Today on The BradCast, Bernie Sanders beats front-runner Hillary Clinton once again, this time in the West Virginia Primary. But Exit Polls reveal some bizarre demographics, even as a new national poll now finds Donald Trump surging and tied with Clinton nationally. [Audio link to the show is below.]

Sanders racked up another win on Tuesday, even as his odds for winning the Democratic nomination remain long (if not impossible) against Clinton. But with Trump's GOP competition now finally out of the way, Exit Polling coming out of the Mountain State last night suggests that many "Democratic" voters there are prepared to vote for Trump in November...even if he's running against Sanders, oddly enough. So is that new reason for Dems to be worried?

Ninth generation WV native, Head-On Radio Network host, co-founder of the Appalachian Communities Health Emergency Campaign and President of Coal River Mountain Watch Bob Kincaid joins me to try and make sense of the reported results and Exit Polling. We also examine what effect Clinton's out-of-context remarks about "putting miners and coal companies out of business" may have had on the state's electorate, as well as on the upcoming primary next week in Kentucky, and even for the general election in key swing coal states like Ohio and Pennsylvania (where another new poll this week found Clinton tied or losing to Trump.)

"The coal issue is a considerable part of this process because you've got a lot of people in West Virginia who will clutch at any straw, even though the coal industry doesn't wield the power it once wielded," he tells me. "But the openly anti-coal rhetoric that comes from our side, and of which I am a practitioner, puts a lot of people off."

Kincaid, however, is no fan of Clinton's, at least when it comes to what he sees as her chances in a head-to-match with Clinton nationally. "I've gone on record saying that I fully expect her to lose in November if she's the nominee. She's a terrible candidate. She's an awful campaigner, and --- I don't like saying this, Brad --- I want a Democrat in the White House. I'm a grown-up politically. I know that 'I want a pony' is not on the ballot. But, she's a tone-deaf campaigner. She's got 25 years worth of real and imagined baggage, and a 25-year-old Republican-funded filth machine that runs on 200-proof pure hate, that's humming along on 64 valves, okay?"

The colorful longtime radio host also goes on to offer a no-uncertain-terms warning to Democrats about the party's Gubernatorial nominee Jim Justice who, he predicts, will end up endorsing Trump this Fall.

In related news today: New polling shows Trump surging 13 points over the last week and now tied nationally with Clinton. (Not to say 'we told ya so', but...well...); Also: New indications that the GOP electorate in North Carolina may now be turning against state Republican lawmakers in the wake of their Big Government, anti-business, anti-LGBT 'bathroom law'; and, finally, a follow-up on the stupid, recent investigation against black, female cadets at West Point...

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The fires in the tar sands oil region of Canada and the lawsuits (yes, two of them filed today) result in a busy breaking news edition of The BradCast today. [Audio posted below.]

First up, Desi Doyen joins us for an update on the devastating climate-driven wildfires that have devastated the town of Fort McMurray, Alberta, in the heart of Canada's oil sands region where many workers from the oil sands mines live and work. Cooler weather, and even a bit of rain, helped keep the fires from growing to a full half-a-billion acres, as feared on Saturday. Still, the scenes of neighborhoods completely destroyed from the fire are heartbreaking. Some 88,000 residents remain evacuated, even as the irony of this particular region being devastated by climate-induced fires remains palpable.

Then, on to North Carolina Republicans' latest self-induced disaster. Late last week, the U.S. Dept. of Justice warned the state that their anti-LGBT law (HB2) was in violation of the federal Civil Rights Act. They were given until today (Monday) to let the DoJ know how they planned to respond in order to avoid the potential loss of more than $2 billion dollars in federal education funding. That response came today in the form of a suit filed against the DoJ by NC. The DoJ quickly responded in kind, with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announcing a lawsuit against NC for violation of the Civil Rights Act. She described HB2 as "state-sponsored discrimination," and told the transgendered community: "We see you. We stand with you…And please know that history is on your side."

Democratic NC state Rep. Chris Sgro, who also serves as president of Equality NC, joins us today to talk about the entire fine mess, even as news of the various suits were still breaking. He tells me that the state has already lost about half a billion to their economy, even before the potential loss of federal education funding, as businesses react to the "terrible anti-LGBT, anti-worker, anti-education bill that we know is in violation of the Civil Rights Act".

