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Latest Featured Reports | Thursday, March 28, 2024
BRAD BLOG Spring Breaking
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Sunday 'Roll Out the Barrel' Toons
FEATURING: Rich Con, Poor Con!...Sex-Havers!...March Madness!...More! Have a barrel of fun with our latest collection of the week's best toons!...
It's Up to You, New York: 'BradCast' 3/21/24
Trump staring down barrel of both civil and criminal accountability in NY; Also: Biden forgives another $6B in student loans; U.S. seeks 'sustained ceasefire' in Gaza; Scientists baffled by spike in record global heat...
'Green News Report' 3/21/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
Biden EPA issues biggest climate regulation in U.S. history; Rio hits 144°F heat index!; Exxon CEO blames YOU for climate change; PLUS: U.N. issues climate change 'red alert'!...
Previous GNRs: 3/19/24 - 3/14/24 - Archives...
'It All Comes Down to Brett and Amy': 'BradCast' 3/20/24
Guest: Slate's Mark Joseph Stern on another stunning week of federal judiciary debacles; Also: Primary results from AZ, FL, IL, KS, OH, CA; Biden EPA's 'biggest climate move yet'...
American 'Bloodbath':
'BradCast' 3/19/24
Trump is promising political violence whether he wins or loses; Also: Navarro goes to prison; Scofflaw MI MAGA attorney arrested; SCOTUS allows TX to override federal law, Constitution; Biden's SOTU success...
'Green News Report' 3/19/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
EPA finally bans all uses of asbestos; Biden unveils billions for rebuilding communities broken by highway construction; Extreme heat in Africa; PLUS: MA coastal town follies...
Previous GNRs: 3/14/24 - 3/12/24 - Archives...
Corporations 'Taking a Bazooka' to NLRB, Hoping to Declare it 'Unconstitutional': 'BradCast' 3/18/24
Guest: Labor journo Steven Greenhouse; Also: Putin's 'election'; Trump can't find $450M...
Sunday 'Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya' Toons
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Schumer Steps Up; Trump Associates Paid Biden 'Bribe' Liar $600k: 'BradCast' 3/14/24
Also: TikTok foolishness; NY hush-money trial delay?; Navarro must go to jail; Trump owes $400k for failed 'Steele Dossier' suit in UK...
'Green News Report' 3/14/24
FL bans heat protections for workers; Methane leaks continue; GOP Project 2025 would ban Paris Agreement; PLUS: CA snowpack is back, but too late for salmon...
After Accountability for Fraud, What's Next for the Corrupt NRA and Gun Safety Reforms?: 'BradCast' 3/13/24
Guest: Brady Center's Kelly Sampson; Also: Biden, Trump clinch; GA judge nixes 6 counts...
How to Media Better and Other Smart Ideas:
'BradCast' 3/12/24
Press quietly resets weeks of misreporting on Biden; Suggestions for NYT; Stephanopoulos v. Mace; Also: Buck quits; RNC 'bloodbath'; WI's MAGA Speaker Recall...
'Green News Report' 3/12/24
Biden touts climate jobs boom at SOTU; Feb. obliterated global temp and ocean heat records; PLUS: Great Barrier Reef hit with yet another 'mass bleaching event'...
BARCODED BALLOTS AND BALLOT MARKING DEVICES
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Hand-marked, hand-counted ballots...
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GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...

Criminal GOP Voter Registration Fraud Probe Expanding in VA
State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...

DOJ PROBE SOUGHT AFTER VA ARREST
Arrest of RNC/Sproul man caught destroying registration forms brings official calls for wider criminal probe from compromised VA AG Cuccinelli and U.S. AG Holder...

Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...

ALL TOGETHER: ROVE, SPROUL, KOCHS, RNC
His Super-PAC, his voter registration (fraud) firm & their 'Americans for Prosperity' are all based out of same top RNC legal office in Virginia...

LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
So much for the RNC's 'zero tolerance' policy, as discredited Republican registration fraud operative still hiring for dozens of GOP 'Get Out The Vote' campaigns...

'Fired' Sproul Group 'Cloned', Still Working for Republicans in At Least 10 States
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...

FINALLY: FOX ON GOP REG FRAUD SCANDAL
The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...

COLORADO FOLLOWS FLORIDA WITH GOP CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
Repub Sec. of State Gessler ignores expanding GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, rants about evidence-free 'Dem Voter Fraud' at Tea Party event...

CRIMINAL PROBE LAUNCHED INTO GOP VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL IN FL
FL Dept. of Law Enforcement confirms 'enough evidence to warrant full-blown investigation'; Election officials told fraudulent forms 'may become evidence in court'...

Brad Breaks PA Photo ID & GOP Registration Fraud Scandal News on Hartmann TV
Another visit on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture with new news on several developing Election Integrity stories...

