THIS WEEK: Principled Resignation ... Immigrant Crisis ... Capture and Kill ... And Bobby gets to work! In our latest collection of the week's most golden toons...
Climate change reshaping U.S. real estate markets; Admin failing to hire seasonal firefighters; PLUS: Trump rolls back money-saving efficiency standards...again...
Guest: Debra Dicks Maxwell of the NC NAACP; Also: Trump 'violates First Amendment' by shutting AP out of Oval Office, attacks free speech by firing another IG...
Hottest January on record. Again.; Trump Admin halts funding for national EV charging network, cancels paper straws; PLUS: Super Bowl ads take a break from EVs...
DOGE Bros descend on NOAA, disgraced 'SharpieGate' guy tapped to run it; Monarch butterflies at new low in Western US; PLUS: Rats love global warming...
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...
State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...
Arrest of RNC/Sproul man caught destroying registration forms brings official calls for wider criminal probe from compromised VA AG Cuccinelli and U.S. AG Holder...
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...
So much for the RNC's 'zero tolerance' policy, as discredited Republican registration fraud operative still hiring for dozens of GOP 'Get Out The Vote' campaigns...
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...
The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...
FL Dept. of Law Enforcement confirms 'enough evidence to warrant full-blown investigation'; Election officials told fraudulent forms 'may become evidence in court'...
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) sends blistering letter to Gov. Rick Scott (R) demanding bi-partisan reg fraud probe in FL; Slams 'shocking and hypocritical' silence, lack of action...
After FL & NC GOP fire Romney-tied group, RNC does same; Dead people found reg'd as new voters; RNC paid firm over $3m over 2 months in 5 battleground states...
After fraudulent registration forms from Romney-tied GOP firm found in Palm Beach, Election Supe says state's 'fraud'-obsessed top election official failed to return call...
IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New criminal charges for MI state employees in the Flint Water Crisis; $170 million fine for Kalamazoo River tar sands pipeline spill; Many young voters don't see a difference between Clinton and Trump on climate change; PLUS: Donald Trump pushes (recycles?) tired old myths about renewable energy... 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): Environmental records shattered as climate change 'plays out before us'; Hurricane Drought Hits a New Record; Government Agencies Must Consider The Climate; Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here; Disasters linked to climate can increase risk of armed conflict; "Zombie" Anthrax Goes on a Killing Spree in Siberia--How?; Chernobyl’s Atomic Wasteland May Be Reborn With Solar; Australia Orders Climate Change U-Turn... PLUS: Poll finds Californians back climate change efforts despite cost... and much, MUCH more! ...
Not to give away the ending, but by the close of today's BradCast, Hillary Clinton became the Democrats' nominee for President of the United States.
Before we got there, however, we were joined from the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia by longtime progressive journalist and author John Nichols of The Nation and Madison, Wisconsin's Capital Times to discuss yesterday's early tumult with the resignation of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and what we should expect from her interim replacement Donna Brazile between now and Election Day.
The bulk of our conversation, however, centers on how some of the most die-hard Bernie Sanders supporters and convention delegates are feeling today, what it may take for Clinton to win their votes between now and November, and where Sanders' progressive movement may go thereafter. "Bottom line is," he cautions, "it's not what you hear at the convention, necessarily. It's about what comes after."
On an optimistic note, Nichols describes how he has been seeing many progressive Sanders supporters step up to run for office in recent days "all over this country. You won't know all their names, and neither will I, because a lot of them will be running for Drainage Commissioner. But that's how the Christian Coalition got its power, because they figured out there was a Religious Right way to be a Drainage Commissioner. And I can tell you something: there is absolutely a democratic socialist way to be a Drainage Commissioner."
As to the likelihood of a Trump Presidency, Nichols is very concerned. "He's talking to people who have had the hell beaten out of them by globalization, de-industrialization, automation. So it is not shocking at all that there are people feeling so pressured that they might consider an option that, by any reasonable measure, seems madness. We must accept that. The reality of politics. If we don't, we end up with a surprise like Reagan in '80. We tell ourselves something couldn't happen, and then it goes and happens."
