On today's BradCast: All too predictable voting problems in the state of Wisconsin and in St. Louis, MO today; MSNBC responds to our request for comment on why Bernie Sanders received short shrift on Rachel Maddow's show last night, on the eve of the crucial Badger State primary; And we debunk wingnut nonsense concerning the minimum wage as $15/hour victories come to California, New York and elsewhere. [Link to audio for complete show below.]

First, while voters wait on line to try and obtain new Photo IDs so they can vote at all today under the GOP's new voting restrictions in WI, many St. Louis County voters showed up for local elections in MO, only to find no ballots at all to vote on. Then, we explain what happened last night on Maddow's show to suggest that Hillary Clinton was polling ahead of Sanders in WI by 6 points, when the vast majority of pre-election polls in the state suggest the exact opposite. MSNBC responds to our query late today, to tell us that the issue was due to a technical error later corrected for the Midnight re-run and online versions of her show. Full details on that in today's program.

Then, in the wake of bills signed into law this week by the Governors of both NY and CA to raise the minimum wage to $15, we speak to financial journalist David Dayen about the Right's feigned concern about job loss (but only when it comes to raising the Minimum Wage), as well as the real concerns about the increase, and activists have had an extraordinary impact on the entire conversation about the decades long wealth gap between the rich and everyone else in the U.S.

Dayen explains why the new law, in CA alone, as he also reported at Salon last week, is a very big deal: "1 in every 8 workers in America is a Californian. Under this proposal, over 33% of them are going to get a raise at some point along the way between now and 2022. And thereafter, because after 2022, the minimum wage gets tied to inflation, so it keeps going up."

"It's really a testament to the power of activism. Before the 'Fight For 15' inaugurated in 2012, nobody would have believed that you could get a $15 an hour living wage, minimum, in a state as big as California. So, really, hats off to the #FightFor15 workers, who really pushed this," he says, offering kudos at the same time to both the Occupy movement and the Sanders campaign. "All of this is rumbling forward and moving Democrats who control states like California and New York into places that they were uncomfortable to go previously. And that is a testament to how this issue of inequality has become the functional, primary issue in American politics today."

Dayen, author of the upcoming book, Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud, also responds to the "hand-wringing on the part of economists and business leaders," when it comes to potential job loss in the wake of raised wages.

"We see all kinds of experiments" with the economy, he argues. "We see workers used as guinea pigs all the time by businesses" in all matter of schemes that may benefit those businesses, but not their workers. "These same economists are so worried about the fate of workers with this experiment with the minimum wage have never said a darn thing about all of these experiments that hurt workers --- that we knew were going to hurt workers at the time --- because it was literally about cutting their wages and getting rid of their benefits and putting them in hazardous workplaces. Spare me this rhetoric that you care about workers when you've sat by idly over 40 years as work has become more and more and more devalued."

But will raising the minimum wage, in fact, cost jobs? And, if so, does it even matter? Tune in for his answers to that and much more in a fascinating conversation on today's show --- one which you won't hear, for some reason, on Fox "News" or CNN...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Today on The BradCast, while voters head to the polls again in several states, and as the media continue to misreport the race, at least on the Democratic side, we mark this week's 5-year anniversary since Japan's triple disasters of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown struck in March of 2011. [Link to the complete show's audio is below.]

I'm joined once again on today's show by Voice of America's Steven L. Herman from Bangkok. We spoke to Herman originally on the program five years ago, just after the initial disaster(s), when he was one of the first journalists to visit the Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant and the 50-mile "exclusion zone" around it, following the meltdown or near-meltdown of 4 of its 6 reactors and the mass evacuation of hundreds of thousands of nearby residents --- back when, as Japan's former Prime Minister now admits, the nation was just a "paper-thin margin" away from a total catastrophe.

"We were on the ground just 24 hours after the quake struck in Fukushima," Herman recalls today. "We got the last flight into Fukushima Prefecture and when we were boarding that flight, they were contemplating canceling [it] because of concerns about a possible meltdown of the nuclear power plant."