CAUGHT ON TAPE: COORDINATED NATIONWIDE GOP VOTER REG SCAM
The GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal reveals insidious nationwide registration scheme to keep Obama supporters from even registering to vote...

CRIMINAL ELECTION FRAUD COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST GOP 'FRAUD' FIRM
Scandal spreads to 11 FL counties, other states; RNC, Romney try to contain damage, split from GOP operative...

RICK SCOTT GETS ROLLED IN GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) sends blistering letter to Gov. Rick Scott (R) demanding bi-partisan reg fraud probe in FL; Slams 'shocking and hypocritical' silence, lack of action...

VIDEO: Brad Breaks GOP Reg Fraud Scandal on Hartmann TV
Breaking coverage as the RNC fires their Romney-tied voter registration firm, Strategic Allied Consulting...

RNC FIRES NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION FIRM FOR FRAUD
After FL & NC GOP fire Romney-tied group, RNC does same; Dead people found reg'd as new voters; RNC paid firm over $3m over 2 months in 5 battleground states...

EXCLUSIVE: Intvw w/ FL Official Who First Discovered GOP Reg Fraud
After fraudulent registration forms from Romney-tied GOP firm found in Palm Beach, Election Supe says state's 'fraud'-obsessed top election official failed to return call...

GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD FOUND IN FL
State GOP fires Romney-tied registration firm after fraudulent forms found in Palm Beach; Firm hired 'at request of RNC' in FL, NC, VA, NV & CO...
The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...


Plus: Brain-addled Trump voters believe his 'voter fraud' lie, even as he hires an actual voter fraud criminal as a top White House adviser...
By Brad Friedman on 12/1/2016 5:45pm PT  

On today's BradCast, the attempt at verifiable citizen oversight of election results from the 2016 Presidential race gets underway in Wisconsin, and gets stopped dead in its tracks by a Trump legal filing in Michigan. All of that, even as more actual Republican voter fraud (yes, real voter fraud) is revealed by media and rewarded by Donald Trump. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

The state of Wisconsin officially began its *"recount" of some 3 million ballots cast in the 2016 Presidential election today, in the state where Trump reportedly defeated Hillary Clinton by just over 22,000 votes. Unfortunately, several of the largest jurisdictions have decided to simply re-tally their hand-marked paper ballots by the same optical-scan computers which tallied them (either correctly or incorrectly) in the first place. That, despite a host of computer science, security and voting systems experts who continue to argue as loudly as they can (including in recently filed court documents), the only way to know for certain how voters voted is to hand-count those ballots.

Meanwhile, in Michigan late today, where Trump reportedly won by just over 10,000 votes out of nearly 5 million counted, the Trump Campaign filed an objection to Green Party candidate Jill Stein's request for a "recount" there. That legal maneuver will successfully delay the start of counting, which had been scheduled to begin on Friday in the state, until sometime next week. That's a disturbing development, given that all states are federally mandated to have final certified numbers completed by December 13th. It's an echo of the successful GOP efforts to stall and then block entirely, the statewide Florida "recount" in 2000. In a statement in response late today, Stein describes the Trump filing this way: "The Trump campaign's cynical efforts to delay the recount and create unnecessary costs for taxpayers are shameful and outrageous."

At the same time, Trump's brain-addled supporters are buying his lie about "millions" having "voted illegally" in the 2016 election. They have fallen for it thanks, in no small part, to so many years of irresponsible reporting on the matter by corporate media over our publicly-owned airwaves. And yet, so far, the only "illegal" votes that have been found in the 2016 election (four cases in total) were all documented to have been cast by Republicans.

Nonetheless, as we have reported on very high profile Republicans like Ann Coulter and Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich and many others committing actual voter fraud and voter registration fraud over the years, Trump has now hired a voter fraud felon (see this from 2006) for a top White House national security advisory role. All of that American madness and much more on today's BradCast...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

* NOTE: The BRAD BLOG generally uses quotes around the word "recount" to denote post-election hand-counts of ballots which have never actually been counted by human beings, but rather, only tabulated by computers during the official tally. It's impossible to know whether those computers actually tallied votes accurately unless paper ballots are examined by hand.

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Guest: Journalist David Dayen on blocking the GOP SCOTUS theft
Also: Trump's buys his way out of fraud suits, makes new racist and anti-Semitic appointments, and NC Republicans plot to steal back their own state Supreme Court...
By Brad Friedman on 11/18/2016 6:09pm PT  

On today's BradCast: In 2000, Republicans used the U.S. Supreme Court to steal the Presidency. In 2016, they used the Presidency to steal the U.S. Supreme Court. So, what, if anything, can be done about it? And, as we also report today, that's not the only Supreme Court Republicans may be about to steal. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Journalist David Dayen of New Republic, the Fiscal Times and The Intercept, joins us to discuss how President Obama has one last "trump card" to play, if he wishes to block Republicans from out-and-out theft of the nation's highest court, at least for a while. But would Obama do it? Could he do it legally? And would Democrats end up being sorry if he did? We discuss that, whether Democrats will continue to "bring a butter knife to a gunfight", and much more today with Dayen, author of Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud..