But does the Democratic Party understand that? And is Nichols' own home state of Wisconsin really in play this year, as Republicans seem to suggest every year? His answers to all of those questions and many others on today's BradCast!
Also on today's program: Extended excerpts from the moving and inspiring Day 1 speeches of Michelle Obama, Bernie Sanders and others, and a brilliant new way that one group concerned about climate change is hoping to entice new young voters to register...
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On today's BradCast, a very rocky start for Democrats in Philadelphia and bad news for Fox 'News' may be good news for the country. [Link to complete audio of show posted below.]
Before our coverage of today's remarkable news from the Democratic National Convention, some late (and overlooked) news on the mass shootings in Munich last week and in Fort Meyers, Florida on Sunday night. Also, record deadly heat continues to grip both the U.S. and the world, and new polling shows Donald Trump now taking a lead both nationally and in key battleground states after receiving a 'bump' from last week's GOP convention in Cleveland.
Then, with Dems gathering for their own convention in Philly this week, things were off to a very bumpy start on Day 1. The release of hackedemails written by DNC insiders (in which The BradCast makes a very brief cameo) have led to Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL), a long time Hillary Clinton supporter, finally stepping down from her role as DNC Chair before the gathering was even gaveled to order. That followed booing for the controversial party chief by protesters at a breakfast meeting of the Florida delegation, as well as similar jeers for California Democrats and even for Bernie Sanders himself after an appearance asking his supporters to defeat Trump and elect Clinton.
Then, we're joined by Eric Boehlert of Media Matters on what history may well regard as the biggest news of the past chaotic week: the firing of Fox 'News' mastermind Roger Ailes on the heels of sexual harassment allegations, now said to be supported by some twenty-five other staffers in the company's internal investigation.
"I can't even calculate how much more powerful Roger Ailes is to the Republican Party than Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is to the Democratic Party," Boehlert notes early in our conversation, before we discuss what finally took down Ailes, what more is still to come, what happens next for the Rightwing propaganda outlet, and whether or not Fox' remarkable effect on the national electorate for the past twenty years can continue in Ailes' absence.
"That Islamophobia, that race-baiting, that ugly hate rhetoric, 'Democrats are traitors' --- that all came from Roger Ailes. That came from the top," Boehlert explains. "Certainly under Obama, you could make the argument [Ailes] was running the Republican Party. He was picking the candidates. He was picking the talking points. Fox News created the 'Tea Party' with non-stop coverage back in 2009."
"The Beltway press, for twenty years for the most part, has treated Roger Ailes as this brilliant genius," he tells me. "Never a hint that any of this was going on. The press has treated Ailes with kid gloves, considering the damage he's done to politics. ... I think people try to put Fox and the right-wing media into this box, 'Well, it doesn't affect me, it doesn't affect our politics, those people are crazy'. It permeates everything, and the Trump campaign is the best example of that. People are crying: 'Where did he come from?! Oh my gosh, how is this happening to America?!' It's been broadcast for twenty years."
Finally, just in case you hadn't heard, in what would normally be today's lead story, if these were normal times, Clinton has chosen Sen. Tim Kaine, a moderate and well-liked Democrat from Virginia, as her Vice Presidential running mate. Yes, all of that and much more on today's BradCast...
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Today on The BradCast, the Republican Party remains a mess, some Democrats remain in denial, Cleveland remains a tinder box in advance of next week's RNC convention, and if only the concerns about electoral fraud and the need for citizen oversight were taken as seriously in this country as they are in other nations.
While the Democratic platform becomes vastly more progressive this, thanks to the leverage retained by Bernie Sanders and his supporters, the GOP platform stays dumb or dumber. Speaking of dumb, clueless rightwingers (from Bill O'Reilly to Donald Trump to a Canadian singer at the MLB All-Star Game) still don't understand, or want to understand, what 'Black Lives Matter' means. And speaking of jackassery, the Republican National Convention is set to take place next week amidst angst over the party's presumptive nominee and the possibility of protests and racial tensions, even while state law will allow the open carry of loaded guns on the street outside of the convention center. What could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile, as some Democrats laugh among themselves about who the GOP is likely to nominate for President, several major new polls find Hillary Clinton plummeting against Donald Trump both nationally and in several of the most key swing-states (including OH, PA and FL.)