Herman, who was then VOA News' Northeast Asia bureau chief and is now in charge of its Bangkok bureau, recently visited Fukushima again and reports today on the continuing battle to control unstable nuclear material at the plant, the lack of a long term plan to dispose of toxic water and soil that continues to pile up (at as many as 115,000 makeshift locations around the Fukushima Prefecture!), as well as on the plight of many residents who lived near the plant and are still unable to return to their homes all of these years later, due to radiation levels.

"You have this cleanup effort that is going to last decades and cost hundreds of billions of dollars," Herman tells me. "Forty years is the official estimate, costs around $250 billion. But you talk to a lot of people who are experts in the field and they say that is a very optimistic figure, that it is going to take much longer and cost much more --- and the burden of this is being borne by the Japanese taxpayers."

"Nine million cubic meters of radioactive soil are being stored in these black bags throughout the prefecture. But there is a continuing buildup of more stored water. And one consultant I talked to, an American and former US diplomat, said Tokyo Electric Power [TEPCO] can't decide what to do with all of it, and they refuse to let any foreign experienced program management companies come and help them out with this."

There's far more important information in my detailed interview with Herman than I can possibly give justice to by sharing here in a short description, concerning the "paralysis" that both Japan and TEPCO seem to be facing in dealing with the crisis, the strained if co-dependent relationship between the two entities, the recent indictments of several top officials in charge of the plant at the time, the human toll of the cleanup both now and in the hours after the initial disaster, the restart of several other nuclear plants in the country, and the continuing concerns for the stability of the precariously crippled plant "if there were to be another huge earthquake, or a tsunami were to strike the facility again --- then you're talking about a situation of total chaos."

I think it's a must-listen interview, frankly. And it was a pleasure, if a chilling and disturbing one, to catch up with Herman, who is just a tremendous reporter, all of these years later. Please check it out in full below.

Also on today's program: More on the media misreporting of the race between Sanders and Clinton and the Democratic party's unpledged, so-called "SuperDelegates" (in this case, by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow) and, finally, some very good non-Bernie related news for voters in the great state of Vermont...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast, we catch up with a number of breaking items, as well as items from the last several days (while we were otherwise covering the GOP and Democratic debates), even as voters in New Hampshire finally head to the polls for the First-in-the-Nation primary today.

Among the stories we hit today, as we await the completely unverified results from NH tonight...

• Democratic party officials "unilaterally" changed Iowa Caucus results;
• Why nobody should simply 'trust' unverified computer-tallied results that will be reported in NH (or anywhere else);
• How NH's new Photo ID voting restriction law could affect turnout;
• Rubio-bot does it again;
• Another mysterious Republican dirty trick in NH;
• Jeb now wants to "eliminate" the Citizens United ruling;
• Voting Rights restored to 40,000 in MD;
• MD forced to ditch new touch-screen systems for paper ballots;

Plus much more --- including our latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast, as you might have guessed, it's post-debate analysis of last night's very lively head-to-head debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire.

Joining us to make sense of it all is Joe Dunman, the Kentucky civil rights attorney who represented the same-sex couples suing Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis over her refusal to grant marriage licenses last year, Karoli Kuns, Managing Editor of the great Crooks and Liars blog.

During the debate, the first since the Iowa Caucuses and the last between Democrats before voters head to the primary polls in NH on Tuesday, the two candidates sharpened their dispute over potential directions for the Democratic Party (and the nation, along with it), as they hashed out whether to protect and expand on successful Obama Administration policies, as Clinton hopes, or fight for expansive and "revolutionary" new progressive policies as Sanders is calling for.

That question, a worthy one, also leads to a lively debate among the panelists on today's program, which you can listen to in full below! And, if you'd like to ring in on the issue yourself, I'd love to hear your thoughts in comments below, since I think this fight will be continuing for a while. Enjoy!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast, ownership of our nation's media gets more and more rightwing in advance of the 2016 Presidential elections.

First up, in Ohio, a newspaper owner/publisher fires the paper's editor, a 31-year employee, for daring to talk with staffers about an editorial critical of the NRA that the owner/publisher had spiked.

Meanwhile, in Nevada, the state's largest newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is secretly purchased by casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the GOP's largest single funder during the 2012 Presidential election cycle. After a week of mystery and lies from Adelson --- and investigative reporting by the journalists who actually work at the paper, who had no idea who they now work for --- the billionaire admits that, yes, it was his family that bought the paper...and a hugely inflated price.