"This is not pro-business conservatism," Sgro tells me. "This bill wasn't about enabling local government. They went in and they were the big government who stripped local rights. And they are the anti-business party right now. If they really want to be pro-business, pro-growth, they have to act as quickly as possible to overturn House Bill 2. That's the only answer at this point."

Also on today's program: Surprising polling news out of Georgia (and another warning for Democrats along with it); Missouri Republicans pass a new Photo ID restriction law, with a compromise that leads to some Democrats joining; Democratic voter registration numbers skyrocket in California (and in Oregon); and the Dumbest Story of the Day as a photograph of female black cadets at West Point generates an official investigation...

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Are Republican voters 'warming up' to the science of climate change? A new study suggests as much, as CNN columnist and environmental reporter John D. Sutter details on today's BradCast. [See link to audio of today's show at end of article.]

That news comes not a moment too soon, as record high temps in Alberta, Canada's tar sands oil region (ironically enough) sets the town of Fort McMurray on fire and sends some 80,000 residents scrambling for their lives amidst "apocalyptic" devastation. But are the attitudes of GOP voters on the planet's climate crisis changing quickly enough to prevent the worst effects of global warming, even as the Republican Party's apparent standard-bearer this year, Donald Trump, regards the science as little more than a massive "hoax"?

"I think there's a lot less division on this issue than gets made out in the media," Sutter tells me on today's show. "The skeptical voices, especially on the conservative side, are often heard the loudest. They come through the loudest on blogs. They have big media platforms and they get attention. But I don't think that's representative of what the actual American public thinks, and what the voters think. I do think there's a lot more room for agreement on climate change between conservatives and liberals than is often made out in the media."

In fact, as Sutter notes in his column on the new survey from the Yale and George Mason University's programs on on Climate Change Communication, "The percentage of conservative Republicans (not just Republicans but conservative Republicans) who believes climate change is happening has jumped 19 percentage points in the last two years, to 47%." He goes on to explain why that movement seems to be occurring now and to offer his explanation for the apparent contradiction between a huge majority of GOPers who support research into clean, renewable energy, even as so many of them remain climate crisis deniers.

"I think there's a disconnect between what people believe out there in reality and what politicians are willing to say. Because for them to propose regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant, for example, they'd have to go up against some pretty monied special interests," he says. "There's a difference between real people and what politicians are willing to take up."

We also discuss Sutter's very encouraging recent reporting on the upcoming Washington state Initiative-732, which would put a price on carbon emissions --- "this often gets called the 'Holy Grail' of climate change policies," he says --- so that polluters will no longer be allowed to pollute for free. Just over the border in British Columbia, where a carbon tax was implemented in 2008, he explains, "the sky didn't fall" as predicted by fossil fuel industry opponents. In fact, "their economy has actually been out-pacing the rest of Canada" and "the level of support for the carbon tax has grown over time."

While Sutter's reporting on these issues at the CNN website is fantastic, I felt I still needed to ask him about the dearth of climate reporting on CNN's airwaves where, as a study last month found, viewers "see far more fossil fuel advertising than climate change reporting."

Also on today's BradCast: The U.S. Dept. of Justice notifies of North Carolina that their new law to discriminate against the LGBT community is a violation of the federal Civil Rights Act and may cost the state more than $2 billion in federal education funding; and Donald Trump, who will desperately need Hispanic voters if he hopes to win the Presidency this November, offers a remarkably offensive tweet on Cinco De Mayo. Because, of course he does.

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Today on The BradCast, as voters head to the polls in MD, CT, RI, DE and PA (where there are already reports of problems on the state's 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems), some voters are petitioning NY for a partial hand-count of the paper ballots from last week's troubled Presidential Primary in the state. Meanwhile, blowback continues in NC against the state Republicans' pro-discrimination and anti-voting rights laws. [Audio link for the show is at bottom of article.]

The election season grinds on, with more lawsuits, legal investigations and challenges then I ever recall seeing at this point in the cycle. In New York, where last week's Presidential Primary was plagued with problems such as questionable voter purges, closed polling places and failed optical-scan computer tabulation systems, Election Justice USA, which filed a suit against NY the day before the DNC (and Clinton and Sanders campaigns) did so, is now calling for a partial hand-count of paper ballots across the state.

