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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Florida races to prevent massive toxic wastewater breach in Manatee County; Biden Administration pushes back on Republican opposition to infrastructure jobs package; Japan sees earliest cherry blossom peak in 1,200 years; PLUS: Victory for breathers in Springfield, Massachusetts... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump Landfill Methane Emissions Rule Scrapped by Appeals Court; US, UAE say they'll invest in Middle East decarbonization; Fossil Firms Took Billions in Virus Aid but Still Cut Nearly 60,000 Jobs; Louisville’s Polluting Chemical Plant Emits Two Potent Greenhouse Gases; Canada's Herring Face Collapse, Say First Nations And Activists; Can Biden Change America's Preference For Cars Over Trains and Buses?; More U.S. Coal Power Retired Under Trump Than in Obama's Second Term; Our Last, Best Chance to Save Atlantic Salmon... PLUS: Test Flight for Sunlight-Blocking Research Is Canceled... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Catastrophic flooding the latest disaster to pummel Australia; Climate-related disasters now produce the most refugees in the world; Judge rules bankrupt coal company can leave mine cleanup obligations to the tax-payers; PLUS: Biden White House prepares massive infrastructure jobs bill... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Indigenous Anti-Dam Activist Killed In Honduras; Trump’s Parting Gift to St. Croix: One of America’s Largest Refineries; Germany dismisses Australia's claims that planned EU carbon border tax is 'protectionism'; Coal Markets Roiled as Australia’s Flood Crisis Worsens; Interior Reverses Course On Tribal Ownership Of Portion Of Missouri River... PLUS: If your flood insurance bill is $30,000 it's sending a message --- don't live there... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Texas power crisis over, for now, as water crisis continues; Texas Republicans that falsely scapegoated wind energy are getting big bucks from the fossil fuel industry; U.S. rejoins U.N. Paris Climate Agreement; PLUS: The case for rebuilding U.S. infrastructure for climate resilience... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): El Paso Heeded the Warnings and Avoided a Winter Catastrophe; Partisan Fight Over Deb Haaland, First Native American Cabinet Pick; FERC gives preliminary permit to 2.2 GW storage project in NM; New Data Reveal Where Flood Damage Is An Existential Threat; As Cities Grapple With Climate, Gas Utilities Fight To Stay In Business; 20 percent Of Wisconsin Wolves To Be Killed After Court Sides With Hunters... PLUS: Texas electricity crisis and the energy transition... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Democrats take control of US Senate, pledge to act on climate; Automakers drop bid to block California's vehicle emissions standards; Oceans rising faster than scientists' most pessimistic forecasts; Coal will be gone from US electric grid by 2033, says new report; PLUS: COVID lockdowns temporarily cleared the air, but also increased global warming... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Biden’s EPA Nominee Vows ‘Urgency’ On Climate Change; Biden team in talks with utilities, car companies about emissions; Exxon, BP announce billions in losses for 2020; U.S. Cities Are Vastly Undercounting Emissions; Trump’s Last Minute Flubs Gift Biden Time to Rewrite Regulations; Biden Admin To Restart Permitting For Major Offshore Wind Project; California Leads U.S. Sprint Towards Electric Vehicles; K-Pop For The Planet: Fans Of S Korean Stars Take Up Climate Activism ... PLUS: Back of the Line: Chicago's COVID-19 vaccine plan put polluted communities last... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President-elect Joe Biden's cabinet nominations focus on jobs and climate; Trump Administration declines protections for endangered monarch butterflies; Trump's FEMA moves to slash extreme weather disaster aid; PLUS: WA State Gov. Jay Inslee unveils ambitious new clean energy jobs plan... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Biden picks top North Carolina environmental official to run EPA; Donald Trump Ends Efficient Showerheads' Reign of Terror; In San Francisco: King Tide Gives Glimpse of the Future; The Era of Fossil Fuel Power Plants Is Rapidly Receding. Here Is Their Life Expectancy; Can Joe Biden rebuild the ravaged US Environmental Protection Agency?... PLUS: PFAS and PFOS: The poison found in everyone, even unborn babies – and who is responsible for it... and much, MUCH more! ...

Before we can even get to the central story line on today's BradCast --- Biden's weekend win in South Carolina and voting system problems leading in to Super Tuesday, particularly in Los Angeles --- or crack open the phone lines to a bunch of calls with questions about voting on Super Tuesday, we quickly round up just some of the weekend news stories which, in a normal world, would each have merited their own entire program! [Audio link to show is posted below.]

The news began breaking left and right after we got off air Friday and hasn't stopped through airtime today. Among the stories quickly covered at the top of today's show...