Media Matters' Salvatore Colleluori joins us to explain why Adelson's mysterious purchase of the R-J is so disturbing on a whole bunch of levels. Among them: While the paper was already a right-leaning news outlet, the purchase could result in still more of Adelson's far rightwing political views making it into print in the key swing-state of Nevada in a Presidential election year. Moreover, as we discuss on today's program, the takeover could also serve to help keep coverage of Adelson's own highly suspect business dealings --- from China to The Vegas Strip --- out of the pages of the biggest paper in the state's biggest city all together.

"The other newspapers that he owns have very, very distinct stances that are very much in line with him," Colleluori tells me on today's program. "Owning the biggest newspaper in the state gives him a major mouthpiece going into, not only the 2016 election, but with a big Senate election coming in Nevada, there are going to be a lot of opportunities for him to throw his weight around in the state."

"As the old adage goes," he notes, "If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em."

Also today: Some thoughts on the rightwing talk radio outlet which CNN partnered with for this week's GOP debate, where, as we note in our latest Green News Report, CNN also completely avoided discussion of climate change and the largest world agreement ever struck just days earlier, and how a record warm December in the Midwest and North-East is ending what is now almost certainly going to be the warmest year ever recorded on Planet Earth...

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

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

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

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

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

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

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

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: 'GNR' Special Coverage: 2016 Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates talk climate, energy, and the path forward --- or not... 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): Blowing Smoke: Report Says Violations Belie Chem Industry Rhetoric; After historic flooding, Death Valley gears up for 'a long, hard recovery'; G20 Nations Spend $452 Billion a Year Supporting Fossil Fuels: Study; Fire Chiefs, White House See Climate Change Impact on Wildfires; Paris Climate Talks Not Just Hot Air, France Tells U.S; Montreal Sewage Dump Proceeding as Planned; Arizona Copper Smelter to Slash Emissions, Pay $163M; BP Oil Spill Dispersants Hindered Rather Than Helped, Study Says... PLUS: Native Americans Oppose Stripping Protection From Yellowstone Grizzlies... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, breaking news on President Obama's final Keystone XL pipeline decision and more fallout following the completely unverified results of Tuesday's Gubernatorial election in Kentucky. (Audio link to complete show is below.)

On Keystone: Obama finally rejects TransCanada's application to build the controversial tar sands pipeline from Alberta down to the Gulf of Mexico. Our producer and green news expert Desi Doyen joins us to help separate fact from fiction on the long-awaited decision, and to offer long-overdue kudos to those citizens who organized, activated, advocated and otherwise successfully took on the most powerful interests in the history of civilization to block the project in the name of the environment.

On Kentucky: Several new developments following the completely unverified results of Tuesday's Gubernatorial election in Kentucky, where pre-election polls all predicted the opposite of the 'landslide' reported by the state's computer tabulators. Among those developments: A KY newspaper fires their well-respected pollster rather than bothering to find out if the polls were right and the results were wrong; Another reminder of why hand-marked paper ballots like those in KY are swell, but only if you bother to actually count them; We weather a few attacks from progressives who charge us with forwarding conspiracy theories and don't think we should bother to count ballots; And, new information out of Pima County (Tucson), AZ to remind us why citizen vigilance and oversight is needed to assure the survival of democracy.

Also today: The Koch Brothers tell MSNBC they are champions of the environment and MSNBC doesn't bother to correct them --- so, we do. Plus, a few other pieces of important news at week's end...

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

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 


(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Koch Brothers claim they are environmental stewards; New legislation to stop all fossil fuel extraction on federal public lands; More bad news for Volkswagen; PLUS: US State Department rejects TransCanada's request to hit 'pause' on the Keystone XL pipeline... 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): The harm Exxon Mobil has done; NASA found a way to track ocean currents from space. What they saw is troubling; Scientists confirm their fears about West Antarctica - that it's inherently unstable; 50 Years After Warning, No Debate in Paris on the Science; Fracking: EPA Finding of No 'Widespread, Systemic' Problems Under Fire; Is the USDA Silencing Scientists?... PLUS: Powerful 'Gene Drive' Can Quickly Change An Entire Species... and much, MUCH more! ...

