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SPECIAL NOTE: Though we didn't have time to mention as much in today's report, this is our 7TH ANNIVERSARY episode of the Green News Report and our 670th(!) episode overall! Wow. Please feel free to drop an Anniversary gift into THE TIP JAR so that we can afford to keep connecting the climate change dots in a way that nobody in the corporate media (or even many in the alt media, in truth) have been able to over such an extended period! And thank you all for your years of past and future support! --- B&D

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President Obama says rest of world disturbed by our GOP Presidential candidates; New study finds air pollution kills nearly 6 million people a year globally; January 2016 was the hottest January on record; West Virginia is 40 percent flatter now, thanks to coal mining; PLUS: The renewable energy revolution is happening faster than anyone predicted.... 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): Washington Asks If Railroads Could Afford $700M Oil Train Spill; Ohio EPA Fires Two Over Sebring Lead Contamination; Wyoming Says Its Coal Mine Cleanup Policy Is Flawed; Study Ties U.S. to Spike in Global Methane Emissions; Pipeline Corrosion Caused Santa Barbara Oil Spill; Oklahoma Cracks Down On Injection Wells After Earthquake Spike; Contaminated Flint Water Among Most Expensive In The U.S.; Study Flags Concerns CO2 Underground Stores Could Leak... PLUS: Latest moose count provides little good news... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, a whole bunch of stuff that's been happening that isn't related to the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia --- and an item or two that are. [As usual, the audio link for the complete show is at the bottom of this article.]

First up, we catch up with the upcoming primaries and caucuses in Nevada and South Carolina with a look at the current polls on both the Republican and Democratic sides (some of which, if accurate, is quite surprising!) All of which offers another swell excuse to remind you about the oft-failed, easily-hackable, 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems that will, incredibly enough, once again be in use across South Carolina this year.

That, despite the infamous 2010 election in SC which resulted in a guy who nobody had ever heard of (Alvin Greene) --- a 32-year old man who did not campaign, had no campaign website, had no job, didn't even own a cell phone --- somehow being named the winner of the state's Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate! Somehow, as we covered in great detail at the time, he managed to "defeat" a popular former Circuit Court Judge named Vic Rawl (who did campaign across the entire state!) in the bargain.

Those same failed machines will once again be in use, not only in SC for this Presidential Election year, but also in many other states as well, including Ohio where some are reportedly failing already. In Lee County, FL, in the meantime, a candidate for Supervisor of Elections and a cybersecurity expert are now being investigated by state officials after the pair released a YouTube video showing how easy it was to hack into the main County Elections website server.

And, speaking of hacking, we are joined today by Corynne McSherry, Legal Director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), to explain the debate over Apple's challenge to a federal court order requiring the company to break their own secure encryption technology in order, supposedly, to help the U.S. Government in their investigation of last December's horrific San Bernardino massacre.

McSherry explains why EFF supports Apple's position here and opposes the "quite extraordinary" pressure by the Federal magistrate to force private companies to give the U.S. Government special, backdoor access to otherwise secure software systems. In this case, it is one of the shooter's iPhone's that law enforcement officials are still unable to unlock.

"I don't know about you, but I don't have a tremendous amount of trust in the government's ability to make sure that that backdoor that Apple builds for them is kept secure. We know that government databases are hacked all the time," she tells me. "There's sort of this notion that you can just have a golden key and only good guys will use it. That's not how it works in practice. Ask any security expert and they will tell you. Once you build it, it will be used for nefarious purposes as well as laudable purposes."

McSherry believes it is no accident that federal officials are using the very high-profile San Bernardino case to try and set their precedent. "I don't think they chose this particular phone accidentally. I think that they chose this to be the case because they're hoping that people will be distracted from the very real thing that's happening here, which is that this is the first time that a company will be required --- required --- to build code in order to assist law enforcement to build a back door. That's really the precedent that the government is after here."

Listen below to the entire fascinating conversation and, yes, a bit more on Scalia and why he was down at that wealthy businessman's ranch for a free vacation over the weekend in the first place...

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The fallout from the sudden death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia continues on today's BradCast.

First, the GOP continues to coalesce around the unprecedented idea that President Obama should not be allowed to appoint Scalia's successor, though some key cracks in that radical position may be emerging in the U.S. Senate.

Constitutional law expert and Supreme Court historian and author Ian Millhiser joins us to discuss the extraordinary stance by Senate Republicans, how it could result in a Constitutional crisis on a number of levels, and how Scalia's death means that much of what we thought we knew about cases already heard, but where the Court's opinions have not yet been handed down, is all now upside down.

