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Latest Featured Reports | Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Trouble in Trumpland? Broligarchs v. MAGA!: 'BradCast' 1/7/25
Guest: Ryan Cooper of 'The American Prospect'; Also: Wildfire weather in L.A.; Battle over Jack Smith report; Giuliani in contempt...
'Green News Report' 1/7/25
  w/ Brad & Desi
New year, new punishing extreme weather; 2024 was hottest year in human history; Biden bans new offshore drilling; PLUS: Jimmy Carter, one of the greatest conservation Presidents...
Previous GNRs: 12/19/24 - 12/17/24 - Archives...
2025 Kicks Off With Both a Bang and a Whimper: 'BradCast' 1/6/25
Congress certifies felon Trump's election without incident, future Prez to be sentenced Friday; Also: Vegas attacker a Trump fan; Carter's climate legacy; Callers ring in...
Sunday '2025 Terror, Trump and Tesla' Toons
ALSO IN THIS SUPER-SIZED NEW YEAR EDITION: Tech Bros v. MAGA ... RIP: Jimmy Carter ... and some disturbing Tooning News, in our first collection of 2025!
Sunday 'What Could Possible Go Wrong?' Toons
THIS WEEK: 'Happy' 2025! ... Buckle Up ... Don't Forget the Fun! ... With our final weekly toon collection of the rotten old year...
Silent Nights, Holy Hell
A holiday message from The BRAD BLOG...
Sunday 'Happyish Holidays' Toons
THIS WEEK: Lots of Santa ... Lots of Naughty ... (And a Little of Bit Nice) ... Hark! The tooning angels sing! Glory to this year's collection of the best Hanuchristmaka toons!...
Trump Gets Trumped in Our Musky Year-End Roundtable: 'BradCast' 12/19/24
Guests: Heather Digby Parton of Salon, 'Driftglass' of 'Pro Left Podcast'...
'Green News Report' 12/19/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
Biden EPA grants CA waiver to phase out all-gasoline cars; Microplastics linked to cancer; PLUS: GOP plan to expand natural gas exports would drive up prices for Americans...
Previous GNRs: 12/17/24 - 12/12/24 - Archives...
About Some of Trump's 'Day One' Threats: 'BradCast' 12/18/24
Guest: Joshua A. Douglas on voting laws, Presidential powers; Also: House panel to release Gaetz report; Trump plans for reversing Biden climate, energy initiatives...
Trump Family Corruption Cometh...So Does Our Opposition: 'BradCast' 12/17/24
Immunity denied to felon Trump in NY; The Family's crypto-corruption on display in UAE; On overcoming 'militant pessimism'...
'Green News Report' 12/17/24
'Apocalyptic' cyclone slams Indian Ocean island; Malaria on the rise; Swiss ski resort gives in to climate change; PLUS: Biden EPA finally bans cancer-causing chemicals...
Mistallied Contests Found in OH County, as Oligarchy Rises in D.C.: 'BradCast' 12/16
Also: FBI informant 'guilty' to lies about Ukraine 'bribes' to Bidens; Trump Cabinet donated millions; Tech/media billionaires pay tribute...
Sunday 'Barrel Bottom' Toons
THIS WEEK: Kashing In ... Billionaire Broligarchy ... Slow Learners ... Exiting Autocrats ... and more! In our latest collection of the week's best toons...
Trump Admits He Can't Lower Grocery Prices (Biden Just Did): 'BradCast' 12/12/24
Also: 1,500 commutations; I.G. on FBI & 1/6; NC GOP power grab; Dick Van Dyke sends us home smiling...
'Green News Report' 12/12/24
Firefighters struggle to contain Malibu wildfire; Planet getting drier, new study finds; PLUS: Arctic has shifted to a source of climate pollution, NOAA reports...
BARCODED BALLOTS AND BALLOT MARKING DEVICES
BMDs pose a new threat to democracy in all 50 states...
VIDEO: 'Rise of the Tea Bags'
Brad interviews American patriots...
'Democracy's Gold Standard'
Hand-marked, hand-counted ballots...
Brad's Upcoming Appearances
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'Special Coverage' Archives
[+] GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Guest: ACLU Voting Rights Project attorney Julie Ebenstein
Plus: Hillary's DNC bounce, Trump 'unfit', and very bad monkeys...
By Brad Friedman on 8/2/2016 6:19pm PT  

On today's BradCast I'm joined by litigator Julie Ebenstein, staff attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project, to discuss the remarkable string of encouraging voting rights victories in courts in some six different states over just the past few days.

The long-fought and long-sought wins in both federal and state courtrooms in North Carolina and Wisconsin (as Ernie Canning reported earlier today), as well as in Texas, Kansas, Michigan and North Dakota (as summarized by The Nation's Ari Berman) in the past two weeks, have severely undercut Republican voter suppression laws imposing Photo ID voting restrictions, cuts to early voting, restrictions on voter registration and much more. As Berman writes: "The Republican war on voting rights is backfiring."

