I was back on RT TV this afternoon (this time, without a wingnut loon to waste our time), to discuss the caucus chaos over the weekend in MO, where Ron Paul supporters stood up for themselves, rather than allowing the GOP establishment to railroad them.

Once again, the host was RT's Liz Wahl. Here's what happened today...

UPDATE: Wow. 438 comments on this video at YouTube in just 3 hours since it was posted there. By the way, for those who have asked over there, the complete videos of what happened on Saturday in MO and the Saturday before that in GA, as referenced in the conversation above, are all posted right here.

Also, Brent Stafford, the Ron Paul supporter who was arrested outside the aborted GOP caucus in St. Charles, MO over the weekend, will be my guest on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show Wednesday at 3p PT. It will stream live right here.

There was a bit of trouble across Illinois polls today, as some of the paper ballots in about 25 different counties, according to the Chicago Tribune, had been cut too wide to fit into the Diebold AccuVote precinct-based op-scanners.

Officials spent the day in panic, reprinting ballots with on-demand ballot printing systems, where available, and otherwise finding paper cutters to trim about one-eighth of an inch off the edge off the ballots that were said to have been cut incorrectly by two different printing companies.

The Washington Post reported the problems as "widespread" earlier today, but by mid-afternoon, officials were downplaying concerns, saying that they'd been able to get out new ballots to affected locations.

Most ballots that could not be trimmed will reportedly be hand-counted in the presence of officials from both the Democratic and Republican Parties.

Some ballot, however, will be "remade", incredibly enough, according to the Tribune, "under the supervision of representatives of each party." That means that some human being will actually copy votes from one ballot, by hand, onto another, so they can then run the "remade" ballot through an optical-scanner. (Never mind how much more time that takes --- and how votes can be changed in the process --- than simply counting those ballots by hand in the first place.)...

Huh. Imagine that...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Obama mocks GOP clean energy obstructionists; Romney gets Edison and the lightbulb wrong; It's officially Spring, but already summer in the U.S. --- meaning more sex for pine beetles!; Electric Highway opens in Oregon; PLUS: Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oil) reveals real rea$on he's a climate change denier... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Global sea levels could rise as much as 70 ft; Louisiana to elevate Gulf Coast highways; Solar micro-spheres collect 360 sunshine; Antibiotic-resistant superbugs could mean 'end of modern medicine'; ‘Pink slime’ is the tip of the iceberg; Chinese foodies have a solution for Asian carp invasion; CA farm country's water is dangerously polluted; Spring sprung too soon means death blow to butterfly; Speed record on the power grid ... PLUS: O.E.C.D. warns of ever-higher greenhouse gas emissions ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Fresh off of telling women they should just "close your eyes" when they are forced by the state to have the government come between them and their doctor for a mandated ultrasound before being allowed to terminate a pregnancy, Pennsylvania's Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is now just making stuff up concerning "voter fraud" in his state.

Comments highlighted by Steve Benen at Maddow Blog today suggest the Governor is willing to say just about anything to justify the disenfranchising polling place Photo ID restrictions just passed and signed into law by Republicans in the Keystone State...

We thought we'd double check on that with Marybeth Kuznick, founder of VotePA, the non-partisan election integrity watchdog organization which has been fighting to improve the state's electoral system --- and help stop election fraud --- for years now.

She concurs that Corbett's statement is, as she described it to us, simply "ludicrous"...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

What is it with Republicans and residency laws? Recently, in covering the conviction of Indiana's Republican Secretary of State Charlie White for six felonies, including three counts of felony voter fraud, Brad Friedman listed the growing number of high-level Republicans, including Mitt Romney, who may have committed voter fraud by casting ballots as registered voters from residences where they did not reside.

Now we find a little-noticed Feb. 23 report from Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) which reveals that criminal defense attorney Frank Gimbel filed a motion for change of venue --- from Milwaukee County to Columbia County --- in the criminal case pending against his client, Kelly M. Rindfleisch. Rindfleisch served as Scott Walker's Deputy Chief of Staff when Walker was the Milwaukee County Chief Executive and is one of four top deputies to have been indicted, so far, as part of Milwaukee County prosecutors' long-running "Joe Doe" investigation.

In his motion, Gimbel alleges Rindfleisch, "didn't live in Milwaukee County when the misconduct allegedly took place," according to WPR.

In the bargain, as a comparison of Gimbel's motion to the allegations contained in the 51-page criminal complaint [PDF] (the "Rindfleisch complaint") against her suggests, Gimbel may have implicated Rindfleisch and Walker in a criminal conspiracy to violate the residency requirement for Milwaukee County employment. That apparent violation appears to have occurred as part of the broader scheme alleged by prosecutors to misuse that office to gain a political advantage for Walker and other GOP candidates during the 2010 campaign...