Also today: Donald Trump buys his way out of multiple 'Trump University' fraud suits by agreeing to pay up $25 million to his victims. He also, reportedly, names southern anti-voting rights racist Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-AL) as his nominee for U.S. Attorney General, the nation's chief law enforcement official. (That, along with another disturbing new appointment as well.)

Meanwhile, down in North Carolina, where voters appear to have elected a liberal majority to the state Supreme Court and may have rejected their controversial Republican Governor's re-election bid by a slim margin, the Republican-majority state legislature has a scheme to overturn the will of the voters in both the gubernatorial contest and at the NC high court. Because that's how the GOP rolls (and Democrats don't).

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with a slim ray or two of optimism, believe it or not, as Sen. Bernie Sanders offers a way for Obama to (permanently?) block the Dakota Access Pipeline from being built, and international U.N. climate negotiators vow to keep reducing greenhouse gas emissions, no matter how Trump plans to undermine efforts to curb global warming...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Guest: Election integrity expert and exit poll analyst Jonathon Simon
Also: Fake news from both fake AND real news outlets continues to undermine democracy...
By Brad Friedman on 11/17/2016 6:28pm PT  

What would Donald Trump do if the Exit Polls showed him winning key states before Election Results announced that he had actually lost them instead? It's an excellent question (that virtually answers itself), raised by my guest on today's BradCast. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Yes, once again, according to several analyses, the disparities between Exit Polling and Election Results, as reported by unverified computer tabulators, suggest that one or the other of those two sets of data may be wrong. The first Exit Polls released by the media consortium on Election Night suggested that Hillary Clinton won in key battleground states, such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan and North Carolina, that she ended up reportedly losing.

Figuring out what did or didn't happen, of course, remains very important. Had just about 50,000 votes across the three states of WI, PA and MI alone been recorded for Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump, she would be the President-Elect today.

Dr. Jonathon Simon, author of CODE RED: Computerized Election Theft and The New American Century, and the man who originally documented almost identical disparities during the 2004 President Election, joins me to discuss his latest analysis of the still-continuing problem in 2016 and what needs to be done about it --- hopefully before the Electoral College meets to make it official by casting their votes next month.

"There are huge disparities, way outside the margin of error, pretty much all in the same direction and, yeah, outcome reversing," he tells me. "So the question becomes, what do you believe? I'd be the first to say we're not going to prove anything with exit polls. But what we really have is two sets of really lousy evidence. We have exit polls --- you could ask, 'Why would you believe them?' --- and you have the vote counts. And you could also ask, 'Why would you believe them?' They're concealed, they're computerized, they're outsourced, they're privatized --- whoever is programming them has the basic control over how those votes are counted or how fictitious it could be. They're also subject to outsider hacking, as well as insider rigging."

"Let me put it this way," Simon continues, "the question that I would want to put to anybody keeping score at home would be, 'What would Trump do?' If these same numbers came out, only they were reversed --- in a parallel universe, he won the popular vote, and Hillary Clinton won the Presidency and the electoral college, and there were all these states in which the exit polls favored Trump and somehow the vote counts favored Clinton --- you can bet your bottom dollar, based on what he said going into the election, based on the attitude he had about not conceding, about making sure if he felt there was any suspicion that he would challenge, that they would be challenging these results."

But what of the response from Edison Research, the sole provider of Exit Polling data for the national media, that the methodology used for Exit Polling in U.S. elections, unlike polls designed for use in other countries, should not be used as an indication that the reported vote counts are fraudulent or otherwise in error? And why do these apparent "red shifts" in vote counts, as Simon describes the difference in the two data sets, tend to happen mostly to Democratic candidates (or, in the case of the Democratic Primary, to the more progressive candidate, Bernie Sanders) rather than to Republicans?

Simon, a longtime election integrity advocate, and I discuss all of those questions and much more, including the real problem with this type of analysis between Exits and Results: the data that create both are still kept secret from public scrutiny, leaving everyone guessing --- and serving to further undermine U.S. democracy as a result.

"The system is set up to be concealed, and the government and the media are working pretty hard to make sure it stays concealed," Simon explains. "And you've got a bunch of people with democracy in their hearts who are working just as hard, if not harder, to try to un-conceal it. It's an uphill battle, but that's what we're doing right now."

