Today, on another action packed episode of The BradCast...Another mass shooting at another movie theater --- and another GOP Governor/Presidential candidate who says all we can do is 'pray' about it. How misallocation of resources from crime and domestic terrorism to international terrorism is killing us. Literally.

Then, encouraging movement this week in the U.S. Senate concerning the absolutely absurd way that legal pot shops around the country are forced to handle their huge amounts of cash, since federal law still prohibits banks from doing business with them. Dan Riffle, Director of Federal Policies at the Marijuana Policy Project joins us to explain the Congressional news and the "crazy, crazy, crazy situation" that legal dispensaries face.

"Employees and customers in those businesses are just crossing their fingers that nobody comes in and robs the place," he tells me. "We've seen dispensaries that pay their taxes by putting the cash on to a pallet and then loading it into a Brinks truck and then driving it over to the state or county auditor's office," he says.

Riffle also discusses the wildly varying positions on marijuana legalization from the 2016 Presidential candidates (and between the two major parties), and whether 'Big Pharma' is behind the recent denial of legal medicinal use by PTSD victims in Colorado (of all places.)

Also today: breaking news on GOP Governor turned Presidential candidate Rick Perry's felony charges and Donald Trump has, officially, cracked the code on how to run for President as a Republican --- and it is driving his Republican opponents crazy...

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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.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Another day, another oil explosion, this time at an Exxon refinery in CA; 'Anti-petroleum' activists are a security threat, says Canada; January 2015 the 2nd hottest on record; PLUS: 'Our best idea': President Obama protects 3 new national monuments... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): NYC could see 6-ft sea level rise; 'Every Kid in a Park': all 4th graders to get free national park passes; What can be done about psuedo-skepticism?; Duke Energy to pay $100m for coal ash spill; Arsenic found in CA water; Four new oil-related spills in North Dakota... PLUS: Fox News has no shame: Easily duped wingnuts spout phony science and climate-change lies... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate Change and Election 2014: High stakes on energy, the environment, and global warming ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Australia breaks heat records - again; BP oil spill left big oily 'bathtub ring' on seafloor; Shell wants 5 more years to drill in the Arctic; How can we get power to the poor without frying the planet?; More storms mean more sewage overflows in Wisconsin; Japan town votes to re-start nuclear plants; Amid CA drought, bruising battle over water ... PLUS: U.N. climate change draft report warns risks of 'irreversible' damage... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Sen. Mitch McConnell dodges on climate change: "I am not a scientist"; Republican candidates retreating from climate change denial; U.S. auto fleet achieves record fuel efficiency; PLUS: 'Clean Coal' goes online in Canada - but there's a catch ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Printable solar cells coming soon; Obama to designate San Gabriel Mountain as America's newest national monument; Artificial turf linked to cancer cluster; The future of food amid record drought; Kansas wind energy takes off; Massive oil train fire in Saskatchewan; US east coast cities face chronic flooding due to climate change; Hyrdopower drying up in CA ... PLUS: Solution Is the Soil: How Organic Farming Can Feed the World and Save the Planet ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Well, that was cowardly. But I suppose it's better than hearing the cases and churning out another twisted, activist justification for discrimination.

Rather than hear appeals from cases in Utah, Indiana, Oklahoma, Virginia and Wisconsin where marriage equality bans were struck down, the U.S. Supreme Court shocked court watchers today by deciding to avoid the issue of marriage equality as a Constitutional right entirely for the time being. Effectively, that means the lower-court rulings stand in each of those states, so freedom, liberty and the conservative Constitutional value of equal justice for all wins the day in each of them.

Evan Wolfson, founder and president of Freedom to Marry, a national organization dedicated to the fight for equality in all fifty states, said after today's Supreme Court punt: "This decision by the Court is a huge step forward --- and a clear green light for full-speed ahead --- but it needlessly postpones the national resolution that together we've been working so hard for. Freedom to Marry is committed to finishing the job."

Couples in six other states where the Circuit Court of Appeals' decisions will likely also apply include Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming.

