Lots of breaking news today on The BradCast, including the Cleveland, Ohio court which has now found probable cause to recommend murder charges in the police killing of 12-year old African American Tamir Rice; and, yet another huge security breach at a federal website. (But don't worry, Internet Voting is still totally safe, right?); Rep. Alan Grayson and other progressives say it's time to "burn up the phones" to stop TPP "Fast Track" authority in the U.S. House; And the climate science denying, "free speech loving" loons at Heartland Institute toss out an environmental journalist from their 10th annual pretend "Climate Change Conference".

Then, speaking of freedom of the press, we talk with Vice News' investigative reporter Jason Leopold on new information he's obtained on the U.S. drone killing of U.S. citizen Samir Kahn, as well as his own testimony (full video here, written testimony here [PDF]) before the U.S. House Oversight Committee last week in regard to the Obama Administration's "slow-walking" of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. He tells both them and me about the "thousands" of requests he's filed as a journalist and has had to sue to try and see fulfilled; the irony involved in his entertaining testimony before Republican legislators; and just some of the crazy news he made in the bargain.

Plus: don't miss the saddest story you'll ever hear about poor Rick Santorum's run for the 2016 GOP Presidential nomination. All on today's BradCast!...

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On today's BradCast, I was joined by Seth Stoughton, former cop and now asst. professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, to discuss the "Guardian v. Warrior" cop mentality as displayed in this past weekend's viral video of a pool party gone bad in suburban McKinney, TX.

Stoughton, who teaches criminal law and police regulation, analyzed the video for Talking Points Memo and explained what lessons might be learned from both the behavior of the helpful ("guardian") cops seen in the video and the other ("warrior") cop mentality as displayed by McKinney Officer Eric Casebolt who is seen inappropriately roughing up and threatening a number of African-American teens during the incident.

"Originally the warrior mindset referred to the mental tenacity, the sheer determination that an officer had to have to survive a life and death struggle," Stoughton tells me. "Now what we see, the warrior mindset refers to a more hyper-vigilant, often-aggressive approach to policing where everyone that the officer deals with is a potential threat."

But our discussion is much broader than all of that, as we talk about how these lessons apply to police everywhere in the U.S., whether the spate of recent videos of racist and/or rogue cops might actually be good news over all, and what are some steps that may improve things for everybody in the future.

Also today: Quantifying the startling epidemic of shootings by police in the U.S.; Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert pleads "not guilty"; Breaking news about marriage equality out of Arkansas; And climate change deniers gather to continue deluding themselves at a "climate change conference" sponsored by fossil fuel-funded Heartland Institute loons in Washington, D.C...

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Investigative journalist Tim Shorrock joins me on today's BradCast to discuss his disturbing new article at The Nation on "How Private Contractors Have Created a Shadow NSA: A new cybersecurity elite moves between government and private practice, taking state secrets with them."

It's an issue, as I note during the show, that is particularly troubling giving the history of my family and me being targeted by defense contractors in years past.

Shorrock, author of the book Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, describes the unprecedented privatization of our national security apparatus and how "the public is badly misled by the media" during debates about intelligence policies when "former" intelligence officials are presented to the public as experts without disclosure of their continuing financial ties to the industry.

Plus: As the Republican Party continues to make itself irrelevant, progressive ideas are quickly becoming mainstream ideas and Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are eager to capitalize on it. And, speaking of irrelevance, GOP 2016 candidate Rick Santorum attacks the Pope(!) for daring to speak up about saving humanity by taking action on global warming...

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You'll be shocked to hear on today's BradCast about the completely predictable blow-back from the GOP after Hillary Clinton displayed the temerity to call for restoring and even expanding voting rights for all American citizens 18 years of age and older. (As we covered in depth on yesterday's BradCast.) Yes, Republicans really do not care for democracy, apparently.

And, yes, a new Progressive Age is dawning, whether you've realized it or not --- even as "conservatism" is quickly disappearing. (Which also explains why Republicans hate democracy.)

Speaking of the dawning of a new Progressive Age, former Ohio state prosecutor Dan Riffle of the Marijuana Policy Project joins us to discuss this week's remarkable "Marijuana Vote-a-Rama" in Congress, and the Republicans and Democrats who are finally coming on board to end the government tyranny and prohibition. A fascinating discussion of where we've been, where we now are and how we got here.

