Follow & Support The BRAD BLOG!

Now celebrating 15 YEARS of Green News Report!
And 20 YEARS of The BRAD BLOG!
Please help The BRAD BLOG, BradCast and Green News Report remain independent and 100% reader and listener supported in our 21st YEAR!!!
ONE TIME ONLY
any amount you like...
$
MONTHLY SUPPORT
any amount you like...
$
OR VIA SNAIL MAIL
Make check out to...
Brad Friedman/BRAD BLOG
7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Latest Featured Reports | Thursday, March 28, 2024
BRAD BLOG Spring Breaking
And not a moment too soon...
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
FEATURING: Moses Mike...Trump II Terror...TikTok Truth...and more in our latest collection of the week's most secular toons!...
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
BMDs pose a new threat to democracy in all 50 states...
VIDEO: 'Rise of the Tea Bags'
Brad interviews American patriots...
'Democracy's Gold Standard'
Hand-marked, hand-counted ballots...
Brad's Upcoming Appearances
(All times listed as PACIFIC TIME unless noted)
Media Appearance Archives...
'Special Coverage' Archives
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...


In wake of President's reported 'shithole countries' comment, the GOP's toxic, racist policies are laid bare in the U.S. and across the globe...
By Brad Friedman on 1/12/2018 6:43pm PT  

On today's BradCast: Buckle up, and maybe take a few pre-emptive antibiotics just for safety. [Audio link to show follows below.]

We begin with a few responses to the racist President of the United States Donald Trump's reported description of Haiti, El Salvador and Africa nations as "shithole countries". As a measure of just how appalling the comments were, we actually declare George W. Bush no longer the "Worst President Ever", before turning to outraged responses from right-wingers Glenn Beck and Frank Luntz, of all people, to help underscore both how offensive and, frankly, inaccurate Trump's comments were.

But, as several have noted, while Trump's remarks are disturbing, the fact that his racism is embodied within his policies --- on immigration, policing, and much more, including voting and elections --- is far more troubling. That racism and dishonesty was on display in the sham Presidential Commission created by Trump, supposedly to root out the millions of illegal votes he falsely claims were cast against him when he lost the popular vote by millions to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

But his bogus Commission, headed up by disgraced GOP "voter fraud" fraudster and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, was abruptly shut down last week after facing an onslaught of legal challenges and finding none of the supposed voter fraud they had set out to highlight. After the Commission's ignominious closure, Kobach claimed he would be advising the Dept. of Homeland Security who, he said, would be taking the Commission's data and preliminary findings to continue the investigation. While worrying a number of voting rights advocates, those claims too have so far proven to be false, according to statements from DHS and legal documents filed by the DoJ in response to lawsuits.

Meanwhile, Trump's poisonous racism and failed Presidency is having ripple effects across the globe, and not just with those nations he is said to have described as "shitholes". The U.N. and the Vatican have now condemned his remarks, he has been forced to cancel a planned trip to Great Britain (which, naturally, he has lied about) and, following the recent resignation of the U.S. Ambassador to Panama who says he can no longer justify serving under this Administration, Trump's newly appointed Ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, has been mercilessly called out by the Dutch in recent days for multiple lies.

Hoekstra, a former Republican Congressman from Michigan and immigrant from the Netherlands, had recently denied having made wholly discredited racist charges, in 2015, claiming Muslim immigrants were burning Dutch politicians to death and creating so-called "no-go zones" in the Netherlands. After he charged a Dutch journalist with reporting "fake news" for asking him about his fully-documented and video-taped false claims (and then claiming in the same interview he hadn't charged the journalist with reporting "fake news") the new Ambassador's first press conference this week in The Hague did not go well, to say the least. On Friday, Hoekstra was finally forced to admit his 2015 comments were wrong, though his shame appears to not yet be over.

All of which underscores that while Donald Trump may be the highest profile symptom of a very sick Republican Party, he is but a small part of a very widely spread disease that has poisoned his party and has made America anything but "great again" in the eyes of the world...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

* * *
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!
* * *

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION
ONE-TIME DONATION


Choose monthly amount...


(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)




Guest: Journalist David Roberts of Vox.com...
By Brad Friedman on 8/25/2015 3:58pm PT  

Over the weekend, supposedly moderate, supposedly reasonable 2016 GOP Presidential candidate Carly Fiorna discussed climate change --- for four long minutes --- with Yahoo News' Katie Couric. In the bargain, as climate journalist David Roberts of Vox.com noted, "everything she said was wrong." Really wrong.

