Unless either the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeal or Supreme Court intervenes, more than 608,000 lawfully registered Texans, who were illegally disenfranchised during three successive elections (the General Elections in 2014 and 2015 and this year's Presidential Primary), are likely to again be barred from casting a vote in the November 2016 general election.

A disproportionate number of those who have been and may be deprived of a right that is, at least in part, supposedly guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) are impoverished African-Americans and Hispanics.

The source of disenfranchisement is a Republican-sponsored polling place Photo ID law which state Democrats had spent years, and no small amount of effort (even life-endangering effort) attempting to oppose.

Republicans insist that such laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud. But, as detailed by the 2011 sworn Congressional testimony of Justin Levitt (then a Loyola Law Professor, now an Assistant U.S. Attorney), cases of in-person voter impersonation fraud --- the only type of voter fraud that can be prevented by polling place Photo ID restrictions --- are extraordinarily rare: nine possible cases out of more than 400 million votes cast. "Americans are struck and killed by lightening more often," Levitt observed.

Later, in a 2014 update to his comprehensive investigation of all existing reports "voter fraud" in the U.S. over the 14 preceding years, Levitt announced evidence of just 31 cases of the type of voter fraud that might have been deterred by Photo ID restrictions out of more than 1 billion votes cast since the year 2000.

Claims of this type of "voter fraud," according to the renowned, Reagan-appointed 7th Circuit jurist, Richard Posner, are but "a mere fig leaf for efforts to disenfranchise voters likely to vote for the political party that does not control the state government"...

Posner's comments came in a federal Wisconsin case where a deeply flawed and extraordinarily partisan panel decision resulted in electoral chaos and the potential disenfranchisement of some 300,000 legally-registered Wisconsin voters during last week's Presidential Primary elections in the Badger State. That flawed decision, which upheld Wisconsin's Photo ID law as lawful, despite the trial court's very clear findings to the contrary, was allowed to stand because the full 7th Circuit Court was evenly divided (5-5) on the matter.

In Texas, however, a Republican state Attorney General has been permitted to enforce a Photo ID statute (SB-14) even after three federal courts unanimously determined that, at a minimum, the statute unlawfully violates rights guaranteed by the VRA. In Texas, mass disenfranchisement has been the product of an epic failure by our courts to uphold constitutional and statutory rights that every member of our judiciary has sworn to uphold and protect.

Unless the U.S. Supreme Court acts quickly, it could happen once again during the 2016 Presidential General election...

On today's BradCast, we catch up on a lot of news, polls, twists and turns --- most of which underscore, yet again, why elections and representative democracy matter...no matter what the corporate "news" media tries to tell ya.

Among the stories covered on today's thrilling episode!...

• New polls find, once again, that Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton in match-ups against all potential Republican opponents (and even among Democrats nationally); Also, that the front-runners in each party are remarkably unpopular within their own parties.
• Bruce Springsteen cancels a North Carolina concert Sunday due to the state Republicans' new pro-discrimination law;
• The GOP in Nebraska is attempting to 'swipe' a potential electoral college vote from Democrats;
• San Francisco (where the economy is booming, as it is elsewhere here in California, now under Democratic control), becomes the first U.S. city to mandate paid parental leave;
• More clear evidence that thinking big about policies and progressive ideas pays off when the people bother to fight for them and turn out to vote (when they are allowed to vote, anyway), rather than turn cynical and stay home.

All of that and much much more on today's program, including new evidence that the Keystone pipeline leak in South Dakota is far worse than originally reported by TransCanada, the company which owns it, and Desi Doyen joins us with the latest Green News Report which also includes some very encouraging news today...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast, a former Wisconsin State Senate official says GOP Photo ID voter suppression led him to leave the party; And Don Blankenship, West Virginia's "Dark Lord of Coal Country" is sentenced to just one year in prison for acts leading to the deaths of 29 miners. [Audio link for complete show follows below.]

First up today, Todd Allbaugh, a former Chief of Staff in the WI State Senate says he left the Republican Party when, during a closed-door caucus meeting to discuss the state's Photo ID voting restriction law in 2011, GOP lawmakers were "giddy" about the prospect of using the law to disenfranchise Democratic voters in the Badger State.