[Update: My appearance on RT TV discussing the story below, is now posted here. Brent Stafford, the Ron Paul supporter who was arrested outside the aborted GOP caucus in St. Charles, MO over the weekend, as discussed below, will be my guest on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show this Wednesday at 3p PT. It will stream live right here. - BF]

This is just amazing. At yesterday's GOP caucus in St. Charles, MO --- one of the largest and most conservative counties in the state --- the Republican establishment is seen blatantly attempting to steal the caucus from supporters of Ron Paul.

As the caucus was prematurely shut down before a vote, with state police called in, no delegates were elected at what "was to have been the biggest single prize of the day," according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch coverage of the Missouri Caucuses' mess. It was just the latest, of many, embarrassments to arise out of a GOP caucus state this year.

A Facebook page called "Hold St. Charles Republican Tyrants Accountable" includes many cell phone videos of the near riots that occurred as party leaders attempted to commandeer the caucus to thundering cries of protest and shouts of "Point of Order!" and "Division!" (a non-debatable process in Roberts Rules of Order requiring the chair to have an immediate vote by a different means, such as rising, after a contested voice vote) by what seems to be hundreds of Paul supporters.

Despite the GOP ordering recording devices to be turned off at the outset of the meeting for some reason, a number of videos [several are posted below] appear to document what happened as one man declared himself chair --- without the approval of attendees --- before subsequently naming a parliamentarian and other caucus officials, in what looks to be a very clear violations of the rules of order that are supposed to be used in the MO GOP caucuses.

A very similar commandeering of the Athens-Clarke County, Georgia delegate convention was reported --- and also documented on video --- last week. Those videos [also posted below] show state and county GOP officials blatantly ignoring what appears to be a majority of Paul supporters hoping to elect their own as delegates to the district and state GOP conventions. There as well, calls for "Division" votes were summarily ignored by the chair, and the official proceedings were prematurely shut down without the required two-thirds majority vote.

At the St. Charles caucus yesterday, state and local police were called in and the caucus was prematurely "voted" to a close (or, at least, announced as much by the local party apparatchik who had declared himself chairman). An impromptu parking lot meeting of Paul supporters outside the venue afterward was then broken up by several dozen police, a hovering helicopter, police sirens, and the arrest of Brent Stafford, the man who is seen as the local leader of the Paul supporters. Stafford was peacefully addressing the crowd in the parking lot when he was handcuffed and hauled away to shouts of "Right to Assemble!" from the onlookers.

I can't say that I've ever seen anything like the huge St. Charles event or the very similar, if smaller and less unruly, Athens-Clarke County, GA affair. At both events, Republican Party officials appear to be caught in the act --- and on video tape --- of blatantly stealing the democratic processes away from supporters of Paul.

All of that, amidst the background of elected Republican officials across the nation implementing disenfranchising polling place Photo ID restrictions in order to, they claim, deter "voter fraud" from corrupting elections...

[Hat-tip @PoliticoRoger.]

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

On Friday, an intermediate Wisconsin appellate court denied a request made by WI Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen (R), on behalf of Gov. Scott Walker's administration, to stay an order issued earlier this month by a Dane County Circuit Court that temporarily suspended the state GOP's polling place Photo ID law.

In Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP v. Walker --- the first of two cases within the past two weeks to result in an injunction on the voting restrictions, known as "Act 23," enacted by a Republican-majority last year --- Judge David Flanagan temporarily enjoined [PDF] enforcement of the law on the grounds that it was in violation of the WI Constitution's guaranteed right to vote.

As of now, that injunction will still stand. In the bargain, local election officials are now seeking to comply with Judge Flanagan's order, so that Photo ID will not be required at the polls in the statewide April primary elections, upcoming recall elections scheduled for May and June, or for the 2012 general election this November.

Unless the denial of a stay is promptly reversed by the partisan Republican majority on the WI Supreme Court, the ruling could have an immediate adverse impact on the ability of the state's controversial Governor, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and the Republican state Senators facing upcoming recall elections to retain office...

State Sen. Pam Galloway --- one of four Wisconsin Senate Republicans scheduled to face upcoming recall elections in the still-redounding blowback from the state GOP's assault on collective bargaining rights last year --- has announced her resignation today.

The result is that GOP's 17-16 majority over Democrats in the chamber prior to today (it had been a 19-14 majority until the first round of recall elections last year) is now gone.

For the moment, the chamber is now evenly split at 16-16. The GOP has lost sole control of the chamber.

Galloway is citing family health issues as the reason for her surprise resignation today. According to TPM's Eric Kleefeld, "Galloway won her Senate seat by a five-point margin in the 2010 Republican wave, defeating the incumbent state Senate Majority Leader in the traditionally Democratic Wausau district." She had been scheduled to face Assistant state Assembly Minority Leader Donna Seidel in the upcoming recall.