Also today, speaking of undermining U.S. democracy, more on the problem of fake news versus real news in a 'post-truth' world, and how fake, pro-Trump/anti-Clinton news stories received more exposure on social media in the run-up to the Presidential Election than news from actual news outlets did. But, as we also report, even the real, theoretically legitimate new sites continue to undermine democracy with fake news, even today...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 11/17/2016 11:27am PT  


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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Bernie Sanders finds a potential new way to block the Dakota Access Pipeline; Republican Senate Majority Leader admits U.S. coal jobs may not be coming back; Mercury contamination in fish is declining --- thanks to pollution regulations; October 2016 was not the hottest October on record; PLUS: U.S. climate negotiators say climate action is unstoppable, even in the Age of Trump... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): China clarifies for Trump: uh, no, global warming is not a Chinese hoax; Interior Department Issues New Rule To Limit Methane From Oil and Gas; World CO2 emissions stay flat for 3rd year, helped by China falls; Plastic Polluting the Oceans Smells Like Lunch to Marine Life; Tests Show Monsanto Weed Killer in Cheerios, Other Popular Foods; Clean Water Rule: WOTUS 'Ultimately Doomed.' What Happens Next?... PLUS: Trump's Top Environmental Adviser Says Pesticides Aren't Bad for You... and much, MUCH more! ...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Guest: Heather Digby Parton of Salon...
By Brad Friedman on 11/10/2016 5:42pm PT  

Today on The BradCast, the transition officially begins and the prospect of years of progressive policies begin to roll back. [Audio link to show posted below.]

Donald Trump met with President Obama at the White House today for a chilly, if cordial transition meeting, as the world continues to try and make sense of it all. Joining us to help in that task today is award-winning opinion journalist and our old friend Heather Digby Parton of Salon and the Hullabaloo blog, back by popular demand. She was with us to warn, on the day Trump entered the race in June of 2015, that he would be a force to be reckoned with, while so many others scoffed.

Today we examine, among many other things, the media's role in helping to normalize Trump while demonizing Hillary Clinton, and we begin to process just some of the dangers that the 'President-elect' now presents to not only Obama's eight years of progress, but to the world and the planet. For example, see Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) minimizing waterboarding again, and suggesting that torture will once again be back on the table --- just as Trump had promised during the campaign.

"What I saw [on Election Night] was the [media's] shift to suddenly seeing Donald Trump as a normal politician," Parton explains. "The campaign has been disappeared. That odious campaign that we just watched him run. The one where he promised to lock up his rival, torture terror suspects, put guns in schools, the most horrifying agenda we've ever seen from a major party candidate, and delivered in the most cretinous fashion that it's ever been delivered --- that is gone. There is no remnant of it in the media. What we're seeing now is a nice, mainstream Republican candidate who appealed to 'Real Americans' and spoke to their needs, and we need to welcome him. A lot of the commentary is that Democrats really need to reach out to him and to his followers and make up for the fact that they were so rude to him."

We try to un-disappear some of Trump's "disappeared" campaign promises a bit today, while noting that there is now little, if anything, to stop the very worst of those them --- from torture to massive tax cuts to gutting any and all financial and environmental regulations --- from being adopted by the new Administration and a compliant Congress and Supreme Court. We also discuss the role that Obama and the Democrats have in Republicans' ability to revive the very worst of the George W. Bush Administration war crimes and more, since they refused to bring accountability previously. And, speaking of accountability, Parton offers her thoughts on progressives who voted for third parties this year.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for a our first Green News Report since the election, for a look at what President Trump will mean for the environment, energy and the UN climate agreement....

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 11/10/2016 12:13pm PT  


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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Making history and rewriting the future: Donald Trump declared winner of the U.S. Presidential election. What that means for the environment, energy and the UN climate agreement; PLUS: Environmental measures win and lose on statewide ballots...and 2018 is just two years away... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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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): Santa Monica is creating a low-carbon city only rich people can enjoy; Enviros Sue BNSF To Cover Coal Trains, Prevent Water Pollution; Exxon Widens Climate Battle, May Depose 17 State AGs; Greens Prepare For Battle With Trump; Charges Dropped Against Pair Who Filmed Pipeline Protest... PLUS: Welcome to the Fight... and much, MUCH more! ...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Brad Friedman on 11/9/2016 5:46pm PT  

Donald Trump has now been declared President-Elect of the United States. The unthinkable has happened. Except that we've been thinking it --- and warning about it --- virtually day in and day out on The BradCast since the moment he descended that escalator to call Mexicans rapists and declare his candidacy in June of 2015.