But with so much talk of electoral fraud during this year's Presidential Primary cycle, some may be pleased to know that a court has finally ordered a new Presidential Election! In Austria! That, not due to fraud necessarily, but to the mere possibility of it. Attorney Ernest A. Canning, long time legal contributor at The BRAD BLOG, joins us to explain what happened, how the nation's Constitutional Court ruling will benefit a far-right candidate, but is a victory for the Election Integrity movement nonetheless, and to discuss why concerns of election security and oversight aren't taken as seriously in the U.S. as they seem to be elsewhere.
"People have a tendency to be blind to this issue so long as their side wins. And that's not what election integrity is supposed to be all about," Canning explains. "The Austria constitution has a constitutional requirement for complete transparency of the count. If it was applied in the United States, most of our elections would have to be re-done. As far as the Austria Constitutional Court was concerned, it's irrelevant whether or not there was actual manipulation [of vote counting]. The fact is, if you had enough ballots that could have been manipulated because it wasn't a completely transparent count, then they're going to set it aside. The mere possibility that the count could have been manipulated is enough in Austria to overturn the results."
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Missouri Republicans hope to work around a series of adverse state court rulings by way of a ballot measure that would amend the Show-Me State Constitution and require that citizens present state-approved Photo ID at the polls before voting.
The legislation to place the issue on the ballot was approved by the state Senate 24-8 last Wednesday. The next day it was adopted in the House 110-39. The wide margin in both chambers, likely enough to override a veto by Democratic Governor Jay Nixon, was the product of a purported "compromise" that would permit voters who can't obtain the necessary documentation to sign an affidavit to that effect and cast an otherwise normal ballot. The "compromise" language was struck after days of filibusters in the state Senate by Democrats.
But Republican State Senator Bill Kraus told PBS that the stipulation would be temporary and that Missouri could have "strict Photo ID" in the near future, once the state constitution has been amended to allow for it. It wouldn't be the first "Missouri Compromise" to go awry...
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 WatchBob 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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On today's BradCast, the "election nightmares" continue. We get an explanation, of sorts, about the mysterious "disappearing" Sanders votes in Sussex County, DE on Tuesday night, and one of the two lawsuits filed after Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ's disastrous March 22nd Primary is dismissed by a local judge.
First up, after a bit of happy news for voters in Vermont and some more Luciferian news for the GOP, we continue to mop up from the ongoing 2016 Primary Election messes, as questions about the reported results in Arizona and Delaware (among many other states) remain.
Thousands of Bernie Sanders votes appeared to "disappear" in Sussex County, DE during tabulation of Tuesday's Primary (as described on yesterday's show). We finally receive an answer or two from the Delaware State Elections Commissioner Elaine Manlove about what might have happened. In short, without saying so directly, she chalks up the apparent disappearance of some 4,000 reported votes --- as captured via results screenshots from Washington Post, The Guardian and elsewhere --- to a clerical human error by the Associated Press, from whom many media outlets take their numbers on Election Night.
While her explanation --- which I share in full on the show --- has the ring of truth to it, the fact is that DE uses 100% unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) systems across the entire state. And, as her answers make clear, while certain FOIAs can be filed, there is really no way for voters to ever know that any of the reported results from Tuesday actually reflect the will of the voters. Tune in for the complete details and explanation and, yet again, why DRE voting machines can never satisfy a justifiably skeptical public hoping to be able to oversee their own public elections.
Then, I'm joined by longtime election integrity champion Emily Levy, who worked with the transpartisan EI group AUDIT-AZ on the lawsuit filed just after Arizona's disastrous March 22nd Primary, when voters across Maricopa County (Phoenix) faced hours long lines to vote. The problems occurred after County Recorder Helen Purcell radically decreased the number of polling places from 211 in 2012, to just 60 this year. The suit also sought to obtain answers to reports by some voters that registrations had mysteriously switched from Democratic to independent (thus, preventing those voters from casting a normal ballot in the state's closed Primary).
After two days of disturbing testimony "in a courtroom packed with voters and elections officials," including Purcell, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge David Gass dismissed the case on the basis that plaintiffs didn't offer proof that the election results would be overturned if they were allowed to proceed with discovery and a full trial.