With the addition of those 11 states, the list of states where marriage equality for all will soon be recognized will jump to 30, continuing to beg the question of which state will disgrace the Union as the very last one to allow equality, in this measure, for all of its citizens.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Tide turns against climate change deniers, as even Rupert Murdoch dumps rightwing policy front group ALEC; Climate change now a defining campaign issue in races around country; 35k walruses start their own sad climate march in Alaska; PLUS: Tide turns against King Coal: Canadian coal mine sells for just $2 ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Northern “biopirates” gobbling up resources of the Global South; Renewables take top share of German power supply for 9 nine straight months; August 2014: Greenland is the New Black; Duke Energy to keep ratepayer money for canceled nuclear plant; WV: Mountaintop removal again nixed by court; Fracking: TX residents challenge open sludge pits near schools; Solar on your parking lot; Negative 'Windfarm study' didn't study windfarms ... PLUS: Future generations will ask "Where were you?" for the People's Climate March... and much, MUCH more! ...

Well, this is an interesting turn of events. It includes a bizarre twist that even we would not have foreseen, involving a Republican operative who is now threatening legal action against us for reporting (accurately) on his companies' relationship to voter registration fraud and deceptive voter registration practices during the 2012 election and in previous cycles.

Remember that massive, multi-state GOP voter registration fraud scandal just before the 2012 election? The one that started in Palm Beach, Florida, spread to several different counties, then several different states? The scandal resulted in the Republican National Committee firing the Arizona firm they had secretly hired for millions of dollars to carry out voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote efforts in a bunch of key swing-states, including Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Nevada and Colorado in advance of the Presidential Election.

The firm at the center of the RNC scandal was named Strategic Allied Consulting. It was created and run by Nathan Sproul, a notorious Arizona-based Republican operative with a checkered past, who ran Republican voter registration drives and other on-the-ground GOP activist campaigns. Sproul's name was not used in the legal filings which created Strategic Allied Consulting in advance of the 2012 election, due to his various companies facing voter registration fraud allegations and criminal investigations in a number of states going back as far as the 2004 Presidential election. Because of that unfairly tarnished background, Sproul claimed when the 2012 scandal first surfaced, the RNC didn't want his fingerprints on the operation. The RNC was dodgy about the issue, but fired Sproul and his firm in several states once the scandal came to light, despite having paid millions of dollars for the effort.

The BRAD BLOG broke a number of stories related to the RNC scandal at the time, including details on the very first reports of "hundreds" of fraudulent registration forms turned in to the Palm Beach County, FL Supervisor of Elections after they were collected by Sproul's workers and turned in by the local Republican Party.

In the same series of articles, we also exposed the deceptive (and perhaps illegal) registration scheme employed by Sproul's firms in states where they operated. The scheme involved registration workers trained to pretend to be pollsters asking voters who they planned to support in the Presidential election. If they answered the question correctly (Romney) Sproul's workers would help them register to vote. If the unsuspecting citizen answered the "survey" question incorrectly (Obama), the workers would wish them a nice day, and then move on to the next target.

As we documented with video, email and other records at the time, including admissions by Sproul himself, his firm used this same deceptive tactic in state after state and in a number of recent election cycles.

Now, a two-year Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) investigation has finally wrapped up into the 2012 allegations in that state. It has led to yet another arrest of one of Sproul's workers, found no evidence of conspiracy by the company in that state, confirmed The BRAD BLOG's reporting on their deceptive registration technique, and sent Sproul scurrying to threaten us via email (posted below) with a lawsuit...for something...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Rightwing Heartland Institute says 'climate change will be good for you!'; Russia threatens to cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine, Europe; PLUS: Attack of the Tumbleweeds! (No, really!)... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Could El Nino take the edge off of CA drought?; Austism 'triggered in womb' by environmental factors; CA salmon hitch a ride to the ocean; NC sides with Duke Energy over coal ash dumps; Restoring the CO River Delta, if only for a few weeks; Weather-related blackouts have doubled since 2003 ... PLUS: Uncharted territory: highest CO2 levels in 800,000 years ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Hey! Great news! Just in time to practice up your hacking skills before the 2014 mid-term elections, you can now buy your very own ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting system from eBay!...