Then, WV's own Bob Kincaid, Head-On Radio Network host, co-founder of the Appalachian Communities Health Emergency Campaign and President of Coal River Mountain Watch, joins us to discuss Blankenship's federal sentencing yesterday for his part in conspiring to violate mine safety regulations leading to the tragic 2010 Upper Big Branch (UBB) coal mine explosion.

Kincaid details the once-powerful coal baron's rise to power, why the former CEO of Massey Energy got off so lightly in both federal and state court, why coal remains king among both Democrats and Republicans in WV, and how Obama's mythical "War on Coal" shows no signs of ending deadly coal mining and toxic mountaintop removal in the state.

On the emotional reaction by families of UBB victims following Wednesday's sentencing (see this from a miner, Tommy Davis, who lost his brother, son and nephew in the disaster), Kincaid describes it as "heartbreaking" and yet "another chapter in the 125-plus-year-long exploitation and devastation of the people of this state and this region" which has resulted in coal industry-caused deaths numbering "in the tens of thousands".

Despite the disaster that has devastated the community, he warns "of course, it's going to happen again, because Don Blankenship was not the only coal boss who hates safety regulations. Remember, here in West Virginia, and generally in the Republican Party, those are not 'safety regulations' that Don Blankenship conspired to evade. Those were 'job-killing regulations'."

"In 2014," Kincaid notes, even after the horrific UBB disaster, WV voters "ran --- they did not walk --- they ran to the polls to elect a slate of Republicans on the principle that the Republicans said they were going to make the coal come back." He goes on to explain how "Appalachia has lost 500 mountains" through the toxic practice of Mountain Top Removal mining (allowing coal companies to get more coal with many fewer miners) and how the Obama Administration has done nothing to stop it during his nearly 8 years in office.

"The idea that there's a 'War on Coal' is just a sad, cynical, and tragic little joke --- perpetrated on people who, I guess, like their confirmation bias," he tells me. Near the end of the enlightening and colorful conversation (in which he also offers his unvarnished opinions on the plans for Coal Country from Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders), as I beg for evidence of a hopeful sign, somehow, somewhere out of Coal Country, Kincaid offers: "You know what's hopeful? The fact that the people who do understand the reality of it aren't backing down. We're not going away. We're not going to quit. We're not going to quit living in the land of reality while other people live in a fantasy world. We're going to keep making the noise. We just need more people making noise with us."

Please listen to the complete, very lively interview in the show linked below!

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Coal boss convicted in deaths of 29 miners is sentenced to just 1 year in prison; Sec. of State John Kerry tells private sector to pick up the pace on clean energy; Saudi Arabia planning ahead for world without oil; BP's $20b Gulf oil spill settlement now tax-deductible; PLUS: Dam good news for salmon and people on the Klamath River in Oregon... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Wind and Solar Are Crushing Fossil Fuels; Frack Wastewater May Be Messing With Hormones; Oklahoma Governor Declares State of Emergency Over Wildfires; Soil Could Be The Key To Fighting Climate Change; Banned Chemical From Hospital IVs Linked To Attention Deficit Disorder; PFOA Testing Expanded To Include 11 More Vermont Sites; Almost Half Of Natural World Heritage Sites Are Threatened By Industry; Smithsonian Gives Nod to More 'Dark Money' Funding for Willie Soon... PLUS:Big Seed: How Industry Turned From Small-Town Firms To Global Giants... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, we cover the results, the fallout and the voting disasters from Tuesday's Primary Election in Wisconsin --- the most important parts of which continue to be ignored by the bulk of the corporate mainstream media.

First up (after a bit of breaking news out of West Virginia), both Ted Cruz on the Republican side and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side, reportedly won their respective Presidential Primaries yesterday by huge numbers and record turnout. Yet, with the growing likelihood of contested conventions for both the Republican and Democratic parties, the corporate media continue to downplay the Sanders surge against Hillary Clinton (he's now won 7 of the last 8 nominating contests, most of them by 'yuge' margins), even as they continue to go round-the-clock in their coverage of Donald Trump and the GOP nomination fiasco.