Plus: A very moving --- and ironic --- lesson one blogger improbably learned via Caitlyn Jenner...

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The USA Freedom Act passes as a long overdue replacement to the Patriot Act. Mitch McConnell weeps and Rand Paul raises money. That's good. But is it a good bill and will it end mass government surveillance by the NSA?

Then, we've finally learned if disgraced U.S. District Judge Mark 'Wife-Beater' Fuller, set to 'resign in shame', will receive a federal retirement pension. Heidi Hess of CREDOAction.com joins us to discuss that, her organization's complaint against Fuller at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the five vacancies now on Alabama's federal court (which Republicans are trying to keep vacant for as long as possible.)

Plus some good voting news in Vermont and maybe in Wisconsin; the bizarre disposition of the Dennis Hastert indictments; and Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with the climate change positions of four new candidates in the 2016 race...

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Nebraska does it again! The majority-GOP state legislature overrides yet another veto by the state's GOP governor to do the right thing yet again, this time to allow the children of immigrants to obtain drivers' licenses. The latest move by Conservative legislators in the state comes on the heels of overriding vetoes and/or filibuster-proof majorities to protect voting rights, raise tax revenue to repair roads and bridges and ban the death penalty. (Today's news, by the way, was available last week to regular BradCast listeners, as it was hinted at quite directly on our show at the time by my guest that day, Republican state Sen. Al Davis.)

In the meantime, my guest on today's The BradCast is Montana's Commissioner of Political Practices John Motl. He explains the state's latest disturbing court battle to retain their long-standing caps on campaign donations. As noted during the show, this case could very well end up at the U.S. Supreme Court and serve to remove all caps on donations to candidates across the country. So it's very important. This in a state which recently saw SCOTUS gut it's 100-year old prohibition on corporate campaign spending (the Corrupt Practices Act of 1912) in the wake of Citizens United.

"We fully understand we are standing in on behalf of the average person," Motl tells me. "We're not standing here on behalf of the large moneyed interests. And we're willing to take that burden on." He adds that he's confident they will win this case. "If there's justice, we will prevail." I'm not quite as confident as he is, to be frank. Pay attention to this case.

Plus: An amusing new RW conspiracy theory, of sorts; Saudi Arabia's oil minister says we may be nearing the end of fossil fuels(!); and extreme weather ravishing the nation and the world on the latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen...

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As the corporate media continues to smear and/or ignore and/or marginalize Bernie Sanders' candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination, we're happy to play extended excerpts from Tuesday's massive kick-off rally in Burlington, VT on today's BradCast. You're welcome, Politico and "everyday Americans" everywhere!

Then, I was joined by journalist and playwright Aurin Squire to discuss his recent TPM essay on "Biker Gangs, Tamir Rice, And The Rise Of White Fragility". Squire raises a number of important issues in his piece concerning how so many in the nation's white, male, privileged power structure seem to be desperately trying to cling to control they think they are losing. In the meantime, they are voting against their own best interests, even as they try to restrict the rights of "the others".

Plus: Breaking news on the bipartisan Nebraska state legislature successfully overriding their GOP Governor's veto to abolish the death penalty once and for all; three new GOP candidates set to get into the 2016 race; and John Boehner's latest, ridiculous dog whistles...

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Good news and bad today on The BradCast. As is too often the case, mostly bad.

We get the good news out of the way early. Namely, the overwhelming approval by voters for a Constitutional amendment for marriage equality in the very Catholic nation of Ireland over the weekend. The mandate was loud and clear and, thanks to publicly hand-counted, hand-marked paper ballots in Ireland, unmistakable.

Then, horrific, deadly flooding in Texas and Oklahoma on the heels of a years-long drought there. Mashable.com's Science Editor Andrew Freedman joins us to discuss the ongoing disaster and the influence of climate change on events like this --- which we seem to be seeing more and more of...just as climate scientists have been warning for decades.

Also today, a report on our own weekend encounter with private security guards at the scene of the Santa Barbara, CA oil spill after the rupture of a crude pipeline owned by a company named Plains All American.

