On today's BradCast...

California has just passed a bill that would automatically register all eligible citizens whenever they use the DMV or other state agencies. If Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signs "The California New Motor Voter Act" (which mirrors an initiative adopted by Oregon earlier this year), voter registration in the Golden State will become opt-out, rather than opt-in.

With nearly 7 million eligible --- but currently unregistered --- voters in the state, the legislation could be the single largest voter registration initiative in this country in decades! Jonathan Brater, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice's Democracy Program, joins us to discuss the landmark legislation, whether it'll be signed by the Governor, and whether there are legitimate concerns about fraud via automatic universal voter registration.

Also today: As global warming takes a more and more deadly toll each day, Carly Fiorina, the 'moderate, reasonable' 2016 GOP candidate, continues to deny climate change science; listeners call in to ring in on all of the above and much more; and Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report!

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We've got a big BradCast today, with on-the-ground reports from Ferguson, the huge Bernie Sanders rally in Los Angeles and an extended portion of an exclusive interview with Sanders himself.

First, we check in with Cassandra Fairbanks from our affiliate Sputnik News. She's in Ferguson covering the protests of the police killing of Michael Brown one year after his death and the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Fairbanks was, incredibly, arrested yesterday while covering one of the demonstrations as a journalist. "They started arresting everyone," she tells me in detailing the incident. "I said, 'You know I'm press, and [the police officer] was like, 'I don't care, you're going to jail.' It was arrest first, ask questions later."

She also reports that white, militant rightwing protesters, openly carrying semi-automatic weapons in Ferguson, are being left alone by the St. Louis County police while local black protesters are receiving an entirely different treatment for the mere suspicion of being armed.

Then, 'feeling the Bern' in L.A. after 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders drew some 28,000 supporters to the L.A. Memorial Sports Arena out here last night, following only slightly smaller crowds over the weekend in Portland and Seattle where he also faced a small, but intense protest from self-proclaimed members of the Black Lives Matter movement.

We detail how Sanders' campaign appears to have deftly adjusted course in the wake of that and a similar protest in Phoenix last month, but how big questions about his foreign policy positions still linger for many progressives. (Our recent interview with author and peace activist David Swanson on that latter issue is back here.)

Former BradCast associate producer Margot Paez interviews Sanders supporters at the raucus L.A. event on the foreign policy questions, and then Nicole Sandler, of our affiliate RadioOrNot.com, presses Sanders himself on the matter in an exclusive interview!

"If you have an aggressive foreign policy, if you think the United States should have ground troops in the Middle East, if you think we should be engaged in perpetual warfare, well, then you're going to have a larger military budget," Sanders tells Sandler. "Needless to say, that's not my view. I think organizations like ISIS and al Qaeda, very dangerous organizations, have to be combated and have to be defeated. But it can't be the United States alone," he says.

He discusses, if somewhat vaguely, his position on aiding partners in the Middle East and argues that "we can make judicious cuts in military spending without harming our ability to defend ourselves."

All of that and much more, including the latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen on today's BradCast! Please enjoy responsibly!

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While we have, for more than a decade, covered the extreme vulnerabilities of voting machines and electronic tabulators and broken numerous exclusive stories about it on both The BRAD BLOG and The BradCast, my guest on today's show offers a number of additional ways --- some of which had largely never even occurred --- by which bad actors could disrupt U.S. elections.

Michael Gregg, IT security expert and COO of the private, Houston-based computer security firm, Superior Solutions wrote about some of those concerns recently at Huffington Post. He joins me today to discuss several of the ways that U.S. democracy could be disrupted by political hacktivists, election insiders or even foreign entities and how we might not ever even know about it if they did --- thanks to the type of electronic voting systems we now use in all 50 states and the different ways in which the public is now being blocked from overseeing our own elections and election results.

"Attackers could potentially get in and do these things and it would be very hard to prove. The scary part is, by the time any of this is worked out, the election is over with, so it's too late," he tells me. I ask him how elected officials in his home state of Texas --- much of which forces voters to use 100% unverifiable electronic voting systems --- react when he points out these concerns. "We've brought that up multiple times, but that seems to be the powers that be, how they want to do things."