• A three-judge panel on a federal court of appeals tossed out the House of Representatives' lawsuit to force Donald Trump's former White House Counsel Don McGahn to testify under the House's lawful Congressional subpoena as a witness to Trump's attempt to kill the Robert Mueller Special Counsel probe. If the panel's 2 to 1 ruling led by two George W. Bush judges holds, it'll be the end of all Congressional oversight of the Executive Branch as we know it;

• A federal appeals court blocked Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy for immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S., and then unblocked it moments later;

• Trump loyalist Rep. John Ratcliff (R-TX) was nominated for a second time to become Director of National Intelligence despite no intelligence experience to lead the nation's 17 intelligence agencies and after having been rejected by Senate Republicans when he was nominated the first time last year for the same role;

• The U.S. signed a peace deal with the Taliban to remove all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in America's longest war, but Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) the only member of Congress to have voted against the 2001 Authorization of Military Force, says Trump's "so-called 'peace deal' is anything but" and will leave thousands of troops in place. As of Monday, the Friday deal is already falling apart;

• 6 deaths from the coronavirus in the U.S. have now been reported over the weekend and into Monday, with a cluster of cases in the Seattle area, and new infections announced in New York, Chicago, Florida, Arizona and elsewhere;

• And, on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the GOP/Trump Administration challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) which, if successful, would completely strike down the landmark health care insurance law, leaving millions without coverage and insurance companies free to deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions again.

All of that before we are able to even get to Joe Biden's huge reported victory at the South Carolina primary on Saturday, besting his nearest competitor (Bernie Sanders) in the Palmetto State with more than twice as many votes. In the wake of Biden's revival after his dismal performance in the first three states (Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada), several candidates dropped out of the race, including billionaire Tom Steyer, former South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg and MN Senator Amy Klobuchar. The last of those two announced their endorsements of Biden on Monday as centrist Democrats band together to challenge Sanders.

But what of those voters in California, Texas and a dozen other Super Tuesday states who made the mistake of voting early (despite our weeks and months of warning folks otherwise) for a candidate no longer in the race as of tomorrow's primaries in all of those states? And what of those voting centers where Los Angeles County's new, $300,000,000 unverifiable touchscreen voting systems have been failing to work at all? And why have pollworkers in L.A. been told not to talk to media, as I learned this weekend.

We open the phones to callers today (as we will again tomorrow) to hear about their early voting experiences, problems and concerns, and for questions about the new, frequently unverifiable voting systems now in use across the country (in places like South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania and elsewhere in addition to L.A. County, the largest voting jurisdiction in the nation)? A number of callers were alarmed to learn about the flaws and failures of touchscreen computer Ballot Marking Device, including one caller who noted that, no, she didn't bother to verify her computer-marked paper ballot before casting it, believing that her work was done after verifying her choices on the touchscreen! So, a very busy hopefully interesting and informative (and, sorry, maddening) show today on 'The BradCast'!...

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On today's BradCast, the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on world markets, we finally have a definitive "winner" of the Iowa Caucuses, and a raft of good news voting rights court rulings in several key battleground states! [Audio link to show follows below.]

We start with some "breaking news" today: Pete Buttigieg has won the Iowa Caucuses! Barely. And only as long as you consider the winner of the most delegates to be the "winner". Following both partial recanvassing and recounts requested by both the Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg campaigns in a number of precincts on the heels of the flawed reporting of Iowa Caucus results three weeks ago, the Iowa Democratic Party has finally concluded that Buttigieg won a literal fraction more of the State Delegate Equivalents (SDEs). Buttigieg took 562.954 to Sanders' 562.021.

While both candidates actually lost a small number of SDEs during the partial recounts, Buttigieg's margin of victory (0.003%) was increased to "a commanding 0.04% win" after the recounts. That translates into 14 national delegates for the former South Bend, Indiana Mayor to Sanders' 12 out of the Hawkeye State, where the Vermont Senator nonetheless won the never-really-in-question overall popular vote by several thousand more votes in both the initial and realignment rounds of voting at the state's February 3rd caucuses.

With that finally out of the way, we offer a quick update on the havoc the coronavirus --- and the Trump Administration's bungled response to it --- is causing for world markets, with the Dow plummeting for a 7th straight day on Friday, resulting in a 3,500 point drop over the past week. It was the worst week for Wall Street since the 2008 global financial crisis and the fastest loss of four months of gains for the S&P 500 since 1928. That, as the deadly virus continues to spread and fears mount that it will result in a global recession and full blown pandemic.

In the U.S. however, rightwingers like Rush Limbaugh are using our public airwaves to "inform" Americans that the virus "is the common cold" in one breath, and seemingly contradicting that by falsely describing it as "a ChiCom laboratory experiment...being weaponized" in the next. But, despite the fact that it could result in hundreds of thousands of deaths in the U.S. (the virus is currently 20 times more fatal than the flu, which killed approximately 34,000 Americans last season), Limbaugh is using our public airwaves to propagandize listeners that Bernie Sanders and the "Democrat Party...pose a much greater threat to this country than the coronavirus does."

So, yes, we continue to keep our eyes on the most important election in the nation's history in hopes of curbing at least some of this madness. To that end, as South Carolina prepares to vote on new, !00% unverifiable, germy touchscreen voting systems across the state in their Democratic primary on Saturday, and voters in many of the 14 state primaries ending on Super Tuesday three days later do the same, we focus on a number of recent encouraging court rulings that will help protect their right to cast a vote at all.

For that, we are blessed on today's BradCast with the long-overdue return of the great Slate legal reporter MARK JOSEPH STERN! And we've got a lot to catch up with him on, from just over the past few weeks, when it comes to both state and federal courts stepping in to do the right thing in protecting voter's rights --- at least for now.