Ebenstein, who has helped lead the legal battle against these discriminatory laws for years, shares my delight over the recent rulings, but is surprised only that they have come so quickly in succession of late. "Given how extreme and egregious some of the laws are," she tells me, "I'm not surprised the courts have found they violate the Constitution. I think a lot of these laws really have gone very far to put barriers in the way of voters and, in many instances, particularly in the way of black voters."

On the courts finally striking down or weakening GOP Photo ID voting restrictions in NC, TX, WI and ND under the Voting Rights Act and/or the Constitution, she explains: "There's a broader recognition that this is really disenfranchising people in a very practical, day-to-day sense. I think the other thing the laws have highlighted, is that they're just not justified. As the North Carolina [ruling] put it, the laws constitute a solution in search of a problem. There's no evidence of any sort of voter impersonation, which is what these laws purport to protect against. So you have laws that will disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of potential voters. It's just shocking when you look at the harm these laws cause and the lack of justification that they were passed [with] in the first place."

But, she stresses, there remain a number of barriers and concerns about the November election and the various primaries leading up to it. "Even though we have a good decision, there's still going to be ongoing challenges. Things do stay in flux for quite some time," Ebenstein tells me, citing ongoing suppression tactics in a number of states, and adding, "I would encourage everybody to check right now whether you're registered, whether your registration is up to date, whether it has the accurate address on file, and [to] know what the rules are."

There's much more important information in our conversation that I can adequately even summarize here, so please give it a listen!

Also today: Hillary Clinton receives a bounce in both national and state polling (including in a number of very "red" states) following last week's Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and Donald Trump's subsequent attacks on the parents of a Muslim-American U.S. Army Captain who is said to have given his life protecting fellow troops in Iraq in 2004. President Obama has declared Trump "unfit" for office in the bargain, and a number of high-ranking, elected GOPers have denounced Trump for it in recent days, but almost none have unendorsed the Republican nominee, much less announced an intention to keep him out of office by voting for Clinton. All of that and election-hating monkeys gone wild on today's BradCast!

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Guest: Eric Boehlert on Rightwing media after the firing of FNC's founder and propaganda mastermind amid sexual harassment charges
Plus: Another deadly heatwave; Trump gets convention 'bump'; Clinton taps Kaine for Veep...
By Brad Friedman on 7/25/2016 5:34pm PT  

On today's BradCast, a very rocky start for Democrats in Philadelphia and bad news for Fox 'News' may be good news for the country. [Link to complete audio of show posted below.]

Before our coverage of today's remarkable news from the Democratic National Convention, some late (and overlooked) news on the mass shootings in Munich last week and in Fort Meyers, Florida on Sunday night. Also, record deadly heat continues to grip both the U.S. and the world, and new polling shows Donald Trump now taking a lead both nationally and in key battleground states after receiving a 'bump' from last week's GOP convention in Cleveland.

Then, with Dems gathering for their own convention in Philly this week, things were off to a very bumpy start on Day 1. The release of hacked emails written by DNC insiders (in which The BradCast makes a very brief cameo) have led to Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL), a long time Hillary Clinton supporter, finally stepping down from her role as DNC Chair before the gathering was even gaveled to order. That followed booing for the controversial party chief by protesters at a breakfast meeting of the Florida delegation, as well as similar jeers for California Democrats and even for Bernie Sanders himself after an appearance asking his supporters to defeat Trump and elect Clinton.

Then, we're joined by Eric Boehlert of Media Matters on what history may well regard as the biggest news of the past chaotic week: the firing of Fox 'News' mastermind Roger Ailes on the heels of sexual harassment allegations, now said to be supported by some twenty-five other staffers in the company's internal investigation.

"I can't even calculate how much more powerful Roger Ailes is to the Republican Party than Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is to the Democratic Party," Boehlert notes early in our conversation, before we discuss what finally took down Ailes, what more is still to come, what happens next for the Rightwing propaganda outlet, and whether or not Fox' remarkable effect on the national electorate for the past twenty years can continue in Ailes' absence.

"That Islamophobia, that race-baiting, that ugly hate rhetoric, 'Democrats are traitors' --- that all came from Roger Ailes. That came from the top," Boehlert explains. "Certainly under Obama, you could make the argument [Ailes] was running the Republican Party. He was picking the candidates. He was picking the talking points. Fox News created the 'Tea Party' with non-stop coverage back in 2009."

"The Beltway press, for twenty years for the most part, has treated Roger Ailes as this brilliant genius," he tells me. "Never a hint that any of this was going on. The press has treated Ailes with kid gloves, considering the damage he's done to politics. ... I think people try to put Fox and the right-wing media into this box, 'Well, it doesn't affect me, it doesn't affect our politics, those people are crazy'. It permeates everything, and the Trump campaign is the best example of that. People are crying: 'Where did he come from?! Oh my gosh, how is this happening to America?!' It's been broadcast for twenty years."