Gregg, who I've never spoken to previously, concludes, as I have, that paper ballots (hand-marked and hand-counted, in my case) are the most secure way to run elections. "I agree with you 100%," he says. "If you have a paper-based system, it's very very hard to attack, it's very much easier to be able to detect those types of things."

As to Internet Voting, well, you'll want to tune in for this computer security professional's opinion on whether or not the Internet can ever be secure enough to use for the most important aspect of our representative democracy.

Also today: New York Times digs deeper still on their inaccurate Hillary Clinton reporting (as we covered in great detail on yesterday's show); Incurious global warming trolls fall, once again, for the old "Earth is cooling" scam; The racist Charleston, SC church shooter pleads "not guilty"; And Shell Oil evades activists to try and begin drilling in the Arctic...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Portland activists suspend from a bridge to stop Arctic drilling; Wildfire season explodes across West; New study finds wildfire season getting much worse around the world; PLUS: The killing of Cecil the Lion ignites a firestorm of controversy... 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): Climate change 'triple threat' increases severe flooding risk in biggest US cities; U.S. Private Sector Vows To Ante Up On Climate Finance; Yet another study finds that reducing carbon emissions saves Americans money; Coal not good for reducing poverty, Oxfam report says; Coal industry gears up for court fight over proposed stream protection rule... PLUS: These national parks got an 'F' for air pollution... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: WI Gov. Scott Walker jumps into the 2016 race - we report on his (predictable) position on climate change; Warmest June on record for the Western United States; Exxon Mobil knew about man-made global warming in 1981 - and then funded climate denial industry for 30 years; PLUS: No, we are not headed into a new 'mini-ice age' - the latest denialist theory debunked... 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): In Pennsylvania city, the poor are paying the price for a bad water deal; Japan is building huge solar power plants that float on water; China: June coal imports fall 34 per cent; Iran Nuclear Deal Is Reached After Long Negotiations; Pipeline Safety in the Congressional Spotlight; Presidential Candidates Say 'No' To Fossil Fuel Funding... PLUS: Australia: Tony Abbot's government pulls the plug on household solar... and much, MUCH more! ...

On this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio, we air, for the first time, the complete EXCLUSIVE audio obtained via public records request from the Atlanta PD, that appears to contradict 'self-defense' claims by U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller following his arrest on domestic battery charges last year after his wife called 911 claiming he was "beating on her".

I also update my report on Fuller with new comment in response from Fuller's attorney, Barry Ragsdale.

Also on this week's show: Breaking news on today's shootings in Tunisia and Phoenix; Questions about Israel's election results; Donald Trump claims he's entering the 2016 GOP Presidential race (Dems celebrate); Oregon institutes Universal Voter Registration; and Desi Doyen joins us to explain the "impending disaster" of Friday's solar eclipse in Europe and, as usual, for the latest Green News Report...

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Oh, look! A glimmer of common sense rationality in an otherwise World of Stupid of late!

As readers know, I'm no fan of Oregon's all Vote-by-Mail elections. (Yes, I understand most of you Oregonians love it. Save your hate mail and/or read this and this and this and this and this.) Nor am I a fan of Washington Post's mostly terrible editorial page. But on this matter, both the state and the paper have it right...

I'm already on the road for the holidays this week, but pulled over long enough for a quick appearance on Thom Hartmann's radio show to update a couple of the late-contested results from the November 4th elections, including Maine's amazing "phantom ballots" mystery and Oregon's GMO labeling Measure 92 "recount"...

(Thanks to Thom for the kind words after I hung up.)

P.S. Without a proper break over the summer this year, and then continuing non-stop since the elections, I must say I'm not nearly an accomplished enough writer to properly describe how fried I am right about now.