The group's petition cites those problems and others for the lack of confidence that many voters now have in the results as reported by NY's paper-ballot optical-scan computer tabulators which have failed in the past, as the NY Daily News found in 2012, to count an enormous percentage of ballots in some precincts. Their petition also includes a video clip from an award-winning 2008 documentary film, HOLLER BACK - [not] VOTING IN AN AMERICAN TOWN, in which I appeared discussing the reasons for hand-counting paper ballots, rather than merely trusting in oft-failed, easily hacked computer tabulators. (But its an excellent film anyway!)

I explain all of the above today, as well as why Bernie Sanders supporters are both overstating their current argument of "fraud" in the NY election, even as the lack of transparency in the state's electronic counting system leaves voters with every reason to have uncertainty in the computer-tallied results. (In somewhat related news, also discussed today, hand-counts in DuPage County, IL recently resulted in three different write-in candidates, 2 Republicans and 1 Democrat, being found to have won their races after originally being announced "losers" following last month's primary elections there.)

Also today, before moving on to our interview, a federal judge has upheld NC's massive voter restriction law which mandates Photo ID voting restrictions, bans same-day registration, restricts early voting and registration and much more. I've previously described that law, enacted by state Republicans just days after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, as "the most extreme anti-voter bill passed by any state since the Jim Crow Era." Opponents of the law, including the NAACP, ACLU and U.S. Dept. of Justice, have now appealed the District Court's 485-page ruling which argues that "there is little official discrimination" in NC anymore.

That ruling, by a George W. Bush appointed judge, is difficult to square with the state's GOP nominee for Attorney General, who told a crowd at a rally in support of NC's controversial anti-LGBT law yesterday that "we must fight to keep our state straight."

Joining us today to discuss that "deeply unpopular" law and others like it --- as well as massive blowback it has engendered for the state --- is gay rights activist, Fred Karger, a former GOP operative, campaign official for Presidents Reagan and Ford, and the first openly gay Presidential candidate. (His run for the 2012 Republican nomination is the subject of the documentary film FRED.)

On the heels of his successful campaign against CA's Prop 8, the Mormon Church and the National Organization for Marriage, Karger recently described at Huffington Post how boycotts can work against such measures. We discuss that, the continuing disintegration of his formerly Grand Old Party, and his thoughts on the reasons for the sudden spate of discriminatory laws, mostly in the South.

"I think it's because they're sore losers," he tells me. "It's not even been a year since the Supreme Court allowed marriage equality to be the law of the land in all fifty states. So we're seeing tens of thousands of very happy same-sex couples getting married. And there's a backlash because there are a lot of people very unhappy about that." He goes on to explain why GOP politicians, "when they're running for re-election or moving up for another post," see the gay and transgender community as "an easy target".

Finally today, we close today with a fascinating and previously unknown fact about the dearly departed Prince...

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Today on The BradCast, we take a brief if blessed break from 2016 Presidential politics madness (mostly) to look at what could be a moment, last week, when everything changed, though few may have actually noticed.

But first, Republican U.S. House Paul Ryan absolutely, positively, definitely (maybe) says he will not run for President and we have a number of updates from 'Discrimination Nation' where Republicans just can't seem to get it through their thick skulls that the "free market" really doesn't like that they continue to pass discriminatory, anti-LGBT laws. North Carolina's Governor is now scrambling to make changes (sort of) to his state's new pro-discrimination law, even as Tennessee is enacting their own, which arguably goes even further.

Then, Steve LeVine, energy analyst, Washington correspondent for Quartz and author of The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World, joins us to discuss what may well be the "iPhone Moment" --- or, "Nokiafication", if you prefer --- of the auto industry, in the wake of the introduction of Tesla's Model 3 last week and the thousands around the world who lined up overnight to purchase it before they had even seen it.