Finally, just in case you hadn't heard, in what would normally be today's lead story, if these were normal times, Clinton has chosen Sen. Tim Kaine, a moderate and well-liked Democrat from Virginia, as her Vice Presidential running mate. Yes, all of that and much more on today's BradCast...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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By Brad Friedman on 6/27/2016 6:22pm PT  

On today's BradCast: Climate change continues to ravage Americans and take lives in the east and west, surprisingly good news from the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.K. remains gripped with panic, confusion and uncertainty in the wake of last week's vote 'Brexit' vote to leave the European Union.

We start today with more on the historic deadly flooding and "mass destruction" in West Virginia 'coal country' and the out-of-control wildfires across bone-dry Southern California. Yes, it's everything we've been warning you about for so long on both The BRAD BLOG and The BradCast, even if just the latest example of the enormous (and growing) cost of climate change, as still both under-reported by the corporate media and over-shadowed by other new events across both the U.S. and world.

Then, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down several major decisions on its final day of the session. Surprisingly, a number of those decisions were very good news for progressives, even on an otherwise divided Court with its still-vacant 9th seat. The biggest decision concerned abortion rights in Texas, where the Court dealt a devastating blow to Republican laws meant to shut down women's health clinics under the guise of 'safety'. The Court saw through the Rightwing con, and the 5-3 decision could result in the overturning of similar "TRAP laws" enacted by Republicans in other states. In any event, the decision is a huge setback for rightwing anti-abortion activists and a big victory for those who believe in Constitutionally protected reproductive rights and freedoms. Can we take anything from this decision as to how SCOTUS might eventually rule in the Texas Photo ID voting restrictions case --- another GOP law meant to rob (certain) citizens of their rights for entirely specious reasons?

Also, the right of states to restrict the possession of guns by domestic abusers was upheld in a surprising bi-partisan 7 to 2 opinion, as was a new rule by the U.S. Dept. of Labor concerning overtime pay for home healthcare workers.

In an unusual unanimous decision by the Supremes, Virginia's former Republican Governor Bob McDonnell saw his bribery conviction vacated, despite having accepted some $165,000 in personal gifts and cash loans from a wealthy businessman hoping the Governor would help promote his products. Will that decision have any effect on Alabama's former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman, who is now serving his 6th year in federal prison for having done far less than McDonnell was found guilty of? That, even as the Republican federal judge who sentenced Siegelman has resigned from the bench after having been arrested for beating his wife and the Republican heads of all three branches of government in Alabama face removal of office via impeachment (Governor), ethics charges (Chief Justice of the AL Supreme Court) and multiple felony conviction (AL Speaker of the House) for various crimes, alleged and proven, in their home state.

Finally today, last week's 'Brexit' vote continues to wreak havoc as world financial markets continue to plunge (though not nearly as low as I incorrectly reported it on today's show, as based on an inaccurate number reported by my iPhone's stock app!); the British government is in complete disarray about how (or, perhaps, even, if) they will officially begin the formal procedure required to leave the EU; voters express 'bregret' over having voted to exit; questions arise about overseas voters failing to correctly receive ballot papers at all; and some call for a second ("do-over") referendum.

All of that and much more on yet another insanely busy BradCast today!

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Guest: Columnist Harold Meyerson on history and how 'the reality of a Trump Presidency will concentrate the mind'
Plus: More bad polls for Clinton v. Trump; More bad electoral 'track conditions' for Democrats; And the planet's climate crisis continues to worsen...
By Brad Friedman on 5/23/2016 6:11pm PT  

On today's BradCast, long time Bernie Sanders supporter Harold Meyerson, a former Washington Post columnist and now Executive Editor of The American Prospect magazine, argues Bernie Sanders supporters would betray both their candidate and history by staying home this November (or voting third-party or, worse, for Donald Trump) if their preferred candidate fails to win the Democratic nomination. [Audio link to complete show is below.]

Meyerson, who quips that there was a time decades ago when Sanders and he were the only "out-of-the-closet" Democratic Socialists in D.C., offers two historic parallels to the current divide seen in today's Democratic Party during its contentious nominating contest between Sanders and Clinton. One concerns the Democratic Party's fate after the 1968 convention and the other, perhaps more disturbing and enlightening, concerns Germany in 1932, as described in his recent American Prospect column headlined "How the Bros Are Undermining Bernie".

"What's really crucial," Meyerson tells me on today's program, "is that the forces [Sanders] has put into action continue to operate --- and continue to push the limits of the possible in the United States --- once his campaign is over, whether that is in July or in November."

"I would hope that the Sanders campaign generates a lot of people who want a more democratic, equitable economy and society, and stick around after the Sanders campaign is over this year," he says. "But it takes staying power. You don't change a political party by coming in and then going out."

Meyerson is optimistic, however, that so-called "Bernie or Bust" folks will eventually come to see that they have far more to gain from Hillary in the White House than they do if Trump wins this November. "I think the number of Sanders supporters who ultimately will not vote for Hillary, if she's the nominee and it comes down to her vs. Trump, is a lot smaller than we're seeing now. Confronting the reality of a Trump presidency will concentrate the mind."

