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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Today on The BradCast, our All-American, Super-Smart, Most-Patriotic-Ever Panel of Geniuses try and make sense of whatever the hell happened last night in Iowa during the GOP Debate on Fox "News", as front-running boycotter Donald Trump's bizarre, competing "fundraiser for veterans" happened at the exact same time just down the street.

Joining me today for that not-so-simple task is Heather Digby Parton of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo blog ("Trump plays the networks off each other masterfully."); John Amato, creator and publisher of the great Crooks and Liars blog ("Trump showed that he'd stand up to Ailes. Nobody in the GOP does that."); and, of course, our own Desi Doyen.

We also try to make sense of the neck-and-neck, anybody's-call, jump ball of a Democratic race between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, as Iowa prepares for its first-in-the-nation caucuses on both sides of the aisle on Monday.

Become instantly smarter --- and enjoy more than a few laughs --- by listening to today's program. Enjoy!

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On today's BradCast, with the first Presidential caucuses and primaries of 2016 now just days away and the first mass voter suppression trial of the year now underway (in North Carolina), we look at a number of recommendations to improve our voting system. But is it too late to make much of a difference for 2016?

First up, some breaking news on the possibility of an added Democratic debate after the Iowa caucuses and before the New Hampshire primary, and some thoughts on the human cost of Climate Change-fueled extreme weather (over just the past month) versus Islamic terror attacks in the U.S. in the 15 years since 9/11.

Then, on to our conversation with Myrna Peréz of the Brennan Center for Justice's Democracy Program to discuss her new report: Election Integrity: A Pro-Voter Agenda. The paper offers six important areas --- from voter registration to polling access to vote casting and counting --- where the U.S. system can and must improve its integrity without sacrificing security or access to the voting booth.

"It is possible to protect election integrity without disenfranchising eligible voters," Peréz writes in her report about the solutions she and the Brennan Center offer. "All target fraud risks as they actually exist. None will unduly disenfranchise those who have the right to vote."

As she explains to me today: "We are having is a very contested moment in time where the right to vote is being challenged in a way that we haven't seen in decades. We are seeing politicians trying to manipulate the rules of the game such that some people can participate and some people can't. And we have that butting up against states that have very restrictive budgets, and may not actually have the money or resources to make reforms that would even save money long-term, because they require an initial investment. That, coupled with infrastructure problems --- like we have been registering voters in a really out-of-date way for too long, and we haven't updated our voting machines --- are all colliding to produce a period of worry, where when voters step into the polls on Election Day in November, they're not going to be getting the best customer service for their tax dollars. And that they're not going to be voting in a way that's consistent with what the greatest democracy in the world should be doing."

"We tried to look at where there were opportunities to improve what we're doing, and actually study and address some of the concerns that folks are having," Peréz says. "And do it in a way that is sensible and thoughtful and common sense, in terms of making sure that the cure isn't worse than the disease. And make sure that we're not disenfranchising more people than we're trying to prevent from perpetuating fraud."

We discuss, among many things in our detailed conversation, the real threats to election integrity --- not "voter fraud" by individuals at the polling place, as vote suppressors on the Right would like you to believe, but far more often, and in a much larger way, by political and election insiders. "We need to make sure that our politicians, who are using our resources and our taxpayer dollars, are fixing a problem that is real and addressing it in the most cost-effective and efficient way."

Finally on today's show, a few words and memories in regard to the recent tragic loss of Wisconsin's John Washburn, an integral member of the U.S. Election Integrity community and a reliable and important source over the past decade to me here at BradBlog.com and on the radio, on e-voting in general and, in particular, on some of the nightmarish elections disasters in the Badger State over recent years. John was a great proponent of transparency, open government, proper testing of electronic voting systems and, frankly, one helluva guy. As noted in my more detailed In Memoriam on today's program, John's loss, at the age of 53, is a particularly tragic and costly one for the cause of democracy and free and fair elections in Wisconsin as well as the rest of the nation. We send our thoughts and best wishes to his family, including his wife and three children. His institutional knowledge, good humor and wit will be greatly missed in 2016 and beyond, but his good fight will continue.