Among the many stories covered on today's very newsy BradCast (which also includes some excellent listener calls today)...

• Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin stays an execution at the last minute, for once;
• Democrats rescue U.S. House Republicans to keep the government open;
• Hurricane Joaquin hitting Bahamas, U.S. East Coast flooding imminent as storm barells toward continent;
• Russia begins air strikes in Syria, but are corporate media misreporting it?;
• Israel's former military defense chief confirms Iran Deal is good for Israel;
• Hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots are needed in the U.S.;
• How the U.S. corporate media continues to under-report what Exxon knew about global warming in the 70s;
• China's cap-and-trade carbon initiative and other Green News;

And much, much more (and, did I mention listeners calls too?)...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

First on today's BradCast: Why Rush Limbaugh believes NASA has faked their discovery of flowing liquid water on Mars. Then, why MSNBC completely ignored Bernie Sanders on last night's Rachel Maddow Show.

Then, onto our interview with Virginia Martin and Jason Nastke, the Democratic and Republican Election Commissioners (respectively) of Columbia County, NY, where they refuse to certify results until every hand-marked paper ballot is publicly counted by hand after each election.

The two Commissioners joined me to respond to a recent Brennan Center study [PDF] warning that the nation's voting computers and tabulators are aging and failing and should be replaced as soon as possible with new computer systems. I agree with the first part of their findings, not so much with the second part, both of which we discussed in a recent BradCast with Lawrence Norden, co-author of that well-reported study.

Martin and Nastke don't seem to agree either, finding that hand-marked paper ballots, publicly hand-counted by human beings, remain the best way to assure that every voter's intent is accurately and transparently tallied.

"In reality, computing is maybe 50 years old," the Republican Nastke tells me on today's program. "We use paper ballots and paper is hundreds, if not thousands of years old. Historical documents continue to exist to this day. So, what we know is that when a voter votes on a paper ballot that there is an absolute way for the voter's intent to be determined, and properly counted."

"When New York State and the federal government mandated that we use optical scans instead, I started looking at those systems, and my question was, how do I know that that result is the right result?," says the Democrat Martin. "I'm not going to be able to see how the voting machines added up the votes. So I'm not going to know and I'm going to have to certify these results and I feel very uncomfortable doing that. So how can I know that the machine results are correct? Well, we have the paper ballots, let's count them."

"It's not a Republican or a Democrat issue," Nastke insists. "The issue is one of what's right. And what is right is that every vote is counted." Martin adds: "The fact is that I and Jason are both very, very confident in the results that we certify. And I must say that I think the voters in our county are similarly confident. The candidates whose votes --- for or against --- we are counting, are similarly confident. If we've got a candidate that lost by a few votes, and they've been here and they've watched the process, they are very confident that they did truly lose."

"It works very well because it's so bipartisan. For every Democrat who is doing something, a Republican is watching like a hawk," she says. "And it's very, very accurate. People are thrilled to see how the process works, to understand how it works, and to actually be a part of it and see what the result is."

Martin recently responded in comments here at The BRAD BLOG following my interview with Norden. She expands on some of those thoughts today, as both Commissioners explain why they --- and their respective political parties in the county --- have been able to buck national trends to agree on hand-counting ballots, rather than using unverifiable computer systems.

I ask them, among many other questions, why other counties in New York state have yet to adopt their system?; Whether they have found errors from the optical-scan computers which initially tally ballots at each precinct (as required by the state) before the hand-count takes place?; Whether they believe humans or computers are able to count ballots more accurately? (Norden had asserted that computers were more accurate during our conversation last week); Why they don't hand-count at the precinct, rather than back at County headquarters?; Could their system work in a much larger county or is hand-counting only for small jurisdictions?; And what happens in those instances when party observers don't agree on voter intent or a voter has left their intent unclear?

We first reported on Columbia County turning to 100% hand-counts back in 2012, but this is the first time either Martin or Nastke has joined me on the show! So it's great to have them! Here's a recent article on Columbia "becoming known for hand-counting votes" from one of their local papers. Look close and you'll see some films and books I've contributed to sitting in front of Martin in the paper's photo!