• Recently, both a federal district court and a state Court of Appeals in North Carolina blocked the Tar Heel State GOP's new Photo ID voting restriction, finding it (once again) was designed to disproportionately target minorities for suppression.

• In Florida, a federal Court of Appeals has blocked the Republican state legislature and Governor's attempt to gut 2018's landmark state constitutional Amendment 4, granting the right to vote to former felons who have completed their sentences.

• In Missouri, the state's Supreme Court not only blocked a "Catch-22" Photo ID voting restriction that required those without very specific types of Photo IDs to actually commit a felony by lying on an affidavit form in order to legally cast a vote, the Court also carved out a right to vote for many trans and non-binary voters who, in MO, thanks to more bad laws, are literally barred from obtaining the requisite ID that would be needed for them to vote legally under the statute that the court has now struck down. (That, after more than a decade of GOP attempts in the Show-Me State to try and institute Photo ID voting restrictions, no matter who it would prevent from casting a legal vote.)

• In Arizona, with its own long history of racial discrimination, a federal Court of Appeals struck down two measures adopted by state Republicans, finding both of them to have been racially motivated attempts to suppress nonwhite voters. One had mandated that provisional ballots be discarded if they were cast in a different precinct from where the voters was supposed to be voting, the other outlawed the third-party collection of absentee ballots (which Fox "News" and, therefore, all Republicans falsely denigrated as "ballot harvesting" by "illegal immigrants".)

Many of these very good news court rulings, however, could still be reversed during additional appeals, thanks to the Republican court-packing in recent years, particularly if the stolen Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court decides to pick and choose which decisions they will and won't apply their so-called "Purcell Principle" to, with elections imminent in all of those states.

And, we also discuss a Trump judge's recent move to prevent voters from being able to sue for their rights at all under the Voting Rights Act. So, yes, MUCH to catch up on today with Stern, who explains all of these cases and where they go from here, in his usual, clear, informative and even amusing way!

Finally, a quick program announcement after a listener comment on voter registration concerns: We will be LIVE and taking your calls both Monday and Tuesday next week, opening up the phone lines to hear from voters and early voters about any problems they may have encountered, and to answer any questions listeners may have about voting and voting systems before the Super Tuesday election polls close next week! If you don't get The BradCast LIVE where you are, please remember to tune in to the live stream at KPFK.org on Monday and Tuesday next week at 3pm PT/6p ET and give us a shout!...

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On today's BradCast: Seven Democratic Presidential candidates turned up the volume --- and on each other (especially against current front-runner Bernie Sanders) --- at Tuesday night's Presidential debate in Charleston, South Carolina. We have special coverage today. [Audio link to show follows below.]

It was the final debate before the crucial South Carolina Primary on Saturday and the critical Super Tuesday primaries just three days later in 14 states across the country. So, tensions were very high and the attacks on Sanders were cranked up to 11 at times, with the elections over the next week likely to be do or die for a number of the "contestants" (as billionaire contestant Michael Bloomberg described them).

We are joined today for insight, analysis and, yes, a few snarky comments from two BradCast post-election special coverage vets. Award-winning opinion journalist HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo is with us, along with Roosevelt University political scientist DAVID FARIS, columnist at The Week and author of It's Time to Fight Dirty.

Both offer very smart thoughts, as usual, on the Party's very long debate process to date (Tuesday's was the 10th this cycle), whether the forums as structured have helped the Democratic electorate in making their choices, and how it all might be done better in the future. We cover the reasons behind the, at times high-decibel attacks from several of the candidates amid what seems universally agreed to have been a very poorly-moderated debate, and why so much time has been spent on weedy, wonky health care math, and so little time spent on issues of most interest to the American people, including the greatest threat posed right now to both the nation and the world: Donald Trump.

But the horse race, at this point in the contest, is unavoidable. Will Sanders continue to break away from the pack after Super Tuesday? Will Elizabeth Warren finally break through as a unity candidate? Will Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer survive? Does anybody actually like Bloomberg? Will SC Rep. James Clyburn's coveted endorsement for Biden this morning keep the former Vice President alive beyond the Palmetto State? Is it just us, or is Pete Buttigieg beginning to seem desperate? And who, among all of them, is best prepared to take on the elephant in the country, the still-sitting President of the United States?

All of those questions asked and answered on today's program, based on telling comments, strategy and behavior from each of the remaining candidates Tuesday night, a number of whom, sadly or otherwise, may no longer be in the 2020 Presidential nominating race just one week from today...

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On today's BradCast: A look at what happened over the weekend in Nevada, and a look ahead at wait awaits in South Carolina on Saturday, Super Tuesday three days later, and yes, even beyond. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

So, the Caucuses in Nevada over the weekend went only slightly better when it came to reporting results than the Iowa Caucuses two weeks ago. But, because Bernie Sanders appears to have won in a rout there, the corporate media declared as much and didn't seem to be bothered, or even much notice, that it took another three days before all results were actually in. (Proving once again that corporate media is interested in headlines, not about making sure that voters see their votes counted accurately.)

We cover the reported results out of NV today, beginning with Sanders' landslide victory there, and the fight for runners-up, with Joe Biden coming in second over Pete Buttigieg, followed by Elizabeth Warren in fourth place. She was followed in turn by Tom Steyer and then Amy Klobuchar.

