Fighting to keep our eyes on stuff that matters, on today's BradCast we cover several new concerns for voters in upcoming Presidential primary elections in WI, NY and D.C., as well as some surprising new poll numbers, before moving on to the most important story of our time. [Audio link to complete show at bottom of article.]

Climate scientist and author Dr. Michael E. Mann joins us to discuss, among other related matters, the new temperature records that have stunned even folks like him, as new data was released this month on an increase in global heat that scientists are describing as "staggering", "astronomical" and like "something out of a sci-fi movie".

Professor Mann, who heads up the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, tells me that, with this year's El Nià±o event finally subsiding, scientists had expected global temperatures to decline along with it. "But, instead, the February numbers came in and not only did we not see a cooling off, we saw unprecedented warmth. It was the largest departure from the average for a given month that we've ever seen."

"What was so surprising was just the magnitude of that warmth, basically taking us now into the territory of more than 2 degrees Celsius warming," years earlier than expected, he says, referencing the amount of warming that scientists, worldwide, believe to be a threshold for dangerous and potentially irreversible impacts on humanity and our climate systems. "We're still on track for the globe to exceed that permanently in a matter of decades. What we didn't expect was that we'd actually cross that threshold so soon."

The creator of the infamous "hockey stick graph", and author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines explains the new "warning sign" represented by the latest data which, he says, looks like "maybe we accidentally took a temperature from February 2030 from a climate model simulation."

Mann goes on to explain the details of another stunning new report finding that the amount of carbon now being introduced by man into the atmosphere by no parallel on Earth, even going back 66 million years when the planet was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than it is now. That was due to a still-unexplained yet massive carbon release of about 1 billion tons each year for some 4,000 years, resulting in 100,000 years of warming. Now, however, humans are emitting about 10 billion tons of carbon annually and changing the planet much more quickly than during that Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (or PETM) period some 56 million years ago.

"You can think about it as a medical experiment," says Mann, "where a dose was given to a set of patients, and that dose led to near-death. The biosphere nearly died in the sense that we had mass extinctions during the PETM. That was for a dose of one unit. What we're doing now is we're giving the patient ten times that dose. And to expect that we're not going to see similarly bad things happen as a result would be foolhardy. We are literally hitting the system harder than Nature, to our knowledge, has ever hit it."

The good professor, who has long been personally targeted by the Rightwing climate denialist industry also offers a few thoughts on the "bad faith" arguments on climate change by the Koch Brothers and the various Republican Presidential candidates, as well as the corporate mainstream media's (lack of) coverage of this existential threat. And, I'm happy to add, he also shares "a little bit of good news" along with all of this, including details of some tentative new studies suggesting our ability to overcome the looming disasters may not be "as bleak as we once thought."

So there's that, before we finish up today's show with some rather encouraging news about electric cars that might just help a bit with all of the above...

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On today's BradCast, in the wake of the disgraceful voter suppression that took place last week in AZ (and, before that, in IL, MO, NC, FL, etc. so far this cycle), we detail, among other things, the disasters that await voters next week during the crucial Dem and GOP primaries in Scott Walker's WI.

Despite being found illegal and/or unconstitutional by three different courts, the Badger State's new Photo ID voting restriction, instituted by state Republicans, will be in place next week for the first time during a major election. The law, determined by a federal court to imperil the otherwise legal votes of some 300,000 already-registered voters, will be implemented nonetheless, thanks to a factually-inaccurate ruling by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2014.

That, despite the federal judge who found it "absolutely clear," based on evidence and expert testimony during the lengthy trial he oversaw, that Wisconsin's Photo ID voting restriction will "prevent more legitimate votes from being cast than fraudulent votes." And, also, despite the lack of required notice the state has given to voters concerning the disenfranchising new restriction on voting rights.

So, buckle up for that fun and for remaining primary disasters in other states where too many registered voters are waiting until Election Day to be surprised by changed voting rules, long lines and mysteriously changed party registrations. (Yes, talking to you, NY and CA voters, among many others!)