Roberts joins me on today's BradCast to dissect Carly's clap-trap, and to discuss a new report from those lefty, environmentalist, tree-huggers over at Citi GPS (the research arm of Citigroup), finding that moving to clean renewable energy now, in order to try and help mitigate climate change, is ultimately less expensive for the world than sticking with our current fossil fuel economy status quo.

"Moderate Republicans have decided that outright science denial is no longer working for them," Roberts explain in regard to Fiorina's bizarre climate comments. "They've concluded that it makes them look old and cranky and backwards, and it's hurting them with young people and Latinos. So there's at least a small collection of Republicans who have started thinking 'How do we oppose doing anything without denying the science?' That's the dilemma that's in front of them. That's what Fiorina is trying to solve here."

The results, for the failed businesswoman and failed U.S. Senate candidate, as we discuss point-by-point --- from her silly claims to Couric about wind farms and birds, to the one about solar power requiring "huge amounts of water" --- were as disastrous as her failed reign as CEO of HP.

"Republicans have spent so long dug in on this stupid science debate over climate change," Roberts tells me, "they haven't bothered to notice or look around or educate themselves at all about what's going on in this area. So, now they are leaving science denial behind --- slowly but surely --- [and] wandering out into this territory where they know almost nothing. They're just stepping on rakes everywhere."

Summarizing Citi's new report, Roberts explains its findings this way: "It's basically, 'Do you do the same thing you're doing at enormous risk, or do you take this alternative route which costs about the same and avoids this enormous risk?' At the end of all this they basically say, 'Why would you not do this? It's got so many benefits and so little downside. Why aren't we doing that?' And, of course, why we aren't has everything to do with politics."

"If you want to say that the transition to clean energy is going to destroy the economy, then the burden of proof is on you at this point, because there's so much research saying otherwise," he adds during our wide ranging --- and kinda fun --- conversation!

Also on today's show: Glenn Beck's coming-soon tyranny apocalypse; Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both continue to surge in New Hampshire polling...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

* * *
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!
* * *

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION
ONE-TIME DONATION


Choose monthly amount...


(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)




By Brad Friedman on 7/10/2015 5:24pm PT  

As history is made, today's BradCast takes a look at the background, context and FACTS behind a number of stories in today's headlines which haven't been reported as well as they should have been.

From the Confederate flag coming down in South Carolina today (it wasn't raised due to the Civil War, but rather, in response to a remarkable chapter in the fight for civil rights); to the bizarre intra-GOP fight over the Confederate flag in Congress (Hint: It's not really about the flag at all, it's about the EPA); to the facts, not fiction, behind Donald Trump's Republican Party immigration follies (he's just plain wrong); to the continuing (and hysterical) wingnut fallout from the Supreme Court's ruling on marriage equality (no, Glenn Beck, you won't be thrown off the air for opposing Constitutional equality for all, but that County Clerk in Kentucky should be tossed out of his job for failing to follow the law.)

Also: The nation's dumbest Governor invokes the "Pee-Wee Herman" defense; Responding to a complaint from a radio station manager; And much more! All on today's very busy BradCast!...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

* * *
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!
* * *

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION
ONE-TIME DONATION


Choose monthly amount...


(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)




And why media reformers must reboot the fight for our public airwaves...
By Brad Friedman on 3/2/2015 7:05am PT  

I didn't want to say anything about this last week, given the hard fought and well won victory of Net Neutrality proponents. They worked hard and long and smartly and organized very well and deserved at least a few days of victory laps for the effort.

Indeed, as noted in attorney Ernie Canning's piece here Thursday, describing the legal contours and challenges the FCC's new ruling attempts to circumnavigate: "The new policy is unquestionably a victory for both the idea of Internet freedom, as well as for the unprecedented campaign waged by the public to advocate in favor of 'Net Neutrality' over the past several years. An outspoken public won the day, for a change, against very powerful interests. It was a victory that, particularly over previous years, seemed to be anything but assured."

So this thought is not meant to diminish the accomplishment of the army of Davids' who defied the odds and managed to defeat an army of Goliaths in a way that was virtually unthinkable even a year ago.

That said...