An update on charges now filed against Doug Hughes, the postal worker who landed his gyrocopter on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol in April to deliver a message about the need for campaign finance reform (our full interview with Hughes from back in April is right here).

All that, and a few more items of note in today's BradCast!

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We've reported for years about the ease with which foreign entities could hack a computerized US election with little possibility of being discovered. Well, guess what classic book was reportedly found on 'Bin Laden's Bookshelf'? We discuss on today's BradCast!

Then, my guest is the imprisoned Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL)'s son Joseph Siegelman (pictured above with his father and sister Dana just before his father was sent back to federal prison in 2012 to serve out his 6.5 year sentence on "bribery" charges), on the latest disturbing ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals concerning his father's appeal for a new trial and/or reduced sentence in his outrageously politicized prosecution by the Bush Administration.

Joseph, now an attorney, explains what the court's decision this week means; where the case goes from here; whether he thinks the Obama Administration will ever right the wrong; and how you can help to restore justice in this matter.

"This is something that shouldn't happen in America," he told me. "If a sitting governor can be unseated and prosecuted and imprisoned for something that he did not do --- and for something that had not even been considered a crime in this country until he was convicted of it --- what chance do anyone one of us have?"

That and a bit more, including listener mail and some breaking voting news out of MD, on today's BradCast...

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We've been talking about reality here a lot lately, and the difficulty a huge portion of our population has with it.

On today's BradCast: Our nation's untethering from reality, as it affects accountability for Iraq War war crimes and torture, the 2016 race, climate change and much more. We can't fix our problems until we can agree on the facts, but Governors Chris Christie and Scott Walker remind us once again that we are nowhere near such agreement. (Even as we must take a side trip through the Bush Family's relationship with Nazi Germany to help understand it all.)

Journalist-turned-media-activist and documentarian Sue Wilson from Media Action Center joins us to discuss the FCC ruling that upends the First Amendment and Walker and his supporter's efforts to make things even worse in a Wisconsin criminal investigation into his 2012 recall election that may have an enormous impact on the entire nation in 2016.

Plus: Minimum wage boosted to $15/hour here in Los Angeles; Another huge oil spill in Santa Barbara; and much more on today's BradCast...

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Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA-4) returned to The BradCast today to take a bit of a victory lap after President Obama's Executive Order this week restricting the flow of heavy armaments from the Dept. of Defense to state and local police via the Pentagon's 1033 program.

Johnson spoke with us most recently last summer, after Ferguson blew up, and as he was preparing to file his "Stop Militarization Law Enforcement Act of 2015" [PDF]. Long before that, he had been working to roll back the obscene militarization of our local police. So he was justifiably happy about this week's development, even while explaining that its still important to pass his legislation because Executive Orders are easily undone by Congress and Republicans are, somewhat schizophrenically, in the process of actually trying to expand the 1033 program.

Then we cover a spate of new voting laws working their way through statehouses around the country from TX to OH to NH to FL to VT to MD. While most off the new laws in Republican states are predictably restrictive and in Democratic states more expansive, there is one pleasantly surprising exception to that rule this week.

Also, millions of spiders falling from the skies in Australia! And Desi Doyen joins for the latest Green News Report, which actually includes a some encouraging good for a change!...

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It's been an entire year since the First Amendment suffered a gigantic blow as a result of the 2012 Scott Walker recall campaign in Wisconsin, though it's one that very few Americans above and beyond astute BRAD BLOG readers, even know about. And now, there is another threat to Free Speech, stemming from that same recall of GOP Presidential hopeful Walker looming at the Wisconsin State Supreme Court.

Walker's attorneys are now arguing at the Wisconsin State Supreme Court that it is a violation of the First Amendment rights to even investigate whether the Walker campaign broke state law by the controversial candidate personally soliciting funds from non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)(4) groups so donors to his campaign could remain secret. In a separate gambit, they also tried to make that case to the United States Supreme Court, which early Monday sent the case back to Wisconsin.

And it now appears that Right Wing Radio talkers --- at the core of a very real First Amendment blow suffered one year ago --- are, once again, in the thick of all of it.