We also get some more information on the mystery concerning all of those delegates Bernie Sanders was supposed to have won last week in WA and hear about the harrowing tale of the 82-year old African-American plaintiff challenging NC's Photo ID voting restriction.

Finally, we take a ton of listener calls today, for a happy change, on all of the above and much more in another very lively BradCast!...

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I'm back today on The BradCast, after Nicole Sandler of RadioOrNot.com filled in for a few days! (Thanks, Nicki!!!) And while little has changed in the GOP race for the White House since I've been gone, it was a very big weekend for Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side, even if the mainstream corporate media continues to disregard his campaign. [Audio link for the complete show is at bottom of article.]

Then, I'm joined by constitutional law expert Ian Millhiser, author of Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted, to explain today's stunning ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of public sector unions. The decision in Friedrich v. California Teachers Association is a major turnaround from what had been the expected outcome earlier this year when we spoke to Millhiser in January just after oral argument in what had been regarded as "the biggest legal attack on unions in decades".

Thanks, however, to a 4 to 4 deadlock on the Court, in the wake of the recent death of Rightwing activist Justice Antonin Scalia, today's ruling is the opposite of what had been previously expected and "one of the first consequences" of his death, says Millhiser. "Scalia was probably going to be the fifth vote to do some serious violence to the way that public sector unions are funded," he explains, while detailing why today's ruling is very good news for both Democrats and democracy itself in the wake of what had been "potentially an existential threat to unions."

"What this decision does mean is that if someone wants to undermine unions, they don't get to take a shortcut. They don't get to go to five Justices and get the Justices to put in place the laws they want for them," Millhiser tells me.

He also decodes the Court's somewhat "baffling" order today concerning a challenge by religious activists to the 'ObamaCare' contraception mandate, as well as the latest status of the GOP's seemingly self-defeating obstruction of President Obama's nomination to replace Scalia.

Finally, we've found something that both Republican and Democratic voters agree on! What happened last week to voters in Phoenix --- many of whom had to wait up to 5 hours to cast a vote (and some of them were the lucky ones!) --- was an outrage across the board, and we've got just some of the outraged voter testimony from the AZ state legislature on Monday to prove it!...

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On today's BradCast, guest host Nicole Sandler of Radio Or Not chats with Ari Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, who explains that many of the problems voters experienced Tuesday in Arizona are traced directly back to the Supreme Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act. He wrote about that at The Nation.

Of course, he didn't absolve Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell for her decision to reduce the number of polling places from 211 to 60.

That action and the chaos that ensued prompted attorney Adrian Fontes to challenge her for that position, which happens to be up for election in November. Mr. Fontes tells us about his decision in his first interview as a candidate. Elections do have consequences.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

Once again, voters headed to the polls and caucuses on Tuesday. This time in AZ, UT and ID. So, as you may have guessed, on today's BradCast we cover all of the reported results, historic turnouts and, yes, all of the problems faced once again by voters --- particularly in Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ.

While Bernie Sanders won the night on the D side (not that the corporate media much mentioned that) and Trump, once again, won the R side, the biggest story was how election officials, yet again, failed the voters.

In Phoenix, longtime Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell (R), massively reduced the number of polling places from 211 in 2012 to just 60. She was able to do so after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Prior to that, she would have had to get approval from the federal government for such a change before thousands were inconvenienced and/or disenfranchised by it. The result was thousands of voters waiting in line --- for up to five hours in some places --- with the last votes finally cast after midnight on Wednesday.

On today's show, we call out the folks responsible (the ones we know of, at this time), call for an official investigation, and even call out those folks (talking to you, many Bernie supporters!) shouting "VOTER FRAUD!", when your concerns are actually election fraud or voter suppression. (Please leave the voters alone! They are doing fine and performed heroically on Tuesday! But I have much more to say about that, and about falsely charging people with fraud without evidence in support of those charges, on today's show.)