(John's guest blog contributions to The BRAD BLOG are here. You can sort through some of his other contributions to our stories and radio programs over the years here. And much more documentation of his work on EI matters and more is still available at his personal website right here. UPDATE: John's family has requested remembrances be posted on this tribute page.)

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On today's BradCast, we do our best to keep you warm and dry --- and perhaps even provide a smile or two while we're at it --- as the monster snow storm socks the East Coast.

We cover a lot of ground today's show: From the reasons for 'Snowzilla' and the cost of low oil prices; to Obama's victory in court today for his Clean Power Plan; to new signs that the GOP is utterly broken (but why Dems should still be careful what they wish for!); to our latest American Islamophobia Update; to new evidence that Open Carry laws are ridiculous; to some very smart listener mail about Dems and health care; and a number of the absolutely craziest effin' things we've ever heard (with apologies to Stephen Colbert).

You'll have to tune in to find out what today's graphic (above) is all about. But it is, no doubt, one of the craziest effin' things I've ever heard.

Enjoy...and stay warm, dry and safe out there!

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On today's BradCast, we've got both good news and bad at year's end.

First up, Kentucky's new 'Tea Party' Republican Governor Matt Bevin revokes the restoration of voting rights for 140,000 former felons as instituted by the former Democratic Governor. That, after the dubious and completely unverified results of the state's November gubernatorial contest. Yes, as we've noted for well over a decade now, elections matter! Bevin also did away with the previous governor's increase to the minimum wage for state workers, while he was at it.

Also today, quick news on the Trump supporter (a middle-aged white guy) arrested with a bomb after threatening to kill Muslims at a mosque in California more than two weeks ago. Also, a quick word on the record number of sign-ups this year at Healthcare.gov for new and renewed health insurance policies thanks to the Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare").

Then, I'm joined by Dr. Joe Romm, editor of Climate Progress and former Asst. Sec. of Energy in the Bill Clinton Administration, after his return from Paris where the UN struck its historic agreement just over one week ago to curb greenhouse gasses that cause global warming.

As usual, Romm offers extremely informed and helpful insight, including his explanation for how the UN talks began earlier this month with the challenging goal of an agreement that would keep global temps from rising any higher than 2 degrees Centigrade, but surprisingly ended with an landmark pact that included the aspirational goal of 1.5C.

"It became clear from just looking at the science that there's nothing safe about 2 degrees Centigrade," he explains. "What we've learned in the last 18 months, with the instability in the West Antarctic ice sheet, and all the extreme weather events that we're already seeing, and the brutal droughts we're seeing in this country and elsewhere, that we're already at dangerous impacts, and we're only at 1 degree Centigrade of warming. So, I think that reality did set in." He adds: "If you want to limit to 2 degrees Centigrade total warming, the planet's net emissions have to go to zero by the end of the century. So, pretty much every country is going to have to go to zero."

Romm details exactly what that means and echoes remarks from my interview with Dr. Michael Mann last week, where Mann declared that the Paris Agreement signals the "end of the age of fossil fuels."

"We are talking about the end of the fossil-fuel driven Industrial Revolution that began 250 or so years ago," Romm tells me. "And that's why, in some senses, this is such a big deal. Because you literally had every single significant country in the world, large and small, rich and poor, all sign on to this agreement, which recognizes, yeah, the age of fossil fuels is coming to an end."

We cover a number of the steps ahead ("I was describing this as Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope. We have a lot more battles before us.") during our wide-ranging conversation that also includes his complaints about Bill Gates' big new clean tech fund, and his response to the charge by NASA's former chief scientist Dr. James Hansen that the Paris Agreement is a "fraud".

"I think we're certainly at an inflection point," says Romm. "You know, change happens slowly, until it happens quickly. I tend to think we have now entered the phase of much more rapid changed than people expected."

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The DNC seems to have wanted their Democratic Presidential Debate in New Hampshire over the weekend to remain a secret. Otherwise, why would have they have scheduled it on the Saturday before Christmas?!

On today's BradCast, we spoil the secret by talking about that and everything else that actually went on during Saturday's debate on ABC between Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley.