They also continue to ignore the difficulties that so many Americans are having even casting their vote, thanks, in particular in Wisconsin, to the GOP's Photo ID restriction law that we've been warning about for a very long time and which resulted in untold thousands of voters, particularly at universities around the state, waiting in lines for hours --- if they were able to wait at all and if they were able to get the "proper ID" --- to simply cast a vote. (See this very short video of a very long line, by way of just one example, if you don't believe me.)

If it was this bad for a Primary in WI (and in AZ, IL, NC, MO, FL and elsewhere, so far this year), imagine what November will be like when all 50 states vote at the same time. The MSM better start ignoring those concerns immediately!

We then take a few listener calls and emails on all of the above (including my thoughts on the "Bernie or Bust" movement) before our latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen on the Keystone pipeline springing a leak, another heat wave in Alaska, new details on the number of Americans who will be killed by climate change, and much more that, coincidentally, is also being under-reported and/or completely ignored by the mainstream corporate media...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast: All too predictable voting problems in the state of Wisconsin and in St. Louis, MO today; MSNBC responds to our request for comment on why Bernie Sanders received short shrift on Rachel Maddow's show last night, on the eve of the crucial Badger State primary; And we debunk wingnut nonsense concerning the minimum wage as $15/hour victories come to California, New York and elsewhere. [Link to audio for complete show below.]

First, while voters wait on line to try and obtain new Photo IDs so they can vote at all today under the GOP's new voting restrictions in WI, many St. Louis County voters showed up for local elections in MO, only to find no ballots at all to vote on. Then, we explain what happened last night on Maddow's show to suggest that Hillary Clinton was polling ahead of Sanders in WI by 6 points, when the vast majority of pre-election polls in the state suggest the exact opposite. MSNBC responds to our query late today, to tell us that the issue was due to a technical error later corrected for the Midnight re-run and online versions of her show. Full details on that in today's program.

Then, in the wake of bills signed into law this week by the Governors of both NY and CA to raise the minimum wage to $15, we speak to financial journalist David Dayen about the Right's feigned concern about job loss (but only when it comes to raising the Minimum Wage), as well as the real concerns about the increase, and activists have had an extraordinary impact on the entire conversation about the decades long wealth gap between the rich and everyone else in the U.S.

Dayen explains why the new law, in CA alone, as he also reported at Salon last week, is a very big deal: "1 in every 8 workers in America is a Californian. Under this proposal, over 33% of them are going to get a raise at some point along the way between now and 2022. And thereafter, because after 2022, the minimum wage gets tied to inflation, so it keeps going up."

"It's really a testament to the power of activism. Before the 'Fight For 15' inaugurated in 2012, nobody would have believed that you could get a $15 an hour living wage, minimum, in a state as big as California. So, really, hats off to the #FightFor15 workers, who really pushed this," he says, offering kudos at the same time to both the Occupy movement and the Sanders campaign. "All of this is rumbling forward and moving Democrats who control states like California and New York into places that they were uncomfortable to go previously. And that is a testament to how this issue of inequality has become the functional, primary issue in American politics today."

Dayen, author of the upcoming book, Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud, also responds to the "hand-wringing on the part of economists and business leaders," when it comes to potential job loss in the wake of raised wages.

"We see all kinds of experiments" with the economy, he argues. "We see workers used as guinea pigs all the time by businesses" in all matter of schemes that may benefit those businesses, but not their workers. "These same economists are so worried about the fate of workers with this experiment with the minimum wage have never said a darn thing about all of these experiments that hurt workers --- that we knew were going to hurt workers at the time --- because it was literally about cutting their wages and getting rid of their benefits and putting them in hazardous workplaces. Spare me this rhetoric that you care about workers when you've sat by idly over 40 years as work has become more and more and more devalued."