Also today, more disturbing details about the insane, 100% unverifiable and hackable "online caucus" experiment that the UT GOP subjected its voters to. (Here's the details on that spoof website of the UT GOP's Internet Voting scheme that I referenced on today's show.)

Also: Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report and I (barely) fit in a call or two and much more on today's BradCast!

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P.S. I'll be on the road for a few days with Nicole Sandler of RadioOrNot.com guest-hosting for me while I'm gone! Be nice until I'm back!!!

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I spoke earlier on today's BradCast, in some detail, about the idiocy of the Utah Republican Party deciding to use an easily-hacked Internet Voting scheme as part of their Presidential caucuses tonight, despite years of virtually every world-class computer science and security expert warning against it in no uncertain terms.

But, just to underscore the idiocy of Utah GOP chairman James Evans' decision to blow tens of thousands of dollars on this horrible idea, here's a screenshot of the portal where Republican voters in the state who signed up to participate in the "online caucus" are supposed to cast their vote...

https://ivotingcenter.us

And now here's a completely fake version of that page, as created by some of the same white hat computer scientists who, years ago, hacked a D.C. Internet Voting scheme within hours (and found Iranian and Chinese hackers inside of it at the same time)...

https://ivotingcenter.gop

Can you tell the difference? Would a GOP voter in Utah? (And, if they did, would they notice the fake before or after they threw their "vote" away by casting it at a phony site?) Go ahead to the fake one --- it's not dangerous --- and fill in one of the fields!

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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I'm joined on today's BradCast by Adams County, IL State's Attorney Jon Barnard to discuss the extraordinary court order [PDF] issued just last night to mandate the county allow voters turned away from the polls last Tuesday, due to ballot shortages, to cast a "late vote" in that election Monday through Friday of next week. [Audio link to the complete show is at the end of this article.]

I've never seen a court-ordered remedy like it and, apparently, neither have any of the experts I spoke to. That's for good reason: this may be a national precedent, certainly one in the state of Illinois. It's also one that, as I learned from Barnard --- who was just out of another court hearing on this matter today --- the Illinois state Attorney General is now moving to block.

As I noted (okay, ranted about) on Wednesday's program, an untold number of voters were unable to cast a vote at all across precincts in Adams (Quincy) and other counties around the state on Tuesday, thanks to local election officials underestimating the number of paper ballots that would be needed, despite huge voter turnout elsewhere around the country during this Presidential Primary season so far.

"People couldn't vote because of, essentially, a government failure," Barnard charges. "They have the right to vote. It needs to be restored. It needs to be protected."

He explained how he came up with the idea for this extraordinary remedy after an estimated 3,400 voters were turned away on Tuesday, and why he believes it's so important. "Yes, it is unprecedented, at least to my knowledge, that someone has sought this remedy," he says. "But you know what, Brad? In a situation like this, we've got to do something. And there's got to be a first time. It might as well be here, it might as well be now. This is an emergency. It's not an exaggeration to say that we ask people to die to protect this right. I don't think it's going too far or doing too much that we have instituted an emergency measure with sufficient safeguards to restore that right to people who have been denied that right. When we ask people, quite literally, to dive on grenades so that we can have this right, I'm going to do everything I think we ought to do to protect that right. And if this is the first time, then so be it."

The County's long-time Republican prosecutor describes the safeguards that will be implemented --- including an affidavit that voters must sign under penalty of perjury, attesting that they had attempted but were unable to vote on Tuesday, due to the shortages --- which he believes are "more than sufficient to minimize the opportunity for mischief in the process." He also explains why he "didn't buy" the argument raised in court that allowing voters to vote, after preliminary results have already been announced, would be unfair. That, even in the wake of close elections in the state, like the one between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

He offers details of the state AG's current motion to deny the "extended voting" now scheduled to take place next week at the County Clerk's office in the County Courthouse, even while the court order is under appeal. (The "late ballots," he says, will be segregated from the others in the event that another court orders they not be included in the final certified results.)

