Friedman, Bradblog

<a href="https://bradblog.com">https://bradblog.com</a>/?p=14119  podcast<a href="http://twitter.com/jeffhauser" style="">JEFF HAUSER</a>, director of <a href="http://therevolvingdoorproject.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Revolving Door Project</a>, who scrutinizes the executive branch appointments. 
----Germany shuts down half of its last remaining nuclear power plants; Trump's EPA chief, a former coal lobbyist, tapped for Virginia's top environmental post
'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): 6 big environmental stories to watch in 2022; 2021 temperature records now coming in; Manchin [claims he] sees path to climate deal; A month of unprecedented U.S. weather disasters ends with Colorado fire catastrophe; Ford launches effort to make EV charging in the US much easier; Texas gas barons have not learned lessons of blackouts; Judge orders release of disputed DAPL documents; Texas enacts nation's strongest flood disclosure law; Wildfires are digging carbon-spewing holes in the Arctic... PLUS: This vast wildfire lab is helping foresters prepare for a hotter planet... and much, MUCH more! ...<a id="more-14125" style="" />STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...<ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="margin-left: 25px;">Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear power plants:</li><ul><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-germany-angela-merkel-gerhard-schroeder-11b97717f822a38c90fb7483ffc825aa" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Germany Shuts Down Half Of Its 6 Remaining Nuclear Plants</a> (AP):
<div class="mediagreen" style="background: url("/Images/GradientDarkGreen_headline.jpg") repeat-y rgb(206, 248, 146); border: none; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 15px; padding: 8px;">The decision to phase out nuclear power and shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy was first taken by the center-left government of Gerhard Schroeder in 2002. His successor, Angela Merkel, reversed her decision to extend the lifetime of Germanyâ€™s nuclear plants in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan and set 2022 as the final deadline for shutting them down.</div></li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=germany%20shut%20down%20plants" style="text-decoration-line: none;">VIDEO: Germany nuclear energy: Three plants to close under controversial phase-out</a> (Al Jazeera)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYM33-zj2d4" style="text-decoration-line: none;">VIDEO: Germany to shut nuclear sites despite energy crunch</a> (DW News)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2022/01/04/germany-and-france-clash-over-eus-new-green-classifications-for-nuclear-energy-and-natural-gas/?sh=73c1755976b7" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Germany And France Clash Over EUâ€™s New â€œGreenâ€ Classifications for Nuclear Energy and Natural Gas</a> (Forbes)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/germany-rejected-nuclear-power-and-deadly-emissions-spiked/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Germany Rejected Nuclear Powerâ€”and Deadly Emissions Spiked</a> (Wired, 1/23/2020)</li></ul><li style="margin-left: 25px;">PG&E equipment caused massive Dixie Fire in California:</li><ul><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-04/northern-california-dixie-fire-started-by-pge-power-line-investigation-finds" style="text-decoration-line: none;">PG&E power line sparked the nearly million-acre Dixie fire, investigation finds </a>(LA Times):
<div class="mediagreen" style="background: url("/Images/GradientDarkGreen_headline.jpg") repeat-y rgb(206, 248, 146); border: none; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 15px; padding: 8px;">State investigators have determined that a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. power line was responsible for sparking last yearâ€™s massive Dixie fire, which torched more than 960,000 acres in five Northern California counties as it burned clear across the Sierra Nevada.</div></li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/05/california-finds-pge-equipment-responsible-for-massive-dixie-fire-.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">California finds PG&E equipment responsible for massive Dixie Fire </a>(CNBC)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11900606/frustrated-with-pge-denial-of-wildfire-charges-judge-raises-possibility-of-extending-probation" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Frustrated With PG&E Denial of Wildfire Charges, Judge Raises Possibility of Extending Probation</a> (KQED):
<div class="mediagreen" style="background: url("/Images/GradientDarkGreen_headline.jpg") repeat-y rgb(206, 248, 146); border: none; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 15px; padding: 8px;">"One of the things we hope for when we have criminals like PG&E that are on probation is that over the course of time they come to accept responsibility," Alsup said, addressing PG&E attorney Reid Schar. "In five years you've never done that. You've never accepted responsibility for any of these fires until it's convenient or you're up against the wall and have to plead guilty."</div></li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/wildfire/pge-dixie-fire-power-lines/103-8fabb3d6-d2e6-47da-9b5f-366867cf3539" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Prosecutor investigating PG&E's role in Dixie Fire says Cal Fire determination is 'not the end' of criminal investigation</a> (ABC10-Sacramento)</li></ul><li style="margin-left: 25px;">VA's Republican Gov.-Elect Youngkin taps Trump's EPA chief:</li><ul><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/va-governor-elect-taps-trump-epa-chief-for-key-post/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">VA Governor-Elect Taps Trump EPA Chief For Key Post</a> (E&E News)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/youngkin-nominates-trump-epa-chief-andrew-wheeler-for-secretary-of-natural-resources/ar-AAStinw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Youngkin nominates Trump EPA chief Andrew Wheeler for secretary of natural resources</a> (Washington Post/MSN):
<div class="mediagreen" style="background: url("/Images/GradientDarkGreen_headline.jpg") repeat-y rgb(206, 248, 146); border: none; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 15px; padding: 8px;">Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin (R) on Wednesday nominated Andrew Wheeler â€” a former coal lobbyist who led a rollback of Obama-era environmental regulations as President Donald Trumpâ€™s Environmental Protection Agency chief â€” as his secretary of natural resources.</div></li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/trump-epa-chief-andrew-wheeler-222312876.html?src=rss" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump EPA Chief Andrew Wheeler Tapped For Virginia's Top Environmental Post</a> (Huffington Post/Yahoo News)</li></ul><li style="margin-left: 25px;">New solar plants planned for Virginia's former coal fields:</li><ul><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20211230135718-m4wkp/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Solar Power Projects See The Light on Former Appalachian Coal Land</a> (Reuters):
<div class="mediagreen" style="background: url("/Images/GradientDarkGreen_headline.jpg") repeat-y rgb(206, 248, 146); border: none; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 15px; padding: 8px;">While using former mining land to generate solar energy has long been discussed, this and five related sites are among the first projects to move forward in the coalfields of the central Appalachian Mountains, as well as nationally.</div></li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://solarmagazine.com/switch-to-solar-at-coal-power-plants-and-mines-is-on/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Switch to Solar at Coal Power Plants and Mines is On</a> (Solar Magazine)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.inverse.com/innovation/heres-how-we-turn-west-virginia-coal-mines-into-solar-fields" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Here's how we turn former coal mine lands in West Virginia into solar fields</a> (Inverse, 2/27/2020)</li></ul><li style="margin-left: 25px;">San Francisco to get world's first hydrogen-powered ferry:</li><ul><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/hydrogen-powered-ferry-debut-san-005651825.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Hydrogen-powered ferry to debut in San Francisco</a> (CBS News/Yahoo:
<div class="mediagreen" style="background: url("/Images/GradientDarkGreen_headline.jpg") repeat-y rgb(206, 248, 146); border: none; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 15px; padding: 8px;">A much larger hydrogen-powered ferry is now being built in Europe, and the technology could eventually be applied to container ships. But there is a downside: if hydrogen leaks during production or from its tanks, it contributes to global warming.</div></li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://maritime-executive.com/article/first-us-hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered-passenger-ferry-launched" style="text-decoration-line: none;">First US Hydrogen Fuel Cell Powered Passenger Ferry Launched</a> (Maritime Executive)</li></ul><li style="margin-left: 25px;">Big automakers accelerate shift to electric vehicles:</li><ul><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30122021/electric-vehicles-toyota-tesla-vw/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Toyota to Spend $35 Billion on Electric Push in an Effort to Take on Tesla</a> (Inside Climate News):