Levy tells me the judge failed to rule on the Constitutional issues raised in the suit, and focused only on the state's Election Code "which apparently requires that we be able to --- in the 5 days we have between certification of the election and the deadline to file a case --- prove exactly what the problems were, and that they would have affected the outcome of the election."
"The election code really needs to be changed, because we need to have the ability to contest elections in meaningful ways," she says, adding: "I've seen the same thing in other states." As have I. Both the AZ and DE stories discussed on today's show underscore why it's so important to get election procedures and processes right before an election, rather than waiting until afterword, when it's generally too late to do anything about it. It's also another reminder why the Voting Rights Act --- which used to allow for that in some locations, like Maricopa --- needs to be restored after being gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013.
In the meantime, the legal complaint filed by the DNC, as joined by both the Clinton and Sanders campaign, along with a separate investigation by the DoJ, both continue to move forward. AUDIT-AZ's official response to the dismissal is posted, along with declarations and other documents from the case, on their website, ElectionNightmares.com.
Finally, we close today with Donald Trump going "nuclear" over climate and much more in our latest Green News Report' with Desi Doyen...
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On today's BradCast, following the Northeastern Primaries on Tuesday in PA, CT, MD, DE and RI, the 2016 cycle gets even stranger, if that's even possible. But, first, the longest serving Republican U.S. House Speaker in U.S. history is sentenced to 15 months in prison for a crime related to being a "serial child molester," according to the judge.
74-year old former Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) will serve more than a year in jail after pleading guilty in a hush-money case related to payments to one of his 14-17 year old victims during the time he served a high school wrestling coach years earlier. "Nothing is worse than using serial child molester and Speaker of the House in the same sentence," U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin said during today's sentencing in Chicago, marking yet another shameful disgrace from the years of GOP control of Congress during the Presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Then, as if the 2016 Presidential race couldn't get any more bizarre, imaginary GOP nominee Ted Cruz today named his imaginary Vice-Presidential running mate, who promptly broke into song. Really.
Then, results from Donald Trump's reported crushing landslide victories in five states yesterday, Hillary Clinton's huge reported wins in four of those five states, what Bernie Sanders plans to do do now, and some concerns about the accuracy of Tuesday's reported results (some debunked, some not.)
Then, phone calls from listeners on all of the above.
And, as if all of that's not enough, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown and, other than that, some actually encouraging green news, believe it or not!
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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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On today's BradCast: Tragic breaking news, ridiculous wingnut 'outrage', good news for Maryland voters, and, perhaps, a better way to nominate public officials. [Audio link to the full show is posted below.]
First up, coverage of the shocking loss of musical icon Prince, whose death today at age 57 at his home in Minnesota has stunned the world; Then, Rightwing "outrage" about U.S. President Andrew Jackson, the racist, slave holding, "genocidal maniac" (as Desi Doyen describes him today, with good reason) being replaced on the $20 bill by African-American abolitionist and former slave Harriet Tubman; And some (hopefully) good news about next week's Presidential Primary elections in MD, where voters will, for the first time in more than 15 years, finally be allowed to vote on hand-marked paper ballots instead of 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting machines.
Then, I'm joined by John Opdycke, President of OpenPrimaries.org, for a fascinating discussion about the anti-democratic (small "d") problem of primary nomination contests that are closed to non-party affiliated voters. The conversation kicks off following concerns about Tuesday's primary in New York, where voters faced voter registration purges and other problems at the polling place, along with the nation's earliest voter deadline for changing party affiliation in order to be allowed to participate in the state's closed primary elections. (Voters had to change party affiliation by October 9th of last year to be able to vote in this year's Presidential Primary on April 19th!)
Opdycke explains why shutting non-party affiliated voters out of the process is of particular concern in primaries that are run with tax-payer funding and resources. But, he explains, the problem is larger than that. "This is a very serious question. Who does the political process belong to? Does the process itself belong to the people, or does it belong to the political parties? Right now, our democracy belongs lock, stock and barrel to the political parties, from top to bottom. And that is a very big problem and it is beginning to come to light."