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




And why the entire 'debate' is phony...
By Brad Friedman on 5/30/2014 4:06pm PT  

We touched on this a bit in yesterday's Green News Report, but this new "I'm not a scientist" tactic now emerging from Republicans, as played most recently by Speaker John Boehner, is noteworthy enough --- and cowardly enough...and purposely deceptive enough --- to look at just a bit closer.

It's a fairly clever new ruse to avoid what folks like Boehner know to be absolutely true, but which, for a number of reasons, they're not allowed to say outloud anymore.

New York's Jonathon Chait helps kick this off...

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




Frankenstein's monsters finally turn against the good doctor...
By Brad Friedman on 5/20/2014 6:02am PT  

[This article now cross-published by Salon...]

Glenn Beck's natives are getting very restless, and many of them are now taking their frustrations out on him.

The organizers of last Friday's "Operation American Spring" (OAS) had claimed their massive Washington D.C. protest, "calling for the removal of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, and Eric Holder as a start toward constitutional restoration," was likely to draw 10 million to 30 million fed-up American patriots to the nation's capital.

To the weekend-long bemusement of Democrats and progressives, the number of attendees at the rally was closer to 10 than 30 million. As even the rightwing Washington Times reported, attendance fell "woefully below expectations," with turnout claims varying from a few hundred to a few thousand. "Hundreds is more like it," said one of the attendees quoted by the Times.

Progressives were predictably entertained by the dismal failure of the umpteenth rally to save our nation from the "outlaws" or "commies" or "Muslims" or "Constitution haters" who have now taken it over the government --- through peaceful elections. But once the King of the American Patriots himself, Glenn Beck, and his online "news" outlet The Blaze, appeared to join in to mock the event, the real patriots could no longer hold their tongues.

Long-time supporters of Beck's turned their sights on the radio host-turned-CNN-host- turned-Fox-"News"-host-turned-multi-millionaire-Internet-entrepeneur after The Blaze's Oliver Darcy covered the event, describing it as "only millions short of projected turnout," featuring "only a few dozen protesters" and as having "failed incredibly."

Many of Beck's fans were decidedly not happy about that, some going so far as to declare Beck himself "the enemy"...

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




By Sue Wilson on 2/27/2014 11:06am PT  

The entire right-wing mediasphere flexed its powerful muscles last week against its only regulator, the Federal Communications Commission.

It started when the new Republican FCC Commissioner, Ajit Pai, ignored traditional inter-agency channels and went straight to the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal to accuse his colleagues of "meddling with the news."

That was all it took.

Pai's beef? That the FCC would be conducting a "Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs" (CIN) to question radio and TV reporters and editors about how they determine which stories to run and which not to run. The study would also ask ask about "perceived station bias" and "perceived responsiveness to underserved populations."

As I reported at The BRAD BLOG way back in 2011, "The FCC is tasked with making sure the broadcast media --- via the limited broadcast spectrum which is owned by we, the people --- serves the public interest. Every four years, as required by the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the FCC must revisit the issue of public interest in media ownership." Despite the right wing hyperventilation over the nefariousness of the CIN study, it's simply part of the FCC's statutory mandate, as explained here.

What's most interesting, however, is that Pai enlisted the very same right wing Pied Pipers who have long taken control of and, indeed, dominate the very airwaves we ALL own, and which most of us agree need more diversity and public oversight --- in hopes of intimidating the new Democratic FCC Chair Tom Wheeler into providing less diversity and public oversight.

That bit of upside-down policy jujitsu was, ironically enough, enabled by the tremendous power of broadcasting over our publicly-owned airwaves.

Following the siren call of Pai's piping, both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck dutifully took to those airwaves coast-to-coast to work their 30 million or so radio listeners into a frenzy to prevent the FCC from following the agency's decades-long mandate for determining whether local broadcast news organizations are serving the "public interest" or whether they are merely producing news stories mandated by their corporate owners.

Pai's ploy appears to have worked...

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




By Brad Friedman on 2/3/2014 4:32pm PT  

Exactly as a twitterer from MSNBC had correctly predicted last week, the Rightwing is throwing a shit fit over an awesome, multicultural Super Bowl ad.