<div class="mediagreen" style="background: url("/Images/GradientDarkGreen_headline.jpg") repeat-y rgb(206, 248, 146); border: none; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 15px; padding: 8px;">The auto giantâ€™s investment target trails VWâ€™s $58.5 billion pledge. But one analyst said Toyota seems now to have a "high level of commitment" to EVs.</div></li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/05/the-chevy-silverado-finally-goes-electric/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Chevy Silverado finally goes electric</a> (TechCrunch)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/enthusiasts/chevy-silverado-ev-will-be-first-production-car-with-24-inch-wheels/ar-AAStwHl" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Chevy Silverado EV Will Be First Production Car WIth 24-Inch Wheels</a> (The Drive/MSN)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kubAKhOKaZA" style="text-decoration-line: none;">VIDEO: Watch GM reveal the 2024 Chevy Silverado EV</a> (CNET highlights)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/ford-plans-to-double-production-of-its-electric-f-150-lightning-to-keep-up-with-surging-demand/ar-AASqtbo" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Ford plans to double production of its electric F-150 Lightning to keep up with surging demand</a> (Business Insider/MSN)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/ford-doubles-lightning-production-electric-110429936.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Ford, GM shares jump as electric truck battle heats up</a> (Reuters/Yahoo News)</li></ul></ul>'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...For a comprehensive roundup of daily environmental news you can trust, see the <a href="http://www.sej.org/headlines/list" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Society of Environmental Journalists' Daily Headlines</a> page<ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://therevelator.org/environmental-stories-watch-2022/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">6 Big Environmental Stories to Watch in 2022</a> (The Revelator)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://climatecrocks.com/2022/01/04/2021-temperature-records-now-coming-in/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2021 Temperature Records Now Coming In </a>(Climate Crocks)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/manchin-voices-support-for-climate-package/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Manchin [claims he] sees path to climate deal</a> (E&E News)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/01/a-month-of-unprecedented-u-s-weather-disasters-ends-with-colorado-fire-catastrophe/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">A month of unprecedented U.S. weather disasters ends with Colorado fire catastrophe </a>(Yale Climate Connections)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.theregreview.org/2021/11/29/sarinsky-howard-curbing-fossil-fuel-extraction-reduce-climate-pollution/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Yes, Curbing U.S. Fossil Fuel Extraction Does Reduce Climate Pollution</a> (The Regulatory Review)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/ev-charging-stations-are-annoying-ford-wants-to-fix-them/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EV charging stations are annoying. Ford wants to fix them</a> (E&E News)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://climatecrocks.com/2022/01/06/gas-barons-have-not-learned-lessons-of-blackouts/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Gas Barons Have not Learned Lessons of Blackouts</a> (Climate Crocks)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/epas-failure-to-disclose-chemical-health-risks-draws-ire/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EPA's Failure To Disclose Chemical Health Risk Draws Ire</a> (E&E News)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05012022/offshore-wind-california-biden/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Biden Administration Eyes Wind Leases Off Californiaâ€™s Coast</a> (Inside Climate News)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/climate/fire-forest-management-bootleg-oregon.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">This Vast Wildfire Lab Is Helping Foresters Prepare for a Hotter Planet</a> (NY Times)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/north-dakota-judge-rules-thousands-of-disputed-dapl-documents-are-public-records/article_9a5ef165-2753-59cf-969e-be633f8ab25a.html#tracking-source=home-top-story" style="text-decoration-line: none;">N Dakota Judge Rules 1000s Of Disputed DAPL Documents Are Public Records</a> (Bismarck Tribune)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/texas-enacts-nations-strongest-flood-disclosure-law/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Texas Enacts Nationâ€™s Strongest Flood Disclosure Law</a> (E&E News)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/regulatory-fight-looms-over-first-ever-air-toxics-addition/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Regulatory Fight Looms Over First-Ever Air Toxics Addition</a> (E&E News)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-environment-and-nature-lawsuits-nevada-environment-a9af3a81afb87ede3f6a9c9179f3987d" style="text-decoration-line: none;">US Judge Blocks Work At Nevada Geothermal Plant For 90 Days</a> (AP)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/federal-report-ids-new-carcinogens/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Federal Report IDs New Carcinogens</a> (E&E News)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/wildfires-are-digging-carbon-spewing-holes-in-the-arctic/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Wildfires Are Digging Carbon-Spewing Holes in the Arctic</a> (Wired)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/as-its-topsoil-washes-away-the-corn-belt-is-losing-yields-and-carbon/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">As its topsoil washes away, the Corn Belt is losing yields â€” and carbon</a> (Mongabay)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://climatechangenews.com/2021/12/23/solar-power-changed-syrian-refugees-lives-jordan-want/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Solar power has changed Syrian refugees' lives in Jordan - and they want more</a> (Climate Change News)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2021-11-30/geopolitics-energy-green-upheaval" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Green Upheaval: The New Geopolitics of Energy</a> (Foreign Affairs)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2021/oct/25/2050-what-happens-if-we-ignore-the-climate-crisis-video-explainer?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1635153345" style="text-decoration-line: none;">VIDEO: 2050: what happens if we ignore the climate crisis</a> (Guardian UK)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://nordot.app/824149301263220736?c=592622757532812385" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Guilt, grief and anxiety as young people fear for climate's future</a> (Reuters)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/19/case-closed-999-of-scientists-agree-climate-emergency-caused-by-humans" style="text-decoration-line: none;">99.9 percent Of Scientists Agree Climate Emergency Caused By Humans</a> (Guardian UK)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/features/diversified-energy-natural-gas-wells-methane-leaks-2021/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">An Empire of Dying Wells: Old oil and gas sites are a climate menace. Meet the company that owns more of America's decaying wells than any other.</a> (Bloomberg)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/climate-fund-choices-investors-multiplying-100008743.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Climate Fund Choices for Investors Are Multiplying</a> (Bloomberg/Yahoo)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://grist.org/climate/how-climate-change-could-undo-50-years-of-public-health-gains/?utm_campaign=sprout&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=1607385935" style="text-decoration-line: none;">How climate change could undo 50 years of public health gains</a> (Grist)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-change-will-force-a-new-american-migration" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration</a> (Pro Publica)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/exxons_snake_oil.php?mc_cid=35c880dfb2&mc_eid=7741025947" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Exxon's Snake Oil: 100 years of deception</a> (Columbia Journalism Review)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27082019/12-years-climate-change-explained-ipcc-science-solutions" style="text-decoration-line: none;">What Does '12 Years to Act on Climate Change' (Now 9 Years) Really Mean?</a> (Inside Climate News)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9uTH0iprVQ&feature=youtu.be" style="text-decoration-line: none;">VIDEO: A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a> (The Intercept)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/5/7/17306008/climate-change-global-warming-scenarios-ambition" style="text-decoration-line: none;">What genuine, no-bullshit ambition on climate change would look like: How to hit the most stringent targets, with no loopholes.</a> (David Roberts, Vox)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/9/5/17816808/sustainability-26-trillion" style="text-decoration-line: none;">A Global Shift To Sustainability Would Save Us $26 Trillion</a> (Vox)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.drawdown.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming</a> (Drawdown.org)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kyp8y/an-optimists-guide-to-solving-climate-change-and-saving-the-world" style="text-decoration-line: none;">An Optimist's Guide to Solving Climate Change and Saving the World</a> (Vice)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The great nutrient collapse: The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.</a> (Politico)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/30/17300946/global-warming-degrees-replace-fossil-fuels" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The world's bleak climate situation, in 3 charts: We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there.</a> (Vox)</li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/opinion/climate-report-global-warming.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Climate Risks We Face</a> (NY Times):
<div class="mediagreen" style="background: url("/Images/GradientDarkGreen_headline.jpg") repeat-y rgb(206, 248, 146); border: none; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 15px; padding: 8px;">To stabilize global temperature, net carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero. The window of time is rapidly closing to reduce emissions and limit warming to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the goal set in the Paris climate accord. The further we push the climate system beyond historical conditions, the greater the risks of potentially unforeseen and even catastrophic changes to the climate - so every reduction in emissions helps.</div></li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Uninhabitable Earth: When will climate change make earth too hot for humans?</a> (New York Magazine):
<div class="mediagreen" style="background: url("/Images/GradientDarkGreen_headline.jpg") repeat-y rgb(206, 248, 146); border: none; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 15px; padding: 8px;">Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak - sooner than you think.</div></li><li style="margin-left: 25px;"><a href="http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/4/4/14942764/100-renewable-energy-debate" style="text-decoration-line: none;">A beginner's guide to the debate over 100% renewable energy</a> (Vox):