But will raising the minimum wage, in fact, cost jobs? And, if so, does it even matter? Tune in for his answers to that and much more in a fascinating conversation on today's show --- one which you won't hear, for some reason, on Fox "News" or CNN...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New report finds climate change is going to kill a lot of Americans; The Keystone Pipeline springs a leak; Good news and bad news for California's epic, historic drought; Another heat wave hits Alaska; PLUS: Customers flock to reserve Tesla's Model 3, which doesn't even exist yet... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Can Coal Companies Afford To Clean Up Coal Country?; ‘Fractivists’ Increase Pressure on Clinton and Sanders in New York; Climate Change Puts Trillions in Financial Assets At Risk: Study; Federal Judge Approves $20 Billion Settlement From BP Oil Spill; Chicago To Start Testing Water In Homes of Children Poisoned By Lead; New Study: "Acidic Pacific: Act Now, or West Coast Pays Dearly; Judge: Climate Change Imperils Wolverines And Feds Must Act...PLUS: Australia: No 'science for science sake'... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, more surprisingly good news from the U.S. Supreme Court for voters, and more concerns for the ability of those voters to cast a vote at all in the state of Wisconsin in tomorrow's crucial Primary Election in the Badger State. [Audio link to complete show follows below.]

First today, two encouraging breaking stories as we go to air: California Governor Jerry Brown signs a new law, just hashed out last week, raising the state's minimum wage from $10 to $15 by 2022, and SCOTUS unanimously(!) affirms the long-held principle of 'One Person, One Vote' that had been challenged by Rightwingers in the Evenwell v. Abbott case which we covered in detail last December following oral arguments.

The Court's 8 to 0 opinion on Monday finds that Congressional districts may be drawn, as they are currently, with (roughly) the same population in each, rather than, as petitioners had sought, the same number of eligible voters in each. Had that argument been successful, not only would every district in the country need to be redrawn, but, more problematically (and, of course, the reason the challenge was brought in the first place), in such a way that a lot of voting power would have shifted from urban centers, which tend to vote Democratic, to rural districts, which tend to vote more Republican. We explain what that all means and how a ruling in favor of petitioners would have left non-voters, such as children, immigrants and felons, among others, with even less legislative power than they have now.

Also today, we review the messy small "d" democracy at work over the weekend, as Ted Cruz seems to have outsmarted Donald Trump at the GOP's North Dakota state delegate convention, and as Bernie Sanders picked up two delegates previously won by Hillary Clinton at the Nevada Caucuses on February 20th. (Her total now there, for those keeping score at home, goes from a 20 to 15 delegate victory, to a virtual tie at 18 to 17 over Sanders --- at least if the latest totals from the state's Democratic Party County delegate conventions hold.)

Then, the much less good news, as we speak to Emily Lonergan, with the Legal Coordinating Committee of Wisconsin Election Protection about the concerns that some 300,000 already lawfully registered voters --- much less those that are eligible to vote and may still register on Election Day --- will be blocked from casting a vote at all with the implementation of state Republicans' draconian, unnecessary and wildly (purposefully?) confusing Photo ID voting restrictions during tomorrow's primary

Lonergan, who clearly shares my very serious concerns about this issue, and the problems it may cause for all voters on Tuesday, explains the GOP's absurdly confusing new restrictions on voting in WI, noting in no uncertain terms that (as found during the trial which struck down this law as illegal and unconstitutional, only to be overturned by a flawed ruling by a federal appellate court) there is no known problems with "voter fraud" that this new voting restriction could have possibly deterred.

"The majority of voter fraud cases in Wisconsin relate to individuals who are...disqualified due to felony status," she tells me. "Frankly, I don't believe there has been one case --- and I certainly haven't heard anybody pointing out a single case to me --- of voter fraud that could have been avoided with [the state's new Photo ID voting restriction] in place."

So buckle up for what could be a very bumpy primary day in Wisconsin --- for both Democrats, in particular, but also for many Republicans! You may also want to keep the number 866-OUR-VOTE handy to pass on when you encounter or hear about trouble at the polls on Tuesday! Please report it there! (And to county and state officials, as well as media, etc.)

