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Latest Featured Reports | Thursday, March 28, 2024
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It's Up to You, New York: 'BradCast' 3/21/24
Trump staring down barrel of both civil and criminal accountability in NY; Also: Biden forgives another $6B in student loans; U.S. seeks 'sustained ceasefire' in Gaza; Scientists baffled by spike in record global heat...
'Green News Report' 3/21/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
Biden EPA issues biggest climate regulation in U.S. history; Rio hits 144°F heat index!; Exxon CEO blames YOU for climate change; PLUS: U.N. issues climate change 'red alert'!...
Previous GNRs: 3/19/24 - 3/14/24 - Archives...
'It All Comes Down to Brett and Amy': 'BradCast' 3/20/24
Guest: Slate's Mark Joseph Stern on another stunning week of federal judiciary debacles; Also: Primary results from AZ, FL, IL, KS, OH, CA; Biden EPA's 'biggest climate move yet'...
American 'Bloodbath':
'BradCast' 3/19/24
Trump is promising political violence whether he wins or loses; Also: Navarro goes to prison; Scofflaw MI MAGA attorney arrested; SCOTUS allows TX to override federal law, Constitution; Biden's SOTU success...
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EPA finally bans all uses of asbestos; Biden unveils billions for rebuilding communities broken by highway construction; Extreme heat in Africa; PLUS: MA coastal town follies...
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Corporations 'Taking a Bazooka' to NLRB, Hoping to Declare it 'Unconstitutional': 'BradCast' 3/18/24
Guest: Labor journo Steven Greenhouse; Also: Putin's 'election'; Trump can't find $450M...
Sunday 'Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya' Toons
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Schumer Steps Up; Trump Associates Paid Biden 'Bribe' Liar $600k: 'BradCast' 3/14/24
Also: TikTok foolishness; NY hush-money trial delay?; Navarro must go to jail; Trump owes $400k for failed 'Steele Dossier' suit in UK...
'Green News Report' 3/14/24
FL bans heat protections for workers; Methane leaks continue; GOP Project 2025 would ban Paris Agreement; PLUS: CA snowpack is back, but too late for salmon...
After Accountability for Fraud, What's Next for the Corrupt NRA and Gun Safety Reforms?: 'BradCast' 3/13/24
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How to Media Better and Other Smart Ideas:
'BradCast' 3/12/24
Press quietly resets weeks of misreporting on Biden; Suggestions for NYT; Stephanopoulos v. Mace; Also: Buck quits; RNC 'bloodbath'; WI's MAGA Speaker Recall...
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Biden touts climate jobs boom at SOTU; Feb. obliterated global temp and ocean heat records; PLUS: Great Barrier Reef hit with yet another 'mass bleaching event'...
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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...


Guests: Peace activist David Swanson; Const. law expert Ian Millhiser
By Brad Friedman on 8/5/2015 5:27pm PT  

It was a much bigger show today than we had expected when we started it!

First up on today's BradCast, author, peace activist David Swanson joins us to discuss Obama's speech today at American University on the Iran Nuclear Agreement. While Swanson is (somewhat uncharacteristically) optimistic and encouraged by the deal, he has concerns about how Obama and other Dems are misleading Americans in order to sell it. "I love that, for once, President Obama wants peace. I love that, for once, he's using diplomacy rather than war. I wish he would use that in eight other places on earth," Swanson tells me. "But at the same time he's pushing the propaganda of his opponents."

Then, Swanson asks, "Why Won't Bernie Talk About War?" A new petition from RootsAction.org asks Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to start speaking up against U.S. militarism which, as Swanson argues, the U.S. Senator from Vermont has, up until now, been very reluctant to do for some reason.

Then, as we went to break, huge news came in from the very conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal striking down the Texas GOP's polling place Photo ID restriction law. The opinion confirms most of a lower court judge's previously ruling finding the restriction to be in strict violation of the Voting Rights Act as well as the U.S. Constitution. Constitutional law expert Ian Millhiser joins us to explain the very encouraging opinion from the court --- which comes, incidentally, just one day before the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 --- and what happens next.

"The court got that voter ID laws do not really serve the purpose that their supporters say they're supposed to serve," Millhiser explains. "The court got that this was an attempt to dress up something that looks like a legitimate voter regulation in order to really do something else, which was to prevent groups like racial minorities and low-income voters who tend to prefer Democrats over Republicans from casting a ballot."

But, he also warns, "this wasn't a total victory for the good guys." Listen to the show for all the details.