<div class="mediagreen" style="background: url("/Images/GradientDarkGreen_headline.jpg") repeat-y rgb(206, 248, 146); border: none; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 15px; padding: 8px;">Clean-energy enthusiasts frequently claim that we can go bigger, that it's possible for the whole world to run on renewables - we merely lack the "political will." So, is it true? Do we know how get to an all-renewables system? Not yet. Not really.</div></li></ul>----Former Mobil Oil VP's Scathing Open Letter to ExxonMobil CEO Who Is Suing to Stop Fracking Water Tank Near His $5 Million Texas MansionBy BRAD FRIEDMAN on 2/28/2014, As we discussed during Tuesday's Green News Report, Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, the most profitable corporation in the history of civilization, doesn't mind fracking --- nor the health concerns and property devaluation that come with it --- near your house.But now he's suing to stop it near his house...or, rather, suing to stop the construction of a 15-story water tower, to be used for fracking, near his $5 million, 83-acre mansion and ranch in Bartonville, Texas.It will "create a constant and unbearable nuisance to those that live next to it," the lawsuit contends, charging that water used for fracking will lead to "traffic with heavy trucks" that, Tillerson's attorney says, "devalues his property.""Poor" fellow. Hope he wins the suit.But, if not, as former Mobil Oil Corporation Executive Vice President Louis W. Allstadt points out in a scathing open letter to Tillerson sent on Tuesday, he can always afford to move away...unlike most of the less fortunate victims of fracking around the nation.After more than 30 years at Mobil (and six months at ExxonMobil under Tillerson, after the two companies merged), Allstadt went on to become a foe of fracking and a vocal proponent of climate change action."No one should have to live near well pads, compression stations, incessant heavy truck traffic, or fracking water towers, nor should they have their water or air contaminated," Alstadt writes in his letter to Tillerson, who is otherwise a champion of fracking when its not in his own backyard. "You and I love the places where we live, but in the end, if they are ruined by fracking or frack water tanks, we can afford to pack up and go someplace else. However, many people can't afford to move away when they can no longer drink the water or breathe the air because they are too close to one of your well pads or compressor stations."Read Alstadt's full letter to Tillerson below. Oh, and thank you for speaking up, Mr. Alstadt...Open Letter to Rex Tillerson,Chairman, ExxonMobilFrom Lou Allstadt
Dear Rex,We have never met, but I worked for your company for six months immediately after the ExxonMobil merger, the implementation of which I coordinated from the Mobil side. That was after thirty years with Mobil Oil Corporation, where just prior to the merger I had been an Executive Vice President and Operating Officer for Exploration and Producing in the U.S., Canada and Latin America. I now live in upstate New York.For the past five years, I have been actively trying to keep your company and the rest of the industry from fracking here. I understand from several press articles that you have fracking issues of your own, with a fracking water tower and truck traffic possibly detracting from your view and the value of your home.In response to the prospect of fracking ruining our communities, many New York towns have passed zoning laws that prohibit heavy industry, including any activities associated with drilling for oil and gas. Those laws, along with very little prospect for economic gas production in New York, mean that we probably will not have to look at fracking water towers, let alone live next to fracking well pads. I say probably, because your industry is still fighting those zoning laws in the courts.Ironically, your reasoning at the Bartonville, Texas town council meetings is virtually identical to the reasoning that I and many other citizens used to convince our local town councils to pass laws that prohibit the very problem you have encountered, plus all of the other infrastructure and waste disposal issues associated with fracking.No one should have to live near well pads, compression stations, incessant heavy truck traffic, or fracking water towers, nor should they have their water or air contaminated. You and I love the places where we live, but in the end, if they are ruined by fracking or frack water tanks, we can afford to pack up and go someplace else. However, many people can’t afford to move away when they can no longer drink the water or breathe the air because they are too close to one of your well pads or compressor stations.My efforts to prevent fracking started over water --- not the prospect of having to see a water tank from my home, but rather regulations that would allow gas wells near our sources of drinking water, in addition to well pads next to our homes, schools, hospitals and nursing homes. These issues are legitimate, but they are localized. I am now much more concerned with the greenhouse gas impacts of fossil fuels in general, and particularly the huge impact of methane emissions from natural gas production and transportation. These are global problems that local zoning cannot protect against. Only a major shift toward renewable energy sources can begin to mitigate their catastrophic climate impacts.Before closing, I should explain why I have referred to ExxonMobil as "your company."For several years after retiring I thought of ExxonMobil as "my company." I thought that the company’s rigor and discipline in investing in sound projects was as good as it gets, and ExxonMobil was my largest single investment. I no longer own any shares of ExxonMobil or any other fossil fuel company. I would prefer to be an early investor in alternative energy for the 21st century rather than hanging on to dwindling prospects for investments in 19th and 20th century fossil fuels.It is time that ExxonMobil started shifting away from oil and gas, and toward alternatives --- both for environmental reasons and to protect the long-term viability of the company. Many large energy producers and consumers, including ExxonMobil, are building a carbon fee into their long-term planning assumptions. Actively supporting the phase-in of a carbon fee would be one way to move the company into the 21st century. Recognizing that methane emissions disqualify natural gas as a "bridge fuel" is another.Good luck with that fracking water tank. I hope you don’t have to move, and also that you will help a lot of other people stay in the homes they love.Regards,Lou Allstadt<a href="https://bradblog.com/?p=10519">https://bradblog.com/?p=10519</a>=<div style="">bradblog:</div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><div class="article_content" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Vadum will lie about anything he needs to in order to collect his wingnut welfare paychecks apparently. American values such as democracy be damned. It's partisan politics (and paychecks) at all costs.Vadum has, of late, taken over from the disgraced Bush/Cheney general counsel turned fake “voting rights advocate” <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?page_id=4418" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">Thor Hearne of the fake “American Center for Voting Rights” (ACVR)</a>, and the <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7496" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">disgraced liar John Fund of the Wall Street Journal</a> as the moment's GOP master of media misinformation meant to confuse the public about polling place Photo ID restriction laws passed by the GOP in statehouses around the country over the past few months in order to suppress the legal Democratic-leaning vote in advance of 2012.Like Hearne and Fund before him, he's very good at his job. He's very aggressive. And there is little he is unwilling to blatantly, if cleverly, lie about to fool his gullible constituency.<a href="https://dailycaller.com/2011/07/29/mississippi-naacp-leader-sent-to-prison-for-10-counts-of-voter-fraud/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">Vadum's latest misinformative article</a>, as published by Tucker Carlson's The Daily Caller and, predictably, echoed around the intellectually dishonest and incurious wingnut blogosphere last week, picks up where his recently published <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1935071149/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=tbb-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=1935071149" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">propaganda book about ACORN</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=tbb-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1935071149&camp=217145&creative=399373" width="1" style="border: medium none !important; box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px !important;" /> leaves off.That book, which he was kind enough to send us a copy of recently, is pitched on its cover and its publicity sheet as an exposé uncovering the truth behind the former four-decade old community organization who he describes as “Ballot Box Stuffers,” “Urban Terrorists,” and “Gangsters.”That his silly book fails to detail even a single ballot box “stuffed” by ACORN is little surprise. There exists no actual evidence, after all, of any illegal vote ever having been cast by any voter who was improperly registered by an ACORN worker. But this is all politics as usual to partisans like Vadum. So preposterous propaganda meant to directly undermine American democracy is merely all in a days work for dudes like him.The same disingenuous “voter fraud” sleight-of-hand used in his book is once again recycled in his latest “news” article. Like his book, the article is meant to do little more than dishonestly reinforce support for reprehensible voter suppression laws that offer an advantage to Republicans at the ballot box. As Vadum knows, it's far easier for Republicans to “win” elections by keeping their opposition from being able to cast their legal votes —- and certainly easier than risking jail time by gaming electronic voting systems —- than it would be to actually garner popular support for their actual agenda. That's the game for which Vadum gets paid.He's a rather silly man, and its child's play, naturally, to demonstrate, using his own words —- as we've been doing similarly for years with now-disgraced 'voter fraud' fraudsters like Hearne and Fund —- how Vadum knowingly lies to his constituency. But we guess it's necessary to do it one more time here with Vadum, if only to place it on the Internet record to help those who don't know about him or his pernicious scam, and how it's meant to mislead otherwise good folks with clever “voter fraud” rhetoric that represents the problem as something far different than what it actually is….The story that Vadum uses as the hook for his Daily Caller disinfo has to do with a Mississippi woman named Lessadolla Sowers who was convicted last April of 10 counts of absentee ballot fraud. Vadum calls it a “massive voter fraud scheme,” and uses her role as a member of the Executive Board of the Tunica, Mississippi, NAACP to bash the national NAACP and its President Benjamin Jealous for “lash[ing] out at new state laws requiring photo ID for voting.”Vadum presents no evidence in his article that Sowers' crimes were part of a broader conspiracy that involved the NAACP itself in any way, either locally or nationally, or even evidence to justify calling it a “massive scheme.” As far as we can tell, the