On today's show [audio link posted below] we look briefly at how voter suppression may have affected the reported results that even the RNC didn't see coming. "For example", as Ari Berman points out, "27,000 votes currently separate Trump and Clinton in Wisconsin, where 300,000 registered voters, according to a federal court, lacked strict forms of voter ID" as now required by state Republicans to vote there at all. "Voter turnout in Wisconsin was at its lowest levels in 20 years and decreased 13 percent in Milwaukee, where 70 percent of the state’s African-American population lives," he adds. Oh, and there is the also the non-transparent voting machines and tabulators that may have effected the stunning reported results --- as we have also been warning for years.

Then, we open the phone lines to a lot of callers on this very grim day, to ask who and what they blame or credit for what happened on Tuesday. Was it racism? Sexism? Xenophobia? Third-Party voters or candidates? The Constitution and its electoral college scheme? Citizens who didn't bother to vote at all? FBI Director James Comey? Wikileaks? The corporate media? The independent media? The pollsters? The voter suppression? The voting machines? The candidate (Hillary Clinton)? The Democratic Party for putting its thumb on the scale against Bernie Sanders? The Republican Party for not doing more to keep its party from becoming the party of Donald Trump? Something else I haven't thought of?

Listeners ring in with many thoughts on all of the above, as we all go through this national nightmare together...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Plus: Sproul is back! Last minute voting rights court rulings! And more...
By Brad Friedman on 11/7/2016 5:52pm PT  

On today's BradCast, the last one before Election Day(!), we debunk a lot of nonsense --- and out-and-out lies from the Donald Trump Campaign, in several instances --- from over the weekend and in to today. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Among the stories and avalanche of news covered on today's BradCast:

  • FBI Director James Comey confirms there is nothing in newly discovered emails (most of them duplicates they'd seen before) that would lead to an indictment of Hillary Clinton;
  • And, no, there is no "murdered FBI agent" involved, no matter what you saw on Facebook over the weekend;
  • There was also no "assassination attempt" on Trump in Reno, NV over the weekend by a Republican sign-holder despite his campaign suggesting otherwise;
  • There was, however, a Trump supporter with a gun intimidating voters outside a VA polling location;
  • There appears to be record early voting turnout in dozens of states, and notably in Hispanic areas, where Trump's campaign blatantly lied over the weekend about polls being kept open "illegally" after hours;
  • Nathan Sproul, a long-time GOP operative whose companies have a checkered past related to voter registration fraud in several states, was secretly hired by the RNC in 2012 and then fired once more fraud allegations became public. He's now been quietly hired again by the RNC and Trump camp in 2016;
  • Dems lose several 'voter intimidation' lawsuits against Trump (but may have actually won anyway);
  • There will be at least 868 fewer places to vote in 2016, thanks to SCOTUS gutting Voting Rights Act
  • Kansas Sec. of State Kris Kobach is ordered (yet again, and hopefully once and for all!) to allow all registered voters to vote in both state and federal elections;
  • North Carolina is ordered by a federal court to restore all unlawfully purged voters to the rolls before Election Day;

And, much more, as we head into Election Day together, near the end (hopefully?) one of the darkest and most insane cycles in U.S. history...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!
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Guest: Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center | Plus: Mississippi burning again and 'zombie voters' still not voting...
By Brad Friedman on 11/3/2016 6:17pm PT  

On today's BradCast: Rightwing extremist groups are reportedly plotting to wreak potential havoc on Election Day, as Donald Trump's candidacy has helped to mainstream previously fringe organizations. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Despite Trump's repeated claims that millions of 'dead people' are voting, the evidence --- reported many years ago by The BRAD BLOG and more recently even by a mainstream corporate news outlet investigation in Wisconsin --- continues to show otherwise.

But while the threat of zombie voters has long been wildly overstated by Republicans, rightwing extremist groups --- neo-nazis, the KKK, militia organizations and others --- are claiming they have plans to mobilize a "show of force" at polling places across the country next Tuesday. That, as another black church in Mississippi is set on fire this week with the words "Vote Trump" spray painted onto it.

So, do these radical groups pose a real threat for chaos and disenfranchisement on Election Day? Or are they just latching on to Trump's racist coat tails in hopes of intimidating American voters? Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremists and hate groups, joins us to answer those questions and much more related to this extraordinary election and the not-coincidental emergence and rise of the so-called "Alt-Right".

Potok, who tells me he believes "there's a real possibility of sporadic violence" next week, says "the Radical Right in America today has a hero, in the [Republican] nominee for President of the United States. They see Donald Trump as the best thing, politically, that they've seen in a half-century or more, going back to at least George Wallace and probably further. They're thrilled. They are very energized."

He tells me that in his 25 years on this beat, he has never seen the radical right play such a key role in an American Presidential election, and explains that the term "Alt-Right" is little more than "a re-branding of white supremacy for the digital age."