Joining me are financial 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.

Among the issues covered in today's post-debate coverage and analysis:

• Do voters actually care about last Friday's database breach by the Sanders campaign?
• Is the DNC 'in the bag' for Hillary Clinton?
• Do Democrats play into GOP/corporate media narratives by spending so much time discussing ISIS and terrorism?
• Is there any real daylight between Clinton and Bernie Sanders' positions on gun safety reform?
• Does Martin O'Malley bring anything to the contest that Clinton and Sanders don't already have covered?
• Why did ABC News spend so much time on Republicans during Saturday's Democratic debate?
• Does the math really work for Sanders' plan to provide free college tuition to all public colleges and universities by instituting a tax on Wall Street transactions?
• Does the math really work for Sanders' call for a single payer health care system?
• Did ABC's Martha Raddatz completely misinform America in her question to Clinton concerning Obamacare?

All of that and much more on today's BradCast, as expertly answered by Dayen and Schechner! Especially helpful to those of you who might have had something else to do on a Saturday night before Christmas...like, I dunno, go see Star Wars!

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On today's BradCast, Congress and the President leave D.C. for the holidays, but not before coming together to pass a huge, bi-partisan(!) spending and tax bill.

Peace on Earth? Not quite, but its a start, as Obama noted in his year end press conference today.

In the meantime, another massive reporting failure from the New York Times (once again) creates confusion for the nation following the recent terror attack in San Bernardino, prompting its Public Editor to call for "systematic change" in the way stories are reported at the nation's so-called "paper of record".

The Bernie Sanders campaign files suit against the DNC after being shut out from their own voter database following charges that his campaign inappropriately accessed Hillary Clinton's voter data after a firewall went down on the DNC's server. Sanders' supporters are crying foul against the Democratic Party, just one day before the next 2016 Democratic Presidential Debate (which is, again, being hidden on a Saturday --- this one, just before Christmas --- and on the same weekend the new Star Wars movie opens.)

And finally, the nation continues to cower in fear --- making GOP Presidential candidates very happy, no doubt --- as another entire school district gets shuts down on Friday over something even more absurd than what led to the shutdown of the L.A. school system earlier this week. Are we becoming South Park Nation? That news (and much more) at week's end may suggest as much.

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Once again, it's the smartest post-debate analysis you'll find anywhere on today's BradCast, following last night's fear- and war-mongering "national security" GOP debate in Las Vegas (in which neither climate change, nor guns, two of the actual greatest threats to national security, were even discussed.)

Yes, it's now Trump and Cruz' GOP world. All of the other candidates --- and the entire Republican Party (and maybe even you and me) --- just live in it.

I'm joined for today's coverage by our returning champion, the great Heather Digby Parton of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo blog. And, for the first time, I'm also joined by actor, comedian and radio broadcaster Hal Sparks, formerly of E's Talk Soup, Showtime's Queer as Folk and currently of Disney XD's Lab Rats and the Hal Sparks Radio Program Mega-Worldwide on WCPT in Chicago!

As our theme song says, we're "tryin' to make some sense of it all," once again on today's program. No easy feat. But we go well beyond the "horse race" in our analysis, as usual, and as the 2016 Republican Presidential candidates (that's the year they're hoping to win the nomination, not the number running...it just seems that way) worked hard on the stage last night at Sheldon Adelson's Venetian Hotel and Casino to be the manliest-man and bombiest-bomber of them all!

Parton and Sparks offer incisive and lively commentary and fact-checking on what has seemingly now become a two-man race for the nomination. And I try to explain why Democrats ought to be very very careful what they wish for. Enjoy!

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On today's BradCast, we cover the 'credible threat' of terror said to have been received by Los Angeles school officials out here, leading to today's unprecedented, complete shutdown of the second largest school district in the nation.

I'm joined by Ernesto Arce, News Director at our flagship radio station here in Los Angeles, Pacifica Radio's KPFK, for the latest, including the growing belief that the entire matter was little more than a hoax; that there have been more than 150 reports of hate crimes against Muslims here in Southern California since the San Bernardino shootings two weeks ago; and that today's panic suggests, once again, that you don't have to fire a shot or set off a bomb to terrorize Americans.