crimes were Sowers' and Sowers' alone. Nonetheless, we have no quibble with pointing out what appear to be very serious crimes on the part of the woman, if the account of the court case as reported by the tiny Tunica Times newspaper is accurate. (Their <a href="http://tunicatimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1176:sowers-guilty-on-ten-voter-fraud-counts&catid=2:paid&Itemid=26" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">April article is here</a>, thought most of it is now behind a pay-wall.)Sowers was convicted of requesting that absentee ballots be sent to a PO Box of hers, where she then received them, filled them out and returned them, unbeknownst to the voters whose names she was defrauding.We're glad she was caught. We have spent many years pointing out on these pages that when it comes to voter fraud —- fraud actually committed by voters, versus insider election fraud, which is largely as simple as a single election official punching a few buttons on a computer tabulator to change the outcome of an election wholesale, or removing voters from the computerized voter rolls —- absentee ballot fraud is far and away the easiest and most common way to game the system.What Vadum doesn't bother to point out in his article, for some odd reason, is that polling place Photo ID restriction laws do nothing to deter absentee ballot fraud of the kind committed by Sowers. Nothing. Apparently, Vadum forgot to mention that, even though he used the Sowers' case as the hook on which to hang his article arguing for Photo ID restrictions.Polling place voter impersonation —- which Sowers was not accused of doing, but which Photo ID restrictions are said by Republicans to be needed to deter —- is extraordinarily rare. It's also an incredibly difficult way to have any real affect on any actual election.By way of just one example to underscore this point, we'd point you to the George W. Bush Dept. of Justice's <a href="http://bradblog.com/images/NYTimes_VoterFraud_DoJ_Oct02-Sep05_larger.gif" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">own statistics from October 2002 to September 2005</a>. Even after investing unprecedented resources into investigating and prosecuting the crime of voter fraud, the federal government was able to find <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?r=1&pagewanted=all" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">“scant evidence”</a> of it during that period, successfully convicting just 23 people for casting a vote while ineligible or for voting multiple times. That, out of hundreds of millions of votes cast during the same period. Of those 23 convictions, the numbers are not broken down into how many were convicted of absentee fraud versus how many carried out the dangerous and exceedingly rare practice of showing up in person at the polls and impersonating another voter. But even if all 23 cases were polling place impersonation —- and they almost certainly were not —- the number is exceedingly small.Compare that to the more than 20 million legal voters in the nation —- the great majority of them Democratic-leaning —- who, according to the <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/page/-/d/download_file_39242.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">NYU Brennan Center for Justice [PDF]</a>, the <a href="http://www.lwv.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=11254&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">League of Women Voters</a>, and many other non-partisan studies, would be unable to cast their legal vote unless they managed to obtain a state-issued Photo ID under the new GOP laws.In Wisconsin alone, where last week <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8626" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">we detailed the absurd video-taped hoops</a> a voter was forced to jump through hoops at the DMV in order to obtain an ID for voting, some 300,000 previously-legal voters, according to a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-vines/wisconsin-republicans-rea_b_822649.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">University of Wisconsin poli-sci professor David Canon</a>, will no longer be able to cast their legal votes next year unless they quickly come up with the free time, money, and resources to obtain an ID deemed acceptable by the state. (Ironically, but not accidentally, student IDs from the University of Wisconsin will not be acceptable.) The law, according to a <a href="http://www.inclusionist.org/files/wistatusdrivers.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">2005 U-W study [PDF]</a>, will have a vastly disproportionate affect on minorities, students, and the elderly —- in other words, Democratic-leaning voters. Nonetheless, the state's new law was quickly forced through by the GOP-majority legislature and Gov. Scott Walker in advance of upcoming state Senate recall elections which could result in the GOP losing their majority.It's precisely that sort of Big Government stripping of rights of private citizens that Vadum is hoping to support with his misinformative article (and book), and the same issue exists in each of the states where the GOP is frantically passing similar voter suppression laws.Another study by the League of Women voters <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/policy_brief_on_voter_identification/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">found</a> that out of more than 9 million votes cast in the state of Ohio in 2002 and 2004, just 4 votes were found to have been cast illegally — “a rate of 0.00004%” (that's 4 one-hundred-thousandths of one percent.) In Indiana, the first state in the nation to have their Photo ID restrictions <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5934" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">approved by the Supreme Court in 2008</a>, the supporters of the bill were unable to identify a single case of polling place impersonation in the state's entire history which might have been stopped by their new law.We could go on, but you get the point. So does Vadum. So he finds it necessary to obfuscate these points in all matter of dishonest ways. His favorite: accusing the now-defunct ACORN “voter fraud.”“54 individuals employed by or associated with ACORN have been convicted of voter fraud,” writes Vadum, failing to note that most, if not all, of those employed or associated were actually turned in to officials by ACORN themselves, since it was ACORN that was being ripped off by the voter registration fraud carried out by those scofflaws. It's the equivalent of calling Walmart a criminal organization after they turned a handful of workers into the police for stealing merchandise off of their shelves.Vadum also fails to note that not a single vote is known to have been illegally cast, ever, via any of those improper registrations, most of which were flagged as “likely-fraudulent” by ACORN themselves when they turned in the registration forms anyway, as required by law.In other words, there were zero acts of “voter fraud” committed by ACORN or their employees or associates, unless you purposely choose to confuse readers about the definition of “voter fraud” by conflating all manner of election-related fraud, such as voter registration fraud, with “voter fraud.” That, of course, is exactly what Vadum conveniently does:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2rem 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3rem; border-left: 0.5rem solid rgb(159, 161, 164); line-height: 2;"><div class="media" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Voter fraud, sometimes called electoral fraud, is a blanket term used by lawyers that encompasses a host of election-related improprieties including fraudulent voting, voter registration fraud, perjury, forgery, counterfeiting, impersonation, intimidation, and identity fraud.</div></blockquote>So, there ya go. Vadum can decry “voter fraud” by ACORN! Even while he knows they committed none, ever, because a handful of their workers (out of tens of thousands deployed each election cycle over the years) padded their days' work with fraudulent registration forms in order to get paid when they shouldn't have. None of those fraudulent registrations were ever used to actually cast votes in any election.By Vadum's measure, however, Republican organizations such as Young Political Majors in CA and Sproul and Associates in a number of states, just to name two, committed tens of thousands of acts of “voter fraud”! In the case of Young Political Majors, the outfit contracted by the CA Republican Party in 2008 to register voters, the head of the organization himself, Mark Anthony Jacoby, <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7237" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">pleaded guilty to voter registration fraud</a>as he falsely registered in the state himself, and was then paid some $12-$21 per Republican registration that each of his employees could come up with. When workers registered as Democrats, they were told how to simply change their registrations to Republican through various nefarious means.In the case of Nathan Sproul & Associates, the Rightwing operatives have been accused in several states of wholesale shredding of Democratic voter registration forms. In Orange County, CA, alone, for example, 11 workers were <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3679" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">arrested in 2006</a>. The group was tied to the <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3596" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">shredding of Democratic voter registration forms</a> in 2004 in Nevada, West Virginia, Oregon, and elsewhere. Nonetheless, the McCain/Palin campaign hired them for voter registration work in 2008.That's a lot of “voter fraud” by Republicans, as Vadum would put it! Or it would be, if he bothered to point to the crimes actually carried out by Republican organizations —- as opposed to workers turned in for their crimes by non-partisan organizations like ACORN —- and then call it “voter fraud.”Then there's the New England “voter fraud” scheme (phone-jamming, really, meant to undermine the Democrats GOTV effort, but we'll stick with Vadum's conveniently-broad definition for the moment) for which top Republican Party activists and officials were sentenced to jail for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_New_Hampshire_Senate_election_phone_jamming_scandal" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">gaming the 2002 US Senate election in New Hampshire</a>. After serving his time in jail, one of the conspirators, Allen Raymond, went on to write a book about it called <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHow-Rig-Election-Confessions-Republican%2Fdp%2F1416552227%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1198282759%26sr%3D8-1&tag=tbb-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative</a>.None of the cases highlighted above, though most of them actually directly affected election results, were mentioned by Vadum in his article and, far