But the night belonged to Bernie. He received well over twice the number of votes than his nearest competitor (Biden) in NV. Buttigieg challenged the reported results from the Saturday caucuses and attacked Sanders during his post-caucus remarks to supporters in a way that Republicans should be very happy about (and in a way that Sanders would have been justifiably excoriated for, had he done anything similar in either 2016 or in this year's cycle.) We explain all of that on today's show.

We also look forward to this Saturday's important Primary in South Carolina and to Super Tuesday in 14 states just three days later on March 3rd. In SC, Biden's once seemingly-insurmountable lead in pre-election polling appears to be slipping, even as he retains a small edge over Sanders there, according to NBC/Marist, as of today.

At the same time, the national polls are seeing some movement as well, with Warren surging into second place behind Sanders and ahead of Biden in a new CBS/YouGov poll out today, reflecting what many regard as her strong debate performance last Wednesday. Their performance, however, was not reflected in the NV Caucuses given, that most caucus-goers had already voted before the debate in Early Voting (which was used for the first time there this year.)

So, with Sanders the front-runner at the moment, having won the popular vote in each of the first three primary/caucus states, members of the "Democratic Establishment" and their media supporters appear to be, well, freaking out a little bit. We play some of that freak out and discuss.

For the moment, however, all eyes are now on South Carolina, where voters across the entire state will be forced to vote on brand-new, 100% unverifiable touchscreen Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs). The new systems, made by Election Systems and Software, Inc., replace the state's old 100% unverifiable touchscreen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) systems, also made by ES&S. Their systems have failed in election after election over the past decade in the Palmetto State and elsewhere. But, of course, even if they work as designed this Saturday in the SC Primary, it will still be 100% impossible to know after polls close if any ballot cast on the expensive devices actually reflect the intent of any voter.

That's just one of the problems --- though, one of the biggest --- with BMD voting systems. In Los Angeles County --- which has more registered voters in it than the entire state of South Carolina has people --- the Early Voting period for the March 3rd Super Tuesday primary (which will be held in 14 states) began on Saturday. We've been covering L.A. County's brand-new, $300,000,000 touchscreen BMD voting system for some time (about a decade in fact), warning about many of its failures and potential failures.

So, how do you think the first day of Early Voting went in L.A.? According to this report, and some of our own reporting as well, it did not go well, with officials unable to start up the new e-voting systems at all for several hours in a number of locations, some locations where the equipment didn't even arrive in time for Saturday's Early Voting, and an absense of the paper write-in ballots that were supposed to be available at every polling site as the first "condition" in the CA Sec. of State's recent "conditional certification" [PDF] of L.A.'s new "Voting Solutions for All People" (VSAP) touchscreen system.

And now it's your last chance, if you live in L.A. County, to get a real, hand-marked paper ballot instead, by visiting LAVote.net to request a Vote-by-Mail ballot for the March 3rd election before Tuesday night, February 25th at midnight! (And please do the same if you live in ANY jurisdiction in the country where you will be forced to vote on a touchscreen voting systems at the polls!)

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On today's BradCast: With all the knives out between all of the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates at Wednesday night's debate in Las Vegas, you may not have noticed that there was actually a rather substantive policy debate within it over how to deal with our intensifying climate emergency. But we noticed. [Audio link to show follows below.]

It's rare enough that climate and environmental issues are raised at all by Presidential Debate moderators, much less to allow for substantive discussion of differences between the candidates. And, in the few instances that it happens, the conversation is often buried at the end of the forum, and/or otherwise completely ignored in post-debate coverage which tends to be overwhelmed by electorate politics and horse-race discussion. That is an extraordinary disservice to the electorate, especially given that, as a number of recent polls both nationally and in early primary states reveal, climate change is now among the top issue for voters, often this cycle coming in second only to health care and ahead of both economic and foreign policy issues.

So, before Wednesday's debate gives way entirely to Saturday's Nevada Caucuses and next week's South Carolina Primary and then Super Tuesday in 14 states just three days later on March 3rd, we thought many still-undecided voters might be well-served by some expert help in unpacking some of the key differences between the leading candidates on climate action policies. Unlike Donald Trump and the Republicans, who treat the matter as a joke, all of the Democrats claim to understand the existential threat posed by global warming. But the differences in their responses to questions on the matter --- which are sometimes much larger than you may have noticed --- is both telling and informative.

To that end, we are joined today for a sharp review of the climate crisis portion of Wednesday's debate by LEAH STOKES of UC-Santa Barbara and DAVID ARKUSH of Public Citizen to break down the candidates differing positions for and against fracking bans; on taking on the fossil fuel industry and its executives politically, economically and, yes, criminally; on killing the filibuster; on carbon taxes; on a Green New Deal; on which of the candidates are climate champions (and which are not); and much more!

Both Stokes and Arkush are excellent and unabashed climate policy communicators with long and impressive track records of advocacy on these matters, including with elected officials. Neither of them pull any punches (unlike a number of the candidates on Wednesday night on this issue) and one of them even notes that fossil fuel industry executives could be, perhaps should be, not only prosecuted for fraud, but even "for homicide"...depending on who becomes the nominee and if they can take back the White House (and the Senate!) this November...

