solar PV with Thermal; CA salmon to triple this year?; Salazar says 'show me the money'; Conservatives oppose climate adaptation, too; Australia: farms "particularly vulnerable" to climate change; Microgrid electricity onthe rise; Global Public Health Implications of Electricity and Coal Consumption; Schwarzenegger calls for Tunisian-style green revolution; Charles Koch hypocritically blasts "Crony Capitalism" ... PLUS: How Koch Industries makes billions by demanding bailouts and taxpayer subsidies ....

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Dems call for probe in U.S. Chamber of Commerce plot to target citizens like us; Indictment in WV coal mine disaster investigation; Deepwater drilling permits resume in the Gulf, but that's still not good enough for Republicans; Climate scientists in fake 'ClimateGate Scandal' vindicated --- AGAIN; PLUS: More on the WI GOP power play to privatize Wisconsin's power plants ... 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): NYT "fracking" bombshell: toxic & radioactive water dumped in rivers; US v. Tim DeChristopher, climate activist; House Democrats launch investigation into 'fracking' on public lands; Anonymous turns firepower against Billionaire Koch Bros.; 80% of US antibiotics go to factory farm animals; Ad Age slams Chevron ad campaign; House Republicans bring back styrofoam; SunChips tries again with quieter bag; Supreme Court halts NYC's push for hybrid taxis; NYC classroom scores 100% PCBs; Soaring oil prices, a popular argument for just about anything; BP fund lawyer to refuse 100k Gulf spill disaster claims, while BP asks judge to dismiss them; Australia stuck with desalination white elephant; Skyrocketing water bills anger GA residents; Glenn Beck says 350.org is part of a communist plot (and Bill McKibben's response); Arctic sea ice at new record low ... PLUS: China leadership issues stunning warning on climate & growth...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

"The United States, so far, is essentially following the usual playbook...[for] when some favored dictator...is in danger of losing control. There’s a kind of a standard routine --- Marcos, Duvalier, Ceausescu...Suharto: keep supporting them as long as possible; then, when it becomes unsustainable --- typically, say, if the army shifts sides --- switch 180 degrees, claim to have been on the side of the people all along, erase the past, and then make whatever moves are possible to restore the old system under new names."-Noam Chomsky, 2/2/11

If we have learned anything from WikiLeaks, it's that we must consider the words emerging from the mouths of our political elites as the equivalent to a magician's sleight-of-hand.

During the transition between the Bush and Obama administrations, an astute observer could gain far greater insight on the direction of the new administration by ignoring the then President-elect's lofty rhetoric and focusing instead upon the fact that he chose the Wall Street-connected Larwrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, as opposed to Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, to serve as his chief financial advisers.

Today, Egypt remains in the midst of a genuine, yet to be completed, democratic revolution. So far, it has produced the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak and a dissolution of Egypt's parliament. However, it has not, as yet, led to real "regime change". Mubarak's hand-picked cabinet remains. So does Vice President Omar Suleiman, whom a May 14, 2007 U.S. Diplomatic cable referred to as "Mubarak's consigliere," and whom Middle East expert Lisa Hajjar refers to as "Egypt's Torturer-in-Chief".

[Listen to Brad Friedman's interview with Hajjar in the first hour of the 2/10/11 Mike Malloy Show right here.]

Egypt and the world --- and, indeed, the several other Middle Eastern nation's now seeing similar popular uprisings --- would do well to ignore public remarks by the U.S. President and Secretary of State to the effect that they supported the democratic aspirations of the Egyptian demonstrators and an end to the Mubarak presidency. While their public condemnations of violence against the press and the Egyptian people were appropriate, their reported behind-the-scene effort to have Suleiman lead a "so-called" transitional government speaks volumes.

To understand not only the why of Egypt's democratic revolution --- and many other similar popular revolts now under way in that part of the world --- but also the U.S. response to it, one must understand both the history of an ostensibly benevolent but quietly brutal U.S.-led corporate Empire and the role played by the covert dimension of Empire, particularly as described in Part IV of The BRAD BLOG's five-part 2009 special series on "The History of CIA Torture."* Suleiman, it must be remembered, long served as the chief of Egypt's General Intelligence Service, where he served as the key point man for the U.S., in what what we've described as "surrogate torture" as well as extraordinary rendition...