Never mind that the Right had only pretended to be outraged by that tweet. And, sure, today's shit fit is over a different ad than the perfectly accurate and appropriate MSNBC tweet had predicted. But, otherwise, MSNBC was absolutely right. (And the cable channel's cowardly execs who felt it necessary to appease the loon RW extremists by deleting the tweet, apologizing for it, and then firing the person who wrote it, were pathetically and embarrassingly wrong.)

The best ad of the day on Super Bowl Sunday --- and not only because it's proven MSNBC's fired twitterer correct --- wasn't the Cheerios ad of note (though it was awesome), it was this ad from Coca-Cola...

Cool, right? Well, apparently not to the extremists who have taken over the mainstream Right in this country, including Glenn Beck who charges today that the ad was meant "to divide us politically"...

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




By D.R. Tucker on 1/21/2014 6:05am PT  

"I wonder why other black Republicans delude themselves?"

That tweet, in response to my January 12 piece for The BRAD BLOG about my bizarre ride to the dark side of American right-wing politics, was the shortest reaction to my article, yet perhaps the most profound.

It was every bit as profound as a 2011 remark from one of the many progressive voices I was once taught to hate...

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




Non-RW listeners in largest and most progressive media markets to be almost completely unserved over our publicly-owned airwaves
UPDATE: Move may also signal very bad news for Rush Limbaugh...
By Brad Friedman on 12/5/2013 2:55pm PT  

The largest media market in the world is about to lose its only non-Rightwing commercial talk radio station. Los Angeles' KTLK 1150am will be flipped to a far Rightwing station featuring hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and other rightwing talkers. "The changes are set to take effect for the first broadcast of 2014," according to the Los Angeles Times this afternoon.

KTLK is owned by Clear Channel Communications, Inc., the nation's largest owner of radio stations. Clear Channel is now owned by Mitt Romney's Bain Capital LLC. The talkers mentioned above who will be taking over the previously-progressive station are also syndicated by Clear Channel-owned Premiere Networks, the largest radio syndicator in the nation. The BRAD BLOG has long argued that the outsized control of our public airwaves enjoyed by Clear Channel/Premiere and a handful of other conglomerates --- including their ability to leverage our public airwaves (licensed from we, the people, in exchange only for their promise to serve the public interest) to distribute their own syndicator's shows --- is a likely violation of U.S. v. Paramount, the 1948 anti-trust Supreme Court decision which found that the major movie studios could not also control the means of distribution by owning the nation's largest theater chains at the same time.

As if ending progressive talk radio in L.A. isn't bad enough, Clear Channel will now also reportedly be flipping its formerly progressive San Francisco talk station KNEW 960am (a move which they had threatened and then partially changed their mind about flipping in late 2011), over to a completely Right-leaning station as well, says the Times. That will leave San Francisco, arguably the most progressive city in the nation, without any commercial progressive talk radio outlet at all. But, as in L.A., listeners will still have many different Right-leaning talks outlets on our public airwaves to choose from, several of them owned by the same major corporation.

In Los Angeles, Clear Channel also owns KFI 640am, the number one station in the market. That station currently runs Limbaugh, along with a host of other Right-leaning local talk shows. KTLK, had once described itself as "Progressive Talk", before changing it's tag line to "L.A.'s Voice" earlier this year. They had already gutted of most of the station's progressive-leaning talk shows over the past several years. The station will now be re-dubbed "The Patriot". The Times reports that "Clear Channel is hoping to pump up [KTLK] as an outlet exclusively dedicated to right-leaning chatter"...

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




With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 9/5/2013 2:55pm PT  


Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 
Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Pandora
Listen on Google PodcastsListen on Stitcher
Listen on TuneInRSS/XML Feed (Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: No, it wasn't a pot farm that caused massive Yosemite Rim Fire; Obama: US should learn from Sweden's focus on clean energy; It's official - hottest winter on record in New Zealand; It's confirmed - fracking injection wells caused Youngstown earthquakes; The Force is with Chile's new "moisture farms"; PLUS: Too hot for school? School heat closures increase ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Listen online here, or Download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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): US Chamber of Commerce softening on carbon tax?; Bringing distributed solar to Ethiopia; Wind power making fuel for Germany's gas grid; Japan's levitating train breaks speed record; Climate change bringing tropical pests farther north; Pro-fracking study, touted by MSM, paid for by fracking companies; Your exfoliating cream is destroying the environment; US taxpayers paid out record $17b for crop-related disasters; PLUS: Climate Scientist Can Sue National Review For Defamation, Judge Rules ... and much, MUCH more!...