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Washington Post called it a "fiery...two-hour free-for-all that sizzled with animosity." New York Times reported "candidates turned on one another in scorching and personal terms". Associated Press declared it a "debate night brawl" that "threatened to further muddy the party's urgent quest to defeat Presidential Donald Trump".

On today's BradCast [audio link posted below], we dive in to those murky and troubled waters to make sense --- where there is room to make it --- of the raucous Democratic Debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday night in advance of Saturday's Nevada Caucuses, next Saturday's South Carolina Primary and March 3rd's Super Tuesday Primaries in more than a dozen states just three days later.

The melee at the Paris Hotel and Casino featured VT Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Veep Joe Biden, MA Sen. Elizabeth Warren, MN Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg and, in his first-ever appearance in a 2020 Presidential debate (despite not even being on any ballot until March 3rd), former Republican NYC Mayor turned Democratic billionaire candidate Michael Bloomberg --- who did not, I think its fair to say, receive a very warm welcome from his fellow contenders.

We're joined today for special coverage of as much of the wild evening as we can fit in, by former Editor-in-Chief of Rewire.news, JODI JACOBSON and longtime activist, reporter, author and documentarian DAVID BENDER, Political Director of the Progressive Voices Network. While slightly more collegial, suffice to say our coverage of Wednesday night's forum was no less challenging at times than the debate itself on several different levels.

Jacobson: "I'm a little shocked at everybody having vapors over this. I think it's past time. For crying out loud, we're facing existential crises of so many kinds. We're facing a true threat to our democracy, which is being dismantled daily...We've got climate crises bearing down on us...And I am not clear why people don't think we should be angry and we should be fighting hard."

Bender: "What I saw last night in this debate is a very, very happy Donald Trump...As Jodi said, we're facing an existential threat to the country, and what we've got to deal with it is a circular firing squad. I've been to every convention since 1968, and let me say, this is absolutely par for the course when Democrats get to a place when they're trying to take one another out and forget that there is something much larger."

That's just the tip of our special coverage iceberg today. Hopefully, it is at least as interesting and perhaps even more enlightening than the Dems' 9th 2020 Presidential Debate last night in Vegas. We'll let you decide. Please tune in for some fascinating insight, occasionally frustrating confrontation, and a whole lot of well-informed opinion...

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In the hours just before former Republican and current billionaire Michael Bloomberg makes his bought-and-paid-for debut on the Democratic debate stage in Las Vegas, our guest on today's BradCast has a bit of a disturbing scoop about Bloomberg's past comparisons between the AARP and the NRA! [Audio link to full show follows below.]

But, first up first up today, some good news from the courts on voting rights in two different key Presidential battleground states! In Florida, a federal appeals on Wednesday sided with ex-felons suing the state to block a law that prevented many of them from having their voting rights restored after the landslide passage of state constitutional Amendment 4 in 2018. After the landmark measure passed with big bi-partisan support to restore voting rights to some 1.5 million former felons (including 1 of 4 African-American men in the state) upon completion of their sentences, the state's new Republican Governor and GOP legislature muscled through legislation to block those former felons from voting until all court fees and fines have been paid off.

Today's federal appeals court ruling blocks that voter suppression measure, finding that "denying access to the franchise to those genuinely unable to pay solely on a account of wealth" is a violation of the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection clause.

There is similarly good news today from the state Court of Appeals in North Carolina, which ruled the Photo ID voting restrictions enacted by Republicans (a measure vetoed by the state's Democratic Governor last year, but overridden by the gerrymandered GOP majorities in both statehouse chambers) disproportionately disenfranchises poor and minority voters.

Despite little or no evidence of polling place impersonation --- the only type of voter fraud such laws could possibly prevent --- the NC GOP has been trying since at least 2013 to impose such discriminatory voting restrictions in the Tar Heel state. Their most notorious attempt, in 2013, was eventually nixed by a federal court which found the law was specifically designed to "target African-Americans with almost surgical precision" and to "impose cures for problems that did not exist." Another similar ruling recently against the state's new measure by a federal court, blocked the law from taking effect before NC's March 3rd Primaries. The new state appeals court decision is likely to also bar the measure until after the 2020 general election in one of the nation's most closely divided battleground states.

Then, it's on to electoral politics, with still more new national polling today showing Bernie Sanders vaulting into double-digit leads over all of his Democratic Presidential rivals. And while Sanders is frequently dismissed by corporate media, even as the front-runner (as we demonstrate again today), an even more curious case of the erasure of Elizabeth Warren by corporate media has made itself maddeningly clear in a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll out this week.

We explain how Warren was disappeared, in part, from a key question in that poll, despite placing third in the national delegate race to date and largely tying for second or third place in most of the recent national surveys. That, while candidates like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg continue to receive a great deal of media attention while still polling only in single digits nationally.