Finally, in the few minutes we have left, we squeeze in some Presidential politics in advance of tomorrow night's first GOP Presidential debate, as sponsored --- and rigged by --- Fox "News". And, yes, that Republican debate will take place, ironically enough, on the 50th Anniversary of the landmark federal Voting Rights Act which Republicans used to support...until they decided they couldn't win elections anymore if all those "people" (read: qualified American voters who tend to vote Democratic) were allowed to vote.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

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By Brad Friedman on 8/5/2015 1:56pm PT  

Very good news, just breaking today from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Texas!...

One day before the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most conservative federal appeals courts in the country wielded that law to strike down a Texas voter suppression law. A unanimous panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in an opinion written by a George W. Bush appointee, held that Texas’s voter ID law violates the Voting Rights Act and must, at the very least, be significantly weakened. Though the court did not accept every argument raised against the state’s voter ID law, and its opinion does not go nearly as far as a trial judge’s decision which also struck down this law, it is a significant blow to the state’s efforts to make voting more difficult.

Voter ID laws are a common obstacle raised, mostly by right-leaning lawmakers, in front of citizens seeking to exercise their right to vote. Though stringent voter ID laws, which require voters to show a photo ID before they can cast a ballot, are often justified as a shield against voter fraud, the kind of fraud these laws target barely exists. A Wisconsin study, for example, found just seven cases of fraud out of 3 million votes cast during the 2004 election — and none of these seven cases were the kind of in-person voter fraud that is prevented by a voter ID law. Similarly an investigation by former Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz (R) found exactly zero cases of in-person voter fraud over the course of several elections.

What voter ID laws do accomplish, however, is they disproportionately disenfranchise groups that tend to prefer Democratic candidates over Republicans. As Judge Catharina Haynes explained in her opinion on behalf of the Fifth Circuit, one analysis determined that “Hispanic registered voters and Black registered voters were respectively 195% and 305% more likely than their Anglo peers to lack” a voter ID in the state of Texas. Indeed, even Texas’s own numbers confirmed that voter ID laws disproportionately impact racial minorities. Their own expert “found that 4% of eligible White voters lacked SB 14 ID, compared to 5.3% of eligible Black voters and 6.9% of eligible Hispanic voters.”

See Ian Millhiser over at Think Progress for more, as well as Rick Hasen at Election Law Blog for additional analysis. The court's opinion is here. [PDF]

We'll have more on this in The BradCast later today (and an explanation of some of the nuance here that, while it's a huge victory for voting rights advocates, the plaintiffs in the case have not yet won everything they had hoped for --- specifically, they wanted Texas to be required to pre-clear new voting laws with the federal courts from now on, as the state had to previously, before the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013.) On that issue, it appears the matter will be sent back down to the lower court, to establish whether their is strong enough evidence to prove the law was enacted with discriminatory intent, or whether it just had that effect. If the latter, striking down this version of the law will be enough. If the former, TX would have to get federal approval for such laws in the future --- and that would be a very big (and good!) deal.

But, for the moment, this is very good news for those of us who believe in the Right to Vote. And, by way of reminder, this is what we had noted late last year when the judge in the lower U.S. Circuit court in Texas absolutely eviscerated the law passed by state Republicans after a full trial...

In a 147-page ruling [PDF] released Thursday evening, "after hearing and carefully considering all the evidence" presented in the trial which ended on September 22nd, a U.S. District Court in Texas has found that the state's polling place Photo ID law, SB 14, is discriminatory and violates the U.S. Constitution in at least four different ways.

"The Court holds that SB 14 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 writes in her ruling. "The Court further holds that SB 14 constitutes an unconstitutional poll tax."




Guest: Author/journalist Ari Berman of The Nation...
By Brad Friedman on 7/17/2015 4:08pm PT  

On today's BradCast, we start where we left off on yesterday's show, regarding Thursday's amazingly corrupt and disturbing ruling in favor of Scott Walker and his cronies --- by the amazingly corrupt Wisconsin Supreme Court --- and how, if Republicans have their way, that ruling may soon enough become the law of the land for the entire nation.

As our producer Desi Doyen noted on today's show: "This is your early warning system." Ignore at your peril. Then it was on to a couple of quick items and updates, including dumb Confederate flag wavers in Oklahoma and Maine's even dumber Governor Paul LePage.

From there, we head to North Carolina, where "the most extreme anti-voter bill passed by any state since the Jim Crow Era", as we initially described it when it was passed by state Republicans back in 2013, is finally now facing trial against the NAACP, the ACLU, the DoJ and other democracy and voting rights advocates.