"What the open primaries movement is pushing for is public primaries, not partisan primaries," he tells me, citing states like California, Nebraska and Washington that hold "Top Two" primaries (also known as "Cajun" or "Jungle" primaries) for many elected public offices, allowing candidates of all (or no) parties to compete against each other to run in the general election. "This is a fundamentally different conception of what a primary is. It's a public primary. Not a partisan primary."
While recognizing that political parties are private organizations with a First Amendment right to organize as they see fit, Opdycke explains how the result blocks people from the process and makes it nearly impossible to change the system. "They control the political process. They control the boards of elections. They control how redistricting is done. They control the primaries. They control voter registration. They control every aspect. They even control the Presidential debates. And we Americans, we've participated in that. We have in some ways ceded our power to these political organizations and I think the time has come to take that back. Not abolish political parties, but simply return them to an appropriate place."
He goes on to respond to various concerns and critiques of "Top Two" primary systems, as we have reported on them in years past (here and here, for example) at The BRAD BLOG, in what I hope is a very enlightening conversation and one that needs to be continued in the months and years ahead, all over the country.
Finally, we finish up with a much-needed laugh, courtesy of Stephen Colbert, on a day when we could all really use one...
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It's Election Day on The BradCast, so, naturally, that means voter disenfranchisement throughout the country. Early reports today find e-pollbook systems failing at polling places in a number of states, which means voters are being turned away. (And, for some reason in Ohio(!) folks who were registered are finding they no longer are...for some reason.)
But, with more Election Day problems sure to come to light soon, we turn for the moment to the obscenity that has become judicial elections in the U.S. --- on a day that finds a record $15.8 million has been spent on today's Supreme Court election alone in Pennsylvania.
Scott Greytak of JusticeAtStake.org joins us to discuss his new report --- Bankrolling the Bench: The New Politics of Judicial Elections 2013-2014 (with Brennan Center for Justice and the National Institute on Money in State Politics) --- on the record amount of cash now being spent, "legally", to buy judges and state Supreme Court Justices via elections around the country. Millions of dollars now flow in to these contests from outside interests and political parties as well as lawyers and lobbyists.
"This is something that's, unfortunately, unique to America," Greytak explains. "It's really the United States and one other country in the world that decides to elect their judges." What began as "a populist impulse" about 100 years ago, "when folks were trying to break up big machine politics, trying to attack corruption," has now become a nightmare in the post-Citizens United age.
Judicial elections "which typically used to be pretty low-key affairs" are now being "targeted by politicians, legislators, or special interest groups that are hoping to shape the bench [or] targeted as sort of a referenda on big decisions that the court has heard or, more often, just opportunities for partisan groups to try and make political plays with these courts."
"It's deeply concerning," Greytak tells me. "Our data from this cycle found that about a third of all contributions to state Supreme Court judicial candidates came from lawyers and lobbyists. Another third came from business interests which, of course, are going to have cases that come in front of these courts, or have interests that come in front of these courts."
"When judges have to run for office, the folks who are closest to the courts, who know what's at stake, are often the lawyers and lobbyists who operate in them," he says. "So they turn and rely on the lawyers and lobbyists as a funding system. It becomes a reproducing cycle of conflicts of interests and this is what judicial elections has left us with."
With mostly Republican, but also Democratic groups spending millions in these races and using them as political bludgeons, jurists become vulnerable to offering rulings based on partisan interests rather than the rule of law. As discussed on today's program, what is happening in the state of Wisconsin right now has become a fantastic example of how judicial elections have become disastrous for those of us who believe in good government.
Finally today, big news in our latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen, as a hurricane heads to Yemen (of all places) and the Keystone XL pipeline is finally dead...for now anyway...thanks in no small part to unrelenting citizen activists and organizers who stood up to the most powerful corporate interests in the history of civilization!...
Download MP3 or listen to complete show online below...
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hours after Amtrak crash, Republicans vote to cut Amtrak's budget; FBI violated its own rules to spy on Keystone XL pipeline protesters; Hawaii votes to be first in the nation to reach 100% renewable energy; PLUS: It's our 600th episode! ... 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 arguments that convinced a libertarian to support aggressive action on climate; US taxpayers subsidizing world's biggest fossil fuel companies; Vampire power costs Americans $19 billion in electricity every year; French nuclear model falters; Depleted uranium in Utah Desert? What could possibly go wrong? ... PLUS: Could climate change help you go gluten free?... and much, MUCH more! ...