"What Scalia's death means, in a lot of these cases, is where it looked like there was a possibility of a sweeping conservative change to law, that just doesn't look like it's on the table anymore," Millhiser says, as we examine how Scalia's death has changed everything we thought we knew about a number of very big cases now before the court --- on everything from immigration to women's rights to union rights to Congressional redistricting, affirmative action, the environment and more.

Scalia's votes, Millhiser explains, on opinions that have yet to be handed down by the Court are now null and void. The result could be that several cases that looked very bad for Progressives may now have a much more favorable outcome. In others, however, if Republicans refuse to allow a Presidential nominee to move forward, splits in Circuit Court decisions across the country could occur, with the result of different applications of Constitutional rights depending on which jurisdiction you happen to live in and the "potential for considerable chaos" along with it.

As to the GOP deciding to act responsibly to help avert a number of these potential nightmares for the nation, Millhiser is not optimistic. "What the Republican caucus is doing right now is unprecedented. It's unprofessional," he tells me. "I could come up with a lot of other words for it that I'm not allowed to say on the radio."

"We find ourselves potentially at the beginning of a Constitutional crisis right now, because it's not like Republican Senators are likely to be any keener to approve someone to the Supreme Court if its Hillary Clinton's nominee or a Bernie Sanders' nominee. So we could be waiting a really long time."

"Chances are the country is going to be in the exact same position if Mitch McConnell is still the Majority Leader [next year]," he notes ominously, adding that as many as three other vacancies on the Court could occur during the next Presidency. "It's possible these seats could remain vacant for years."

"For years"?! Oy. All of that and much more on today's show, including Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report with a bit good news for a change!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia leaves U.S. climate action --- and the planet --- hanging in the balance; Hillary Clinton calls for assistance for Coal Country; Bernie Sanders keeps hammering Republicans on climate change; Game-changing affordable electric cars coming next year! PLUS: The worst natural gas leak in U.S. history is finally plugged.... 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): Organic diet cuts pesticide exposure in children; L.A. gas leak plugged, but California pipelines regularly leak; Gasoline keeps getting dirtier while alternatives keep getting cleaner; How the Climate Challenge Could Derail a Brilliant Human Destiny; Utilities just declared war on solar; New Bill Would Clean Up Abandoned Coal Mines And Jump Start The Appalachian Economy; Arizona loses 25 percent of solar jobs in 2015; Texas cities ask federal officials to cancel drilling leases; How utility executives see the future of the electricity business... PLUS: The decisions we make about climate change today will reverberate for millennia. No pressure.... and much, MUCH more! ...

As you may suspect, it's a very busy program on today's BradCast for some reason.

Heather Digby Parton of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo and Joshua Holland of The Nation and the "Politics and Reality Radio" podcast join me for coverage of both the political (and perhaps Constitutional) earthquake following Saturday's sudden death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and for the insane Republican Presidential Debate that took place in the wake of that huge news just hours later.

We discuss the bombshell Scalia news and the unprecedented response from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who immediately vowed to keep President Obama from his Constitutional duty of nominating and appointing a new Justice --- with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate --- now that the appointment would serve to tip the balance of the Court 5 to 4 toward Democratic Presidential appointees.

Meanwhile, at the GOP debate in South Carolina shortly thereafter on Saturday night, every remaining Republican Presidential candidate called for Senate Republicans to block any nomination made by this President. And, as if that's not insane enough, the entire debate then quickly devolved into a remarkable Pro Wrestling-style shouting and name-calling spectacle which, frankly, left me --- as well as my guests today --- more than a bit gobsmacked and amused.

From the word "LIAR!" used dozens of times by several candidates to the 15-years late Republican debate over who to blame for 9/11 and the Iraq War(!), I think I'm fairly safe in saying we have never seen any Presidential debate like it.

As Ohio Gov. John Kasich said at one point during the madness on display Saturday night, just days before this weekend's GOP Primary in South Carolina (which will be run on 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems): "I gotta tell ya, this is just crazy. This is just nuts. Jeezo, man."

Couldn't have said it better myself...

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I suspect many of you have thoughts on the jaw-dropping news of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia today. Feel free to share those thoughts, as you see appropriate, in Comments below. For my part, for now, just a few very quick observations...

On today's BradCast, we go well beyond the horse-race (though we cover that too) for substantive, smart and, yes, occasionally snarky coverage of last night's Democratic debate on PBS between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton in Milwaukee, WI.

I'm happy to be joined once again today by journalist David Dayen of The Fiscal Times, Salon, The Intercept and everywhere else and health care reform advocate and journalist Jacki Schechner, formerly of CNN and CurrentTV.

It was the first debate following Sanders' dominating win against Clinton in New Hampshire on Tuesday, and the last one currently scheduled between the pair before the Nevada Caucuses next week, the South Carolina Primary the week after, and then Super Tuesday on March 1. So, a lot was riding on their face-off last night.