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




With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 9/3/2013 2:13pm PT  


Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 
Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Pandora
Listen on Google PodcastsListen on Stitcher
Listen on TuneInRSS/XML Feed (Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Japanese government finally takes over Fukushima as radiation levels spike; Pacific Island nations beg U.N. to act on climate, John Kerry steps up to help; Sequestration cuts helped to spread massive Yosemite Rim fire; PLUS: Hitting the brakes: Americans are driving less than ever ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Listen online here, or Download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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): Drill next door: Here’s what it looks like when fracking moves in; Warming helping crop pests' spread; Fox News wonders what's eroding our beaches; Hunter shoots the first endangered wolf seen in Kentucky in 150 years; US government paid $17B for weather-related crop disasters last year; CNBC: Animals will "snuggle" under Keystone XL Pipeline; CT takes on wood furnaces; Lead poisoning killing wildlife; Pollution, not rising temperatures, may be melting the Alps; Dogs the newest scientific measuring equipment ... PLUS: Scientists leave GOP due to attitudes toward science ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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




Glenn Beck calls for U.S. government to 'shoot them in the head'...
By Brad Friedman on 7/14/2013 3:13pm PT  

Here's our own Desi Doyen (of The BRAD BLOG's Green News Report) on this week's The Point, The Young Turks' panel show, along with Dave Rubin, Kelly Carlin & Anna Kasparian, talking about rapper Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) getting force-fed in solidarity with the Gitmo prisoners who have been on hunger strike protesting their captivity for months...

The force-feeding being carried out on the Gitmo prisoners is a human rights abuse decried as torture by organizations such as the Red Cross, the United Nations and the World Medical Association.

It's all the more outrageous considering that more than 80 of the prisoners currently on hunger strike --- and being force fed through a tube in their nose for months --- have been cleared for release years ago by the U.S. government.

Yet, they still sit today, for years on end, as prisoners, never to face charges and with little hope of being released any time in the near future. That, despite President Obama's claims that he wants to close Gitmo and, most importantly, the fact that he has the power and ability to send all of the cleared prisoners home tomorrow, with little more than a stroke of his pen.

And, by the way, the very popular Rightwing Republican hypocrite and idiot Glenn Beck is so clueless that he either doesn't know the above, or simply doesn't care. Instead of calling for these people to be treated humanely or have their rights and freedom (which he pretends to care about) restored, last week he made fun of them and expressed his preference that the U.S. government should just "shoot them in the head".

Remember that, please, the next time the con-man Beck attempts to hoodwink you or anybody else into believing that he gives a tinker's damn about "Big Government" tyranny, freedom, individual rights or anything other than disinforming America in order to line his own pockets with the hard-earned cash of his gullible, easily-conned fellow citizens.




More progressive talk pushed off OUR PUBLIC AIRWAVES and, again, in one of the nation's most progressive cities...
By Brad Friedman on 11/9/2012 5:29pm PT  

[UPDATE: As of 6:00pm PT, the KPOJ website has now flipped to "Fox Sports AM 620 Portland".]

This is horrible. Tonight, without warning, Clear Channel Communications-owned 620 AM KPOJ in Portland, Oregon, one of the most progressive cities in one of the nation's most progressive states, has flipped from its years-long progressive news and talk format over to Fox Sports as of 5:30pm local time.

KPOJ was the only commercial progressive talk radio station in Portland. The city will still have several other Rightwing talk radio stations, including one owned by Clear Channel, and they already have two sports stations, but the Bain Capital-owned media conglomerate is now killing yet another progressive voice from our publicly-owned airwaves.

An earlier piece today in The Oregonian had reported that the station would be flipping as of Monday. An UPDATE in the Willamette Weekly, however, reports that the station, which had long featured Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, Thom Hartmann (who had broadcast for years out of KPOJ until moving his show to Washington D.C.) and other progressive talkers, will change to its Fox Sports format as of this evening.

The BRAD BLOG can now confirm that KPOJ has flipped its programming format and website to Fox Sports as of 6:00pm PT tonight.