Finally today, back to the encouraging (if too little, too late) news: It is confirmed that the U.S. Dept. of Justice will be launching a civil rights investigation of the disastrous March 22nd primary in Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ, after thousands were turned away without being able to cast their vote due to closed polling places and mysteriously changed voter registrations...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast, several ominous signs for the days ahead --- for Wisconsin voters, for RNC convention goers, and for all the rest of us...

In WI, voter registration and DMV computers go down just days before the crucial primary elections when some 300,000 legally registered voters could find themselves unable to vote at all under state Republicans' disenfranchising Photo ID voting restriction, implemented for the first time in a major election this Tuesday.

Similarly ominous signs for the GOP, with growing evidence to suggest the party may be locked and loaded for a contentious and contested national nominating convention in Cleveland, as Trump may be fading and one (once?) powerful Republican calling for the nomination to go to a "fresh face". Good luck with that.

But there's some good news amongst the omens. An encouraging March jobs report; An infamous 'Wall Street Godfather' explains why he believes Bernie Sanders would be best for the economy; St. Louis, MO is set to use only paper ballots in their local elections on Tuesday (that's a mixed omen); A federal judge kills Mississippi's ban on adoption by same-sex couples; And there's even some encouraging news today amongst more ominous signs in our latest Green News Report today with Desi Doyen. What are the odds of that? Good luck, world!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Fighting to keep our eyes on stuff that matters, on today's BradCast we cover several new concerns for voters in upcoming Presidential primary elections in WI, NY and D.C., as well as some surprising new poll numbers, before moving on to the most important story of our time. [Audio link to complete show at bottom of article.]

Climate scientist and author Dr. Michael E. Mann joins us to discuss, among other related matters, the new temperature records that have stunned even folks like him, as new data was released this month on an increase in global heat that scientists are describing as "staggering", "astronomical" and like "something out of a sci-fi movie".

Professor Mann, who heads up the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, tells me that, with this year's El Niño event finally subsiding, scientists had expected global temperatures to decline along with it. "But, instead, the February numbers came in and not only did we not see a cooling off, we saw unprecedented warmth. It was the largest departure from the average for a given month that we've ever seen."

"What was so surprising was just the magnitude of that warmth, basically taking us now into the territory of more than 2 degrees Celsius warming," years earlier than expected, he says, referencing the amount of warming that scientists, worldwide, believe to be a threshold for dangerous and potentially irreversible impacts on humanity and our climate systems. "We're still on track for the globe to exceed that permanently in a matter of decades. What we didn't expect was that we'd actually cross that threshold so soon."

The creator of the infamous "hockey stick graph", and author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines explains the new "warning sign" represented by the latest data which, he says, looks like "maybe we accidentally took a temperature from February 2030 from a climate model simulation."

Mann goes on to explain the details of another stunning new report finding that the amount of carbon now being introduced by man into the atmosphere by no parallel on Earth, even going back 66 million years when the planet was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than it is now. That was due to a still-unexplained yet massive carbon release of about 1 billion tons each year for some 4,000 years, resulting in 100,000 years of warming. Now, however, humans are emitting about 10 billion tons of carbon annually and changing the planet much more quickly than during that Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (or PETM) period some 56 million years ago.

"You can think about it as a medical experiment," says Mann, "where a dose was given to a set of patients, and that dose led to near-death. The biosphere nearly died in the sense that we had mass extinctions during the PETM. That was for a dose of one unit. What we're doing now is we're giving the patient ten times that dose. And to expect that we're not going to see similarly bad things happen as a result would be foolhardy. We are literally hitting the system harder than Nature, to our knowledge, has ever hit it."

The good professor, who has long been personally targeted by the Rightwing climate denialist industry also offers a few thoughts on the "bad faith" arguments on climate change by the Koch Brothers and the various Republican Presidential candidates, as well as the corporate mainstream media's (lack of) coverage of this existential threat. And, I'm happy to add, he also shares "a little bit of good news" along with all of this, including details of some tentative new studies suggesting our ability to overcome the looming disasters may not be "as bleak as we once thought."