"We need to remember the greater goal and the greater narrative, of really changing economic and political power in this country, and that's the main goal here. While there are legitimate distinctions between the Sanders and the Clinton camps, we should also remember there are a lot of lefties in the Clinton camp, too," he adds, citing, for example, progressive Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA)'s inclusion on the DNC Platform Committee, along with a number of other progressives just named this afternoon.

Also on today's BradCast: A host of new polls from major news outlets suggest, once again, that Clinton is likely to have a very tough time against Trump this November if she wins the nomination; Anti-Trumpers continue coming around to him on the GOP side; Bad news for the fight against Photo ID voting restrictions in VA, and even more potential bad news for the state's Democratic Governor; Plus: Climate change related extreme weather kills scores in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka over the weekend, as the planet's climate crisis continues to worsen and the U.S. corporate mainstream media continue to ignore it...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Guest: West Virginia native and champion Bob Kincaid...
By Brad Friedman on 5/11/2016 5:41pm PT  

Today on The BradCast, Bernie Sanders beats front-runner Hillary Clinton once again, this time in the West Virginia Primary. But Exit Polls reveal some bizarre demographics, even as a new national poll now finds Donald Trump surging and tied with Clinton nationally. [Audio link to the show is below.]

Sanders racked up another win on Tuesday, even as his odds for winning the Democratic nomination remain long (if not impossible) against Clinton. But with Trump's GOP competition now finally out of the way, Exit Polling coming out of the Mountain State last night suggests that many "Democratic" voters there are prepared to vote for Trump in November...even if he's running against Sanders, oddly enough. So is that new reason for Dems to be worried?

Ninth generation WV native, Head-On Radio Network host, co-founder of the Appalachian Communities Health Emergency Campaign and President of Coal River Mountain Watch Bob Kincaid joins me to try and make sense of the reported results and Exit Polling. We also examine what effect Clinton's out-of-context remarks about "putting miners and coal companies out of business" may have had on the state's electorate, as well as on the upcoming primary next week in Kentucky, and even for the general election in key swing coal states like Ohio and Pennsylvania (where another new poll this week found Clinton tied or losing to Trump.)

"The coal issue is a considerable part of this process because you've got a lot of people in West Virginia who will clutch at any straw, even though the coal industry doesn't wield the power it once wielded," he tells me. "But the openly anti-coal rhetoric that comes from our side, and of which I am a practitioner, puts a lot of people off."

Kincaid, however, is no fan of Clinton's, at least when it comes to what he sees as her chances in a head-to-match with Clinton nationally. "I've gone on record saying that I fully expect her to lose in November if she's the nominee. She's a terrible candidate. She's an awful campaigner, and --- I don't like saying this, Brad --- I want a Democrat in the White House. I'm a grown-up politically. I know that 'I want a pony' is not on the ballot. But, she's a tone-deaf campaigner. She's got 25 years worth of real and imagined baggage, and a 25-year-old Republican-funded filth machine that runs on 200-proof pure hate, that's humming along on 64 valves, okay?"

The colorful longtime radio host also goes on to offer a no-uncertain-terms warning to Democrats about the party's Gubernatorial nominee Jim Justice who, he predicts, will end up endorsing Trump this Fall.

In related news today: New polling shows Trump surging 13 points over the last week and now tied nationally with Clinton. (Not to say 'we told ya so', but...well...); Also: New indications that the GOP electorate in North Carolina may now be turning against state Republican lawmakers in the wake of their Big Government, anti-business, anti-LGBT 'bathroom law'; and, finally, a follow-up on the stupid, recent investigation against black, female cadets at West Point...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Plus: Obama's mic drop White House Correspondents Dinner remarks...
By Brad Friedman on 5/2/2016 5:28pm PT  

Today on The BradCast, we catch up on a number of stories --- amusing, disturbing and otherwise --- from late last week, over the weekend, and today, in advance of tomorrow's big Primary election in Indiana. [Audio link to the show follows below.]

Among the stories covered on today's program...

  • Satan's minions are offended by the comparison of Lucifer to Ted Cruz;
  • Last week's outbreak of mass shootings around the country surpassed the number killed in similar shootings in all of Europe for the entire year;
  • The GOP promises legal push-back against the VA Democratic Governor's executive order last week allowing some 200,000 former felons the right to register and vote;
  • Dumb Democrats gleeful about a Clinton "landslide" if Trump wins the GOP nomination (Talking to you, Rob Reiner!);
  • Bernie Sanders believes there will be a "contested" Democratic Presidential nominating convention this summer.
  • The U.S. Supreme Court's (somewhat encouraging?) order late last week on the TX Republicans' unlawful Photo ID voting law;
  • Senate Democrats call for their Republican counterparts to hold hearings on the Voting Rights Act (before millions of more legal voters are disenfranchised this November), as well as on Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court;
  • And finally, a few words on the White House Correspondents Dinner over the weekend, which is, on the whole, a dreadful affair, some excerpts from Obama's amusing final speech there, and the fisticuffs that broke out afterward.