When one company owns "competing" talk radio stations in the same town, and gets to decide which one enjoys a stronger signal and which one receives promotional dollars (and which one doesn't), "competition" in the market place is a mirage. It's the equivalent of a Coca-Cola distributor owning the sole rights to distribute both Coke and Pepsi in the same town. Which one do you think is going to sell better there? That's precisely what talk radio is like in almost every major market in the country now. One company, usually Clear Channel, generally owns both the "Right" and "Left" talk stations. (In Portland, Clear Channel owns Rightwing talk outlet KEX as well as KPOJ.) Promoting one station would likely decrease listeners and ratings --- and, thus, ad dollars --- for the other. Thus, there is no "free market" competition in talk radio.

This is hardly the first time that Clear Channel has done the same thing, in very progressive cities, underscoring yet again that there is no real, "free market" competition in talk radio over our publicly-owned airwaves. The market place is decidedly rigged...

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




By Brad Friedman on 9/7/2012 12:40pm PT  

On Thursday, Florida's fairly progressive former Republican Governor Charlie Crist spoke in support of President Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. Crist became an independent during his failed 2010 run for the U.S. Senate, after it became clear that his party was likely to nominate Marco Rubio for the seat instead. All of that had come about after Crist had demonstrated the temerity to famously embrace the President when he came to pitch the stimulus bill in the Sunshine State, which ended up saving tens of thousands of Florida jobs after the 2008 global economic meltdown threatened to plunge the country into another Great Depression.

Echoing Ronald Reagan's famously-cited reasons for the former President's own switch from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, Crist explained during his speech last night: "I can certainly relate. I didn't leave the Republican Party; it left me."

"Then again," he added, "as my friend Jeb Bush recently noted, Reagan himself would have been too moderate and too reasonable for today's GOP."

With all of that, here is how CNN described Crist during his speech yesterday...

For the record, American Heritage Dictionary defines defines the word "turncoat" as "One who traitorously switches allegiance."

West's Encyclopedia of American Law redirects web-queries for the word "turncoat" to its page on "treason", which is defined there as "The betrayal of one's own country by waging war against it or by consciously or purposely acting to aid its enemies."

Perhaps we missed it, but we don't remember the "liberal" CNN similarly labeling Democrat-turned-Republican Artur Davis a "turncoat" when he spoke at the RNC last week in favor of Mitt Romney. Or did they just reserve that distinguished label only for Republican-turned-independent Charlie Crist when he spoke on behalf of Barack Obama?

In any event, CNN is in terrific company with their slur. They weren't the only one to compare Crist to a traitor by describing him as a "turncoat". Rightwing extremist Glenn Beck's pretend "news" site The Blaze did so as well:

Unlike CNN, however, Beck's site appears to have done the right thing and removed that descriptor from its headline (though it's still in the page name) after initially using it.

To our knowledge, CNN has issued no apology for likening the former Governor of Florida to a traitor, which, by the way, is still punishable by death in the United States.




Total Pages (6):
[1] 2 3 4 5 6 »

Support The BRAD BLOG
Please visit our advertisers










Support The BRAD BLOG
Please visit our advertisers
Brad Friedman's
The BRAD BLOG



Recent Entries

Archives


Important Docs
Categories

A Few Great Blogs
Political Cartoonists



Please Help Support The BRAD BLOG...
ONE TIME ONLY
any amount you like...
$
MONTHLY SUPPORT
any amount you like...
$
Or by Snail Mail
Make check out to...
Brad Friedman
7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594
Los Angeles, CA 90028

The BRAD BLOG receives no foundational or corporate support. Your contributions make it possible to continue our work.
About Brad Friedman...
Brad is an independent investigative
journalist, blogger, broadcaster,
VelvetRevolution.us co-founder,
expert on issues of election integrity,
and a Commonweal Institute Fellow.

Brad has contributed chapters to these books...


...And is featured in these documentary films...

Additional Stuff...
Brad Friedman/The BRAD BLOG Named...
Buzz Flash's 'Wings of Justice' Honoree
Project Censored 2010 Award Recipient
The 2008 Weblog Awards



Wikio - Top of the Blogs - Politics

Other Brad Related Places...

Admin
Brad's Test Area
(Ignore below! It's a test!)

All Content & Design Copyright © Brad Friedman unless otherwise specified. All rights reserved.
Advertiser Privacy Policy | The BradCast logo courtesy of Rock Island Media.
Web Hosting, Email Hosting, & Spam Filtering for The BRAD BLOG courtesy of Junk Email Filter.
BradBlog.com