"The lessons that the County Clerk has and may learn in the future, as a result of this, are painful and real," Barnard tells me as I ask him about the "money-saving" decision to lowball the number of ballots that were originally printed. "But, I think we have to keep our eye on the ball. What we're attempting to deal with here is a problem of monumental proportions, going right to heart of our system, right to the heart of our democracy. Look, if I'm wrong about this, if the procedure we have established to restore those rights to these voters is flawed and some appellate court tells me so, so be it. But I'd rather be wrong about the process while attempting to restore the right to vote than do nothing"

Also, midway through today's program, I received comment via email from Adams County Clerk Chuck Venvertloh, with answers to my queries sent earlier about why precinct judges weren't simply instructed to photocopy blank ballots immediately so that people would not have been turned away at all. Venvertloh was responsible for the decision to print ballots for just 27% of eligible voters, despite the state statute requiring 110% at each precinct. He is hardly the only County Clerk in the state to ignore the rarely-enforced requirement due to cost-cutting reasons. Venvertloh also offers an answer to my query about why he is choosing to "remake" the 1,162 ballots that were cast on photocopies, onto actual ballots --- so that they can be run through the county's computer optical-scanner --- rather than simply counting them by hand, which is an issue that Barnard also responds to (and joins me in taking offense) during the interview.

For those who don't bother to listen to the full show (and you really should!), allow me to note here that I don't believe Venvertloh was attempting anything nefarious in his decisions. But they were costly ones for voters, should never have occurred, and he should have had better procedures in place in the event that they failed. It's difficult enough to get voters to the polls. Yes, mistakes happen. But turning voters away or forcing them to wait in line for hours (as also happened elsewhere in the state on Tuesday, as it did in NC, FL and other states this cycle and in the past) needs to stop. It's outrageous and completely predictable by now.

Also on today's program: Some encouraging electoral justice news from last Tuesday's elections in both Chicago and Cleveland; Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report; and some listener mail in response to a number of stories we've been covering on The BradCast over the past week. Please buckle up and listen responsibly!...

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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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On today's BradCast, we catch up on a lot that we didn't get to cover from last week (while covering all three Presidential debates and one Election Day) and from this past weekend, as the violence at Trump rallies --- and his willingness to blatantly lie about it --- has quickly devolved from bad to worse.

First up, we focus on three specific events at recent Trump rallies (in IL, OH and NC) and the fact that the GOP front-runner --- accurately described by Bernie Sanders as a "pathological liar" and by Hillary Clinton as a "political arsonist" this weekend --- is not only inciting violence, but also attempted to smear American protesters and Sanders supporters as Nazis and members of ISIS, even while offering to pay the legal fees for his own (actually) violent supporters.

Where all of this seems to be heading is now very dark indeed, as we make clear on today's program.

Then, we catch up on some of the primary and caucus results elections from over the weekend (yes, there were a few --- Were the results affected by the increasing ugliness of the Trump campaign?), in advance of tomorrow's "Super Duper Tuesday" primary elections in OH, IL, MO, NC and FL. And we also detail additional concerns about recent MI results and new details on inaccurate e-voting results reported from MA, where Jim Gilmore(!) was, for a short time, announced as the winner of the Super Tuesday Republican Primary election in the City of Chelsea. (The newest explanation for that error, by the way, may be even more disturbing than the original one issued by the city, as it becomes clear that the very same thing could happen anyplace where votes are tallied by optical-scan computers, but be much more difficult to notice.)

Also today, voting rights news out of both OH (where we have some very good news) and TX (where we have some very troubling news) from the courts.

And finally, as promised last week, Desi Doyen offers some thoughts on the latest round of Republican climate change denial offered at last week's GOP debate by Florida's U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate Marco Rubio, whose own constituents are begging him to take action on rising sea levels already impacting South Florida communities.

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Wednesday night was the final Democratic debate before next Tuesday's crucial Election Day in OH, IL, MO, NC and FL, when almost 700 delegates will be up for grabs. It was also the final debate scheduled at all, at this point, between the two Democratic Presidential hopefuls.