more importantly, none of them would have been stopped in any way by the GOP polling place Photo ID restrictions he is opportunistically pimping for.Vadum also fails to highlight cases like the recent massive —- seriously, massive —- Clay County, KY, GOP election fraud conspiracy, where 8 top officials on the County Board of Elections, including the County Clerk, a Circuit Court Judge, and the School Superintendent, were convicted and <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8514" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">sentenced earlier this year to 156 years</a> in federal prison for gaming the results of elections year after year from 2002 to 2006 in the county. (During the trial, the federal prosecutor charged the county-wide scheme had been going on for decades.) That scheme even included changing the votes of voters on electronic touch-screen voting machines after voters had left the booth. None of those crimes would have been deterred by the GOP polling place Photo ID restrictions that Vadum pretends are needed to stop the nefarious, and now-defunct, ACORN, etc.We could go on. And on. But lastly, since our point has otherwise been made one would think, we should also note that Vadum fails to point out in either article or book, the actual cases of actual voter fraud, both proven and alleged, as recently carried out by GOP superstars themselves. Folks such as <a href="http://bradblog.com/coulterfraud" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">Ann Coulter</a>, <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8565" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">Presidential candidate Mitt Romney</a>, <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/06/13/243689/todd-akin-voter-registration/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">Missouri's US Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin</a>, <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8422" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman</a>, and Indiana's current Sec. of State Charlie White who now stands accused of 7 felonies, <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8381" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">3 of them related to voter fraud</a>.Photo ID restrictions would not have deterred any of the above noted cases either, as they were all absentee ballot fraud, as Sowers' case in Mississippi was. All except for Coulter's third incident of apparent voter fraud, the one in the state of Florida. In that case, however, she falsified her driver's license as well as her registration form <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4012" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">according to the local police</a>, so when she <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6046" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">knowingly voted at the wrong precinct</a> in Palm Beach County she would not have been caught committing voter fraud by a polling place Photo ID restriction either.Meanwhile, in his article, Vadum then goes on to tell readers about one actual case of ACORN itself (versus a hired worker) being “convicted of voter fraud in Nevada in April.” What he doesn't bother telling his readers, because he's dishonest, is that ACORN's federal court-appointed bankruptcy trustee, who didn't want to fight a criminal case, actually pleaded guilty to one count of “felony compensation for registration of voters,” which the organization doesn't even believe to be constitutional, but no longer has the funds to fight.Far from “voter fraud,” unless you use Vadum's absurdly misleading definition, the case involved a contractor who, <a href="http://www.lvrj.com/news/acorn-pleads-guilty-to-felony-compensation-for-registration-of-voters-119367839.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">according to the Las Vegas Journal Review</a>, “rewarded workers with $5 extra per shift if they brought in 21 or more completed voter registration cards” each day. That, even as ACORN maintains they ordered the contractor “not to run the incentive program” and, in any case, they question the constitutionality of Nevada's new law, which disallows such incentives for voter registrations.Contrast that with the GOP cases in California where the party itself paid some $12 per registration, legally, while their contractors were convicted nonetheless of massive voter registration fraud. But, to Vadum, who will stretch the truth on just about anything, ACORN “was itself convicted of voter fraud in Nevada.” That's the dishonest best he can do.When it comes to ACORN, the cases of registration fraud which they themselves alerted officials about when they themselves were defrauded by workers, were routinely turned into “massive Democratic voter fraud” in the media by opportunistic partisan scoundrels like Vadum, Fox “News,” and their partisan compatriots. When the same crimes, and usually far worse, are committed by actual Republican organizations, they fail to notice it. ACORN's worst “crime” of all, of course, which Republicans don't care to point out, is that ACORN managed to <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6503" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">legally register millions of legal low- and middle-income voters</a> —- voters who tend to vote for Democrats, not Republicans. So they had to be destroyed.Nonetheless, no matter how you slice it, both voter fraud and voter registration fraud are serious and pernicious crimes, no matter who carries them out, no matter for what reason, no matter how it's done, and no matter who it may serve to benefit. But to purposely mislead the public about who is committing it; when it actually does (and doesn't) have anything to do with elections or votes cast in any way; who is actually behind it; and what does (and doesn't) deter it, is arguably as reprehensible. Particularly when misrepresenting it all, as Vadum knowingly does, it is likely to result in tens of thousands, if not millions, of legal voters being unable to exercise their legal franchise at all.Vadum may be a clown, but he, like John Fund, Thor Hearne, and the bulk of the other GOP “voter fraud” fraudsters before him, knows exactly what he is doing, and exactly how they are lying to the public in hopes of achieving partisan gain at the expense of the great experiment of American democracy.Paul Weyrich, one of the godfathers of Rightwing partisan “conservatism,” infamously said in 1980 (see the <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6375" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">very short video here</a>), “I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”Weyrich would go on to found the <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/161969/alec-exposed-rigging-elections" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">American Legislative Exchange Counsel</a>, or ALEC, the group responsible for penning much of the voter suppression legislation being passed by Republican statehouses across the country today.Vadum is now carrying Weyrich's voter suppression torch.The knowing deceptions carried out by folks like Vadum are, in truth, fraud of the first order. He should be ashamed. No doubt, he is not. To Vadum and friends, the ends justify the means, and undermining American values like democracy in order to game elections is simply all in another day's work.This Wikipedia description of the character of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squealer%28Animal_Farm%29" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">“Squealer”</a>, the “minister of propaganda” from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">George Orwell's “Animal Farm”</a>, seems an apt, if literary and poetic, description of Vadum's current role on behalf of the GOP and their long-playing “voter fraud” fraud…<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2rem 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3rem; border-left: 0.5rem solid rgb(159, 161, 164); line-height: 2;"><div class="media" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A small white fat porker who serves as Napoleon's right hand pig and minister of propaganda…Squealer manipulates the language to excuse, justify, and extol all of Napoleon's actions. Squealer limits debate by complicating it and he confuses and disorients, making claims that the pigs need the extra luxury they are taking in order to function properly, for example. However, when questions persist, he usually uses the threat of the return of Mr. Jones, the former owner of the farm, to justify the pigs' privileges. Squealer uses statistics to convince the animals that life is getting better and better. Most of the animals have only dim memories of life before the revolution; therefore, they are convinced.</div></blockquote>Squeal on, Mr. Vadum. Most of your readers have only dim memories of life before the lies of Fox “News”; therefore, they are undoubtedly convinced by your persistent anti-democracy fraud. Congratulations. Your country couldn't be prouder.<center style="box-sizing: inherit;">* * *</center>UPDATE 6:38pm PT: Since publishing the above, Vadum has tweeted that I'm “dishonest,” a “socialist,” and a “voter fraud apologist.” In a <a href="https://matthewvadum.blogspot.com/2011/08/master-of-misinformation.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">brief blog post</a>, he compares me to “a homeless person scrawling his manifesto on scraps of paper,” calls me a “left-winger,” and this article “a lengthy screed.” He has failed, however, in all of that, to offer a even one single point to dispute anything in this entire article. Because, of course, he can't, and he knows it. That's how propagandists like Vadum work.</div><aside class="related authors vcard" style="box-sizing: inherit; border-top: 1px solid rgb(159, 161, 164); margin-top: 6rem;"><div class="author vcard meta-data row" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 3rem -0.9375rem 0px; padding: 0px; display: -webkit-flex; -webkit-box-orient: horizontal; -webkit-box-direction: normal; flex-flow: row wrap; max-width: none;"><div class="small-12 small-only-text-center authortext" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-box-flex: 0; flex: 0 0 100%; max-width: 100%;"><div class="authorname columns" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px 0.9375rem; -webkit-box-flex: 1; flex: 1 1 0px; min-width: 0px; font-weight: 700;"><a href="https://truthout.org/authors/brad-friedman/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">Brad Friedman</a></div><div class="authorcontent columns" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px 0.9375rem; -webkit-box-flex: 1; flex: 1 1 0px; min-width: 0px;">Brad Friedman is an investigative blogger, journalist and broadcaster. Frequent contributor to Salon, Truthout and many other sites, publisher and creator of The BRAD BLOG (<a href="http://www.bradblog.com/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">BradBlog.com</a>) and the host of KPFK/Pacifica Radio's The BradCast</div></div></div></aside></div><div style=""></div>==BRADBLOG