"Trump," he explains "has taken the lid off Pandora's Box in a very real and substantial way." But will the threat that they pose to the nation be worse if Trump wins or if he loses? Tune in for that and much more (including --- make sure you are sitting down for it --- my defense, of sorts, of the late, rightwing propagandist Andrew Breitbart! Yes, there's another example of how insane this election year has become.)

Also on today's BradCast: In North Carolina, a federal judge finds the state's statute allowing challenges to the voter rolls to be "insane", and the state's incumbent U.S. Senator who is locked in a close re-election battle, apologizes for disturbing comments about 'targeting' Hillary Clinton, but vows to keep anybody from being seated on the U.S. Supreme Court for the next four years if she wins.

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Uneven playing field underscores needed media, campaign finance reform...
By Ernest A. Canning on 10/31/2016 8:05am PT  

California's Proposition 61, "the Drug Price Standards Initiative", is simple and straightforward. It mandates that any California state agency that provides funding for prescription drugs may not pay more than the lowest price paid for the same drug by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

PhRMA, the powerful drug industry lobbying organization, opposes the measure, and is using blatantly dishonest television ads, such as this one featuring Marine Corps Veteran Lamont Duncan, to claim that the measure will increase the price the VA pays for prescription drugs, harming veterans in the bargain...

The ad leads viewers to the same erroneous assumption presented by the state's Legislative Analyst (emphasis added) --- that "drug manufacturers might choose to raise VA drug prices" in response to passage of Prop 61. Worse, the ad erroneously suggests that veterans themselves could be forced into higher co-pays.

As Senator Bernie Sanders, the former chairman of the U.S. Veterans Affairs Committee, noted in an LA Times op-ed in support of Prop 61, "pharmaceutical companies cannot unilaterally raise the price of drugs it sells to the VA." Those prices, he explains, are fixed by federal law.

Conservative economist Greg D'Angelo, from Heritage Foundation's Center for Health Policy Studies confirms Sanders point in this explanation published some years ago: "The VA's discounts are mandated by [federal] law." Drug manufacturers lack the power to so much as "negotiate" a higher VA price, according to D'Angelo, let alone unilaterally raise them. And, as Sanders adds, "veterans' drug co-payments are fixed and do not rise even if drug prices go up." In cases where their treatment is for a service-connected condition, veterans "pay no out of pocket costs whatsoever for prescription drugs," the Senator notes.

While Prop 61 is subject to valid concerns, as explained below, under existing federal law, a betrayal of the right for affordable pharmaceuticals to Veterans is not one of them...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Guest: Brennan Center's Alicia Bannon | PLUS: More emails, more racism, more lies, more wingnuttery...
By Brad Friedman on 10/28/2016 5:54pm PT  

On today's BradCast: While the national media is obsessed with Trump, a record amount of dark money from undisclosed corporate sources is being spent on judicial elections at state Supreme Courts. Also: A whole lotta other breaking news today, from a new development in the Hillary Clinton email probe, to some white, armed hooligan wingnuts getting off the hook for an armed federal takeover, to one U.S. Senator likely killing his own re-election chances during a debate last night. [Audio link to complete show posted below.]

On today's interview, Alicia Bannon, Senior Counsel at the Brennan Center's Democracy Program, joins us to explain the flood of outside spending from corporate, dark money sources now pouring in to state Supreme Court elections around the country, as detailed in her new analysis published this week. We also discuss the disturbingly increasing politicization of judicial elections and why it is that judges are selected by elections at all in some 38 states.

"Around the country, we've been seeing these elections become higher cost, more politicized, and attracting a lot of special interest attention," she tells me. And that's worrying, because, among other reasons, "a judge needs to be deciding cases based on their understanding of what the law requires and the facts that are in front of them, and not out of fears of what that's going to mean for fundraising in the next election cycle, or what's going to be the subject of their next attack ad."

While judicial elections "were actually a reform measure," when originally introduced in the 19th century because "there was a concern that those judges were too closely aligned with the political branches," Bannon explains, in the wake of Citizens United and other measures that have increased the flow of money into politics, judicial elections, "are putting even more pressure on judges because of the money involved and the conflicts of interest that get created."

We go on to discuss a number of such judicial conflicts of interests, from the remarkable case of the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin to the election that will determine the balance of the Supreme Court in North Carolina next week, to the judicial campaign being funded in no small part by fossil fuel interests in Louisiana, where the same corporate funders are facing legacy environmental cases to be decided by the very same court.