Today on The BradCast [audio linked in full below], we analyze, debunk and critique last night's face-off sponsored by Univision and Washington Post in Miami, Florida, between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, with my guests journalist Joshua Holland of The Nation and "Politics and Reality Radio" and Jacki Schechner, health care reform advocate and journalist, formerly of CNN and CurrentTV.

We cover the political and policy substance --- and lack thereof --- from both candidates and media alike, in the debate focused on immigration and on the heels of Sanders' surprise victory over Clinton in MI the night before. While there was some dirty pool at the debate, as we discuss, there was also Climate Change making what might be its first ever real appearance during any Presidential debate.

So, tune in for all the good, bad and ugly (including our fulfillment of our FCC requirement to mention the name "Donald Trump" at least once every 15 minutes), on today's very lively BradCast!...

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On today's BradCast, we are live from Pacifica Radio's KPFK studios in Los Angeles, for coverage of last night's amazing nominating contests in MS, ID, HI and, mostly, MI, where Bernie Sanders reportedly overcame a 20pt deficit, according to the pre-election polls, to defeat Hillary Clinton.

Of course, Donald Trump wiped out his GOP competition again almost everywhere (including in Michigan, where there was no polling disparity on the GOP side), leaving Ted Cruz as his only real challenger as John Kasich and, especially, Marco Rubio, fade into near-certain oblivion.

So, how did Sanders' remarkable "win" in MI come about? What does it bode for next Tuesday's big primaries in neighboring (similarly industrial and neighboring) states? Should his supporters worry about reports of "irregularities" already in Chicago? How is it that Sanders ended up losing the delegate count (the real one, not the fake "SuperDelegate" count) anyway yesterday to Clinton? And will the mainstream corporate media continue to ill-inform voters by blatantly misreporting the race?

Also today: Democrats also won three special elections in KY yesterday to maintain control of that state's legislature, and we open the phone line to listener callers to ring in on all of the above and much more today, before Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on another very busy and very lively BradCast!

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On today's BradCast [full audio linked below], Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz defied 'conventional wisdom' to win more delegates than front-runners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in their respective parties over "Super Saturday" weekend; Louisiana's Primary reveals another serious and troubling long-term failure of the U.S. Electoral System; and two Michiganders join us for analysis of Sunday's unprecedented Democratic Debate in Flint, MI, amidst that city's ongoing toxic water crisis caused by the state's Republican Governor.

First up: Did you know that both Sanders and Cruz won more delegates than their opponents in the four different nominating contests held over the weekend? If you watch or read little more than the corporate mainstream media, that might now have been apparent. Did you also know that one of those contests, Louisiana's Primary, forced Election Day voters across the state to vote on 100% unverifiable touch-screen systems that The BRAD BLOG revealed a full ten years ago, each have a little yellow button on the back that allow voters to vote as many times as they wish until physically restrained from doing so?

Though we broke that story exclusively here back in 2006, and they were decertified for use out here in California shortly thereafter, the same flawed and hackable voting machines (Oh, hello, Pac-Man!) are still, shamefully, in use elsewhere around the country. They are being used on Election Day across states like Louisiana and swingstate Nevada, and will be used once again next week in the City of Chicago for the big and crucial Illinois primary on March 15 --- and, of course, in the general election this November.

Then, we're joined by Michiganders Connor Coyne, novelist and father from Flint, and Marcy Wheeler, journalist from Grand Rapids, to discuss the extraordinary debate on Sunday between Sanders and Clinton held by CNN from Flint, MI, as that city continues to battle the lead water crisis caused by Gov. Rick Snyder's implementation of the state's tyrannical 'Emergency Manager' law.

As Coyne, who joined us earlier this year to discuss the national media's failure to adequately focus on the scourge of that law, explains in his reaction to Sunday's Flint debate: "The problems that this city is facing, including the water crisis --- and the water crisis is the most urgent example --- but certainly not limited to it, are beyond the capacity of local leadership to address. We need federal aid in order to stabilize the city."