While LeVine reports that other automakers are still downplaying what just happened, the unprecedented pre-sales of this new, all-electric car (which will offer more than 200 miles on a single charge and won't even be available until late 2017 at the earliest), suggests this may be a moment akin to when Nokia, once a cellphone goliath, suddenly disintegrated, virtually overnight, after the introduction of Apple's iPhone. By "getting people lined around the block and 115,000 orders sight unseen --- and then, once people saw the car, another 200,000 orders," Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk "demonstrated there is a very sizable group of people in the world who are prepared to pay $35,000 for an electric car. This was notice to the whole industry that the incumbent car companies who, themselves, even now, are sitting on the sidelines waiting to see whether Musk will pull this off --- they could end up like Nokia."

"Hello! 325,000 orders!," LeVine observes, adding "there's going to be blood on the floor" for those companies that don't take quick action to respond to a market inflection point that may now finally be occurring. He also explains, however, that Musk could still blow it, before we then move to the "momentous geo-political shift" that will soon occur with the proliferation of battery-powered vehicles and a world beyond petro-dollars.

"Oil has made the world go around now, literally, for 150 years...But, hang on to your hats!," he warns. Countries whose influence is built on oil could see "their whole economic and power structure pulled out right from under them. It's going to be fascinating to watch."

Finally, in a brief return to 'Discrimination Nation', we close with President Obama's designation today of the nation's newest national monument honoring women's suffrage and 'Equal Pay Day'.

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On today's BradCast, hundreds of demonstrators were arrested today at the nation's Capitol during a peaceful sit-in protest demand reforms to the U.S. electoral system. Also today, we cover a number of other breaking news items and the weekend's Presidential nominating events, including results and concerns about the Democratic caucuses in WY and the Republican delegate convention in CO. [Audio link to show is below.]

First up, we check in with The Young Turks' reporter Jordan Chariton and Sputnik News' Cassandra Fairbanks outside the U.S. Capitol, just moments after some 400 "Democracy Spring" demonstrators, including our old friend Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks, were arrested while calling for a number of small "d" democratic reforms. Amongst the protestors' demands: Overturning the Supreme Court's infamous 2010 Citizens United ruling unleashing massive corporate spending in elections; modernization of America's ridiculous voter registration system; the creation of a public campaign financing system; and the restoration of the Voting Rights Act provision gutted in 2013 by SCOTUS. Protesters vow to continue demonstrations all week in D.C.

Then, breaking news on Goldman-Sachs' settlement with the U.S. Dept. of Justice for their part in the mortgage crisis that led to the global financial crisis in 2008 (spoiler: nobody goes to jail, though those sitting down to demonstrate for democracy in D.C. did); Another rock star cancels a concert in another GOP state that just approved discrimination against the LGBT community; and then we cover the results of the controversial Democratic caucuses held over the weekend in Wyoming and the GOP delegate convention in Colorado.

Our coverage of the weekend's nominating contests also includes a look at concerns from Sanders supporters about the WY results and from Trump supporters about the results almost everywhere. And finally, here's that amazing Boston Globe "President Trump" front page [PDF] they published for April 2017 over the weekend and their full description of it...

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On today's BradCast, we catch up on a lot of news, polls, twists and turns --- most of which underscore, yet again, why elections and representative democracy matter...no matter what the corporate "news" media tries to tell ya.

Among the stories covered on today's thrilling episode!...

• New polls find, once again, that Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton in match-ups against all potential Republican opponents (and even among Democrats nationally); Also, that the front-runners in each party are remarkably unpopular within their own parties.
• Bruce Springsteen cancels a North Carolina concert Sunday due to the state Republicans' new pro-discrimination law;
• The GOP in Nebraska is attempting to 'swipe' a potential electoral college vote from Democrats;
• San Francisco (where the economy is booming, as it is elsewhere here in California, now under Democratic control), becomes the first U.S. city to mandate paid parental leave;
• More clear evidence that thinking big about policies and progressive ideas pays off when the people bother to fight for them and turn out to vote (when they are allowed to vote, anyway), rather than turn cynical and stay home.

All of that and much much more on today's program, including new evidence that the Keystone pipeline leak in South Dakota is far worse than originally reported by TransCanada, the company which owns it, and Desi Doyen joins us with the latest Green News Report which also includes some very encouraging news today...

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On today's BradCast, guest host Nicole Sandler of Radio or Not takes a short break from the elections to see how North Carolina became the most anti-LGBT state in less than one day, with Zack Ford of Think Progress.