We are joined by The Nation's author/journalist Ari Berman, who was in the federal courtroom in Winston-Salem, NC this week as the trial finally got under way. The results of this trial are likely to head all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, one way or another, and may well determine the future of voting rights in this country. The new voting restrictions were passed in 2013, just days after the U.S. Supreme Court demolished the provision of the Voting Rights Act that otherwise, says Berman, would have kept this law --- which is "already disenfranchising voters" --- from even taking effect.

"That's such a clear case study to me that the Supreme Court was wrong when it said that the special protections of the Voting Rights act weren't needed." Berman goes on to explain why he believes NC, a state which had made astounding progress in voting rights over the previous decade, has now become the new Selma, Alabama, where the bloody fight for voting rights led directly to passage of the federal Voting Rights Act in 1965.

"In North Carolina, they had seemingly everything," Berman tells me. "They had all these voting reforms --- early voting, same day registration, pre-registration for 16 &17 year olds. And it was all taken away or reduced" when the GOP took over both the state legislature and Governor's mansion for the first time since Reconstruction in 2013.

"What Selma in the 1960s and what North Carolina in the 2013-2015 era shows is how far these conservative white Southerners will go to protect political power. There aren't billy clubs. There aren't literacy tests. But they're saying this is how black turnout increased --- North Carolina went from 48th in voter turnout in the late 80s, to 11th in voter turnout in 2012 --- Republicans there basically said we're gonna tamp this turnout down."

And now it's left to the courts to find out if those rights, once granted, can be taken away by political whim --- and if NC, and other states with a history of racial discrimination in elections, will be forced once again to face preclearance from the federal government before they can enforce any new voting restrictions.

Berman has a lot of insight on all of this. His new book, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, will be published next month to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of passage of the VRA. As I note during the show, the book is an exhaustively researched and heart-wrenching documentation of the uniquely American and harrowing tale of the fight to vote in this country --- and the outrageously long and continuing effort to block it. That fight continues, sadly, to this day. Go buy his book!

Finally, Desi joins us again for some listener email and then a stunningly upbeat Green News Report for a change!...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

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Guest: Brendan Fischer of Center for Media & Democracy...
By Brad Friedman on 7/16/2015 5:11pm PT  

I had to ask my guest on today's BradCast whether I was being overly dramatic in seeing today's stunning news from the Wisconsin Supreme Court as "the death of democracy". He did not warn me off that thinking.

Before that, however, we quickly covered two other breaking stories today: The verdict in the Aurora, CO shooting case and another new shooting today at two U.S. Marine facilities in Chattanooga, TN --- along with some thoughts on both of them.

Then, it's onto the jaw-dropping WI Supreme Court verdict in the challenge to the prosecutorial investigation into blatant collusion between Gov. Scott Walker and a number of Rightwing groups which spent millions in an alleged "criminal scheme" to help Walker win his 2012 recall election.

Brendan Fischer, general counsel at the Center for Media and Democracy joins us to explain the outrageous ruling. It's disturbing on several levels and bodes ominously for campaign finance laws across the entire nation. It's a must-hear interview, frankly.

In short, Walker and his campaign colluded with those "outside" groups in violation of state campaign finance law and what the U.S. Supreme Court said, in Citizens United, was not supposed to happen. But, it did --- to the tune of millions of dollars to help get Walker elected. Amazingly, it was the Rightwing groups that went to court in this matter to claim that their rights were being abridged by the prosecutors' investigation (a Republican prosecutor, by the way). We explain, in detail, how they made that case and how the Court's Justices went along with them to shut down the so-called "John Doe II" investigation.

But, the most outrageous part is the fact that the very same groups who sued to quash the probe also funded the elections (to the tunes of millions of dollars) of the very same Rightwing WI Supreme Court Justices who found in their favor today. That, despite both the prosecutor's request that those Justice's recuse themselves and a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court ruling (Caperton v. Massey) finding that judges must recuse if the case they are hearing involves a party with a "significant and disproportionate influence" on their elections.

"This is not just about past conduct, this is about future conduct, as well," Fischer tells me. "The court has okayed outside coordination between outside groups and candidates. It applies to their own campaigns, it applies to elections for judges....And the exact same groups that were parties to this case are going to be able to coordinate directly with these justices when they are up for re-election."

