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

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

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

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

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As the Confederate flag falls, once again, across the South, in the wake of the Charleston AME church terrorist attack, flag expert Annie Platoff of the North American Vexillological Association (yes, there is such a thing!) joins us to a question I've had all week on The BradCast: Why so much passion about a piece of colored cloth?!

I understand why people want the Confederate Battle Flag taken down. But I have much less understanding of why people are so passionate and emotional about wanting it, or any other flag, to be raised in the first place --- at least outside of a military context.

Platoff, who, in addition to being a flag expert is also a librarian at UCSB, explains the history of flags, their symbolic importance, and why they inspire such passion --- both for and against. She also tells us about the Apollo mission flags, which are still on the Moon, and about which wrote a paper when she worked as a lunar/Mars librarian at NASA. (She's also an expert on Russian flags and discussed their history and use in more recent context, both after the fall of the Soviet Union and during the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.)

Also on today's BradCast: A whole lot of breaking news on a whole lot of stuff, including Donald Trump's surge into 2nd place in the GOP 2016 race in New Hampshire (told ya so!); Listener/callers weigh in on the controversial Confederate flag and more; Plus: Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report!...

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You people scoffed --- scoffed! --- when I suggested (along with Heather Digby Parton) that Donald Trump could end up doing very well among the GOP base in the Republican 2016 primary race for President...

Who's scoffing now?

News events are now moving very quickly following the terrorist shooting last week at Charleston, SC's Emanuel AME Church. On today's BradCast, we do our best to bring you up to date if you made the mistake a taking a few minutes off over the weekend!

Politicians (Republican ones, particularly those running for President --- but even one or two in the Obama Administration) are now being forced to flip their previous positions at lightning speed, even as the state's Republican Governor Nikki Haley announced today that she is calling for the South Carolina legislature to remove the Confederate Flag --- a long time symbol of slavery, rebellion, divisiveness and hatred --- from the grounds of the state capitol.

But we'll get you up to speed on the rapidly "evolving", all-new positions from Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham, Ben Carson and many others.

In the bargain, Fox 'News' and all of the politicos and pundits who swear allegiance to it, now find their ideological walls closing in on them, after years of being mired with "pathological denial" on all of the very topics the SC shooting tragedy highlights (and many more.) Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America joins us to talk about it all on today's BradCast.

Also, we begin to catch up on a few items we've had to push off due to last week's breaking events...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The Pope's unprecedented call for action on climate change; The Right predictably freaks out; India goes solar in a big way; PLUS: Trump is running for president. It's no hoax! But he thinks global warming is... 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): World's Aquifers Being Badly Depleted, Satellite Data Show; Senate GOP Moves Against Obama Green Agenda Via Spending; Plan for Fracking's Waste Pits Could Save Millions of Birds; Alaska's Glaciers Are Now Losing 75 Billion Tons of Ice Every Year; Alaska Wildfires Destroy Dozens of Homes, Menace Highway... PLUS: Inside the Power Plant Fueling America's Drought... and much, MUCH more! ...

So, did Donald Trump just blow up the GOP primary? Is he more than just a joke? Is he the Frankenstein Monster created by 40 years of Reaganism, Fox 'News' and the Tea Party as we charged (along with Heather Digby Parton) on yesterday's BradCast? Could he actually win the Republican nomination and...gasp...the White House?

On today's BradCast, callers weigh in on 'Trump World' and other 2016 game changers like Bernie Sanders.

Plus: Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, on Jeb and Hillary's climate strategy (or lack thereof, in one of those cases) and the Pope's upcoming, highly anticipated (and satirized) environmental encyclical...

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As I suggested earlier today, I believe Donald Trump just blew up the 2016 Republican Presidential primary, and maybe even the 2016 general election.

All bets are off, now that, as our guest on today's BradCast, Heather 'Digby' Parton of Salon and Digby's Hullabalo explains, the very embodiment of the misbegotten Reaganist American Dream --- and a TV star, at that --- has entered the contest for the Republican nomination.

Born a millionaire, Trump "became a billionaire, which is really kind of the ultimate American Dream. In fact, it's the only American Dream now," Parton opines. "You're a billionaire or your not and anything less than that is, you're kind of a loser."

Am I right when I argue that media and political pundits who disregard him as a clown (which he is), "misunderestimate" Trump's candidacy at their own peril? Parton, a 2014 Hillman Foundation Prize winner for Opinion and Analysis Journalism, seems to believe I could be. After all, she notes, "this is the culmination of about 30 years of propaganda" that folks like Reagan, Fox "News" and Roger Ailes put in place.

Trump "is channeling the GOP id," she says, adding: "The grand metaphor of this era, is Frankenstein's monster getting out of control. And that's what happened on the Right. And Donald Trump is another manifestation of that particular metaphor coming to life."