Yes, the very same voting systems that are so incredibly sensitive and vulnerable to tampering (and which have failed so often in so many states and in so many elections) that both election officials and Elections Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S) have long attempted to keep them out of the hands of the public, can now be yours for just $499.99 or "Best Offer" via eBay! And that includes Free Shipping!

And, oh, look! One of them is already sold!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Record fine for Big Coal company for 6,000 violations over 7 years; Opportunistic rightwingers push nonsense on Keystone XL; Colorado's Republican US Senate candidates pass climate denier litmus test; PLUS: Keystone XL loses another key supporter ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): China declares war - on pollution; Innovation: Transparent colorful solar cells have arrived; Federal Reserve sees severe weather impact throughout US economy; Americans have no idea how much water they waste; US infrastructure, landmarks threatened by rising sea levels; Britain's cars could run on rubbish... PLUS: Drought: California will learn what Texas did: by the time politicians and residents wake up to their wasteful ways, it’s too late ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Natural gas methane leaks found to be 50% higher than EPA estimates; CO passes first-ever emissions regulations for oil & gas industry; Mississippi River shut down by oil spill; 2014 was hottest Winter Olympics ever; PLUS: ExxonMobil's CEO says fracking is fine for your backyard --- but not for his... 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): Hog factories poisoning Iowa's drinking water; Enbridge tar sands pipeline had 35 unreported spills; Small volcanoes tamping down atmospheric warming; CNN: Why are we still 'debating' climate change?; Legal setback for Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska; Supreme Court justices question EPA emissions authority; IPCC: Climate impacts 'very evident', 'we are not prepared' ... PLUS: Global Shift to Clean Energy No Longer 'Theoretical' ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: ELECTION 2013: the first climate election? Climate science denier Ken Cuccinelli defeated in VA; Local races with big environmental impacts for the country; PLUS: We're goin' the wrong way!!! Greenhouse gas emissions rise to record levels... 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): Fukushima cleanup enters dangerous phase; Western black rhino now extinct; Fossil fuels get $500B annual subsidies; China solar panel makers invest in solar farms; New investment project for North Africa solar; Whopping CO2 footprint for Australian coal mines; Debating 'Pandora's Promise'; PA gives fracking industry $1 billion; ExxonMobil fined $2 million for AR pipeline spill ... PLUS: It's time to adapt to unstoppable climate change, say scientists ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate scientists go nuclear; Coal spills & kills; Obama announces major new climate action; UN's latest warning; PLUS: Germany breaks its own clean energy record --- again ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Video: Why GMO labeling is a 'Story of Solutions'; Britain’s new flood protection plan is to surrender to the ocean; Antibiotic resistance spreads to birds, wildlife; Even LBJ knew about climate change; The secret, dirty cost of ethanol; Oops: carbon capture and storage causes earthquakes; US natural gas reserves wildly overestimated; Facial scrub plastic micro-beads polluting Great Lakes ... PLUS: The caveman dilemma: Why we take such lousy care of ourselves and our planet ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: First-ever carbon pollution standards for new power plants; Colorado's flood disaster now an oil spill disaster; US coal plants 7th biggest polluter in the world (all by themselves!); Fracking industry study accidentally proves case for more regulation; PLUS: Al Gore says science denial should be socially unacceptable ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): What it means to be 95% certain about climate change; India plans to build world's largest solar plant; WSJ debunks WSJ on renewable energy; Risky plan to remove spent fuel from Fukushima's unstable Reactor 4; Study predicts 40% increase in storms; Cutting carbon pollution would save lives; Monsanto & Big Ag spend millions to stop WA state GMO labeling; Commercial fishermen don't deny climate change impacts on oceans ... PLUS: An Illustrated Bestiary of Climate Trolls ... and much, MUCH more! ...