Also, my great thanks to the awesome Danielle and Shane-O from the Thom Hartmann Program for expertly filling in for Desi and me on Friday! Thanks, guys!

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!
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GUEST: Doug Hughes has 'no regrets' in his fight for election reform
ALSO: 200k former felons re-enfranchised by executive order in VA; Former felons head to polls in MD; Brooklyn election official suspended; Good news on Earth Day...
By Brad Friedman on 4/22/2016 6:14pm PT  

On today's BradCast, 200k former felons get their voting rights back in Virginia, even as one protester for campaign finance reform loses his right to vote after being sentenced for a federal felony.

In a surprise announcement today, citing long-standing post-Civil War restrictions meant to keep African-American voters away from the ballot box, VA's Governor Terry McAuliffe (D) issued an executive order to re-enfranchise more than 200,000 former felons who have completed their prison sentences as well as their parole and probation periods. That good news comes even as former felons in Maryland are voting for the first time in decades, in advance of next week's primary, following that state legislative override of a veto by Gov. Larry Hogan (R).

Meanwhile, Brooklyn's top Board of Elections official is suspended amidst the NY Attorney General's new investigation into the still-unexplained purge of more than 100,000 Democratic voters in the months leading up to last Tuesday's disastrous Presidential Primary in NY.

Then, we are joined again by Florida postal worker Doug Hughes, who was sentenced on Thursday to four months in federal prison as part of a plea deal following his infamous demonstration for campaign finance reform last year when he landed his homemade gyrocopter on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol to raise awareness for the problem of money in politics following disastrous U.S. Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United and other related cases.

Hughes tells me, as he told the U.S. District Court Judge in federal court yesterday, that he has "no regrets" for his protest, despite the high costs he is being forced to pay, including, ironically enough, the loss of his voting rights in the state of Florida.

"I will never do this again, but I have no regrets over having done it," he says. "Judge Kotelly said my flight was a stunt. And it was a stunt, because it didn't change anything as far as the laws were concerned. It didn't do anything. Except it changed the perception that resistance is futile. People now believe that they can change [the campaign finance system], and a lot of people are getting engaged in changing it."

Hughes shares his thoughts on the 'Democracy Spring' protests for election and campaign finance reform that have resulted in more than 1,000 arrests over the past two weeks at the nation's capitol, even as the mainstream corporate media barely covered any of it. He describes his remarkable conversation with a CNN producer who called him yesterday after his sentencing. He says he told the CNN staffer that Democracy Spring protesters "were chanting 'Where is CNN?' You get thousands of people together and not a single CNN camera! There was no coverage of what was going on. I said, 'What kind of ghouls are running the organization that you've got to have to have somebody dead before the media will cover it?'"

The colorful and impassioned Hughes also comments on the absurdity of big banks and other major corporations getting away with tax-deductible financial settlements for actual crimes (including murder), while their executives get off scot-free. But, he argues, there is a way to change what seems like an unbeatable system, and he says it involves taking on both Democrats and Republicans alike in primary elections if they refuse to join forces to move campaign finance reform forward. "Like 4% of the population of any district is more than enough to beat the incumbent in the primary."

There is much more to hear from my discussion with Hughes (his website is here if you'd like to help him), before I am finally joined by Desi Doyen with our latest Green News Report. This one, on Earth Day --- and a very significant one at that...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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By Brad Friedman on 3/14/2016 6:03pm PT  

On today's BradCast, we catch up on a lot that we didn't get to cover from last week (while covering all three Presidential debates and one Election Day) and from this past weekend, as the violence at Trump rallies --- and his willingness to blatantly lie about it --- has quickly devolved from bad to worse.

First up, we focus on three specific events at recent Trump rallies (in IL, OH and NC) and the fact that the GOP front-runner --- accurately described by Bernie Sanders as a "pathological liar" and by Hillary Clinton as a "political arsonist" this weekend --- is not only inciting violence, but also attempted to smear American protesters and Sanders supporters as Nazis and members of ISIS, even while offering to pay the legal fees for his own (actually) violent supporters.

Where all of this seems to be heading is now very dark indeed, as we make clear on today's program.

Then, we catch up on some of the primary and caucus results elections from over the weekend (yes, there were a few --- Were the results affected by the increasing ugliness of the Trump campaign?), in advance of tomorrow's "Super Duper Tuesday" primary elections in OH, IL, MO, NC and FL. And we also detail additional concerns about recent MI results and new details on inaccurate e-voting results reported from MA, where Jim Gilmore(!) was, for a short time, announced as the winner of the Super Tuesday Republican Primary election in the City of Chelsea. (The newest explanation for that error, by the way, may be even more disturbing than the original one issued by the city, as it becomes clear that the very same thing could happen anyplace where votes are tallied by optical-scan computers, but be much more difficult to notice.)

Also today, voting rights news out of both OH (where we have some very good news) and TX (where we have some very troubling news) from the courts.