Please listen to the full interview on today's show...

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

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast, first, a number of breaking news items, including Shell Oil coming up dry and calling an end (for now) to their misadventurous quest for oil in the otherwise pristine Arctic; NASA announcing the discovery of flowing liquid water on Mars, allowing for the possibility of human travel to the planet; And Presidents Obama and Putin both addressing the U.N. General Assembly, offering conflicting assessments of the worsening crisis in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Then, I'm joined by Neela Banerjee, investigative journalist at Inside Climate News, to discuss the Pulitzer Prize winning organization's explosive new series of reports revealing that Exxon's scientists had confirmed the catastrophic effects of man-made global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels as long ago as 1977. But, rather than continue their work on that finding, they turned tail in an attempt to obscure their own science with the massive funding of climate change denial front groups.

"In the '70s and '80s they really wanted to be seen as a leader in climate research because they understood the implications of climate change for their business as a fossil fuel producer," Banerjee explains. She says Exxon "thought that the best way to shape whatever policies would emerge to limit fossil fuel emissions...was do really good science and have a seat at the table. That's obviously different from the approach they started taking in 1989."

Banerjee, formerly a New York Times reporter and now co-author of Inside Climate's multi-part series based on months of digging into four decades of company documents and interviews with former Exxon scientists and other employees, goes on to explain the known circumstances of the company's sudden about-face to become a major funding source for the denialist movement.

"Even before the question of CO2 appeared on the scene and started to shape their thinking about continuing to produce fossil fuels, Exxon was already starting to think of potentially becoming a diversified energy company," she tells me, detailing the company's early work on lithium ion batteries, solar and nuclear energy and even hybrid cars. "Exxon had this mindset that they were not just wedded to oil and gas."

But then, with a drop in oil prices, things changed, including leadership at the company. Exxon began discussing "uncertainty and kept cherry-picking quotes from scientists to say that there was too much that was unclear to warrant enormous action on cutting back fossil fuels and changing our economy." In other words, they knew, they denied, and they didn't seem to care.

I also ask Banerjee about the lack of corporate mainstream media coverage of her remarkable series --- (even MSNBC has failed to cover it) --- and she describes how its even worse than I had realized. We also discuss whether Exxon (and other Big Oil entities) might face legal liability for obscuring the known harm caused by their products in the same way that Big Tobacco eventually did.

Lots of revealing conversation on all of that and more on today's BradCast...

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

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

While the nation is getting more progressive by the day, it doesn't appear to be getting much easier for progressives in the corporate media. On today's BradCast, we talk about two progressive journalists both fired from two different corporate media outlets within the past week.

Award-winning syndicated editorial cartoonist, author and columnist Ted Rall joins us to discuss his bizarre firing by the Los Angeles Times last week after the LAPD leaked a 14-year old audio tape of Rall being ticketed for jaywalking to the paper. They claim it disproves a recent claim about the incident made by Rall in an LA Times column last May. Audio enhancement of the poor quality tape, however, suggests otherwise.

Why did the paper trust the LAPD without authenticating a 14-year old audio tape that appeared from nowhere? And was the firing about more than just that one column?

"Look, I pissed off cops. I've done many anti-LAPD cartoons and essays over the years. The LAPPL [Los Angeles Police Protective League] made clear in their blog that they have long been angered by me, and they are crowing about my dismissal. So, just at a bare minimum, think about how disturbing this is," Rall tells me. "The LAPD, or the LAPPL, passed illegally --- basically stole something out of the evidence room --- slipped it to the top editors at the LA Times, one of the biggest and most widely-respected metro-dailies in the United States, in order to get me fired. In order to send a message to other reporters, 'don't screw with cops'."

"This would be disturbing, even if I'd been lying," Rall explains. "Even if I'd been fibbing, this would be the nuclear option." He believes, however, that the professionally enhanced audio tapes completely exonerate him and tells me that the LA Times (who has yet to respond to my request for comment on this) has stayed mum since the professionally enhanced audio has been published.

"This is a huge story. This is an epic example of corruption at the highest levels of government and media. I don't want to use the 'c' word, conspiracy, but it might legally be considered a conspiracy," Rall believes. He tells me he is now considering his legal options against both the paper and the police.