Then, it was back to the campaign madness and a battle of the delegates and hashtags. Gaius Publius checks in with the actual, accurate Democratic delegate counts, and a realistic assessment of the race moving forward.

And it’s Hashtag Wars, as Nicole tracks down Leslie Lee, @tokyovampires, who started the hashtag #BernieMadeMeWhite after the mischaracterization of Saturday’s caucus states. And a hashtag started trending while we were recording today’s show, #HillaryToneDeaf.

Is it November yet?

Download MP3 or listen online below...

On today's BradCast we cover what is known, so far, about the unfolding terror attacks in Brussels this morning, even as they serve as yet another reminder of why elections matter.

With ISIS now claiming responsibility for the horrific attacks which killed dozens and injured hundreds in Belgium, including a number of Americans, Iraq war correspondent Michael Ware's recent account of the creation of ISIS, thanks to the U.S.-launched war there over a decade ago, underscores how the choices we make at the ballot box reverberate for generations.

Vote wisely! If you are able to vote at all...Our coverage of the problems faced by voters merely trying to cast a vote during last week's primaries continues today, with new reports of Photo ID voter suppression in NC, student voters illegally turned away at Wheaton College in IL, and the continuing court battle over thousands of voters turned away from the polls in Adams County (though we have a small slice of encouraging news to report there today!)

Then, we turn to new problems and serious concerns beginning to emerge in primaries and caucuses underway today in AZ and UT, including reports of up to four-hour lines and registration problems in AZ and the Republican Party in UT laughing in the face of computer scientist warnings by using some 60,000 of their voters as guinea pigs during in a live experiment with 100% unverifiable and easily hackable Internet Voting for tonight's GOP caucuses! (What could possibly go wrong?)

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It very was a very big night for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, as the two candidates with the lowest overall favorability ratings in their respective parties nonetheless reportedly swept up most of the votes in almost all of the 5 big states up for grabs during yesterday's 'Super Duper Tuesday' primary elections.

On today's BradCast, we review all of the results, still-remaining questions about several of them (some likely never answerable due to the close margins and 100% percent unverifiable e-voting systems that bit both Rs and Ds in Missouri), as well as inexcusable problems (such as outrageous paper ballot shortages in Illinois, photo ID voting restrictions in North Carolina, a gun in an Ohio polling place, and failed electronic pollbooks and purged voting rolls in Florida) that many voters faced while simply trying to cast a vote at all in a number of states.

While your candidate may or may not have been adversely affected yesterday, I'd urge you to pay close attention to today's program before the candidate (or party) you may favor ends up paying the price for the often-shameful system of voting we still have in this country. If not, by the time you decide to give a damn, it may very well be too late to do anything about it. (Did I mention the never-knowable intent of the voters on both the D and R side yesterday in Missouri?)

Also today: Obama's names his SCOTUS nominee, listener calls on all of the above, and much more, including Desi Doyen with our latest Green News Report...

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On today's BradCast, while Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are busy smearing Bernie Sanders as "extreme" and even "communist", the broad and progressive social programs the Vermont Senator is calling for in his campaign are, as my guest explains today, as American as apple pie and Thomas Paine.

First, however, voters head to the polls for crucial Presidential primary elections in OH, IL, MO, NC and FL and run into a few problems; Massive flooding hits climate deniers in the south, shutting down major interstates and requiring the costly rescue of thousands in TX and LA; And, February global heat records "shock" even climate scientists.

Then, we're joined for today's interview by Univ. of Wisconsin-Green Bay Professor of Democracy and Justice Studies Harvey J. Kaye to discuss the rich history of social democracy (or, as Sanders calls it, "democratic socialism") in the U.S. and how, as noted in the headline of his article for Moyer's & Company, "Social Democracy is 100% American".

"Social democracy means that we harness the powers of democratic government to make American life freer, more equal and more democratic," he tells me. "That stands in contrast to a conservative approach, which is either to empower a hyper-individualism in the libertarian sense, or, as we've seen so often in the Republican Party, empowering big capital and corporations to pursue their interests with some idea that it will all trickle down."