why enemy of CoC? all oil co, koch and some coal co'ssome green stuff: <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=543">http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=543</a>well one show: Problems found on Keystone XL pipeline in TX; Illegal Monsanto genetically modified wheat discovered in Oregon; Wal-mart guilty of toxic waste dumping; Shell admits moving grounded Arctic rig to avoid paying taxes; Russia evacuates its Arctic research station; PLUS: ExxonMobil's CEO unclear on the concept of man-made climate change ... All that and more in today's Green News Report! <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10039">http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10039</a>

===

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman

Bradley Louis "Brad" Friedman (born July 19, 1966)<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-1">[1]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-2">[2]</a> is an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States">American</a> <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Blogger" class="extiw" title="wikt:Blogger">blogger</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalist" title="Journalist">journalist</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor" title="Actor">actor</a>, radio broadcaster, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_director" title="Film director">director</a> and software programmer, most known for his criticism of election integrity issues in the USA. Friedman graduated from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlochen_Center_for_the_Arts#Interlochen_Arts_Academy" title="Interlochen Center for the Arts">Interlochen Arts Academy</a> in 1983 and received a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_of_Fine_Arts" title="Bachelor of Fine Arts">BFA</a> from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_University" title="New York University">New York University</a>'s (NYU) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tisch_School_of_the_Arts" title="Tisch School of the Arts">Tisch School of the Arts</a> in 1988.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-writer_resume-3">[3]</a>