Also today, the sentencing of the latest Republican Sec. of State --- New Mexico's Dianna Duran --- to be found guilty of election fraud crimes, even as the GOP still pretends that Democrats are committing massive "voter fraud"; I finally figure out a way that Donald Trump could be knocked off his throne and maybe not win the GOP 2016 nomination after all (maybe); And Desi Doyen joins us for special Green News Report coverage of the historic UN climate agreement that was finalized unanimously by almost 200 nations over the weekend in Paris...

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"It's difficult to understate the significance of this agreement," Dr. Michael E. Mann tells me on today's BradCast. "I think we are witnessing the end of the age of fossil fuels and the beginning of a new age of a clean global energy economy."

Mann, the Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, creator of the infamous "hockey stick graph", and author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, was speaking, of course, of the historic U.N. Paris Agreement, where negotiators from some 200 nations unanimously agreed over the weekend to curb the release of greenhouse gases that cause global warming, in hopes of staving off the worst effects of climate change.

The landmark COP21 accord has been some 21 years in the making, if not many more, as explained during today's show. While cautioning that "the devil is in the details" and "reductions that we'll get out of this agreement alone won't be enough to keep us below dangerous levels of warming," Mann says the agreement finally "starts to put us on the path to avoiding dangerous climate change."

But is it too little too late? Is it even possible to keep global temperatures from rising no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, as called for by the agreement (which also asks nations to keep that rise no higher than 1.5C, if possible)? Mann tells me he believes there is still time to avoid the worst consequences of man's behavior and decades of inaction.

"I can give that answer confidently, as a scientist who studies the numbers. Yes, it is absolutely still physically possible," he says. "What is more in question, of course: is it doable? Is it achievable? And that's a matter of political will. That's really the only limitation."

We discuss those political limitations and much more today, including Mann's op-ed in last week's New York Times slamming Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Chair of the U.S. House Science Committee, for his "assault on climate science," as well as Smith's published response to that op-ed. "There's not a truthful word in his statement," Mann retorts.

I also ask the professor about former NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen's assertion that the Paris Agreement is a "fraud" because it fails to include a specific global price on the release of carbon into the atmosphere; about the increasing calls for investigation and prosecution of ExxonMobil for obscuring their own scientists' findings about the "potentially catastrophic" effects of global warming as early as 1977; about that satellite data set cited by Republican climate deniers to suggest that global warming has either paused or doesn't exist at all; and a few more of what I characterize as my own "dumb science questions" about the effects of climate change on weather predictions and El Niño.

As usual, Mann pulls no punches in today's exclusive BradCast interview.

Also today: President Obama's update on the continuing military fight against ISIS and new polling news for both Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates (and the Sanders campaigns' decrying of a network news "Bernie Blackout") in advance of the next GOP Presidential debate on Tuesday...

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Today on The BradCast we catch up with a lot of incoming from over the past week (or two) as Republicans officially begin to freak out about the likelihood of Donald Trump becoming their nominee and the possibility (perhaps, their hope) for a contested nominating convention, and as the U.N. climate conference heads into its final hours towards an agreement that might save the planet.

We cover quite a bit of ground on today's show, as you'll hear, so I'll just let you listen and make of it what you will, rather than go into great detail here.

Suffice to say, we call out not just Republicans for the mess we're all now in --- from the rise of money in politics to to the rise of Trump to the rise of fear and fascism to the rise of global temperatures --- but also the mainstream corporate media. Had they not consistently failed to do their job over the past decade (or two), they might have kept this entire fine mess from happening in the first place.

But why would want to? They are now the biggest winners of all. And the Democrats don't seem to be laughing about it any of it anymore. Enjoy the show.

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On today's BradCast, more rightwing domestic terrorism in the U.S., more Scalia race-baiting, another rightwing challenge to minority voting rights heard by SCOTUS, and some potentially good news for the climate out of Paris. [Link to the full program follows below.]

First up today, another 'active shooter' situation plays out as we go to air. And, once again, the terrorist in question appears to be a rightwinger --- at least based on the 'Tea Party' flag on his pickup truck.