This is all related to what Media Action Center (MAC) members discovered during the 2012 recall campaign when talk hosts on Wisconsin radio giants WTMJ and WISN gave hundreds of hours of free airtime for GOP luminaries like Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus and Wisconsin GOP Vice Chair Brian Schimming in order to promote and recruit volunteers for Walker during that contentious campaign....

On today's BradCast: much more on the 2016 GOP candidates still --- incredibly --- tripping up over Iraq. Over the weekend, once again, it was Marco Rubio's turn after a disastrous appearance on Fox "News" Sunday with Chris Wallace. And no, once again, the Iraq War wasn't "a mistake", it was a crime and should be treated as such.

Then, I was joined for a fascinating conversation with Seattle City Councilmember Mike O'Brien as Shell Oil's 400-foot Polar Pioneer offshore oil rig is now docked in the Port of Seattle's Elliot Bay and facing ShellNo.org protesters on both land and sea. They hope to keep the rig from heading into the pristine Arctic waters to drill for oil this summer, after the Obama Administration has granted "conditional approval".

O'Brien says the City Council has determined that Shell is there "in violation of the existing permits," and tells us they are now "working on enforcement actions to get them back into compliance." Unfortunately, he concedes, that may mean, for now, little more than a $500/fine fine. But he also says the city is working hard to see what else they might be able to do to block the rig from moving north this season and, as importantly, keep any more oil rigs from using the port at all in the future.

On why O'Brien, who also took to a kayak himself to protest the rig last week, isn't only fighting Shell from the safety of his City Councilmember's office, but is actually taking to the water along with other "kayaktivists", he says: "For me, because it's happening right here in my city on my waterfront, I, frankly, can't just stay in my chambers and work on this. I felt the need to get out there and join with my fellow citizens to be part of the activity on the water." He adds: "The number of us and the size of us compared to this monstrosity is a monument to the hubris of the oil industry."

Well worth listening to today's interview! Also today: The weekend's deadly biker gang shootout in Waco results in TX legislators calling for more guns; Religious freedom in Indiana? Not so much if your religion is Rastafarianism; And a 10,000 year old ice shelf in Antarctica is about to disappear entirely. But why worry?...

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With Jeb Bush's disastrous week of blunders concerning the Iraq War, the GOP and its 2016 candidates are now desperately trying to rewrite the history of this nation's greatest foreign policy debacle by claiming that the "intelligence was faulty". It wasn't. Their memory, however, may conveniently be.

On today's BradCast, we set the story straight, again, on what really happened when George W. Bush sent the country to war based on known lies.

Plus, environmental journalist from EHN.org and CNN's former executive producer of their Science and Technology division (until they disbanded the division) Peter Dykstra joins us to discuss his new article on how environmentalists would be wise to learn from our nation's history of civil rights battles. "Want to change the future?," says Dykstra, "pay attention to the past." Good advice all around today.

Also, Boston Marathon bomber sentenced to death; Philadelphia Amtrak disaster underscores U.S. failure; the passing of blues legend B.B. King and more on today's BradCast...

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The polling place Photo ID voting restriction enacted by Republicans in Texas has been repeatedly found in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Most recently, late last year, a federal judge found, after a full trial on the merits of the law, that the restrictive statute "creates an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, has an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African-Americans, and was imposed with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose." U.S. District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos went on to note in her 147-page ruling [PDF] that the law also "constitutes an unconstitutional poll tax."

Based on evidence from the state examined at trial, the law could serve to disenfranchise as many as 600,000 already legally registered voters in the state, not to mention more than a million eligible voters in Texas over all.

Naturally, Texas Republicans who currently run the state are appealing that ruling. Not because they have been able to demonstrate any actual "voter fraud" that might have been deterred by their restrictions, but because, with rapidly changing voter demographics in the Lone Star State, keeping legal voters (specifically, those that tend to lean towards Democrats) from being able to cast their otherwise legal vote has become a top priority for the GOP if they hope to keep their stranglehold on political power there in coming decades.

With all of that in mind --- including the existing law having been found in violation of both federal law and the U.S. Constitution --- state Republicans are hoping to make the law even more restrictive, and last week in the state House, the GOP passed another law to make it even more difficult for certain people to vote...