And finally, as promised last week, Desi Doyen offers some thoughts on the latest round of Republican climate change denial offered at last week's GOP debate by Florida's U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate Marco Rubio, whose own constituents are begging him to take action on rising sea levels already impacting South Florida communities.

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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GUEST: Author and UNC political scientist Jonathan Weiler...
By Brad Friedman on 3/3/2016 5:43pm PT  

On today's BradCast, more Super Tuesday election results clean up, the GOP in full panic mode, and a political scientists' explanation for Trump's ascendancy. [Audio link to the complete show is below.]

First up, more information on some of the seemingly inexplicable computer-reported election results from Super Tuesday that we discussed in more detail on yesterday's program. The MA city which originally reported Jim Gilmore as "winning" the GOP primary in a landslide has "corrected" results, with little explanation. Though I was able to receive an an explanation from Roanoke County VA's General Registrar who responded to our query about why Bernie Sanders seemed to lose 600 votes in the county on election night, moving him from the "win" to the "loss" column there.

Next up, Mitt Romney's remarkable speech attacking Donald Trump as a "phony" and a "fraud" today, and how it may be as likely to help Trump as hurt him.

Then, my fascinating and even chilling conversation with Jonathan Weiler, author, blogger and UNC Chapel Hill political scientist, on the one trait that academics have recently identified to be most predictive of whether you will be a Trump supporter. It isn't racism, education level or economic concerns, as some might have guessed. It's authoritarianism.

As described in his recent article, "Understanding Trump: It's the Authoritarianism, Stupid" and in his 2009 book with Marc Hetherington, Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics --- published long before the rise of Trump --- authoritarianism, as defined by political scientists, is distinct from both racism and conservatism, even as the ideas can cross over in a number of ways.

Weiler explains how political scientists are able to determine who has such tendencies and who does not, based on survey questions regarding not political matters, but on family and child rearing. He goes on to note that authoritarianism, which had fallen out of favor somewhat in the 20th century, had been prevalent in the Democratic Party as well as the GOP, as recently as 1992.

"In 1992, there was really no difference in terms of the level of authoritarianism of the average Democrat and the average Republican," he tells me. "What's happened over the past quarter century is what a lot of political scientists call a 'sorting process,' where the non-authoritarians have increasingly gravitated from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, and a lot of authoritarians have gravitated from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. In a nutshell, this has been a long complicated process that has played out over 40 years."

Authoritarians, he says, are not "particularly interested in the conservative economic agenda. They [are] not necessarily in favor of smaller government or lower taxes. The pieces of what has become modern conservatism that attracted them are more these kind of 'Us vs. Them' issues" and "Trump has really zeroed in, quite precisely, on what authoritarians care about, and what they don't care about."

While Weiler says he doesn't believe the GOP has been specifically targeting such followers, the gravitation to the Republican Party for authoritarians is the results of the party's specific messages about fear and division over recent decades. "Trump feels like he is the Republican id come to life. In that regard, he is in many ways a kind of logical extension of a dynamic that's been underway for a long time," he explains. "There's a kind of dance that goes on between elites and their followers. Elites come up with these 'Us vs. Them' messages --- these messages that attract authoritarians --- and they cultivate a base. And then that base turns around and says, 'all right, you've got our attention, you've promised to deliver on these issues, and now we expect you to'. So the monster, if you will, that the Republican Party created was in a very strongly authoritarian base that Donald Trump --- whether by instinct or consciously, I don't really know --- he's been the guy who's really taken advantage of that."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report covering, among a bunch of other stuff, the shocking death of a Big Oil CEO on the day after he was indicted on criminal conspiracy charges...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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(And how did Jim Gilmore 'win' an entire Massachusetts town?!)
By Brad Friedman on 3/2/2016 6:08pm PT  

On today's BradCast we examine what the big Super Tuesday wins mean, and don't, for both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, as well what the media is both misreporting and failing to report at all. [Audio linked below.]

First, the GOP is now in full panic mode following Trump's seven-state victory yesterday, as the DNC and corporate media use misleading numbers to describe Clinton's own seven-state victory. In addition to the general horse-race numbers, and the Republican drama, we examine how the MSM continues to ill-serve the public in their coverage of the Democratic race to date, specifically when it comes to the unpledged so-called "SuperDelegates".

We also look at a few more of the more than 2,000 reports of voting problems that came into the non-partisan Election Protection coalition yesterday; More touch-screen trouble, this time in TN; And what the hell happened in Chelsea, MA, where former VA Gov. Jim Gilmore(!?!), who dropped out of the race weeks ago, crushed the Republican Primary competition, at least according to the paper-ballot optical-scan computers that tallied the results last night?...

The paper ballots in Chelsea were initially tabulated by the same type of op-scan systems used in states all over the country and shown to be capable of flipping elections without notice in the jaw-dropping finale of HBO's Emmy-nominated 2006 documentary Hacking Democracy. Today, the numbers have now been "corrected" [PDF] by the clerk's office [Update: The link to the document at the Chelsea government site is now broken, so here's a copy of the PDF that had been linked there] and, apparently, chalked up to "the computer system that reported the results". Ya don't say. Was it anything like this similar failure from Stoughton, WI in 2014?