<h2>Contents</h2>

</div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#Other_work">2 Other work</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#Recognition">3 Recognition</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#External_links">4 External links</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#References">5 References</a></li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

Friedman's blog covers <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights" title="Voting rights" class="mw-redirect">voting rights</a> and election integrity issues in the USA,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-4">[4]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-5">[5]</a> and a number of other subjects related to media reform and political corruption from a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism" title="Progressivism">progressive</a> standpoint.

His blog site is generally critical of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions" title="Premier Election Solutions">Premier Election Solutions</a> (formerly Diebold Election Systems),<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-6">[6]</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ES%26S" title="ES&S" class="mw-redirect">ES&S</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_Voting_Systems" title="Sequoia Voting Systems">Sequoia Voting Systems</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting" title="Electronic voting">electronic voting</a> in general.

Based on his advocacy at The BRAD BLOG and in other publications, he was invited to testify at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Assistance_Commission" title="Election Assistance Commission">Election Assistance Commission</a>'s Voting Advocate Roundtable Discussion.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-7">[7]</a> Friedman is a noted advocate of a return to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot" title="Ballot">paper balloting</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-8">[8]</a> and of the role of bloggers as journalists.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-9">[9]</a> he has been described in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times" title="New York Times" class="mw-redirect">New York Times</a> as "perhaps the most dogged critic of electronic voting machine technology in the blogosphere".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-10">[10]</a>

<h2>Other work</h2>

Friedman is the host of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_BradCast&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="The BradCast (page does not exist)">The BradCast</a> on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacifica_Radio" title="Pacifica Radio">Pacifica Radio</a>'s Los Angeles affiliate station <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KPFK" title="KPFK">KPFK</a> 90.7FM, and the long time regular guest host of the nationally syndicated <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Malloy_Show" title="Mike Malloy Show" class="mw-redirect">Mike Malloy Show</a>.

He is featured in numerous documentary films, interviewed as an investigative journalist, and expert in issues of election integrity and voting systems. Among the films in which he appears: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Donahue" title="Phil Donahue">Phil Donahue</a> & Ellen Spiro's <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.bodyofwar.com">Body of War</a>, David Earnhardt's <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.UncountedTheMovie.com">Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Fadiman" title="Dorothy Fadiman">Dorothy Fadiman</a>'s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealing_America:Vote_by_Vote%28film%29" title="Stealing America: Vote by Vote (film)" class="mw-redirect">Stealing America: Vote by Vote</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-11">[11]</a> and Patty Sharaf's <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.VotingLies.com">Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-12">[12]</a>

In July 2006, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustler" title="Hustler">Hustler</a> magazine featured an article in which Friedman discussed the alleged suicide of Raymond Lemme, an investigator tracking down claims of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote-rigging" title="Vote-rigging" class="mw-redirect">vote-rigging</a> by Congressman <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Feeney" title="Tom Feeney">Tom Feeney</a>, as alleged by Florida software programmer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Curtis" title="Clint Curtis">Clint Curtis</a> in a story Friedman broke in late 2004 and has <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.bradblog.com/ClintCurtis">covered in great detail</a> ever since.

Friedman reported on suspicions that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_Democratic_primary,_2008" title="New Hampshire Democratic primary, 2008" class="mw-redirect">2008 New Hampshire Democratic primary</a> was rigged.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-13">[13]</a>

He has also extensively covered the case of Ann Coulter's voter fraud issues in Florida.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-14">[14]</a>

In 2008 Friedman reported critically on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI" title="FBI" class="mw-redirect">FBI</a> investigation into the suspected involvement of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Ivins" title="Bruce Ivins" class="mw-redirect">Bruce Ivins</a> in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks" title="2001 anthrax attacks">2001 anthrax attacks</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-15">[15]</a>

An exclusive interview Friedman conducted with Ohio Secretary of State <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Brunner" title="Jennifer Brunner">Jennifer Brunner</a>, just prior to the 2008 general election, was published in two parts; one part in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computerworld" title="Computerworld">Computerworld</a>,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-16">[16]</a> noted Brunner's memorable thought upon reviewing the "awful" findings of the state's report on the security of electronic voting systems in Ohio ("I thought I was going to throw up"), and the other in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternet" title="Alternet" class="mw-redirect">Alternet</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-17">[17]</a> quoting the Secretary as stating "we will be ready" for the 2008 election.

As an actor, Friedman was the winner of multiple <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Bob_Briggs" title="Joe Bob Briggs">Joe Bob Briggs</a>' Drive-In Academy Awards

Friedman contributed a chapter on Nevada's "illegally certified" electronic voting machines to <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.igpub.com/losertakeall.html">Loser Take All</a>, a collection of essays on America's voting system, published by Ig Publishing in 2008, as edited by NYU media professor, author and outspoken election integrity advocate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Crispin_Miller" title="Mark Crispin Miller">Mark Crispin Miller</a>. The investigative essay, titled "The Selling of the Touch-Screen 'Paper-Trail': From Nevada to the EAC" was co-authored with Michael Richardson, and described by Miller in the book's introduction as "the harrowing pre-history of the 2004 election in Nevada, whose voting system had long since been hijacked by Secretary of State Dean Heller".

Ohio Congressman <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Kucinich" title="Dennis Kucinich">Dennis Kucinich</a>'s <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://feralhouse.com/titles/images/BushImpeachment.pdf">"35 Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush"</a> refers to several reports by Friedman in its published footnotes for Article XXIX, "Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965". Friedman was <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6066">tapped by Kucinich</a> as one of several experts who helped to compile two (Article 28, "Tampering with Free and Fair Elections" and Article 29, "Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965") of the 35 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_impeachment" title="Articles of impeachment">articles of impeachment</a> as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kucinich#Bush_Impeachment_Articles_Introduced" title="Kucinich">introduced in Congress in 2008</a>.

In February 2011, Friedman and his family were <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/10/chamberleaks-target-families/">discovered to have been named as targets</a> of a proposed $12 million smear campaign being created for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Chamber_of_Commerce" title="U.S. Chamber of Commerce" class="mw-redirect">U.S. Chamber of Commerce</a> by three government-contracted cyber intelligence firms. In an interview with David Dayen at Firedoglake,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-18">[18]</a> Friedman decried the plot, called it a "new era of dirty tricks" and said "We’re fighting against how our own tax dollars are being spent against us."