And, as if all of that isn't outrageous enough, this case, as I've long warned, is part of a national effort to eviscerate similar campaign finance restrictions across the entire nation --- because Citizens United and McCutcheon etc. apparently isn't yet enough for these Republicans.

"There's really not a whole lot left," Fischer says. "And you can see this being a huge mile-marker in the continued erosion on limits of money in politics. And it's not going to turn out well." Oh, well. I did try to warn everyone at least a year ago that this case was "about much more than just Walker and his corruption."

There's much more. But, as I said, a must-hear conversation today.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

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By Brad Friedman on 7/10/2015 5:24pm PT  

As history is made, today's BradCast takes a look at the background, context and FACTS behind a number of stories in today's headlines which haven't been reported as well as they should have been.

From the Confederate flag coming down in South Carolina today (it wasn't raised due to the Civil War, but rather, in response to a remarkable chapter in the fight for civil rights); to the bizarre intra-GOP fight over the Confederate flag in Congress (Hint: It's not really about the flag at all, it's about the EPA); to the facts, not fiction, behind Donald Trump's Republican Party immigration follies (he's just plain wrong); to the continuing (and hysterical) wingnut fallout from the Supreme Court's ruling on marriage equality (no, Glenn Beck, you won't be thrown off the air for opposing Constitutional equality for all, but that County Clerk in Kentucky should be tossed out of his job for failing to follow the law.)

Also: The nation's dumbest Governor invokes the "Pee-Wee Herman" defense; Responding to a complaint from a radio station manager; And much more! All on today's very busy BradCast!...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

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Guest: Prof. David Schultz of Hamline University...
By Brad Friedman on 7/9/2015 4:43pm PT  

We have a number of encouraging items on today's BradCast, believe it or not, regarding elections and campaign finance for a change.

But first today, after an emotional debate in South Carolina, the Confederate flag will finally come down at the state capitol on Friday - clearing the way for debate on stuff that may actually reduce gun violence, racism and terrorism. But in the U.S. House, it's business as usual as the GOP fails on a Confederate flag-related amendment.

After that, another reminder why Internet Voting would be a disaster, and a bit of Trump news (which I know you crave every single moment --- don't lie!), some very good news today from the Florida Supreme Court on redistricting and even more good news from the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. on campaign finance.

Hamline University professor of political science and law David Schultz --- author of last year's Election Law and Democratic Theory and the upcoming Presidential Swing States: Why Only Ten Matter --- joins us to discuss those cases and four important steps he's laid out which could be taken immediately to reform our nation's campaign finance embarrassment. The best news: none of the steps require either a Constitutional amendment or our broken Congress! (Though it might require the President of the United States to step up.)

Among those steps, the FCC, for example, could immediately require free airtime for candidates over our public airwaves. "About 60-70% of all the money that will be spent in Presidential elections will be spent on media advertising predominantly on television," Schultz explains. "Forty years ago, the average time that a candidate got on the national news to describe his or her position was about a minute. Now it's down to about ten seconds."

"Requiring that free air time would be perfectly Constitutional" in exchange for licenses granted by the FCC. "If the FCC can move on Net Neutrality, it can move on this." But that's just one of several executive agencies which the President could instruct to take action without the need for Congress or amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Plus: Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on the terrible climate position of the latest Democrat to enter the 2016 Presidential race and much more...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

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CORRECTION 7/10/2015: My guest Dan Schultz writes to say that he mispoke in regard to the U.S. Appeals Court case which upheld the ban on political donations by federal contractors as discussed in the show above. The case was a challenge to a 1940s-era law, not a Presidential Executive Order as asserted at one point during the show. For more details on the correction, listen to the top of the 7/10/2015 BradCast now posted here.... Apologies for the error!

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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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With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 7/9/2015 12:27pm PT  


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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: While we were out: Record settlement in BP's oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico; Former Senator Jim Webb (D?!) enters the 2016 race --- we'll tell you his (terrible!) position on climate change; Extreme heat waves shatter temperature records on four continents; PLUS: Solar-powered plane flies into aviation history... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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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): Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, funded deniers for 27 years; Episcopal church votes to divest from fossil fuels; Bernie Sanders’ Plan To Make Solar Power More Accessible; Farmers vs. Fish: Water War Heats Up With Probe Into Who Got Millions; 'Sustainable' Fishery Is Harming Native Alaskans; Mining Heads Into The Deep Sea; Methane Emissions in Texas Fracking Region 50% Above EPA Estimates... PLUS: The Global Coal Renaissance Is the Most Important Climate Story Today... and much, MUCH more! ...