I'm joined today on The BradCast by VICE News' investigative journalist Jason Leopold to discuss the exclusive documents he obtained concerning the drugging of detainees during interrogations after 9/11. Also, Leopold, who has spent quite a bit of time lately as a reporter at Guantanamo Bay, discusses why President Obama may suddenly be in a hurry to keep his promise to shut down the controversial facility.
Also, after defending Jeb Bush on his Iraq comments on yesterday's show, I'm forced to offer a retraction today in light of Jeb's second attempt to answer the same question. It is clear that he's at least as dumb as his brother, and certainly too dumb to be President of these United States.
Finally, millions of dollars in campaign contributions are flowing to elected officials from fossil fuel interests in exchange for billions in tax-payer funded subsides, reports The Guardian --- Plus, the story of the Iowa farmer who claims an oil executive offered him a 'teenage prostitute' in exchange for giving up his land to a new Bakken Shale oil pipeline...
While we post 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!
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Virginia has decided to learn what much of the country already knows. The 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems they have long been using in their public elections are also 100% hackable.
After ignoring the warnings and using them anyway for more than a decade --- and three Presidential elections --- a recent incident on Election Day in 2014 led the Commonwealth to finally do what they should have and could have done long ago: test the machines to find out how vulnerable they actually are.
Well, they finally did so and --- boy howdy! --- did they discover what the rest of us have been warning about for years.
There is a reason, after all, that Virginia was the last state in the union to continue using the WINVote system made by the ironically named Advanced Voting Solutions (AVS). And there is a reason why, after finally bothering to test them, Virginia has now immediately decertified one-fifth of the voting systems used across the state, even though it will leave some jurisdictions scrambling for new ways to hold their primary elections scheduled for early June.
We've been noting problems with the WINVote system almost as long as The BRAD BLOG has been in existence. One example is our short report from 2007, when we discussed problems with the AVS systems before the company eventually went out of business entirely and after the WINVote system had been decertified by Pennsylvania when the company refused to pay the federal testing lab examining a newer version of the system for federal certification. Before those tests were discontinued at the time, we reported, the lab had "found 1,946 source code anomalies, 25 serious documentation problems, and an unauthorized change of motherboards."
As we wrote in 2007, "Elections officials want to ignore those problems." The elections officials in Virginia were precisely among those we were talking about.
But, no more. Once VA officials finally decided to do their own long-overdue security analysis of the systems, "Security deficiencies were identified in multiple areas, including physical controls, network access, operating system controls, data protection, and the voting tally process," according to the 6-page report [PDF] released by the Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) this week.
"The combination of critical vulnerabilities in these areas, along with the ability to remotely modify votes discretely, is considered to present a significant risk. This heightened level of risk has led VITA security staff to conclude that [a] malicious third party could be able to alter votes on these devices," they wrote, adding tersely: "These machines should not remain in service."
The details of the Commonwealth's findings (now that they've looked for them) are so mind-blowingly startling that some Virginia localities who are losing their voting systems are now perfectly happy with the idea that they may have to --- gasp! --- hand count paper ballots in their upcoming elections...
IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. pipelines now rupturing faster than we can keep track of them; So, U.S. Senate passes Keystone XL bill with Dem help; Obama's India trip a boost for US nuclear industry; IMF calls for end to fossil fuel subsidies; PLUS: Some good news: fracking banned in Scotland, and great 'Fox News' for a 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): It's not too late to stop climate change, and it'll be super-cheap; Americans are out of step with science on pretty much everything; Climate models don't over-predict warming; Big Utilties' 'Kodak Moment': a phase-change builds; Air pollution plunges in AL; Feds open waters to largest offshore wind farm; EPA sued over industrial livestock pollution... PLUS: Oceans on the verge of a 'mass bleaching event'... and much, MUCH more! ...
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About Brad Friedman...
Brad is an independent investigative
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and a Commonweal Institute Fellow.