Plus: Speaking of misbegotten Reaganists, how Gov. Sam Brownback's Kansas has officially become "a Dickensian nightmare"; And Politifact fails again in rating Hillary Clinton's facts about the voting rights records of her opponents...

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From Charlie Pierce at Esquire [emphasis added]...

Only quibble with Pierce here: Trump is not "pretend[ing] to run" for President. He's actually running. And anybody who 'misunderestimates' what the Republican Party has become at this point --- who they would actually nominate as their standard bearer and, by extension, who they might actually be able to get "elected" in the US of A in 2016, through any means necessary --- does so at their own peril...

The new USA Freedom Act has just sailed through the U.S. House and now heads to the Senate, as a replacement for the bulk spying provisions of the USA Patriot Act. National security blogger/muckraker Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel.net joins us on today's BradCast to explain what it all means, whether it will pass, what happens if it doesn't, and whether the new bill will make things better or worse.

Also, way-too-dumb-to-be-President Jeb Bush takes his fifth embarrassing stab at answering a very simple question about Iraq; We finally find a Republican who isn't running for President in 2016; Great news for progressive Democrats in Wisconsin!; And Desi Doyen joins us for our 600th(!) Green News Report!...

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Six-term Republican Congressman Bob Inglis (SC) was my guest on today's BradCast, fresh off of being honored with the John F. Kennedy Foundation's Profile in Courage award earlier this week.

After 12 years in the U.S. House, the very conservative Rep. Inglis was primaried out in 2010 by the Tea Party after he dared change his position from being a climate change denier to wanting to take action after consultation with scientists and even his own children.

Inglis has since founded the Energy and Enterprise Initiative at George Mason University, "guided by the conservative principles of free enterprise and economic growth, limited government, liberty, accountability and reasonable risk avoidance to solve our nation's energy and climate challenges."

We discussed whether he has any regrets about how things worked out in Congress; about his appearance in the new documentary Merchants of Doubt, which exposes how the denial industry works (and how the same sleaze merchants who denied the harm of cigarette smoke in previous decades on behalf of Big Tobacco are now using the very same tactics today. Watch the trailer.); why Republicans have become science deniers and whether he is optimistic that will change any time soon; and his plan for a revenue-neutral carbon tax to fight global warming by both reducing emissions and correcting what he (accurately) describes as the "market distortion" that allows polluters to socialize the cost of pollution and, essentially, pollute for free.

"One of the key philosophical underpinnings of conservative thought is that humans are responsible moral actors," Inglis told me. Yet, he says, the fossil fuel industry is being allowed to get away without taking responsibility for the damage they are causing to both people and the planet. "That's where we are on climate. We're allowing people to socialize their soot and they will get away with it as long as we let them get away without accountability." He says that was is currently lacking is "accountable transparent marketplaces."

"If we could get through the denial and get to the debate," it would be a good thing, explains Inglis, who describes global warming as a "crucial issue, vital to the future of our children and grandchildren" as he offers a surprisingly optimistic outlook for the future. How optimistic? He even believes some non-denier Republicans may enter the 2016 Presidential primary race! I'm dubious --- but we'll see. It was a fascinating conversation.

Also on today's show: even Fox "News" is now turning against the obnoxious organizers of the deadly anti-Muslim event in Garland, TX over the weekend; CO2 reaches a new and horrible milestone; another oil bomb train explodes in ND; and some very very good news for progressives folks in Alberta, Canada (and maybe for environmentalists down here!) after last night's election there...

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While we'll be posting The BradCast here everyday, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

On today's BradCast we finally get the chance to catch up on at least one of the big items we missed last week while Baltimore was on fire: the landmark oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, the case which is likely to result (finally!) in the whole big enchilada decision on marriage equality for all 50 states.

Constitutional law expert and reporter Ian Millhiser of Think Progress joins me to discuss the hearing, the history, the likely outcomes, who to watch, and what could happen thereafter.

Also, Huckabee joins the 2016 GOP nomination circus; Chris Christie begs for a subpoena in 'BridgeGate'; more on the Garland, TX 'anti-muslim' group shootings; and Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with the climate positions of the three new candidates tossing their hats into the 2016 race...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

While we'll be posting The BradCast here everyday, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

Follow and stream @GreenNewsReport!...



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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The race for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination just doubled in size: Fox 'News' darling Ben Carson jumps in; former CEO Carly Fiorina jumps in; former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee jumps in --- climate change deniers all; PLUS: The Pope's moral message on climate change... 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): Elon Musk unveils fancy new Tesla battery "” 'cause existing batteries "suck"; Scientists call for limits on non-stick and stain-resistant chemicals that can leach into foods; CA crops raised with oil-field water; Ominous signs for endangered Great Lakes blue butterfly; Heartland Institute's president denies they are deniers; GOP lawmakers slash NASA budget... PLUS: Climate change drives 'new era' in Arctic, say Norwegian scientists... and much, MUCH more! ...