Meanwhile, having no trouble at all receiving national coverage of late, is former Republican, recently-declared Democrat, and longtime billionaire Michael Bloomberg. While Sanders has skyrocketed in polling, Joe Biden has taken a dive, and Bloomberg appears to be surging at his expense. That is thanks, in no small part, to the former NYC Mayor's unprecedented blanketing of the national airwaves with his political propaganda ads. With his late polling surges, Bloomberg will appear, for the first time, on the Democratic debate stage tonight in Las Vegas before this Saturday's Nevada Caucuses (where he isn't even on the ballot.)

We are joined today by investigative financial journalist, author and Executive Editor of The American Prospect, DAVID DAYEN, who has been covering Bloomberg's long and disturbing record quite closely. Earlier this week, Dayen detailed how Bloomberg's life and career mirrors Donald Trump's in a number of disturbing ways, while cautioning about the dangers to both democracy and the Democratic Party itself of the "plutocrat-on-plutocrat election" that would be in store if Bloomberg wins the nomination.

"This is a hostile take-over of the Democratic Party. Much like Trump was a hostile take-over of the Republican Party," Dayen argues today. "I'm worried about the shell-shocked nature of the Democratic electorate that has given up on democracy and thinks the only way to beat their plutocrat is with our plutocrat. That concerns me for more reasons than just the Bloomberg nomination. It concerns me that people are so despondent that they think democracy doesn't work anymore. That leads us down a very dark road."

Dayen also has a scoop today, as published with Alexander Sammon at The Prospect, on Bloomberg's recent history of comparing the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) to the National Rifle Association (NRA), as part of his "decade-long history of promoting cuts to the social safety net" in his advocacy to slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as deficit reduction measures.

All of which raises serious questions about what the Democratic electorate must be thinking in their current, apparently growing support for Bloomberg to become the Party's standard-bearer in 2020. Dayen has many thoughts on that, as do I on today's program...

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We've got a lot to catch up on on today's BradCast after a long holiday weekend, as the crisis of rot and corruption inside the once-revered U.S. Dept. of Justice continues to metastasize under Donald Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr; as billionaire Michael Bloomberg buys his way into shaking up the 2020 Democratic Presidential race; as the Nevada Caucuses may be heading toward another embarrassing meltdown this weekend; and as our ongoing, literal planetary meltdown continues. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

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

• Amid an already deepening crisis at the Justice Dept., Trump went on a "clemency spree" on Tuesday, issuing pardons to a long list of crooks, cronies and n'er do wells --- many of them personal friends of the Prez, natch --- from former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (who attempted to sell a U.S. Senate seat), to Rudy Giuliani pal and former NYPD Commission Bernie Kerik (who lied to the Dept. of Homeland Security), to the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers (who bribed a Louisiana Governor for a riverboat casino gambling license.) Those are just some of the liars, tax frauds and scam artists like Trump who received get-out-of-jail free cards today, in hopes, we surmise, that someone may do the same for Trump some day, once the law finally catches up with him. And it will;

• With the American system of justice now in full and active breach at the DoJ under Barr's corrupt leadership, the calls for his resignation have grown impossible to ignore in the wake of his unprecedented overruling of career line prosecutors' recommendations for criminal sentencing of longtime Trump confidante Roger Stone and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (among other wildly corrupt actions he's taken of late and since taking office last year.)

  Former Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer, appointed by George H.W. Bush, describes "Bill Barr's America" as "a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen," in a new Atlantic op-ed while calling for a "public uprising demanding that Bill Barr resign immediately, or failing that, be impeached."

  More than 2,000(!) former DoJ officials, both Democratic and Republican, have now signed on to a Sunday public letter declaring Trump and Barr "have openly and repeatedly flouted" the concept of equal justice in the U.S., and demanding Barr step down, citing "damage" that Barr's actions "have done to the Department of Justice's reputation for integrity and the rule of law."

  And, in the wake of all of this --- and the President's continuing Twitter attacks on the U.S. District Court Judge overseeing Roger Stone's case and upcoming sentencing --- the Federal Judges Association, a group of more than 1,000 jurists, has now called an "emergency meeting" for Wednesday to discuss related issues that, according to its President, George W. Bush-appointed U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe, "could not wait" until the group's spring conference scheduled for April;

• Meanwhile, the Democratic and democratic efforts to replace Trump in November's election continue apace, as Nevada Democrats address security concerns about their upcoming Saturday caucuses by switching to electronic voters! (Okay, that one's from The Onion, but still, it shouldn't be long);

• The Dominican Republic sets an example that Americans might want to pay attention to, by suspending their weekend election just a few hours after polls opened due to failed electronic voting systems. (Who could have seen that coming?);

• Billionaire Michael Bloomberg turned Presidential candidate turned self-declared reformed racist and misogynist, buys his way onto Wednesday's Democratic Presidential Debate stage in Las Vegas, even though he will not be on the ballot at Saturday's caucus there. Bloomberg, it was announced on Tuesday, will appear at the forum, after qualifying in several national polls, including a second place finish in a new NPR/PBS/Marist national poll and a virtual tie for second with Joe Biden in a new NBC News/WSJ survey. In both of those national polls, Biden has plummeted and current front-runner Bernie Sanders has taken double-digit leads over his nearest competitor;