Says Wheeler: "Even within the state there are increasing numbers of Republicans who admit that, ultimately, this is [Snyder's] screwup. He promised competence, and delivered poison."

Did the debate adequately address the concerns of Flint voters specifically and Michiganders, more broadly, in advance of Tuesday's big Presidential Primary there? Who better addressed the Flint crisis from the perspective of our two Michigan guests? Did Bernie Sanders really "oppose the auto-industry bailout" as Hillary Clinton charged during the debate? And, should voters be concerned about the federal investigation into Clinton's private email servers as both Trump and Sanders' supporters have been charging?

All of those questions and many others are addressed on today's enlightening edition of The BradCast! Enjoy!

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On today's BradCast, more Super Tuesday election results clean up, the GOP in full panic mode, and a political scientists' explanation for Trump's ascendancy. [Audio link to the complete show is below.]

First up, more information on some of the seemingly inexplicable computer-reported election results from Super Tuesday that we discussed in more detail on yesterday's program. The MA city which originally reported Jim Gilmore as "winning" the GOP primary in a landslide has "corrected" results, with little explanation. Though I was able to receive an an explanation from Roanoke County VA's General Registrar who responded to our query about why Bernie Sanders seemed to lose 600 votes in the county on election night, moving him from the "win" to the "loss" column there.

Next up, Mitt Romney's remarkable speech attacking Donald Trump as a "phony" and a "fraud" today, and how it may be as likely to help Trump as hurt him.

Then, my fascinating and even chilling conversation with Jonathan Weiler, author, blogger and UNC Chapel Hill political scientist, on the one trait that academics have recently identified to be most predictive of whether you will be a Trump supporter. It isn't racism, education level or economic concerns, as some might have guessed. It's authoritarianism.

As described in his recent article, "Understanding Trump: It's the Authoritarianism, Stupid" and in his 2009 book with Marc Hetherington, Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics --- published long before the rise of Trump --- authoritarianism, as defined by political scientists, is distinct from both racism and conservatism, even as the ideas can cross over in a number of ways.

Weiler explains how political scientists are able to determine who has such tendencies and who does not, based on survey questions regarding not political matters, but on family and child rearing. He goes on to note that authoritarianism, which had fallen out of favor somewhat in the 20th century, had been prevalent in the Democratic Party as well as the GOP, as recently as 1992.

"In 1992, there was really no difference in terms of the level of authoritarianism of the average Democrat and the average Republican," he tells me. "What's happened over the past quarter century is what a lot of political scientists call a 'sorting process,' where the non-authoritarians have increasingly gravitated from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, and a lot of authoritarians have gravitated from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. In a nutshell, this has been a long complicated process that has played out over 40 years."

Authoritarians, he says, are not "particularly interested in the conservative economic agenda. They [are] not necessarily in favor of smaller government or lower taxes. The pieces of what has become modern conservatism that attracted them are more these kind of 'Us vs. Them' issues" and "Trump has really zeroed in, quite precisely, on what authoritarians care about, and what they don't care about."

While Weiler says he doesn't believe the GOP has been specifically targeting such followers, the gravitation to the Republican Party for authoritarians is the results of the party's specific messages about fear and division over recent decades. "Trump feels like he is the Republican id come to life. In that regard, he is in many ways a kind of logical extension of a dynamic that's been underway for a long time," he explains. "There's a kind of dance that goes on between elites and their followers. Elites come up with these 'Us vs. Them' messages --- these messages that attract authoritarians --- and they cultivate a base. And then that base turns around and says, 'all right, you've got our attention, you've promised to deliver on these issues, and now we expect you to'. So the monster, if you will, that the Republican Party created was in a very strongly authoritarian base that Donald Trump --- whether by instinct or consciously, I don't really know --- he's been the guy who's really taken advantage of that."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report covering, among a bunch of other stuff, the shocking death of a Big Oil CEO on the day after he was indicted on criminal conspiracy charges...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)