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




By Brad Friedman on 7/4/2015 9:35am PT  

Sigh...

[Hat-tip The New Civil Rights Movement...]




With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 7/2/2015 11:12am PT  


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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Alaska and the Pacific Northwest are on fire; Warming oceans linked to more shark attacks in North Carolina; China and Brazil formally commit to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions; PLUS: Fracking companies can now be sued for causing earthquakes... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): BP Agrees To Pay ‘The Largest Environmental Settlement In History’ Over Its 2010 Oil Spill; California Oil Train Risks Worse in Minority Areas; The Heat Is On: Climate change will make deadly heat waves like Pakistan’s and Europe’s worse than ever; Calif. May Allow Expanded Production as Oil Spill Cleanup Continues; 5 Things to Know About 2,4-D, the 'Possibly' Cancer-Causing Herbicide; Midwest flood risks could be underestimated by five feet... PLUS: Judge: Maui Ban On GMO Crops Is Invalid... and much, MUCH more! ...

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




Guest: Financial journalist David Dayen...
By Brad Friedman on 7/1/2015 3:39pm PT  

Greece is the word! On today's BradCast, financial journalist David Dayen joins us to explain the latest news in the Greek fiscal crisis and how austerity measures being forced on them continue to harm the nation even as the Eurozone and IMF move to make things worse, citizens head to the polls to help decide what to do about it and the "vultures" continue to make out like bandits.

"The problem is that these European institutions want Syriza [Greek's currently ruling leftist party] to suffer because they want to snuff this out," Dayen explains. "If an anti-austerity party is successful in one country in the Eurozone, that's going to tell the rest of the Eurozone that they don't have to live under these conditions anymore."

Dayen also tips us off to a similar fiscal mess now unfolding in Puerto Rico and how, even though "FastTrack" authority for the TPP (and other trade agreements for the next six years) has now been passed by Congress and signed by Obama, the controversial secret trade agreement could still be blocked in the U.S. House.

Then, I explain the Supreme Court decision you probably didn't hear about this week, which --- though good in that it tells Republican "voter fraud" fraudster and KS Sec. of State Kris Kobach to go to hell --- still leaves more than 30,000 otherwise perfectly legal voters in Kansas (and many in Arizona as well) unable to cast a vote in their own state.

Finally, Trump-mania continues as The Donald is fired by one group after another yet still manages to vault into 2nd place in Iowa polling. Donald Trump is the modern Republican Party id, whether they'll admit it or not, and they've got a real problem on their hands. On the other hand, I couldn't be enjoying it more!

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Guest: Michael B. Gerrard of the Sabin Center for Climate Change...
By Brad Friedman on 6/30/2015 5:38pm PT  

Today on The BradCast...NJ Gov. Chris Christie is officially in! He's running for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination with the slogan: "Telling Like It Is".

But was he telling it like it was when he secretly snuck out of New Jersey in 2011 to secretly give the keynote address at the Koch Brothers secret billionaire summit in Vail, Colorado, as we reported exclusively here at BRAD BLOG and at Mother Jones that year?

We'll tell you the real truth that Christie didn't and won't. And we'll play a bit of the secret audio tapes of Christie and David Koch (calling him "my kind of guy"), that we'd obtained and published at the time. (Read/listen to all the Koch Tapes stories, with audio and transcript, right here: BradBlog.com/KochTapes)

Also, wingnuts - from Cruz to O'Reilly to Huckabee and beyond --- melt down following last week's Supreme Court rulings on marriage and "Obamacare". After picking such stupid fights in the first place, what would you expect? We enjoy laughing at them.

Then, we're joined by attorney Michael B. Gerrard, director of Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, to discuss yesterday's Supreme Court ruling striking down the EPA's rule limiting mercury and other pollutants from coal-fired power plants (he explains a silver lining there), and the arguably even bigger news out of the Netherlands last week, where a court responded to a citizen lawsuit by ordering the Dutch government to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"I would say this is the most important decision on climate change law outside of the United States ever issued," Gerrard explains about the first-of-its-kind, landmark ruling. "Assuming that it stands, it is an extremely important decision."

Finally today, a bit of breaking news out of Cuba and then Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report on all of the above and more...

