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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Japan to phase out nuclear power --- sort of; US nuke whistleblower warns of new risks; Shell gives up on Arctic drilling --- for now; PLUS: It's official: August 2012 was hot --- really hot ... 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): Fox Stumbles Over The Truth On Gas Prices; Ruptured pipe at Chevron refinery fire 'thin as a penny'; Crop insurance losses begin to mount amid drought; National Guard aids Halliburton in search for missing radioactive rod; Alaskans to get $878 in yearly oil wealth payout (socialism!); Wind industry cuts jobs while Congress dawdles; Africa elephant slaughter funds conflicts; Freaked-out climate scientists urge other freaked-out climate scientists to speak up ... PLUS: Victory: Judge rules scientist Michael Mann's emails off-limits ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Given disenfranchising polling place Photo ID restriction laws Republicans have enacted in nearly a dozen states over the past year, you'd think there was an epidemic of Democratic "voter fraud" in this nation. That's certainly the way the GOP has framed it, fooled the corporate mainstream media into reporting it, and even scammed the White House and Congressional Democrats into going along with it when they signed legislation that defunded ACORN, a four-decade old community organization never found to have committed voter fraud, or even helped to see a single fraudulent vote cast in any election anywhere.

As it turns out, not only is there no such epidemic of Democratic voter fraud, but the opposite is true. Over the past year, very high profile Republicans --- including this year's presumed standard bearer, Mitt Romney; the Sec. of State of Indiana (the first state to institute polling place Photo ID restrictions) Charlie White; one time GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich; MO's new GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate Todd Akin; and the group hired the Sacramento, CA Republican Party to collect voter registrations this year for Rep. Dan Lungren; among others (all detailed below) --- have each been revealed as having committed or participated in election fraud --- both voter registration fraud and actual voter fraud --- in state after state.

One might even call it "an epidemic". Or, if you prefer, "one of the greatest frauds in voter history, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy," as then GOP Presidential nominee John McCain described what Republicans pretended ACORN was doing back in 2008 (just before it was revealed he had previously been the group's keynote speaker where he told ACORN's members they were "what makes America special.")

So really, should we be surprised to learn that four aides to former long-shot GOP Presidential candidate and U.S. House Rep. Thaddeus McCotter --- Representative of the state's 11th and one of its most Republican districts --- were indicted yesterday on dozens of criminal felony and misdemeanor election fraud charges for having turned in over 1,500 forged and falsified signatures in a "blatant" and "disgraceful" attempt, as the state's Republican AG described it, to qualify the Congressman for this year's ballot?...

[UPDATES: 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, and Lori Bone seen trying to hold GOP officials accountable after the Clarke County, GA delegate convention was stolen the week prior, both stories discussed and seen on video below, were my guests on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show Wednesday, 3/21/12. You can now listen to those interviews 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...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Sen. Inhofe puts God before science; GOP puts Keystone lies before U.S. oil and jobs; Fukushima 1 year later; Room for improvement in the US nuclear industry; Wacky warm winter leads to wacky wet early spring; Fracking caused Ohio earthquakes; PLUS: Rick Santorum: anti-science before anti-science was cool ... 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): World water supply increasingly at risk; Greenland ice melt seen at lower temperatures; 3D solar panels to replace roof shingles?; Breakthrough: Salt-tolerant wheat; Carbon emissions threaten world's oceans & food supply; Mine owner charged in Crandall Canyon Mine Disaster; Planet-saving ozone layer scientist dies ... PLUS: VIDEO: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change ... and much, MUCH more! ...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below! Enjoy 'em!]

Mike has the night off! So we're back tonight guest-hosting the nationally-syndicated Mike Malloy Show! And it's primary night in MI and AZ and we'll have not one, but two Presidential candidates as guests tonight!