As per WI recall rules, the contest for her seat, the three other Senators and the offices of Republican Gov. Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, will move forward as planned. The GOP will be allowed to replace Galloway on the ballot.

The dates for those elections are now set for May 8th and June 5th. The first date will be a recall primary for those races in which there is a contested nomination, otherwise that will be the actual recall election for that seat. The second date would then be the actual recall elections. As the race for the nomination to take on Walker himself is currently being contested by several Democrats, that historic election will be held on June 5th --- coincidentally, the same day as the California Presidential primary elections.

Citing Rush Limbaugh's current self-inflicted woes, John Parikhal, CEO of Joint Communications, a 30+ year old media consulting operation, tells radio industry publication NTS Media Online that the future may be gloomy for folks in the talk radio "attack" business.

He charges that "out of touch" Limbaugh "is the proverbial canary in a coal mine" as Americans who have "been in 'attack' mode" for 15 years are beginning to realize "that attack has gained them nothing"...

That's one big canary. Don't know if Parikhal has nailed it or not, but his thoughts are certainly of note, as what has happened to Limbaugh --- Clear Channel-owned Premier Radio's $38 million/year baby --- has also served to put other RW talkers on pins and needles at the moment, while they watch to see how thinks shake out for poor Rush, whose big advertisers are now trampling each other to run away from.

On KFI, the 50,000-watt AM blowtorch which has been carrying Limbaugh out here in Los Angeles for decades, commercial breaks are now largely filled with local-only spots, campaign ads for the GOP Presidential primary (usually from Newt Gingrich's Super PAC), with almost every break punctuated with what could be a stinging foretelling of Rush's future: An ad from Glenn Beck and his online-only GBTV venture.

In a related story today, Media Matters' Eric Boehlert looks at the precarious place in which Clear Channel (as currently owned by Mitt Romney's Bain Capital, LLC) now finds itself --- thanks to the less-than-conservative all-in bet the media behemoth has banked on Rush, in "Struggling Clear Channel And Rush Limbaugh's $400 Million Payday".

"I'm shaken up. I mean, I've never done anything like this before," 55-year old former U.S. Marine Tim Thompson said after being turned away from the polling place for refusing to show a Photo ID when attempting to vote on Super Tuesday under a new Tennessee restriction on voting rights passed by Republican lawmakers.

Last week, we told you about Thompson and his protest at the same Nashville polling place where he'd voted for years without incident. It was the first state election in TN in which state-issued Photo ID was required in exchange for the right to vote at a polling place.

Though Thompson presented his voter registration card as sent to him by the state, it was not enough under the new law to allow him to vote on a normal ballot. "I've used this for 37 years," the former Lance Corporal is seen on video telling the precinct supervisor at the poll. "This was good enough for my father. This was good enough for my grandfather, and I refuse to show you a picture ID," he said.

The new law was passed in TN despite tens of of thousands of legally registered --- disproportionately Democratic-leaning --- voters who lack the requisite ID now needed to vote. Many of them are likely to be disenfranchised this year. Among such voters we've reported on previously in the state: 96-year old Dorothy Cooper and 93-year old Thelma Mitchell, to name just two who had been able to vote for decades there without a problem --- even through the Jim Crow era --- until this year.

Thompson's complete confrontation with the poll worker can be seen in video we published here last week. The story was also picked up by a number of local media outlets and, later that night, by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. Part of it was played during an appearance we made on RT TV, as seen around the world, earlier this week.

Today, documentary filmmaker David Earnhardt, director of the award-winning Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections, shares his behind-the-scenes video of what happened before, during and after Thompson's protest. [FULL DISCLOSURES: Earnhardt happens to be the brother-in-law of Thompson, and we happen to appear in Uncounted, but it's an excellent film anyway.]

This short and inspiring documentary offers insight into the reasons for Thompson's protest. He explains that he hopes his fight to help restore the rights taken away from Tennessee voters may inspire others to stand up for our democracy, both in his state and elsewhere around the country where similar restrictions have recently been enacted.

In this video, Thompson is seen explaining to media on hand to interview him after he'd left the polling place last Tuesday: "When I took my oath, it was for all people, all Americans --- Republican, Democrat, black, white. It didn't matter what color you were or what religion you believed in. It didn't matter. It was for all Americans. That's what Marines fight for."

"I was willing to sacrifice my vote to stand up today and represent all the people that's not going to be able to vote," says Thompson. "Don't let your right to vote stop because these politicians have passed a law that limits your vote, that's exactly what they want to do"...

But there is now more to the inspiring story, underscoring again how one person standing up for their rights really can make a difference...