Among the issues we examine on today's show: Do Bernie's plans for single-payer health care and free college tuition actually "add up"? Is Hillary's attack on Bernie for criticizing Obama fair? Has she finally found a message that can work against the insurgent Senator? And what the hell is up with PBS' obsessive embrace of misleading Rightwing memes concerning the "size" of government?

All of that and much more --- including our own Desi Doyen --- to help you become a better educated voter and annoy your friends with facts at cocktail parties, on today's BradCast!...

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On today's BradCast: Breaking news out of Oregon and California, more disturbing voter suppression news out of New Hampshire and elsewhere and a new study finds hard evidence that "racial resentment" is central to the so-called "Tea Party" movement.

First up, the latest breaking news on the bizarre and bitter end of the Rightwing militia standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon and the concurrent arrest of Nevada's scofflaw rancher Cliven Bundy.

Next, more disturbing Photo ID voter suppression news out of New Hampshire and elsewhere, including a new paper out of UC-San Diego finding that strict Photo ID restrictions result in an alarming rate of suppressed Latino and African-American votes. In general elections, for example, based on examinations of some 50 elections in states both before and after implementation of polling place restrictions by GOP lawmakers, "states with strict photo ID laws show a Latino turnout 10.3 points lower than in states without them."

Then, after a brief throwback to the early days of the so-called "Tea Party" (our complete short documentary from 2009, Rise of the Tea Bags, can be enjoyed here), I'm joined by political science researcher Sean McElwee of Demos to discuss his new study, with Jason McDaniel, offering empirical evidence that it is not opposition to "Big Government" or concerns about the economy or spending or taxes that mainly drives those who identify as being sympathetic to the Tea Party --- it's racial resentment.

McElwee explains how his study controlled "for race, ethnicity, partisanship, ideology, income, education, gender, religiosity" and that "once you compare the various strengths of these variables, the one that ends up becoming really the overwhelming predictor of Tea Party identification is racial resentment."

"From the beginning," of the movement, he tells me, "what you're seeing is this sort of racially-coded rhetoric. So, right from the beginning, you have a very great explanation of conservative politics of the last 30 years --- which is plutocratic policies being wrapped up in racist rhetoric in order to benefit a plutocratic agenda. And you have a lot of white middle class and working class people who have bought into that agenda."

"What Fox [News] has done is taken that model and actually weaponized it, politicized it, and used it to attack policies that benefit the vast majority of Americans," McElwee argues, even as the Rightwing network's viewers have little clue how they are being played. "What we have in a lot of cases are people who are very frustrated about what is going on, but lack the political knowledge to actually understand the causal mechanism for how this bad thing is happening. And if you don't have that --- if you don't connect government policy to your lived experiences --- what you end up doing is saying 'I'm upset, I don't know why my life is bad'. And if someone tells you your life is bad because 'immigrants are taking your jobs', or 'the government is helping black people with your tax dollars', people are susceptible to that message."

McElwee goes on to explain how his research finds that many who previously identified with the Tea Party have now folded into the Trump campaign, even though the Republican 2016 front-runner has called for massive government programs and increased spending --- things that Tea Partiers previously decried. We also discuss much more, including whether hatred for Obama from the Right can be attributed to the fact that he is black or, simply, that he is a Democrat.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us with the latest Green News Report and the breaking news out of Porter Ranch, CA that the month's long, massive methane gas leak there has finally been stopped...for now...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Bernie Sanders slams Republicans on climate change denial after landslide New Hampshire win; In unprecedented move, U.S. Supreme Court halts historic new emissions standards for power plants --- for now; U.N. moves ahead anyway on emissions standards for the airline industry; PLUS: Heat wave in the Arctic, as winter sea ice hits lowest extent ever recorded... 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): Supreme Court’s climate stay may imperil Paris Climate Accord; Wall St.'s Water: hedge fund manager betting on water in the West; Oregon Standoff occupiers say they'll turn themselves in; House passes bill forcing EPA to move faster on lead-tainted water; Snyder ordered DEQ to withhold Flint lead test results; Flint E-Mails: CDC voiced concerns over Legionnaires' actions; Dengue Fever an ‘emergency’ on Hawaii’s Big Island... PLUS: Microbead pollution harms oysters, ocean's ecosystem engineers... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, we look at the huge (yooge?) victories for both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary elections, not to mention a victory for the devil in Arizona and for justice in North Carolina.

First, in New Hampshire, both Sanders and Trump each destroyed their competition by record margins. But also both Sanders and Trump absolutely dominated virtually every demographic in their respective parties. The victories served to reveal how the political party establishment and corporate U.S. media pundits continue to be radically out of touch with the American electorate and how the "electability" arguments that have been put forward concerning both candidates are finally being questioned.