<h2>Recognition</h2>

Buffalo's independent newspaper The Beast describes him as "perhaps the most diligent and unassailable election integrity advocate in America."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-19">[19]</a>

He is the creator and publisher of The BRAD BLOG, which the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Times" title="Los Angeles Times">Los Angeles Times</a> has described as California's "most persistent blogger-watchdog on the dangers of voting technology".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-20">[20]</a>

"If you want to learn about the state of our election process, I urge you to visit BradBlog.com. Brad Friedman has worked doggedly on this issue, amassing tons of valuable news and information on this subject." - Catherine Crier, Crier Live, Court TV, July 11, 2006.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-21">[21]</a> Friedman would <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3099">later appear</a>, along with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr." title="Robert F. Kennedy Jr." class="mw-redirect">Robert F. Kennedy Jr.</a>, live on Crier's program, on July 20, 2006 to discuss concerns about voting systems to be used in that year's upcoming general election.

A November, 2008 <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/132">interview by BuzzFlash.com</a> describes Friedman as a "Champion of Fair Elections and Challenger of Election Theft," and notes "Brad has been unrelenting in documenting the details of the dark side of our voting system."

The Chicago Sun-Times' Beacon News profiled Friedman in April 2008.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-22">[22]</a>

McClatchy-owned <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_Star" title="Kansas City Star" class="mw-redirect">Kansas City Star</a> cited Friedman's "rare" radio interview with Missouri Sec. of State <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Carnahan" title="Robin Carnahan">Robin Carnahan</a> in May 2008, concerning the controversial issue of voter Photo ID restrictions at polling places in the state, as a bill to require it in Missouri was being debated in the state legislature. The paper describes Friedman as a "well-known voting machine critic and blogger".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-23">[23]</a>

Friedman is a 2010 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Censored" title="Project Censored">Project Censored</a> award winner for "Excellence in Investigative Journalism" in recognition of his coverage of "The Mysterious Death of Mike Connell—Karl Rove’s Election Thief".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-24">[24]</a> He also contributed a chapter to the organization's Censored 2010: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008-09 book, on voting problems and fraud in the 2008 Elections.

On 9/30/10, CNN's Senior National Editor Dave Schecter wrote "One of the squeakiest wheels on the subject of voting is Brad Friedman, of 'The Brad Blog'"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Friedman#cite_note-25">[25]</a> and cited his coverage of Pac-Man being hacked onto an electronic voting system made by Sequoia Voting Systems.

<h2>External links</h2>

<ul>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.bradfriedman.com">Brad Friedman's personal website</a></li>

</ul>

===<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/">
</a>

<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/</a>

Brad Friedman is an investigative journalist, blogger, broadcaster, muckraker, troublemaker and publisher of <a href="http://bradblog.com">The BRAD BLOG</a>, where he has broken enumerable stories over the years on everything from issues of election integrity to media malfeasance to national security whistleblowers.

He is the host of his own shown on KPFK/Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, as well as the regular guest host for the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show.

He is also the co-founder of <a href="http://velvetRevolution.us/">VelvetRevolution.us</a> and a Fellow at the progressive Commonweal Institute.

Brad is a frequent guest on radio and TV and speaks across the country on a number of topics including election and media reform. He is also a frequent guest host on the radio for Mike Malloy, Randi Rhodes, Peter B. Collins and others.

He is the recipient of a Project Censored award for "Excellent in Investigative Journalism", has contributed to a number of books and appears in a number of documentary films. See his <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/bio">bio at The BRAD BLOG for more details...</a>

=

Somehow,Dr. Karp forgot to apologize to Brad Friedman, another journalist WBGary–in projects bid in partnership with Palantir–<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/10/chamberleaks-target-families/">has targeted</a>.

As a reminder, Palantir Technologies is one of the two other security firms that HBGary partnered with to try to get spying business with <a href="http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/02/09/security-firms-pitching-bank-of-america-proposed-targeting-glenn-greenwald/">Bank of America</a> and the <a href="http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/02/10/will-the-chamber-continue-wits-hbgary-work-now-that-theyve-been-hacked/">Chamber of Commerce</a>.

But perhaps more relevant is Palantir’s primary focus: working with the national security apparatus. They’ve done at least <a href="http://www.usaspending.gov/search?query=&searchtype=&formFields=eyJSZWNpcGllbnROYW1lTGNhc2UiOlsiUGFsYW50aXIgVGVjaG5vbG9naWVzIEluYy4iXX0=">$6,378,332 in business</a> with entities like SOCOM and FBI in the last several years. And while they say they have no plans to adopt “offensive cyber capabilities,” that’s not to say they’re not helping the government analyze data on our presumed enemies.

I would imagine Palantir has pretty good reason to know that the government will not do business with a contractor using the same technologies to target Glenn Greenwald (and maybe Brad Friedman).

At least not publicly. Remember–DOJ recommended Hunton & Williams (which put Palantir and HBGary together for the bid) to Bank of America.

<h1><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/02/10/143428/chamberleaks-target-families/">CHAMBERLEAKS: US Chamber’s Lobbyists Solicited Firm To Investigate Opponents’ Families, Children</a></h1>

By <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/author/scott-keyes/">Scott Keyes</a> on Feb 10, 2011 at 8:05 pm

Earlier today, ThinkProgress published an <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/02/10/143419/lobbyists-chamberleaks/">exclusive report</a> that the law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a right-wing trade association representing big business, is working with set of “private security” companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress. According to e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress, the Chamber hired the lobbying firm Hunton and Williams. Attorneys for the firm solicited a set of private security firms — HBGary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies (collectively called Team Themis) — to develop a sabotage campaign against progressive groups and labor unions, including ThinkProgress, the labor coalition Change to Win, SEIU, US Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com. CRYPTO

New emails reveal that the private spy company investigated the families and children of the Chamber’s political opponents. The apparent spearhead of this project was Aaron Barr, an executive at HBGary. Barr circulated numerous emails and documents detailing information about political opponents’ children, spouses, and personal lives.

One of the targets was Mike Gehrke, a former staffer with Change to Win. Among the information circulated about Gehrke was the specific “Jewish church” he attended and a link to pictures of his wife and two children (sensitive information was redacted by ThinkProgress):

Another target was Brad Friedman, co-founder of The Brad Blog. Barr’s profile of Freidman included information about his life partner and his home address (sensitive information redacted by ThinkProgress):

This tactic of targeting opponents’ personal lives and family was not simply a random event. Rather, it was a concerted and deliberate effort to use anything possible to smear the Chamber’s political opponents. To dramatize his firm’s intimidation tactics, Barr sent an email to Hunton & Williams attorney John Woods that contained personal details about fellow Hunton attorney Richard Wyatt, who was representing the Chamber. The email was intended to show Woods and Wyatt how “vulnerable” they are:

ThinkProgress will continue to report on this developing story as more details emerge.

- With reporting from Lee Fang

</div>