We'll be BradCasting, as usual, LIVE from 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the globe from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE 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):

• MI & AZ PRIMARY RESULTS, or what they are reported to be, anyway. Also, just some of the reasons why you should be concerned that those reported results may not be what they are reported to be!
• GOV. BUDDY ROEMER, who is on GOP Presidential ballot both MI & AZ tonight, but who has recently left the party for a Reform Party candidacy and a run for the Americans Elect nomination.
• FRED KARGER, who is on the GOP Presidential ballot in MI and, unlike Roemer, still a member of the party for some reason. He's also the first openly gay Presidential candidate and the guy who alerted the world to Mitt Romney's apparent voter fraud in MA!
• PLUS! Depending on how MI and AZ is looking, some additional, last minute guests; lost op-scan votes in NY; Indiana's GOP Sec. of State getting off scot-free for voter fraud; "Webster's Follies" in Maine; no dead voters in SC; criminal probe closing in on Scott Walker in WI; and more you need to know about! Along with your phone calls over your public airwaves at 877-520-1150 and your 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 KPTR 1450 in Palm Springs or at WhiteRose Society or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Maybe someone had a bit too much caffeine today. Well, in any case, it led to a pretty high energy show! And lots of circus music! You can check it all out now for yourself, sans commercials, in the high-octane archives now posted below. Enjoy!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: GOP presidential crazy train stops in Fantasy Land on gas prices; Big Oil fights to keep its taxpayer subsidies; Mine official charged in WV mine disaster; Canadian government 'suppressing science'; PLUS: Mutant two-headed trout ... 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): GOP Not Listening to Its Own Scientists on Climate Change; What Cleantech Bust?; Utilities Blowing Smoke on Coal-Plant Retirements; World's Oceans Get an Acid Bath; Canada's Tar Sands So Destructive It Makes Its Well-Paid Workers Want to Quit; Army Corps brings back streamlined strip-mine permits; Radiation detected 400 miles off Japanese coast... PLUS: Analyst: Recycle All You Want, The Planet Won't Notice ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Gas prices hit record high on Iran-Israel tension; Shell one step closer to Arctic drilling; Update on 'DenialGate' - the fallout continues for the rightwing Heartland Institute; PLUS: Rick Santorum goes biblical on climate science ... 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): Settlement talks pick up ahead of BP Oil Spill trial; WI: New mining bill proven to mislead the public; Record flooding in Chile dislodges landmines; EPA: Low doses of Dioxin risky but most people safe; Dow agrees to clean dioxin-tainted properties; Chromium-6 in CA wells more than 1,000x above goal; Land-based pathogens discovered in marine mammals; Fracking industry buys Congress ... PLUS: Climate Forecast: 70% of U.S. Could face risk of water shortages by 2050 ... and much, MUCH more! ...

It was "standing room only" in the combined supercaucus in Washington County, Maine today, according to the Bangor Daily News. The paper reports "Ron Paul scores big wins in Hancock and Washington counties," the two counties which had yet to hold all of their caucuses before Maine's hapless, attempted vote suppressor and state GOP Chair Charlie Webster prematurely announced Mitt Romney the "winner" of the state caucuses by just 194 votes one week ago tonight.

But, according to both the paper's tallies and the state party's, Paul's pickups today were not enough to top Romney, as one more town has yet to caucus (Castine is currently scheduled for March 3), and as revised results, posted by the state GOP late last night, continue to be scrutinized...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Republican Insane Clown Posse rolls into CPAC with Rick Santorum, global conspiracy theorist and the job-killing Newt Gingrich on board; Obama calls again for ending taxpayer oil industry subsidies; PLUS: Okay, now it's personal: Global Warming impacts chocolate ... 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): Insurance co's should be selling public on climate change; China's huge solar deal with Dow; Warming hits microbes' carbon storage capacity;
Beef prices to rise due to TX drought; Hurricanes could topple wind farms w/o modifications; Amazon's defenders face death, exile ... PLUS: Move over, Evolution: The secret, corporate-funded plot to teach kids climate change is a "hoax"... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Santorum down the rabbit hole; New nukes for the US; Clean energy breakthroughs: seaweed ethanol, highest efficiency solar panels ever, plastic-eating fungus; PLUS: 'Betty Crocker Solar Power Cake Powder' ... 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): Interior Dept drilling reg enforcement is ‘erratic’, ‘inadequate’; Green economy lost fewer jobs in Great Recession; Big Oil: record profits by pumping less gas; Sea to submerge Louisiana by 2100: study; Frustrated fracking co. begins eminent domain proceedings against homeowners; 9/11 experiment shows whales affected by human noise; Wind energy does not contribute to global warming ... PLUS: Good news: Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years: study ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Even the GOP establishment --- which had long decided that Mitt Romney was their best hope to win back the White House in 2012 among those currently running --- could not overcome the intent of the voters as transparently expressed on publicly hand-counted, hand-marked paper ballots.