Moreover, on the Republican side, the contest resulted in both Fiorina and Christie heading back to Palookaville, while Rubio sunk like a stone and the GOP establishment may have found their next new "savior" in Kasich.

Then, we're joined by Constitutional law expert Ian Millhiser to discuss how a "Satanic Temple" trolled its way into killing the opening religious invocation long used by the City Council in Phoenix, AZ. Also, Millhiser explains a new federal court ruling finding that NC GOPers racially gerrymandered two Congressional districts in the key swing state.

"Finally! Satan gets a break in the United States!," Millhiser tells me in regard to the Phoenix story. He says that while the "satirical church" doesn't "actually worship the devil, they do believe that there shouldn't be these public displays of Christianity at City Council meetings." He describes their victory in Phoenix, as well as in other cities where the group has successfully "trolled" elected officials in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that has begun to collapse the nation's long-standing separation between church and state.

"The Roberts Court has started to tear down those walls that have existed for a really long time," Millhiser, author of the new book Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted, tells me, before offering his best guess as to why the five conservative Justices on the Court are so "hostile to the notion of separating church and state."

Finally, Millhiser details the federal district court's redistricting ruling in NC --- what it will mean, how it may or may not affect the state's upcoming elections, how those hostile to minorities figured out long ago that they can use the slow pace of the U.S. Court system to game elections, and how doing so has suddenly become even easier following the Supreme Court's 2013 gutting of the key Voting Rights Act meant to prevent such schemes.

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On today's BradCast, we catch up with a number of breaking items, as well as items from the last several days (while we were otherwise covering the GOP and Democratic debates), even as voters in New Hampshire finally head to the polls for the First-in-the-Nation primary today.

Among the stories we hit today, as we await the completely unverified results from NH tonight...

• Democratic party officials "unilaterally" changed Iowa Caucus results;
• Why nobody should simply 'trust' unverified computer-tallied results that will be reported in NH (or anywhere else);
• How NH's new Photo ID voting restriction law could affect turnout;
• Rubio-bot does it again;
• Another mysterious Republican dirty trick in NH;
• Jeb now wants to "eliminate" the Citizens United ruling;
• Voting Rights restored to 40,000 in MD;
• MD forced to ditch new touch-screen systems for paper ballots;

Plus much more --- including our latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hillary Clinton pushes Congress to act on the Flint Water Crisis; Donald Trump calls out Republican hypocrisy on eminent domain; Bernie Sanders fights to stop oil and gas pipelines in New Hampshire and Vermont; PLUS: President Obama proposes a ten dollar per barrel tax on oil, and fossil fuel industry heads explode... 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): U.N. Agency Proposes Limits on Airlines’ Carbon Emissions; Sea-Level Rise 'Could Last Twice As Long As Human History'; New Federal Gas Storage Rules Likely to Mimic Industry's Guidelines; Obama Proposing Clean-Water Cuts Amid Flint Outcry; Gulf Of Mexico Open For Fish-Farming Business; Australia 'Isolated' From Global Research After CSIRO Climate Cuts; Half-Built Nuclear Fuel Plant in S. Carolina Faces Test on Its Future; Chlorine Trains Pose an Even Deadlier Threat Than Oil Trains... PLUS: 'Wrong type of trees' in Europe increased global warming... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, we try to make sense of the amazing GOP debate in New Hampshire on Saturday, the final one before tomorrow's First-in-the-Nation primary in the Granite State.

First, I offer a very few quick reminders and action items for those interested in fighting for Election Integrity during tomorrow's primary in NH. This, in a state which uses hand-marked paper ballots, but refuses to actually verify that results are accurately tallied by the state's oft-failed, easily-manipulated Diebold optical-scan computers before announcing results to the public. (For a reminder of the nightmare that occurred on that system back in 2008, you can peruse our Special Coverage here.)

Then, I'm joined for today's post-debate coverage and analysis by two progressive bloggers who have been consistently right for years --- Heather Digby Parton of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo and Martin Longman of Washington Monthly and Booman Tribune --- to discuss where Rubio, Cruz, Trump and the others, including the corporate media, went wrong on Saturday night...and, unfortunately, for so many years prior.

From Rubio's remarkable on-stage meltdown to Cruz' ability to lie with amazing impunity (even when he is actually called out as a "flat-out liar" by CNN!) to the danger that Trump's ability to "win" may hold for both Republicans and Democrats alike.

And, as if that doesn't give us all enough to cover today, we take the time to call out the corporate U.S. media (and the Obama Administration) for allowing this mind-bogglingly precarious moment in U.S. history to even have come about in the first place...

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