Next, we're joined by The Nation's Ari Berman, author of the recently published Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, to discuss Evenwell v. Abbott, the somewhat astonishing rightwing challenge to minority voting rights heard this week at the U.S. Supreme Court (for some reason).

Despite the "One person, one vote" principal having been seen by most as settled law for about 50 years in the U.S., the Court took up a challenge to that idea brought by the same man who successfully challenged the Voting Rights Act --- which SCOTUS subsequently gutted --- back in 2013. Now comes the idea out of Texas that each state's legislative districts should not be drawn with an approximately equal population in each, as they are now, but rather an equal portion of eligible voters in each Congressional and state house district.

Redrawing maps in this way --- and it would likely need to be done in all 50 states --- would lead not only to chaos, but it have the effect of seriously undercutting minority voting rights, as Berman explains on today's program.

If the plaintiffs in Evenwell are successful, he observes, "many people who are now counted would be excluded, because they are not eligible voters, such as those who are under 18, those who are not U.S. citizens, both documented and undocumented [and] prisoners who have lost the right the vote. All of those people will not be counted [when drawing up legislative maps]. So if you look at the math itself...that will mean that 55% of Latinos, 45% of Asian-Americans, and 30% of African-Americans will not be counted towards representation. And that's why this case is such an attack on minority voting representation."

Few, including Berman, saw such a challenge coming, though perhaps we should have. The case, he tells me, is "brought by the same people that challenged the Voting Rights Act, the same people that challenged affirmative action, and seemingly everything they bring --- particularly this one guy, Ed Blum and his Project on Fair Representation --- everything he brings seems to be heard by this Supreme Court. It's literally like he's sitting around thinking 'What's the next way I can try to attack voting rights? What's the next way I can attack racial equality?' And they keep thinking of more and more creative schemes. And it like they're just going through everything that was done in the 1960s and challenging it --- whether it's the Voting Rights Act or the Fair Housing Act or it's 'One person, one vote'. All of these landmark achievements that have been so successful are now under attack, and this is just the next iteration of this."

After spending months researching for his book, Give Us The Ballot, Berman observes the fight against voting rights today is a continuation of the same fight that has been waged since the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act half a century ago. "There has been a 50 year attempt to try to restrict voting rights. And one of the things that I've noticed is that there's always new ways thought up to try to roll voting rights back. And we've seen a dramatic escalation, I think, of a very old strategy...And they don't seem likely to stop anytime soon."

Berman details how the questions from the Justices at Wednesday's oral arguments to suggest that we are likely looking at another 5 to 4 split decision from the Court...one way or another.

Also today: Justice Antonin Scalia, the Donald Trump of the Supreme Court, offers remarkably offensive comments about African-Americans; Rush Limbaugh's guest host testifies on climate change (sort of) in Ted Cruz' U.S. Senate Science Committee hearing; And the U.N. climate conference in Paris (COP21) comes down to the wire and may be set to produce an even better global agreement than almost anyone had predicted...

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Today on The BradCast: It's not just Donald Trump, stupid, it's the entire Republican Party. Also, another report from the U.N. climate conference in Paris, this time from the perspective of small island nations.

First up, Senate Republicans, once again, do the bidding of the NRA and terrorists by blocking a Democratic bill to keep those on the Terror Watch List from being able to easily buy guns and explosives.

Then, some weapons grade trolling from Donald Trump, as he calls for a ban on all Muslims entering the U.S. That call has delighted the far right fringes of the party, but they're not the only Republicans who love it. Even Republican U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, while claiming to condemn Trump's dangerous, terror-enabling position, vows to support him should he become the GOP nominee for President of the United States.

It's a sad day when we must turn to Dick Cheney and George W. Bush --- yes, seriously --- for reason among Republicans. That day, however, thanks to years of race baiting by Fox "News" and friends --- and the GOP approving of it all --- is today.