Also today: Listener email in response to my interview earlier this week with Current Affairs magazine editor Nathan J. Robinson, who had offered his persuasive case, based on his recent feature article, for why Trump is likely to win the Presidency if Democrats fail to nominate Bernie Sanders. We look at the arguments from a number of you who disagreed with Robinson.

Finally: A short, but refreshing break from politics as Scott Kelly, the American astronaut who has been in space for the past year, returns safely to Earth with his Russian counterpart in furtherance of NASA's planned manned missions to Mars...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Or, if you prefer, 'The Farce Awakens'...
By Brad Friedman on 12/18/2015 5:39pm PT  

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.

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

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GUEST: Scott Greytak of Justice at Stake...
ALSO: E-Pollbooks failing on Election Day; Keystone XL finally dead (for now)...
By Brad Friedman on 11/3/2015 6:02pm PT  

It's Election Day on The BradCast, so, naturally, that means voter disenfranchisement throughout the country. Early reports today find e-pollbook systems failing at polling places in a number of states, which means voters are being turned away. (And, for some reason in Ohio(!) folks who were registered are finding they no longer are...for some reason.)

But, with more Election Day problems sure to come to light soon, we turn for the moment to the obscenity that has become judicial elections in the U.S. --- on a day that finds a record $15.8 million has been spent on today's Supreme Court election alone in Pennsylvania.

Scott Greytak of JusticeAtStake.org joins us to discuss his new report --- Bankrolling the Bench: The New Politics of Judicial Elections 2013-2014 (with Brennan Center for Justice and the National Institute on Money in State Politics) --- on the record amount of cash now being spent, "legally", to buy judges and state Supreme Court Justices via elections around the country. Millions of dollars now flow in to these contests from outside interests and political parties as well as lawyers and lobbyists.

"This is something that's, unfortunately, unique to America," Greytak explains. "It's really the United States and one other country in the world that decides to elect their judges." What began as "a populist impulse" about 100 years ago, "when folks were trying to break up big machine politics, trying to attack corruption," has now become a nightmare in the post-Citizens United age.

Judicial elections "which typically used to be pretty low-key affairs" are now being "targeted by politicians, legislators, or special interest groups that are hoping to shape the bench [or] targeted as sort of a referenda on big decisions that the court has heard or, more often, just opportunities for partisan groups to try and make political plays with these courts."

"It's deeply concerning," Greytak tells me. "Our data from this cycle found that about a third of all contributions to state Supreme Court judicial candidates came from lawyers and lobbyists. Another third came from business interests which, of course, are going to have cases that come in front of these courts, or have interests that come in front of these courts."

"When judges have to run for office, the folks who are closest to the courts, who know what's at stake, are often the lawyers and lobbyists who operate in them," he says. "So they turn and rely on the lawyers and lobbyists as a funding system. It becomes a reproducing cycle of conflicts of interests and this is what judicial elections has left us with."

With mostly Republican, but also Democratic groups spending millions in these races and using them as political bludgeons, jurists become vulnerable to offering rulings based on partisan interests rather than the rule of law. As discussed on today's program, what is happening in the state of Wisconsin right now has become a fantastic example of how judicial elections have become disastrous for those of us who believe in good government.

Finally today, big news in our latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen, as a hurricane heads to Yemen (of all places) and the Keystone XL pipeline is finally dead...for now anyway...thanks in no small part to unrelenting citizen activists and organizers who stood up to the most powerful corporate interests in the history of civilization!...

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

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By Brad Friedman on 11/3/2015 2:54pm PT  

As we've noted many times over the years, problems with voting systems on Election Day don't necessarily come to light until after Election Day --- sometimes months (or even years) after --- and they are frequently marginalized as little more than "hiccups, glitches, snags and snafus," by election officials and media alike when they do occur, rather than the outright failures that they actually are.

Today, however, in a number of states where elections are being held around the country, problems with electronic pollbooks, rather than voting machines themselves, seem to be popping up early and are resulting in voters walking away without having been able to cast a vote.

Here are a few examples today out of Virginia, Texas and Ohio, so far (emphasis ours)...

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

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Guest: Matthew Menendez of Brennan Center for Justice
Plus: Rain in L.A.; Rightwing Aussie PM ousted; GOPers for climate action; Liberty U. students respond to Sanders...
By Brad Friedman on 9/15/2015 5:16pm PT  

On today's BradCast: The most incredible, embarrassing nonsense you may not have even heard about is going on in the otherwise great state of Kansas, thanks to their extremist rightwing Republican legislature and Governor Sam Brownback.

But, first, it rained in Los Angeles today! Yes, amidst a record 500-year drought, rain actually counts as news these days. I explain, along with Desi Doyen who was also there to witness it. (Oh, and here's that harrowing fire footage we described in today's show.)

As if that's not crazy enough, a group of House Republicans are introducing a resolution that calls for climate action in advance of Pope Francis' visit next week and historic address to Congress, in which he is expected to make the case for taking action to curb global warming (and, also, in favor of the Iran peace deal.)