Bannon, who also clerked for Sondra Sotomayor when she was an appellate judge on the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, also shares a bit of personal insight on the U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

Also today: The FBI notifies the U.S. Senate that they have found some additional emails in a separate investigation that may relate to their probe of Hillary Clinton's email server and the cable "news" industry predictably freaks out; The Bundy Brothers are acquitted at trial, for some reason, after their six-week armed takeover of a federal wildlife facility in Oregon earlier this year; Donald Trump fails to put up the $100 million he had promised to his own campaign; and Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk (R) offers an outrageously obnoxious racial slur during a debate with his opponent, double-amputee Iraq War veteran Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D)...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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From Smartmatic to Diebold: Responding (yet again) to partisan worries of vote flips and voting machine ownership...
By Brad Friedman on 10/25/2016 6:40pm PT  

It's that time of the election cycle again. Happens every four years. (Every two, actually.) On today's BradCast: That moment when partisans on the Right declare Democrats are stealing the election with voting machines owned by George Soros and Democrats worry that Republicans are doing the same via private companies actually owned by big GOP supporters. [Audio link posted below.]

Both sides see votes flipping on touch-screen systems to their opponents. Both sides declare it only happens to their chosen party. Both sides have reason to worry about private ownership of our electoral systems. Both sides tend to be very selective about their concerns. And both sides do nothing about it until it's time to start freaking out again just before the next election.

The old, previously debunked charge that the progressive billionaire Soros is somehow controlling voting machines across the U.S. re-appeared yet again in the Rightwingosphere over the weekend, only slightly modified from its 2012 version. This time it has resulted in a petition to WhiteHouse.gov --- so far, signed by more than 70,000 since it was posted late last week --- demanding "congress meet in emergency session about removing George Soros owned voting machines from 16 states."

But, of course, as we noted back in 2012, when Democrats were concerned about the actual ownership of voting machine company Hart Intercivic by associates of Mitt Romney, Soros does not own any companies with voting machines in the U.S. He doesn't own any companies with voting machines used elsewhere either, to my knowledge. But the original seed for the persistently false rumor seems to have been planted, in no small part, by The BRAD BLOG's exclusive coverage way back in 2008 of a Venezuelan voting machine company named Smartmatic --- once believed linked to Hugo Chavez --- and their secret ownership of the Intellectual Property (IP) used in voting machines made by Sequoia Voting Systems. Many of those machines are still used in about 15 states across the country.

Sequoia has since been purchased by a Canadian firm named Dominion Voting, which, like Sequoia before it, lied about Smartmatic's ownership of IP used in Sequoia's machines. But, as I explain on today's program, it could hardly be further removed from Soros who, as it turns out, has absolutely no stake in Smartmatic or any of the other vote counting companies deployed in the U.S..

But, like Democrats, Republicans have every right and reason to be concerned about the obscene private corporate ownership of our nation's public voting and tabulation machinery. (Please petition Whitehouse.gov about that!) As I noted to a reporter seeking comment about the concerns about Romney's ties to Hart Intercivic around this same exact time before the 2012 Presidential Election...

Once again, we're reminded of the dangers of the privatization of our once-public electoral system. The company's ties to Romney aren't the only disturbing ones we've seen with similar companies over the years. The fact is, that nobody other than the public should have any sort of control of our elections. The proprietary voting systems now in use in all 50 states, whether owned by Romney associates, a George W. Bush associate (as with Diebold in 2004) or even a company tied to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez (as with Sequoia Voting Systems which blatantly lied about that tie to public officials, and the Canadian firm Dominion which purchased Sequoia and also immediately lied about the fact that Intellectual Property of their voting systems used all across the U.S. is still owned by the Venezuelan firm), continue to be a grave threat to American democracy and confidence in U.S. Elections.

And, like similar clockwork, once again this year we are now hearing the shouts about touch-screen voting machines flipping Democratic to Republican and Republican to Democratic --- and the claims from partisans on both sides that "this only ever happens to Republicans/Democrats!" --- as early voting gets underway in a number of states. Is there legitimate reason to worry about such votes flipping? The answer is both yes and no, with reason for all of us to be ashamed, as I explain on the show today.

Also, not unrelated on today's program: Volkswagen's record billion dollar settlement for programming their cars' software to cheat on emissions tests; GOP Senator in close election warms up to climate change; Desi Doyen joins us for the Green News Report as pipeline protests rage, China closes coal-fired power plants, Sen. Marco Rubio looks the other way as Florida faces rising seas, and the corporate media ignore all of it during each of this year's Presidential debates...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 10/25/2016 10:44am PT  