Next, something not quite as regrettably stupid: Another dispatch from the U.N. climate conference in Paris (COP21), this time from Dr. Hugh Sealy, Energy Policy Advisor to the Government of Grenada, appointed by the United Nations Development Programme as a consultant to climate change negotiators for the small island developing states. Many of those nations are on the front of the front lines in the battle against climate change, some facing the possibility of disappearing completely underneath the sea.

That group is hoping for an agreement that will limit global temperature rise to just 1.5 degrees Celsius, even as the consensus of the parties to the treaty is to institute greenhouse gas emissions cuts to prevent temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees above pre-industrial times. That goal, set to ensure the Earth stays inhabitable, is already a long shot, according to most experts.

"Two degrees is too much," Sealy tells me during today's interview. "We need 1.5 to stay alive. We're already at 1C of warming and are already starting to see the effects of 1 degree where I live, which is in Grenada in the Caribbean. We are already experiencing sea level rise of around 3mm per year and that sea level rise is accelerating. We are already locked in to 1 meter [approximately 3 feet] of sea level rise by the end of this century. We are already starting to see warming. We are already starting to see extreme weather events. And our scientists are telling us we will not survive at 2 degrees."

Sealy, who is also an environmental scientist and Associate Professor at St. George's University, explains: "This is not something that is an economic issue for us, it's an existential issue for us. Our backs are literally against the wall on this one. And therefore we will fight for our existence. We will fight for 1.5 to be anchored in the agreement. 2 degrees is just too much for us. The richer countries are saying 'Well, it's going to be too difficult, too economically difficult for us to reach 1.5 degrees, so we can keep it below 2'. My response to them is the small islands are the canaries in the coal mine. If we go down, you're going to go down as well."

"If you think the Syrian refugee crisis is bad now," he adds, "imagine if all the low-lying areas in the world have to migrate. And it's not only the small islands. The majority of the world's population lives on a coastline, and all those areas will be displaced."

He goes on to explain exactly what it is that the Small Islands are hoping to walk away with from the Paris conference, how the world now needs "a Global Marshal Plan" to fight climate change, and how there is no "denier community" in Grenada and other small island nations. "The most important thing, in my mind," he says, "grow a global mitigation effort that will guarantee us survival."

Finally on today's program, a bit of good news (because we could really use some!): Renewable energy is now set to overtake coal as the world's largest power source. So, there's that. And maybe, with it, some hope after all...

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On today's BradCast, President Obama's primetime address to the nation on Sunday discussed the nexus between terror and guns. We discuss that same nexus and much more on today's program.

First up, a quick welcome to our newest affiliate partner, Grateful Dread Public Radio in Nashville!

Then, how Donald Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric --- including his call today to block all Muslims from entering the country --- has real world consequences, perhaps even in last week's San Bernardino massacre, as suggested by the disturbing Islamophobic tweets from one of the shooting victims who had been a co-worker of the male shooter.

With that event, and more shootings and Islamophobic incidents than we can even keep up with at this point, we are joined Cliff Schecter, gun safety activist, Daily Beast columnist and author of the best selling The Real McCain to discuss all of it.

Schecter, formerly a competitive shooter, discusses how U.S. extremists from the NRA to the GOP on down the line are blocking reform of the nation's gun laws at the federal level, and how that failure to respond to the majority interests in the country underscores a serious deficiency in our system of democracy "where we have to balance the rights of people who want to own guns versus the rights the rest of us are guaranteed in numerous parts of our Constitution, to live."

"When people are being shot in multiple instances, every day," he opines, "these are the kinds of things that are happening that aren't supposed to happen in a society like ours, and just proves how out of whack things have gotten. If you are a waitress and you have to be scared to actually ask one of your customers to stop smoking, if you have to be nervous about going to movie theaters, or getting in arguments with people --- which we all do with random people in life --- I mean, what kind of society is that? That's a sick society."

We also discuss the refusal of Republican lawmakers in Congress, as recently as last week, to close the so-called "Terror Gap" that allows those on the Terror Watch List to purchase weapons in the U.S., even without any background check at all (as Al-Qaeda has been very happy to note).

Republicans, he explains, have chosen the NRA's financial support over protecting the American people. "I don't think it gets any weaker on terrorism than that. They are trading in people's safety here for NRA money and NRA support. That's sad and that's pathetic."