And that's not the only good news today. Australia's crazy rightwing Prime Minister Tony Abbott was ousted last night in a late night coup by his own party, paving the way for a new Prime Minister who actually believes in stuff like climate change and marriage equality!

But then, of course, our main topic today: More on what the hell is the matter with Kansas. Brennan Center for Justice's Democracy Program attorney Matthew Menendez joins us for an update on the cases he (and a number of other groups) have filed against Brownback on the heels of legislation the Governor signed that would defund the entire state Judiciary system if the courts have the temerity to strike down Brownback's legislation concerning education funding and restructuring (rigging) the judiciary.

"What they passed says if the outcome in a particular lawsuit came out a particular way, then the entire judicial appropriations was no longer valid," Menendez explains. Well, guess what? The court has just found against the state! So, now what?

"This is very troubling," Menendez tells me, detailing how the plaintiffs have been forced to seek a stay on the court's ruling (in their favor!) in order to keep the GOP law from kicking in and defunding the entire court! "In America, where we firmly believe --- or profess to --- in separation of powers, it's essential that judicial salaries not be threatened if legislators disagree with one of their rulings."

So much for the "conservative" belief in the Constitution's co-equal branches of government. Menendez tells me what has just happened in KS, where the cases are now, and what is expected to happen next in what he says could turn into "just a complete constitutional crisis."

Finally, on yesterday's program we played some of 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' remarks at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University as he attempted to reach out and find common ground with some of the 12,000 "conservative" students in attendance. Today, we hear from some of those students as they react to Sanders' speech. Suffice to say, reaching out to those who think they don't agree with you may be a very wise thing to do in today's divided and divisive media world.

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

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Guest: Author and Harvard Health Policy Professor Dr. David Hemenway...
By Brad Friedman on 9/8/2015 5:28pm PT  

As noted at the top of today's BradCast, our show changed about five different times right up until air, as we attempted to keep up with busy news events on the ground following the Labor Day weekend.

First up, Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk who was jailed before the weekend after defying court orders to issue marriage licenses was released [PDF] by the Federal Judge who had found her in contempt last week. Waiting for her with a hero's welcome was a crowd of hundreds fomented by former Arkansas Governor turned GOP Presidential candidate turned Fox 'News' host turned GOP Presidential candidate again turned desperately disingenuous opportunist Mike Huckabee.

But what Huckabee failed to note in his defense of Davis --- as do most of the media covering what's going on down there --- is that Davis was sent to jail not for refusing to defy her own conscience as her supporters claim, but for refusing to allow others who disagreed with her in her own office from acting and following their own conscience...not to mention the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.

Next up today: As the carnage of gun violence continues from coat to coast following the recent, live on-air shootings in Roanoke, Virginia (include another mass shooting at a school here in California and the critical injury of one of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's top legal staffers), we speak to author David Hemenway about solutions, as detailed in his book Private Guns, Public Health.

"People from around the world come and they just cannot understand why the United States allows this to happen --- compared to all the other first world countries and high income countries --- that we are allowing so many Americans to be killed," Hemenway tells me while explaining how our epidemic of gun violence must be regarded as an issue of public health. "First we have to admit we have a problem, and the numbers are just overwhelming."

While he concedes that, no matter what we do, "we are going to have lots and lots of guns in the Unites States," they can and should be made safer. "One of the analogies we make in public health is in the motor vehicle area," Hemenway explains. "Fatalities per mile driven in the United States have fallen over 85% because the cars are so much better, and the roads are so much better. Yes, we ought to look at the individuals [perpetrating the violence] but we can do so much more, so much more cost-effectively, if we also look at the system. Let's make a system where it's hard to make errors, hard to behave inappropriately, and then when still some people do, let's make it that nobody dies."

"For example, we'd like manufacturers to do a better job about making child-proof guns --- which they made 100 years ago --- to make it harder for kids to unintentionally kill themselves. We can say 'You know, it's the kid's fault, it's the parent's fault, it's somebody's fault fault fault,' or we can solve the problem, which is make it so that when you take out the magazine the gun won't fire. It's not rocket science."

Hemenway, Professor of Health Policy and Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, offers other common sense solutions, including the need for better data collection, currently made scarce by both legislation and intimidation by gun proponents. "Whenever there's a motor vehicle death, we get 150 pieces of information collected consistently and comparably. We want to get good data on the number of guns in households in each state, but the Center for Disease Control is afraid to ask questions about that because they'll get beaten up by Congress."

He also discusses a number of myths from opponents of gun safety laws, including the claim that women need guns to protect themselves from predators and the notion that households are safer with a gun to protect the occupants. "Only about a third of households have guns," Hemenway tells me. "And the two-thirds that don't have guns, turns out they are much, much safer than the one third that does."

Also on today's busy broadcast: Breaking news from the Freddie Gray killing in Baltimore; Breaking news on the Iran Deal from U.S. Senate Democrats; and more...

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

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