Follow @GreenNewsReport...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: More than 120 arrested at pipeline protest in North Dakota; More arrests at tar sands pipeline protest in Ottawa, Canada; Toxic gas pipeline rupture kills 1 in Nebraska; China further restricts new coal-fired power plants; PLUS: EPA waited seven months to warn Flint residents their water was contaminated with lead... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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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): The WikiLeaks emails reveal why Hillary Clinton wouldn’t support a carbon tax; Florida Ballot Measure Could Halt Rooftop Solar, but Do Voters Know That?; NY Attorney General: “Dark Money Machine” Is Using Media To Defend Exxon’s Climate Deceit; Pennsylvania Ruling on Eminent Domain Puts Contentious Pipeline Project on Alert; Air pollution more deadly in Africa than malnutrition or dirty water, study warns; As climate change floods Florida, Marco Rubio refuses to acknowledge science... PLUS: The left vs. a carbon tax: The odd, agonizing political battle playing out in Washington state... and much, MUCH more! ...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Ernest A. Canning on 10/25/2016 9:05am PT  

According to a Los Angeles Times "Debate scorecard," the opening segment of last week's third and final Presidential debate, concerning the respective nominees plans for appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court, was a "draw."

Three of the paper's pundits each proffered what at best could be described as a superficial one-paragraph explanation for their verdict: It was a "draw" because 1) an ordinarily unhinged Trump was "calm" and "sedate," and 2) by describing what they would look for in a nominee to SCOTUS, both candidates had appealed to their respective conservative Republican and liberal Democratic bases.

The "Debate scorecard" presents a classic example of what Bill Moyers derides as the "charade of fair and balanced --- by which two opposing people offer competing opinions with a host who assumes the viewer will arrive at the truth by splitting the difference" --- an unacceptable "substitute for independent analysis." Combined with the "draw" assessment, this form of irresponsible punditry lends itself to the false equivalency separately offered by FiveThirtyEight's Oliver Roeder, who suggested that both candidates were "promising an extreme candidate" to fill the vacancy left by the death of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

In truth, the differences between the two Presidential nominees are profound. They represents the difference between oligarchy (Trump) and democracy (Clinton). Trump's preference for a judiciary that would protect the privileged few at the expense of the vast majority of ordinary Americans is both extreme and unpopular. Clinton's egalitarian criteria for judicial nominations is immensely popular and decidedly mainstream. There is nothing "extreme" about a jurist who is committed to the words that appear above the entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court: "Equal Justice Under Law."

What is especially troubling is that media pundits have erected a false equivalency on an issue of vital importance to the American electorate. Outside of global climate change, which threatens the very survival of humanity, the issue of what could turn out to be as many as three lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court over the next four years is amongst the most monumental that voters will face on Nov. 8. As we previously reported the fate of democracy itself is at stake.

Roeder and the three L.A. Times pundits would have understood that if they had bothered to either consult constitutional scholars or specific issue polls before erecting their false equivalency in their respective debate analyses...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Guest: David Jarman, Editor of Daily Kos Elections...
By Brad Friedman on 10/24/2016 6:05pm PT  

On today's BradCast: Will Hillary Clinton's apparent lead in national polling and turnout to date translate into a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate? Poll watchers and analysts, at least Democratic leaning ones, seem to think so. For now. But just barely. [Audio link for show posted below.]

More early voting numbers in several states continue to suggest a potentially banner year for Democrats. In addition to those new indicators today, Hillary Clinton's poll numbers continue to rise, even as Donald Trump argued over the weekend that all the polls are "phony", not to be believed, and are meant to do little more than suppress the vote. (Though someone may want to let his own campaign manager know about that.)

But, will the hints of success for the Clinton campaign translate into Democrats taking back control of the U.S. Senate? David Jarman, editor of Daily Kos Elections, joins me to explain what the polls currently suggest about the likelihood of a Senate majority for Dems, the races in 9 states that he believes will determine that balance and, specifically, the 3 states he believes will ultimately be the tipping points for control of the upper chamber of Congress over the next two years.

While Daily Kos is a website meant to support Democrats, Jarman explains the roll of the analysts at Daily Kos Elections: "We're sort of the quantitative side of Daily Kos, but we also do more qualitative analysis of where we feel the chances are in the Senate and the House, looking at it race by race, doing the sort of old-fashioned scouting approach of 'this is a toss-up, this is lean-Democratic', that kind of thing. We also compile a lot of the data that eludes other people, about where the ad dollars are going, what the topics of ads are, every poll, we collect those in our daily digest."

Jarman and I also discuss, among other things, how and if things like voter suppression are included in his predictions; how large a majority Democrats would need in order to be able to bypass some of the more conservative/corporatist members of its caucus; whether Democrats could also retake a majority in the U.S. House, and some serious havoc that may occur for House Speaker Ryan even in the likelihood that they don't; and, also, some of the gubernatorial races that may end up going "blue" this year as well.

Finally, Bernie Sanders responds to Wikileaks' release of emails from Clinton staffers painting him in a less than favorable light, and Donald Trump says that he has plans to rethink freedom of the press, as defined by the Constitution's First Amendment, should he become the next President.

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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