Kaye, author of the books Thomas Paine and the Promise of America and The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great, details how "the original visionary of Social Democracy was the American revolutionary Thomas Paine," oft-embraced by the modern Tea Party and other Republicans, even as they fail to notice his loud and frequent calls for "social security and other public initiatives" that would benefit all.

From Paine through Lincoln through FDR, Eisenhower and beyond --- at least until Ronald Reagan --- U.S. leaders helped "pioneer" a vast number of landmark social programs akin to the ones Sanders is now calling for in his Presidential campaign and on which our nation has been built from the beginning. Kaye, a supporter of the Democratic underdog, explains how and why he believes that "democratic socialism" has been turned into a pejorative over the years, thanks to both "red-baiting" Republicans hoping to tie it "communism", but also thanks to Democrats who have been playing into the same "class war from above."

"The Republican onslaught has been predictable," Kaye says, after detailing example after example of wildly popular socialist programs in the U.S. ever since our founding and through recent decades. "The corporate class war from above was predictable. But where are the Democrats to challenge it?"

Fear of such programs of social justice and economic prosperity, particularly by theoretically "progressive" Democrats, is a fairly new phenomenon in the U.S., which, he tells me, young people may not realize. "These last forty years we have seen this Republican-conservative ascendance that has so limited political possibilities. It has also limited our political imagination."

Please tune in for today's fascinating conversation as we wait for, or become exasperated by, the corporate media reporting on "Super Duper Tuesday" results...

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Follow @GreenNewsReport...

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

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Oklahoma finally acts to reduce man-made fracking earthquakes; Bernie Sanders promises to end fossil fuel drilling on public lands; Hillary Clinton promises to end drilling off the Atlantic coast; Slap on the wrist for 'Freedom Industries' CEO responsible for West Virginia chemical spill; PLUS: Tropical Cyclone Winston smashes record for strongest hurricane ever in Southern Hemisphere... 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): Want to fight climate change? Here are the 7 critical life changes you should make; Seas are rising way faster than any time in past 2,800 years; Legionnaires’ Outbreak in Flint Was Met With Silence; Arctic Sea Ice Is in Record Low Territory (Again); EPA Asks Volkswagen To Make Electric Cars In U.S.; China To Close More Than 1,000 Coal Mines In 2016; Two PA Families take toxic fracking water contamination case to trial... PLUS: Kiribati looks to artificial islands to save nation from rising sea levels... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, we look at the huge (yooge?) victories for both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary elections, not to mention a victory for the devil in Arizona and for justice in North Carolina.

First, in New Hampshire, both Sanders and Trump each destroyed their competition by record margins. But also both Sanders and Trump absolutely dominated virtually every demographic in their respective parties. The victories served to reveal how the political party establishment and corporate U.S. media pundits continue to be radically out of touch with the American electorate and how the "electability" arguments that have been put forward concerning both candidates are finally being questioned.

Moreover, on the Republican side, the contest resulted in both Fiorina and Christie heading back to Palookaville, while Rubio sunk like a stone and the GOP establishment may have found their next new "savior" in Kasich.

Then, we're joined by Constitutional law expert Ian Millhiser to discuss how a "Satanic Temple" trolled its way into killing the opening religious invocation long used by the City Council in Phoenix, AZ. Also, Millhiser explains a new federal court ruling finding that NC GOPers racially gerrymandered two Congressional districts in the key swing state.

"Finally! Satan gets a break in the United States!," Millhiser tells me in regard to the Phoenix story. He says that while the "satirical church" doesn't "actually worship the devil, they do believe that there shouldn't be these public displays of Christianity at City Council meetings." He describes their victory in Phoenix, as well as in other cities where the group has successfully "trolled" elected officials in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that has begun to collapse the nation's long-standing separation between church and state.

"The Roberts Court has started to tear down those walls that have existed for a really long time," Millhiser, author of the new book Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted, tells me, before offering his best guess as to why the five conservative Justices on the Court are so "hostile to the notion of separating church and state."

Finally, Millhiser details the federal district court's redistricting ruling in NC --- what it will mean, how it may or may not affect the state's upcoming elections, how those hostile to minorities figured out long ago that they can use the slow pace of the U.S. Court system to game elections, and how doing so has suddenly become even easier following the Supreme Court's 2013 gutting of the key Voting Rights Act meant to prevent such schemes.