• But, according to news reports from Washington Post, Politico and others over the weekend, the Nevada Caucuses could be a "complete disaster" mirroring Iowa's just two weeks ago. Under-trained caucus leaders, a lack of communication between the state party and the candidates' campaigns about the complicated process, and the use of an iPad "Caucus Calculator" could lead to a meltdown, many fear. If the hours-long lines at last weekend's Early Voting sites are any indication, state Dems may, once again, be in way over the heads. But we'll see;

• In slightly brighter primary news, late last week California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a last-minute bill into law that will allow Golden State voters to change party registration up to and on Election Day itself. That seemingly very smart move may help the state avoid some, if not all, of the expected confusion and potential meltdowns at their own March 3rd Super Tuesday primary in the state with the most Democratic delegates at stake (415 of them) in this year's nominating contest;

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as Antarctica breaks another stunning heat record, Mississippi gets swamped, Trump's EPA allows the return of toxic mercury even though the Obama-era regulation was a tremendous success and the utility industry doesn't even want him to, and some very big news from CNBC's Wall Street guru Jim Cramer declaring fossil fuels "over!"...

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On today's BradCast: Once again, Donald Trump managed to step on a big night for Democrats, with what is turning out to be an unprecedented "break-the-glass-in-case-of-fire" crisis at the U.S. Department of Justice. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

The unspeakably important fight to replace the most dangerous, unfit, authoritarian President this nation has ever seen continued on Tuesday night in New Hampshire, where a pleasantly smooth primary election resulted in a narrow win for Bernie Sanders, with Pete Buttigieg close on his heels yet again, followed by a surprise third place win for Amy Klobuchar. After double-digit percentages for those three, Elizabeth Warren came in a distant fourth, followed by an undoubtedly disappointing fifth place finish for Joe Biden.

The contest also resulted in three candidates dropping out of the race. Colorado Senator Michael Bennet hung it up, as did former MA Governor Deval Patrick (leaving no more African-Americans in the race) and previously unknown entrepreneur Andrew Yang (leaving Tulsi Gabbard, who finished a distance 7th, as the only person of color remaining in the Democratic nominating contest.) Sanders second popular vote victory in two weeks leaves him as the front-runner ahead of Nevada next week, South Carolina the week after, and Super Tuesday in more than a dozen states three days later, where voters will decide how long this contest will run, as several candidates remain more than viable after the two early outings.

We discuss, along with a reminder that all of New Hampshire voted, without apparent problem Tuesday, on hand-marked paper ballots, with citizen volunteers in some 40% of Granite State towns counting those hand-marked ballots by hand, publicly, with everybody watching, no apparent problems or delays, and results announced at each counting location upon completion. We call that Democracy's Gold Standard and thank the volunteers in those NH towns.

Unfortunately, that joyous exercise in public democracy and civic duty was marred by the quickly expanding crisis in Washington D.C. where four prosecutors running the case against Trump confidante Roger Stone, who was recently found guilty of lying to Congress and witness tampering, abruptly quit the case on Tuesday. One of them resigned from the Dept. of Justice entirely.

That stunning news on Tuesday came after a tweet from Trump, describing the sentencing recommendation as a "miscarriage of justice!", before an announcement by a senior official at DoJ that the line prosecutors' recommendation, based on federal sentencing guidelines, was "extreme and excessive and disproportionate to Stone’s offenses."

Further reporting throughout the day --- as Trump continued his Twitter tirade, even attacking the federal judge overseeing Stone's case --- revealed that it was not the only time in recent days that Trump's Attorney General Bill Barr appears to have interceded to soften sentencing recommendations for close friends of Trump found guilty of lying to federal officials during the Robert Mueller Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. NBC News reports that a recently installed Barr apparatchik also changed the DoJ prosecutors' sentencing recommendation for Trump's former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn last month. It was originally for 0 to 6 months in prison, but modified last month to nothing more than probation.

And, as all of that was unspooling, Trump pulled his nomination for a top post at the Treasury Dept. for the former U.S. Attorney for D.C., Jessie Liu. As USA, she had overseen Stone's case and a number of others related to the Mueller probe, until she was relieved of that post on the same day that the DoJ changed their sentencing recommendation for Flynn. Liu had been scheduled to answer questions in her Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday for the Treasury post, but that has been conveniently nixed with Trump's withdrawal of her nomination on Tuesday.

We're joined today to discuss these stunning --- and somewhat terrifying --- turns of event by LISA GRAVES, who previously served as Deputy Asst. U.S. Attorney General at the DoJ under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. She is also the former Chief Counsel for Nominations in the U.S. Senate and former Deputy Chief for the U.S. Court system. So, she has quite a bit of insight into many aspects of this. She, like us, is exceedingly disturbed by what one former, longtime DoJ senior official characterized as "a shocking, cram-down political intervention in the criminal justice process," declaring that "We are now truly at a break-glass-in-case-of-fire moment for the Justice Dept."

Graves, who recently founded the new watchdog group TrueNorthResearch.org, echoes that alarm today. "This is really a crisis," she warns. "And it's hard to say that, given that we are in the midst of an ongoing crisis based on what the Republicans in the Senate did this past month and what the President is up to. This is a crisis that is really unparalleled in the modern history of the Justice Department. It's a Constitutional crisis and really an existential crisis, because this is an active assault on the rule of law in this country."