As mentioned, I'm on the road and will continue to be until after the New Year. I need to complete some deadlines for articles elsewhere, knock out a few radio shows, and figure out how The BRAD BLOG can survive as we move forward into our 12th(!) year in January. But between now and then, I'm going to try to force myself to take some down time, at least from blogging, if possible, for a few weeks. We'll see if I'm successful. I'm usually not. (I suspect I may, at the very least, be popping up on Twitter. So be sure to follow both @TheBradBlog and @GreenNewsReport there in the meantime if you're not already.)

So, while there may be a few things rolling here, if things are quieter than usual for a while, all of that would be why...

Proponents of Oregon's Measure 92, a GMO labeling initiative, are conceding defeat in what had become the most expensive ballot campaign in state history. The proponents from RightToKnow.org were unsuccessful in their lawsuit this week arguing that some 4,600 ballots were illegally left uncounted and should be included in the final tally from the razor-thin November 4th contest.

"Oregonians will never know the true outcome of this election," Paige Richardson, Campaign Director for Yes on 92 said, after a judge rejected the group's attempt to block final certification of the automatic statewide "recount" that followed the extraordinarily close computer-tallied results of the contest.

A hand-count of some 1.5 million hand-marked Vote-by-Mail (VBM) paper ballots cast and previously tallied only by optical-scan computers was triggered after the initially certified margin of defeat for the initiative was just 812 votes, or .02 percent, or just 812 votes. State law requires hand counts for elections with an initial margin of less than .5 percent.

Some 13,000 ballots across Oregon --- which holds its elections only by mail-in ballot --- were rejected and never counted due to signatures on the ballot envelopes judged by election officials to not match those on voter registration cards on file. Voters with signature problems on their ballots are sent a letter to notify them, allowing them two weeks to contact officials to confirm that they were the one to have cast the ballot in question.

Additionally, a new state law requires the Sec. of State to publicly release the names of such voters. That allowed proponents to try and contact those voters to urge them to cure their signature problems with county election officials. 8,600 voters responded and ultimately had their ballots included in the tally, while 4,600 did not. Those 4,600 rejected ballots, more than enough to potentially flip the final results of the election, were left uncounted...

[Update: An 'emergency lawsuit' has now been filed by proponents. See details at bottom of this article.]

A statewide hand-count of millions of hand-marked paper ballots is currently underway in Oregon, as proponents of a GMO-related ballot initiative hope to overcome the computer-tallied margin of less than one-fifth of one percent, as reported by the state following the November 4th election.

But proponents of the measure are expressing concern about the process of the count, including corporate interference and thousands of votes that have been excluded, due to questions about signatures on mail-in ballots.

We recently detailed how the "Yes on Measure 92" campaign trailed by just over 800 votes (.02%) out of more than 1.5 million cast, in what has become the most expensive ballot measure battle in Oregon state history. $21 million dollars were reportedly spent to defeat the measure by corporate opponents of the "Right to Know" initiative. Monsanto, DuPont, Kraft, Pepsico and other national food companies had worked to block Measure 92's mandate requiring food sold in the state containing genetically modified products be labeled as such. Proponents reportedly spent just $9 million in support of the initiative.

As the statewide "recount" is now underway (we use quotes around the word to denote that, until now, the paper ballots have never actually been counted by human beings, only by oft-failed, easily-manipulated, sometimes wildly-inaccurate computer optical-scanners), proponents are citing a number of concerns about the way the state is carrying out the hand count, including what they describe as attempted illegal interference by Measure 92's corporate opponents, and the exclusion of thousands of ballots which, proponents believe, are being inappropriately left out of the final count.

While the number of ballots excluded from the tally could be more than enough to reverse the results of the contest, according to proponents, the complaints also serve to underscore a number of serious drawbacks to Oregon's all Vote-by-Mail election system, as well as mail-in voting in other states...

I had hoped to keep this week's Thanksgiving BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio kinda light, cuz, ya know, it's Thanksgiving. St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch didn't make that easy.

Nonetheless, we ended up with a very lively show, covering one helluva election fraud mystery in Maine; some good election news in Oregon; and exclusive information on why Ferguson and St. Louis County ran out of paper ballots on Election Day.