So there's that, before we finish up today's show with some rather encouraging news about electric cars that might just help a bit with all of the above...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: State Attorneys General unite to investigate ExxonMobil for climate change fraud; Debunking another Republican EPA lie that won't die; 7 million Americans at risk of fracking earthquakes; Sea levels could rise six feet by 2100 because...Antarctica; PLUS: Scotland closes its last coal plant... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Choking to Death in Detroit: Flint Isn't Michigan's Only Disaster; Flint Official: State Overruled Plan For Corrosion Control; Exxon Must Hold Shareholder Vote on Climate Change Resolutions, SEC Says; Program Will Make Cutting Carbon Emissions Lucrative For Farmers; Climate Policy’s Advocates Take Page From Same-Sex Marriage Playbook; Toxic Chemical Still in Can Linings of Popular Foods; Trump Finds Common Ground With Cruz in Opposition to Carbon Tax... PLUS: “Epidemic” of Premature Births is Increasingly Linked to Air Pollution... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, in the wake of the disgraceful voter suppression that took place last week in AZ (and, before that, in IL, MO, NC, FL, etc. so far this cycle), we detail, among other things, the disasters that await voters next week during the crucial Dem and GOP primaries in Scott Walker's WI.

Despite being found illegal and/or unconstitutional by three different courts, the Badger State's new Photo ID voting restriction, instituted by state Republicans, will be in place next week for the first time during a major election. The law, determined by a federal court to imperil the otherwise legal votes of some 300,000 already-registered voters, will be implemented nonetheless, thanks to a factually-inaccurate ruling by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2014.

That, despite the federal judge who found it "absolutely clear," based on evidence and expert testimony during the lengthy trial he oversaw, that Wisconsin's Photo ID voting restriction will "prevent more legitimate votes from being cast than fraudulent votes." And, also, despite the lack of required notice the state has given to voters concerning the disenfranchising new restriction on voting rights.

So, buckle up for that fun and for remaining primary disasters in other states where too many registered voters are waiting until Election Day to be surprised by changed voting rules, long lines and mysteriously changed party registrations. (Yes, talking to you, NY and CA voters, among many others!)

We also get some more information on the mystery concerning all of those delegates Bernie Sanders was supposed to have won last week in WA and hear about the harrowing tale of the 82-year old African-American plaintiff challenging NC's Photo ID voting restriction.

Finally, we take a ton of listener calls today, for a happy change, on all of the above and much more in another very lively BradCast!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

I'm back today on The BradCast, after Nicole Sandler of RadioOrNot.com filled in for a few days! (Thanks, Nicki!!!) And while little has changed in the GOP race for the White House since I've been gone, it was a very big weekend for Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side, even if the mainstream corporate media continues to disregard his campaign. [Audio link for the complete show is at bottom of article.]

Then, I'm joined by constitutional law expert Ian Millhiser, author of Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted, to explain today's stunning ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of public sector unions. The decision in Friedrich v. California Teachers Association is a major turnaround from what had been the expected outcome earlier this year when we spoke to Millhiser in January just after oral argument in what had been regarded as "the biggest legal attack on unions in decades".

Thanks, however, to a 4 to 4 deadlock on the Court, in the wake of the recent death of Rightwing activist Justice Antonin Scalia, today's ruling is the opposite of what had been previously expected and "one of the first consequences" of his death, says Millhiser. "Scalia was probably going to be the fifth vote to do some serious violence to the way that public sector unions are funded," he explains, while detailing why today's ruling is very good news for both Democrats and democracy itself in the wake of what had been "potentially an existential threat to unions."

"What this decision does mean is that if someone wants to undermine unions, they don't get to take a shortcut. They don't get to go to five Justices and get the Justices to put in place the laws they want for them," Millhiser tells me.

He also decodes the Court's somewhat "baffling" order today concerning a challenge by religious activists to the 'ObamaCare' contraception mandate, as well as the latest status of the GOP's seemingly self-defeating obstruction of President Obama's nomination to replace Scalia.

Finally, we've found something that both Republican and Democratic voters agree on! What happened last week to voters in Phoenix --- many of whom had to wait up to 5 hours to cast a vote (and some of them were the lucky ones!) --- was an outrage across the board, and we've got just some of the outraged voter testimony from the AZ state legislature on Monday to prove it!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)