When I ask if he agrees with my long-held assertion that the NRA is a terrorist-supporting/enabling organization, he responds: "If you don't want to call them straight-out terrorist, which I would. They are the political wing of various domestic terrorist organizations --- of white supremacist organizations, of militias, and all these other groups --- quite clearly."

We also discuss the New York Times' landmark weekend editorial calling for a ban on assault weapons (and actually taking them away from citizens) and the largely good news out of the U.S. Supreme Court today, upholding a lower (Right-leaning) appellate court decision on an assault weapon ban in an Illinois community.

Also today: Some very good news for former President Jimmy Carter and more...

Download MP3 or listen to complete show online below...

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Today on The BradCast: How the NRA and GOP are working together to make sure guns remain freely available to terrorists and how the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) poses a far greater threat to national security than Syrian refugees hoping to escape war and terror by resettling in the U.S.

First up today, as the FBI announces the San Bernardino massacre will be investigated "as an act of terror", the Republican Congress continues to do the NRA's terror-loving business by refusing to tighten up gaping holes in our gun safety laws, allowing even those on the Terror Watch List to buy weapons, often even without a background check. We detail how al-Qaeda itself has, for years, been calling on jihadists --- very specifically --- to exploit these loopholes in the U.S. and how the GOP and NRA fight to assure that they can.

Then, FBI veteran, 9/11 whistleblower and 2002 TIME Magazine Person of the Year Coleen Rowley joins us to discuss the gaping security holes in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP), as she detailed this week at Huffington Post.

Before we get into details, Rowley recounts how her FBI field office in Minnesota had attempted to warn intelligence officials in D.C. about Zacarias Moussaoui's pre-9/11 flight lessons and how then CIA Director George Tenet later admitted receiving those warnings but failed to take action (before being given the Congressional Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush.)

Rowley then goes on to explain how the VWP, which allows millions of foreigners into the U.S. with minimal scrutiny, presents a far easier way for potential terrorists to threaten the U.S. without the much more rigorous scrutiny --- including nearly two years of personal interviews and bio-metric cross-checking --- than Syrian refugees must contend with.

She tells me how the over-collection of data actually makes it harder for intelligence officials to track information that matters. "The problem now is there's a glut of info, almost all non-relevant, and they can't make sense of it," says Rowley. "After 9/11 they thought, 'Collect it all! Turn on massive warrantless monitoring. Collect all this meta-data showing everybody's contacts.' But if you collect everything, you know nothing. It's making the job harder. If we add hay to the haystack, we're making it harder to find the terrorists."

Rowley also notes how even those here via the VWP are allowed to purchase assault weapons, thanks to lack of Congressional action. "Not only can they come in, but they are free then to buy guns," she tells me. "Obama cannot stop that without Congressional legislation, and then he runs into the NRA and all the people that are for more free gun sales."

"Why in the heck would it not be common sense to at least limit gun sales to people who are only supposed to be here, by the way, for 90 days? Would it be that important that they have to go pheasant hunting in South Dakota in those 90 days that they have to buy their own gun? They couldn't borrow one?"

Finally, during our in-depth (must-listen, in my opinion) interview, Rowley speaks to what should be done about the threat of ISIS. "We're creating more people who hate and more potential attackers than we can possibly kill," she warns. "And it's not just Islamic extremism. We're also seeing the same thing with the domestic terrorists who watch American Sniper and this culture that emphasizes that getting a gun and shooting people is the answer to your problems."

"There is a connection here, because we are inspiring. It's the same connection of inspiring people by killing them," Rowley argues. "There is no way to bomb your way to peace. Increasing the size and the scope of the war zone, as the United States has done --- from one or two countries now to half a dozen countries to the entire Middle East and now stretching even into Ukraine and elsewhere in revamping up the Cold War --- this is a recipe for complete disaster."

"If we're creating more could-be would-be terrorists, we have got to find a way to reduce that number. And I think the only answer is to say war is not the answer. War is hurting us. It's creating this."

Download MP3 or listen to complete show online below...

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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!)