At the end of a January 3rd's Caucus Night in Iowa, our headline, written initially when Rick Santorum was momentarily up over Romney by just 4 votes, was "Santorum 'Wins' Iowa, Everyone Else Doesn't". An hour or so after we'd called it a night, the Iowa GOP stepped forward to declare Romney, not Santorum, had actually "won" by a slim 8 votes out of some 122,000 cast.

Finally today, the GOP has been forced to admit that Santorum was indeed the winner. Though our headline three Tuesday's ago was just slightly more accurate than the GOP's declaration for Romney that night. In truth, there was another winner in Iowa: The Voters.

It took just over two weeks for the GOP to admit it, but the party's final reported results from the hand-marked paper ballots cast on January 3rd, hand-counted in front of the public on Election Night (cast by voters who were not turned away for lack of a state-issued Photo ID) are there to tell the tail of who really won the all-important "First-in-the-Nation" Iowa Caucuses. The GOP couldn't have successfully lied about it if they'd wanted to. Oh, they could have tried. In fact, they did as Iowa's GOP chair Matthew Strawn announced just after 1p ET "Congratulations to Governor Mitt Romney, winner of the 2012 Iowa Caucuses." And the corporate media would have gone along with them --- and, in fact, they did, ever since the GOP's attempted lie on Election Night --- but the truth would have always been there for the public to see nonetheless.

Nobody ever had to rest their faith on a single source, like a political party or a candidate or a voting machine company --- though the media was all too happy to do so before moving on to New Hampshire. There was always a transparent, overseeable, system of checks and balances --- just as our Constitution envisions for the nation's governance as a whole --- there to assure that self-governance had a fighting chance to be more than a bumper sticker slogan hauled out when convenient, ignored when not.

Because the Iowa GOP allowed the people to oversee the counting of their own election, right then and there at the caucus sites, before ballots were moved anywhere, it was next to impossible for them to successfully game the system --- just as Edward True had proven two nights after the Jan 3rd Caucuses.

And speaking of Edward True, the Republican Party of Iowa owes this man, this patriot, this Ron Paul supporter a huge apology...

This is just too hilarious!

Over the weekend religious activists met somewhere in Texas to try and agree upon a "conservative" non-Romney to coalesce behind in hopes of stopping the former Massachusetts Governor's "inevitable" GOP nomination. After three ballots, reportedly, the group of some 150 religious activists finally agreed to throw their support behind Rick Santorum.

Or did they?

According to a supposedly "legitimate" rightwing news outlet today, the evangelical protestant backers of Newt Gingrich are now accusing the Catholic supporters of Santorum of election fraud and actual voter fraud!

If they did, it would hardly be the first instance of actual election fraud in the GOP camp to rear its ugly head during the Republican primary process to date...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Rick Santorum knows science better than "some people" ("some people" who are actually scientists); Grand Canyon is safe --- at least for awhile; Obama Administration's historic move to protect the nation's fisheries; No snow in Colorado; Too much snow in Alaska; PLUS: Republican presidential climate deniers visit a very warm New Hampshire ... 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): BP Oil Spill: Oil is more toxic than previously thought; Oil prices rise on Iran tensions, supply crunch; Nigerians protest rise in oil prices; Your car helps cause tornadoes; US coal plant wants new pollution rules; OH decides to stop fracking; Canada minister calls opponents of tar sands "foes of Canada"; Ducks doomed by global warming ... PLUS: Big Ag freaks out over tighter limits on toxic dioxin in food ... and much, MUCH more! ...

[UPDATED mid-story with screenshots from True's original Facebook postings of his recorded results on caucus night, and UPDATED AGAIN at bottom with the affidavit True has filed, and a few additional details from GOP officials and elsewhere on the current status of results. UPDATED YET AGAIN at bottom after we spoke at length with True late this afternoon and after GOP county chair confirms True's numbers.]