Then, speaking of bad news, it's Thanksgiving week and, yes, the news is lousy, so what is there to be thankful for in the wake of this week's terrible news in Ferguson and all the bad news of late before it? Some great callers come to the rescue!

My thanks to all of you this Thanksgiving which, as a few callers reminded me, isn't nearly as terrible as it seemed before this week's show...

Download MP3 or listen online here...

UPDATE 12/10/2014: MAINE MYSTERY SOLVED! Full details now here...

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The November 4, 2014 elections are not over in several parts of the country. One of those places is Oregon, where progressive candidates and ballot measures were largely successful in bucking the rightward trend of election results produced by much of the rest of the nation. Nonetheless, a GMO-related ballot measure requiring the labeling of genetically modified foods appeared to have failed on Election Night in the wake of a record amount of campaign cash spent by food manufacturers to defeat it.

The measure, however, now appears headed toward a statewide "recount" as the official computer-reported results have greatly narrowed in the weeks following Election Day, with the race now regarded as "too close to call" by some. The "No" margin decreased to less than 1,500 votes as of late last week, after the Yes on 92 campaign was said to have been "reaching out to 13,000 voters whose ballots had signature problems and weren't counted," according to Oregon's KPTV.

[Note: The BRAD BLOG tends to use quotes around the word "recount", since most ballots in the U.S., even hand-marked paper ballots, are never actually counted by human beings in the first place, with most jurisdictions relying only on easily-manipulated and sometimes wildly inaccurate computer tabulators which tally ballots either correctly or incorrectly. Without an actual hand-count by human beings, its impossible to know either way.]

For the first time this year, the state publicly released the names of voters whose ballots had signature problems. That transparency allowed Measure 92's supporters to attempt to notify those voters to request they contact election officials to work out any discrepancies in order to have their ballots tallied.

As of Monday afternoon, numbers posted on the Oregon Sec. of State's results page show the margin having narrowed even further, with just 809 "No" votes outpacing "Yes" votes, out of more than 1.5 million ballots cast across the state. Finalized results are due from all counties by 5pm today...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Another one bites the dust: Oregon denies proposed coal export facility; It's official: July 2014 was the 4th hottest July on record; Fracking industry illegally using diesel fuel, threatening underground water supplies; PLUS: New report finds Republican officials DO accept climate change, they're just too cowardly to admit it publicly... 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): Toxic tale of Annie, Fannie, Mike in Toledo's water crisis; Wind energy prices hit all-time low; Solar boom driving global panel shortage; Breakthrough: spray-on PV solar cells; Food giant Kellogg pledges changes to battle climate change; Ford Motor Co. builds Michigan's largest solar array; Jet stream changes again linked to extreme weather around the world ... PLUS: Science FTW: ‘Cosmos’ wins four Emmys, ‘Years Of Living Dangerously’ wins Top Nonfiction Series ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Republicans attack Obama EPA's proposed CO2 emissions standards... but they were FOR emissions cuts before they were against them; Good news for endangered wolves; PLUS: Los Angeles oil spill exposes gaping hole in pipeline oversight ... 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): Pessimist Ezra Klein's 7 reasons America will fail on climate change; G7 leaders back 2015 climate deal to build on U.S. momentum; Report: faulty blowout preventer, corporate culture at fault in BP oil disaster; Court rejects BP suit to avoid paying federal fines and damages for Gulf spill; Corporate spies infiltrated Australia anti-coal group; CA fracking moratorium voted down by oil-funded legislators; China aims to cap greenhouse gas output soon; Monarch butterfly decline linked to spread of GM crops ... PLUS: Latest 'COSMOS' Episode on Global Warming Turns a 'Denier' into 'Believer' ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Constitutionally conservative victories for equal protection under the law are piling up across the country faster than we can note them here!

Moments ago, the latest victory was announced in Oregon, where a federal judge just found [PDF] the state's ban on marriage equality to be in violation of the 14th Amendment...

Well, that was easy. Marriages are expected to begin in the state "almost immediately".

The final paragraph of District Court Judge Michael J. McShane's opinion was particularly thoughtful...