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On today's BradCast, with the first Presidential caucuses and primaries of 2016 now just days away and the first mass voter suppression trial of the year now underway (in North Carolina), we look at a number of recommendations to improve our voting system. But is it too late to make much of a difference for 2016?

First up, some breaking news on the possibility of an added Democratic debate after the Iowa caucuses and before the New Hampshire primary, and some thoughts on the human cost of Climate Change-fueled extreme weather (over just the past month) versus Islamic terror attacks in the U.S. in the 15 years since 9/11.

Then, on to our conversation with Myrna Peréz of the Brennan Center for Justice's Democracy Program to discuss her new report: Election Integrity: A Pro-Voter Agenda. The paper offers six important areas --- from voter registration to polling access to vote casting and counting --- where the U.S. system can and must improve its integrity without sacrificing security or access to the voting booth.

"It is possible to protect election integrity without disenfranchising eligible voters," Peréz writes in her report about the solutions she and the Brennan Center offer. "All target fraud risks as they actually exist. None will unduly disenfranchise those who have the right to vote."

As she explains to me today: "We are having is a very contested moment in time where the right to vote is being challenged in a way that we haven't seen in decades. We are seeing politicians trying to manipulate the rules of the game such that some people can participate and some people can't. And we have that butting up against states that have very restrictive budgets, and may not actually have the money or resources to make reforms that would even save money long-term, because they require an initial investment. That, coupled with infrastructure problems --- like we have been registering voters in a really out-of-date way for too long, and we haven't updated our voting machines --- are all colliding to produce a period of worry, where when voters step into the polls on Election Day in November, they're not going to be getting the best customer service for their tax dollars. And that they're not going to be voting in a way that's consistent with what the greatest democracy in the world should be doing."

"We tried to look at where there were opportunities to improve what we're doing, and actually study and address some of the concerns that folks are having," Peréz says. "And do it in a way that is sensible and thoughtful and common sense, in terms of making sure that the cure isn't worse than the disease. And make sure that we're not disenfranchising more people than we're trying to prevent from perpetuating fraud."

We discuss, among many things in our detailed conversation, the real threats to election integrity --- not "voter fraud" by individuals at the polling place, as vote suppressors on the Right would like you to believe, but far more often, and in a much larger way, by political and election insiders. "We need to make sure that our politicians, who are using our resources and our taxpayer dollars, are fixing a problem that is real and addressing it in the most cost-effective and efficient way."

Finally on today's show, a few words and memories in regard to the recent tragic loss of Wisconsin's John Washburn, an integral member of the U.S. Election Integrity community and a reliable and important source over the past decade to me here at BradBlog.com and on the radio, on e-voting in general and, in particular, on some of the nightmarish elections disasters in the Badger State over recent years. John was a great proponent of transparency, open government, proper testing of electronic voting systems and, frankly, one helluva guy. As noted in my more detailed In Memoriam on today's program, John's loss, at the age of 53, is a particularly tragic and costly one for the cause of democracy and free and fair elections in Wisconsin as well as the rest of the nation. We send our thoughts and best wishes to his family, including his wife and three children. His institutional knowledge, good humor and wit will be greatly missed in 2016 and beyond, but his good fight will continue.

(John's guest blog contributions to The BRAD BLOG are here. You can sort through some of his other contributions to our stories and radio programs over the years here. And much more documentation of his work on EI matters and more is still available at his personal website right here. UPDATE: John's family has requested remembrances be posted on this tribute page.)

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Fox 'News' finally finds reason to 'care' about the environment; Hillary Clinton draws a bright green line around Arctic drilling; EPA tells oil and gas industry to cut the methane; Islamic leaders call on Muslims worldwide to act on climate change; PLUS: Water contamination in America's rivers and streams is creating intersex fish... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Three firefighters killed battling Washington State wildfire; 10 years after Katrina, Obama to visit a safer New Orleans; World's largest air purifier aims to create 'Smog Free Parks'; Oil price slump dampens desire for drilling leases on public lands; Groundwater pumping is sinking CA land; Oklahoma breaks record for earthquakes set just last year... PLUS: For Latinos, environment is as big an issue as immigration... and much, MUCH more! ...