Also on today's program, D.R. Tucker of The Washington Monthly (and, too occasionally, of The BRAD BLOG) joins us to discuss MSNBC's firing of Ed Schultz last week and the impact it may have on corporate coverage of both the TPP and of climate change, particularly following Schultz' remarkable reporting last year which subsequently led to his reversal on support for the Keystone XL pipeline.

"It's not often that you see somebody have a principled change of heart," Tucker explains. "And of course he was pilloried for that by the shills for the fossil fuel industry for daring to change his mind. But he stood his ground, and he basically maintained, right up until the day he was off the air, that the Keystone XL was a bad idea."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on Obama's new EPA rules for slashing carbon emissions at power plants in a landmark action to fight global warming...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Back in 1989, a classmate of mine from a Christian family convinced me to listen to a nationally-syndicated radio program entitled "Talk Back with Bob Larson." The host was an Arizona-based radio evangelist whose shtick was to warn teenagers about the dangers of rock music and to perform exorcisms on-air. (I assume Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was a fan.) Larson's show was entertaining from my twelve-year-old perspective; he had a theatrical voice and was a gifted storyteller. However, I eventually grew tired of his repetitive shtick, and stopped listening to his show by early-1991.

"Talk Back with Bob Larson" was broadcast from 4:00pm to 6:00pm Eastern on 1260 WEZE-AM, a Christian radio station based out of Marina Bay in Quincy, Massachusetts. The station was quite popular among Christians in the Bay State; the line-up featured right-wing radio evangelists Charles Swindoll and John MacArthur, as well as the "Focus on the Family" program hosted by future GOP powerbroker James Dobson. WEZE-AM, as you might imagine, was beloved by those who hated the Bay State's Democratic (if not exactly progressive) political culture.

In the late-1990s, Salem Media, the ultra-conservative corporate parent of WEZE-AM, sold the station for $5 million to Radio Disney. (The right-wing Christian shows were moved to a less powerful AM signal.) Now, sadly, it appears that everything old is new again, as right-wing propaganda from supposedly Christian hosts is expected to return to this station, in an apparent desperate effort to ensure that aging agitator Rush Limbaugh still has a presence on Boston's airwaves after being rejected by another notorious Boston-based GOP grievance generator, WRKO-AM...

When Vermont's independent Senator Bernie Sanders recently entered the race for the 2016 Democratic Presidential nomination, we explained how the corporate U.S. media was certain to "set out to marginalize candidates who pose a threat to corporate wealth and power."

Now, a venerable media watchdog organization has documented how, as predicted, both America's "Paper of Record," The New York Times and the nation's most widely watched Sunday public affairs program, NBC's Meet the Press, wasted little time in fulfilling that prediction.

As we recently wrote (and discussed some days later during an appearance on The BradCast), Sanders' principle opponent in the upcoming primary election is not Hillary Clinton. It is, in fact, what Noam Chomsky describes as the "democracy deficit" --- the significant gap between the policy positions of the electorate and their elected representatives. Chomsky attributes the "democracy deficit" to the manner in which "elections are skillfully managed to avoid issues and marginalize the underlying population…freeing the elected leadership to serve the substantial people."

In our article, we pointed to two examples in which the corporate-owned media, sans any discussion of where Sanders or Clinton stood on vital issues, had immediately set out to marginalize the Sanders candidacy by either describing it as a "long shot," or dismissing it altogether with headlines such as the Washington Post's: "Bernie Sanders isn’t going to be president. That's not the point." The practice of simultaneously anointing a corporate friendly candidate as a "front runner" while dismissing those who challenge the status quo is designed to become a self-achieving prophesy at the polls by discouraging citizens from backing a media-dubbed "long shot."

The respected media watchdog organization, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), has now begun to document instances in which The New York Times and Chuck Todd, host of NBC's Meet the Press, applied a second, tried and true media method to both evade issues and marginalize candidates who threaten the interests of "the substantial people." The strategy appears to entail "manipulation by omission" --- a method in which the MSM aspires to mold public opinion by simply pretending that a disfavored candidate and his/her issue-laden campaign doesn't even exist...