She explains that "this is an absolute, confirmed and repeated breach of the independence of the Justice Department...I'm not sure how it can be fixed, given the fact that the Justice Department has been so corrupted by this President and by his willing hand-maiden, Bill Barr." Graves cites the upcoming election as our only way out, at this point, from "this sort of behavior turning America into a banana republic", before she borrows from the Nixon impeachment proceedings to describe the ongoing events as "a cancer on the Justice Department."

She also shares her thoughts on whether she believes the DoJ itself --- with the words "The place of Justice is a hallowed place" (ironically now?) etched above its door on Pennsylvania Avenue --- can ever be fully repaired after this breach, even after Trump is no longer despoiling the White House...

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On today's BradCast: We get you all caught up after Friday night's lively Democratic debate in New Hampshire --- which included many calls for unity by most of the candidates --- and as voters in the Granite State prepare to vote on Tuesday in the first-in-the-nation primary. But the reported results from first-in-the-nation caucuses, held last week in Iowa, are still roiling some Democratic partisans. Others, meanwhile, are taking important actions to make our elections more secure, as we report on a citizen action that led to small, if positive change in Los Angeles in advance of the critical March 3rd Super Tuesday primary. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

The only thing that appears reasonably certain regarding last week's Iowa mess at this hour is that Bernie Sanders received more votes than any other candidates and that Pete Buttigieg appears to have come in second, while perhaps winning an infinitesimally larger portion of "State Delegate Equivalents", thanks to the absurdly complex Iowa Caucus math and a number of seemingly random errors in that math on enough precinct worksheets that Associated Press is still refusing to call the race one way or another.

As discussed on today's program, those math worksheets were signed off on as accurate, not only by every Precinct Leader and Secretary at each caucus cite, but also by the campaign captains of each candidate at every caucus site. Nonetheless, with math errors discovered on those sheets at a small number of precincts (thankfully due to the transparency of the otherwise complex caucus processes in Iowa as demanded by Sanders after the 2016 caucuses) and the state Democratic Party attorney's claim that correcting the math worksheets would amount to election tampering under state law, the Sanders campaign is requesting a "partial recanvass" of results from about 20 or 30 of the state's more than 1,700 caucuses.

While the ultimate delegate count out of Iowa is unlikely to change very much --- Sanders and Buttigieg are largely tied on that score --- a number of his supporters are charging the contest was rigged or stolen from him by the DNC and/or Iowa Democratic Party (and/or, apparently, the Buttigieg Campaign. Based on the currently available evidence, I disagree with that charge and explain why on today's program.

Despite the increasing animosity between some supporters of the candidates, pretty much all of the Democrats still in the hunt for the nomination spent portions of Friday's debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, and subsequent media appearances and rallies thereafter, calling for unity among the party faithful, in order to defeat Donald Trump this November. Whether their supporters heard those pleas or not is another matter, but we make an effort to help them hear that message just a bit better on today's program.

We also take some time to share a few news headlines from the past couple of days underscoring again what a dangerous and unprecedentedly dishonest menace this American President represents to both the nation and the world. Among those news headlines today...

• The African-American fourth-grader who Trump awarded with a scholarship at his State of the Union Address last week, as it turns out, already attends one of Philadelphia's most prestigious charter schools and needs no scholarship. The privately-run public school is already paid for with tax dollars. Yes, Trump's stunt was another scam;
• The deadly and injurious fallout from Trump's unlawful assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani at the beginning of the year, on the heels of his impeachment, continues today. More than 100 U.S. service members, according to a new report from CNN today, have now been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries following the missile attack response by Iran on a military base in Iraq housing U.S. troops. After the Iranian response, Trump claimed all was well, and that no service members were killed or injured. That turns out to have been another lie. Last month, after the first reports of traumatic brain injury to troops was reported, Trump dismissed them as "headaches". The head of the influential Veterans of Foreign Wars is now demanding an apology from the President;
• And, in one more reminder today about what a dangerous menace this President is and his reelection would be to the nation and its people, Trump released his $4.8 trillion budget proposal on Monday. It includes calls for deep cuts to student loan assistance, affordable housing, food stamps, health care (Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act), education and the environment. With those calls for slashing the federal public safety net, Trump is also proposing increased spending on the military, his border wall, his "Space Force" program, and an extension to his tax cuts which mostly benefited corporations and wealthy Americans.

Finally today, we have an interesting story about a Sanders supporter out here in Los Angeles who discovered a dangerously light and apparently totally unguarded table-top drop-off for Vote-by-Mail ballots at a UCLA facility over the weekend. According to the campaign volunteer, It was "light as a feather...not bolted down...right by the door [and] weighs about 5 pounds and could easily be taken."

After we contacted the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan with the report over the weekend, including a photograph of the unattended drop-box [as seen in the graphic above], Logan told us this morning that the vulnerable table-top container at the facility has now been replaced with a permanent, 1,000 pound collection box. We share the telling (and just a bit snarky) email exchange between he and me that led to the upgrade in advance of California's March 3rd Super Tuesday primary. That good news comes thanks to PUBLIC OVERSIGHT of our public election processes by a concerned voter! We could use a helluva lot more of that!...

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