We've interviewed former senior CIA analyst Ray McGovern, on the air and off, many times over the years. We've come to consider him not just a source, but a friend and a national hero for his tirelessly non-partisan fight for truth and justice.

The man who once briefed Presidents directly, from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton, had long ago earned our great respect --- from his courageousness in famously confronting then-SecDef Don Rumsfeld in 2006 about lying about Saddam and WMD (watch the classic confrontation on video here) to his calling out CNN on air for their abysmal failures in accurately reporting on WikiLeaks (video here) last December to his arrest weeks later at the White House with other vets and national heroes for "refusal to obey a lawful order" while protesting against the Obama Administration's wars around the world --- all while overcoming some enormous personal health issues at the same time.

So it's little wonder that FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), found herself "way too upset to write a coherent piece" yesterday after hearing of the news that the 71-year old McGovern had been "brutalized and left bleeding" by security guards after daring to stand in silent protest during a speech by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton --- on "the rights of individuals to express their views freely"(!) --- at George Washington University on Tuesday.

Clinton didn't even blink as the 27-year CIA veteran was dragged out of the room from where he was standing silently, back towards her, during her speech, some 15 feet in front of her as RAW STORY reports and as the video below suggests --- or even as he finally shouted: "So this is America!"...

Here's what happened last night in Egypt (late last night in U.S.):

And with that, Egypt effectively "vanished from the Internet" yesterday as the uprising against a repressive, U.S. backed regime began to take full bloom and, as of this hour, continues to rage.

Meanwhile, back in these United States, folks like Sen. Joe Lieberman are pushing a bill, the "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset" act, to make provisions for a U.S. government "Internet Kill Switch" to allow them to do the same. Now why would folks like Lieberman want that?

The latest revision of this bill, according to FastCompany, "bans judicial review over executive decrees" to take down all, or portions of, the Internet.

On a very related note... Thanks to the Internet, you can watch the uprising in Egypt going on as we speak, via Al Jazeera English's streaming live coverage here, just in case you find that CNN and the others are still offering wall-to-wall coverage of Charlie Sheen. You can also follow ongoing Twitter reports on Egypt via the #Jan25 and #Egypt hashtags.

And on another very related note... The recent uprising, revolution and new government in Tunisia was triggered, in no small part, thanks to a U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks detailing the corruption of the ruling family. That revolution helped spark the one going on right now in Egypt, where the people have taken to the streets to challenge the thirty-year, iron-fisted rule of Hosni Mubarik, a long-time U.S. ally.

WikiLeaks has now released U.S. cables describing "routine and pervasive" use of police brutality and widespread torture by the Egyptian state, our allies, against "criminals, Islamist detainees, opposition activists and bloggers," as The Guardian describes the leaked cables today.

In Yemen, another ally of the U.S., citizen protests inspired by Tunisia and Egypt are also reportedly underway. And this morning, rumors of unrest in Syria were also spreading via Twitter.

With very real democratic revolutions happening in the Middle East --- one of the purported excuses once given for the U.S. invasion and mass murders in Iraq --- coming about through peaceful uprisings (but for governmental aggression in response) there, thanks in no small part to WikiLeaks, wouldn't folks like Joe Biden be wise to reconsider his recent, offensive assessment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a "high-tech terrorist"?

Perhaps not. Perhaps the Vice President has good reason to stand by that astonishing incitement of violence against a private Australian citizen and an organization neither charged with, nor convicted of, any crimes against the U.S.. After all, we have, for decades, been propping up the repressive Egyptian regime with billions of dollars in funding and armaments. And, by way of reminder, it is being reported that the tear gas canisters being hurled against Egyptian citizen demonstrators right now are clearly and proudly marked as "Made in the U.S.A."

But, of course, "they hate us for our freedoms." So remind us again, Mr. Vice President, who are the terrorists --- high-tech or low-tech --- here?