Thanks to the transparent, open counting process at Tuesday's night's Iowa GOP Caucuses, and a Ron Paul supporter who was paying close attention to the results, we may now be learning that Rick Santorum, not Mitt Romney, actually won the "First-in-the-Nation" Iowa Caucuses this week.

According to a report tonight from television station KCCI NewsChannel 8 in Des Moines, Edward True, a supporter of Paul's says he participated in the counting at the Washington Wells caucus in Appanoose County and wrote down the results he witnessed there on a piece of paper which he posted to Facebook that night. Later, in comparing his totals to the precinct results made available on the Iowa GOP website [CSV version here], he noticed that Romney is shown as receiving 22 votes at that precinct, rather than the 2 that True recorded him as receiving that night at the caucus.

If True is correct, and if no other anomalies are discovered in the coming days, it would mean that Santorum will have won the Iowa Caucuses by 12 votes, rather than lost it to Romney by 8, as reported by the GOP in the early morning hours on Wednesday...

[UPDATED 1/4/12, 10:30am]

The music has stopped, and the long game of musical chairs --- otherwise known as the 2011 Republican Iowa Caucuses --- has finally ended. Mostly.

Twitterer Steve King may have put it best when he said on Tuesday as the results we're coming in: "By tomorrow morning Santorum will be on the lips of every American." And it's true. If you don't believe him, just Google it.

With 100% of the results now reported, Mitt Romney is said to have defeated Rick Santorum, a late comer, but one who finally surged from behind, by just 8 votes. 8 votes.

With his "victory," however, Romney seems to have failed to even reach his own 2008 Iowa numbers. Then, when he came in second, he had 30,021 votes. Last night --- a full four years and who-knows-how-many millions of dollars later --- Romney's total was almost identical, at 30,015. He fell by a total of 6 votes from four years ago. 6 votes.

While we've been told --- largely by Fox "News" and the Republican candidates --- how invigorated the Republican electorate is and how they're chomping at the bit to defeat President Barack Obama, the turnout on Tuesday night doesn't seem to suggest as much. Turnout was approximately 122,000 voters --- just about 3,000 more than in 2008. The lackluster turnout and the lack of a decisive winner resulted in commentary on Fox last night which resembled a funeral procession, as opposed to their usually (overly) upbeat coverage.

In the meantime, Santorum reportedly "spent only $120,000 on direct mail and advertising in Iowa versus over $4.5 million by outside groups backing Romney alone." Former RNC Deputy Research Director Matt Moon reports that, when SuperPAC money is included, Romney will have paid $140 per Iowa caucus vote, while Santorum got a steal at just $21 a pop. Without SuperPAC money included, reports Moon, Romney paid $49/vote in Iowa, Santorum spent just $0.73. Some businessman that Romney is.

But once again, with the reported results as close as they are, we're reminded again that every single vote counts. Or at least it should. While every vote was cast on a hand-marked paper ballot at the GOP Iowa Caucuses (with Republicans requiring no Photo ID to vote), and those ballots supposedly counted publicly by hand at each caucus site where results were supposedly announced then and there before being phoned into Republican HQ, Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org reports that at least one large caucus in Des Moines was unwilling to release their results to CNN before phoning them in to the GOP.

As we were watching reported results on Yahoo's news site very late last night, the number of "reported" suddenly went backwards from 99.86% "REPORTING" back to 99.45%. It doesn't look like numbers changed all that much in the bargain at the time. Santorum was still on top, but only by a handful of votes. Shortly afterwards the reported percentage became 100%, and Romney was announced the "winning" by just 8 votes.

[NOTE: Harris will be my guest on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show today at 3:30p PT to discuss these matters, and concerns about next week's "First-in-the-Nation" primary in NH. If you're not in the Southern California area, you can listen live online right here. - BF]

We're trying to learn more about the issues mentioned above, and a few other related concerns about the late-night announcement of final results at this wee hour of the morning. And its worth a reminder here that, as ever, problems at the "polls" (or caucuses in this case) or concerns about reported elections results don't always emerge until days, weeks or sometimes even months later.

But for now, no matter who is ultimately determined to be the winner of the 2012 Iowa Republican Caucuses, Santorum's "victory" in the Hawkeye State is no small thing. Just ask President Huckabee.