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With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 6/30/2015 11:15am PT  


Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. Supreme Court strikes down first-ever mercury pollution rules; NJ Gov. Chris Christie jumps into the 2016 GOP race - we'll tell you his position on climate change; Coal plant forced to clean up toxic air pollution in the Navajo Nation; PLUS: Solar-powered plane finally takes off on dangerous Pacific Ocean crossing... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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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): China works for 'Win-Win' climate plan, Poised for U.N. Pledge; BP, Anadarko Rejected by U.S. Supreme Court on Gulf Spill fines; Lung-damaging silica a slow-motion tragedy for American workers; Dark region of ocean may shed light on climate change and other issues; 16 states file lawsuits against EPA over Clean Water rule; Farm waste and animal fats to power a United jet... PLUS: Aid Package for Coal Country Goes Ignored by Congress... and much, MUCH more! ...

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Guest: Former AZ state legislator Ted Downing...
By Brad Friedman on 6/29/2015 4:19pm PT  

It was another big day of decisions out the U.S. Supreme Court today, their last one of the session.

So, on today's BradCast, we cover the new SCOTUS rulings knocking down the EPA's rule limiting mercury and arsenic emissions by coal-fired power plants (the health of the citizenry be damned); allowing the beastly use of a certain type of drug in executions (while opening the door to a Constitutional challenge to the Death Penalty); and upholding [PDF] the Arizona voter referendum requiring an "independent" commission carry out Congressional and state redistricting, rather than the state Legislature, as perfectly Constitutional.

On that last ruling, a very important one in a number of ways, we speak today with Ted Downing, former AZ state legislator and the first head of its state Electoral Integrity Commission. While he agrees with me the decision was very good for the nation, for several key reasons, Downing, formerly a Democrat, now an independent, has quite a few concerns about the "so-called independent" redistricting commission created by the state's 2000 voter referendum. Downing explains the "huge conflict of interest" in the structure of that commission which, he says, is completely "rigged" in favor of the Republican and Democratic parties.

Plus: More Trump-mentum, and even more Bernie-mentum, as both of those 2016 candidates continue to surge in New Hampshire polling! All of that and more on today's BradCast...

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Guest: Mike Rogers of Raw Story...
By Brad Friedman on 6/26/2015 4:13pm PT  

Today's landmark SCOTUS ruling on marriage equality was an extraordinary end to an extraordinary week. So, that what I was more than happy to cover on today's BradCast.

Rights win again, as the U.S. Supreme Court finally declares marriage equality to be a fundamental right to Americans in all 50 states in the union. We discuss the 5-4 opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, its Constitutional basis, its fallout, its dead enders, and how we predicted it years ago --- even as the GOP was using "gay marriage" as a politicized weapon back in the 2004 elections.

Our guest is Raw Story's Mike Rogers, who, as a journalist, has been helping to lead the way in this fight for years and served as the inspiration behind Kirby Dick's 2009 documentary film, Outrage, "a searing expose of the secret lives of closeted gay politicians".

Rogers credits the Internet and the first-hand coverage of cases that it allowed, for shifting American opinion so quickly on the issue. It "gave us the opportunity to do the most important thing, which is to tell the stories in our own voices," he explains. "America hearing from those folks, and being able to more creatively use the media and the web --- to be able to move those stories of people with kids, people with spouses, people who were widowed like Jim Obergefell in his case, and what it will mean for him and his family now that his marriage is recognized in Ohio --- that happened because of a shifting change in the media. Change doesn't happen without that."

Mike has also been a long-time friend of the blog and the show, having joined us for our "Big Gay Hour" episodes years before such things were done in polite company over our nation's public airwaves. Plus: Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, to take us into the weekend. Enjoy the show!

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By Brad Friedman on 6/26/2015 11:29am PT  

Not to say "we told ya so," but...well...

In February of 2004, in the 15th article we ever posted to The BRAD BLOG, in a short piece headlined "Gay Marriage. Done Deal." we wrote rather presciently (even if we say so ourselves) and seemingly against all odds at the time: "The wall seems to be finally coming down, and the GOP and DNC are as powerless to stop it as East German Chancellor Erich Honecker was to stop the Berlin Wall from toppling in '89."

While the institutional barriers erected against marriage equality didn't fall quite as quickly as the Berlin Wall was finally toppled, today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling [PDF] in Obergefell v. Hodges, determining that marriage is a fundamental Constitutional right in all fifty states in the union, came faster than almost everyone had could have predicted, certainly 11 years ago.

In September of 2010, in the midst of some seemingly dark days for the nation, but even as the first of many federal court cases began to reveal the utter moral bankruptcy of the case against equal rights for all, we reminded readers once again that rights always win and haters always lose...eventually.

Here's what we wrote at the time...

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




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