I've been having sort of a running conversation/debate with author, comedian, friend and KPFK/Pacifica Radio colleague Jimmy Dore ever since the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. He heard my take on the shootings, as discussed on KPFK at the time, and picked it up (a less generous person might say, misinterpreted it) on his own show.

We then had it out on his show and, finally, with the weekend shootings in Garland, TX at a rightwing group's event offering $10,000 for the most offensive cartoon featuring the prophet Mohammed, it seemed like a good time to pick up that conversation to see if either his or my views have changed.

So, Jimmy was my guest on today's BradCast and I think you'll enjoy the discussion!

Also, Bernie Sanders' refreshing words on a Sunday network news show; Carly and Carson both jumped into the 2016 GOP nomination clown car; one encouraging moment in Nepal amongst unspeakable tragedy following their recent devastating earthquake; the FEC continues to be dysfunctional, with one of their chairs now out-and-out noting that campaign finance regulations are unlikely to be enforced during the 2016 Presidential elections, despite record "dark money" set to be spent on them.

All of that and more on today's show! Please enjoy and spread the word!

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While we'll be posting The BradCast here everyday, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

While the specific names of U.S. Senate and House committees don't always foretell precisely what very specific areas they may oversee or regard as their own purview, the renaming of such a committee by its new chair, as is occasionally done at the start of a new session, particularly when control of the chamber changes hands from one party to another, can be very telling.

I believe this may be one such instance where quite a bit can actually be read into the new name for what had previously been the U.S. Senate Judiciary committee's "Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights"...

- with Brad Friedman

[An earlier version of this article was originally published by Truthout...]

Both election integrity advocates and dissembling GOP proponents of Photo ID voting restrictions were taken by surprise in late 2013 when 7th Circuit Court Judge Richard A. Posner said, during an interview with HuffPo Live, that the landmark 2008 Supreme Court decision on the matter "would have been decided differently" if the Court had known then "about the abuse of voter identification laws."

That, in and of itself, was a remarkable turn of events. What was ultimately to come was even more so.

Crawford v. Marion County Election Board is the case which Republican proponents of strict Photo ID voting laws now (incorrectly and often disingenuously) cite as giving them carte blanche to enact similar laws in other states, irrespective of the extent to which photo ID laws serve to disenfranchise demographic groups --- minorities, students, the poor, women --- that all tend to vote for Democrats.

Posner is not just any judge. He is a renowned legal scholar and Reagan appointee to the federal bench, who has served on the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeal since 1981. More importantly here, Posner was the author of the 7th Circuit's opinion in Crawford. In that case, Posner rejected an allegation that Indiana's polling place photo ID restriction was unconstitutional. That decision was affirmed at the time by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Posner, who is, as Yale Law Professor Fred Shapiro notes, the most cited jurist of the 20th Century, was not alone in his view in 2013 year that Crawford "would have been decided differently" if the Court knew then what it knows now.

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the author of the plurality opinion in Crawford --- an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy --- told the Wall Street Journal following Posner's remarks at the time, that he "always thought that [dissenting Justice] David Souter got the thing correct, but my own problem with the case was that I didn't think the record [before the Court in 2008] supported everything he said in his opinion." Souter would have struck down the Indiana law as unconstitutional because, as he argued at the time, it "threatens to impose nontrivial burdens" upon the right to vote.

Joined by four other 7th Circuit jurists last October, Posner penned an extraordinarily powerful and compelling dissent [PDF] in Wisconsin's photo ID voting case. The previously missing evidence is now in, as the judge meticulously detailed in the opinion. GOP claims that photo ID restrictions are needed to combat "voter fraud", he wrote, are "a mere fig leaf for efforts to disenfranchise voters likely to vote for the political party that does not control the state government"...

Posner's carefully crafted dissent does more than establish why the U.S. Supreme Court should ultimately sustain the District Court's finding that Wisconsin's photo ID law is both unconstitutional and a violation of the Voting Rights Act --- a finding later echoed by a federal District Court in Texas as well. Posner's dissent obliterates the factual premise that had served as a pillar upon which his, and subsequently the Supreme Court's, decisions in Crawford were based.

Polling place photo ID laws do not promote voter confidence in the integrity of elections, as Posner and the Crawford Supreme Court plurality had erroneously assumed. The assertion that they do was a "mistake" --- Posner's mistake! --- and he now admits as much, with the support of devastating new data from recent studies to back him up.

His powerful dissent amounts to more than just a response to the Wisconsin GOP's new Photo ID voting law. It is an elegant plea that the U.S. Supreme Court finally right a grievous wrong that he was personally responsible for. Posner presents an astonishing, air-tight case for ruling that all "strict Photo ID laws," which, as he demonstrates, have only been enacted in states sporting GOP-controlled legislatures, must now be struck-down as unconstitutional...