On my KPFK show (L.A.'s Pacifica Radio affiliate) today, I was joined by RadioOrNot.com's Nicole Sandler, fresh after her release from the Broward County, FL, Jail earlier today. She was asked to leave the meeting after asking questions about the GOP's attempts to end welfare as we know it.

Nicole, who hosts her own progressive talk radio show and is the regular fill-in guest host for Randi Rhodes, was held overnight (several hours of it in solitary confinement, during which she was maced by guards), after her arrest at a Fort Lauderdale town hall event held last night by freshman "Tea Party" Republican Rep. Allen West (FL-22). Though she is a constituent of the insane Congressman, she was not allowed to ask questions, as West decided last night that he would take only pre-selected written questions. That, after town hall events have been turning into embarrassments for the GOP over the past week as they've faced questions from constituents angry about their recent vote to make drastic changes to Medicare by replacing the popular single-payer health care system with a voucher program.

We covered the whole sordid affair earlier this morning in detail, including videos of the arrest, etc., as Nicole, my friend and colleague, was unreachable (still in jail) and her whereabouts were still unknown.

In the time since our article concluded with a statement from her after she'd been released and I was finally able to speak to her by phone, and prior to my live KPFK interview with her, RAW STORY obtained and published the probable cause document filed by police along with her arrest.

In the report, the arresting officer claims Nicole became "physically aggressive with this ofc., pushing me several times." The video footage we posted earlier today reveals no such physical aggression or pushing. During our interview, Nicole denied any such aggressiveness on her part, either during the arrest or in jail prior to her being maced by a Broward County jail guard.

The show also includes a quick update at the top on the WI Supreme Court election "recount" which finally got under way across the Badger State earlier today.

Download MP3 or listen online below [appx 28 mins]...

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Article Categories: Florida, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Wisconsin, Journalist Intimidation, Accountability, Allen West, KPFK, WI Supreme Court Election, BradCast

On my KPFK/Pacifica show today (which we may be calling "The BradCast" thanks to suggestions here, but still open to others!), we covered the breaking news out of Wisconsin today, naturally. Asst. AG JoAnne Kloppenburg's unflinching announcement that she would be filing for a statewide "recount" in her state Supreme Court election against the incumbent Justice David Prosser, happened in a press conference just prior to air time. So we had to scramble, but think we covered things well (given what we have to work with over here.)

One of my guests was WI's former union organizer, former state planner and former elected official Leslie "Buzz" Davis, a Kloppenburg supporter who spent some 20 minutes with her at her home last night, after she'd invited him in to chat when he went there to deliver 1000 signatures on a petition asking her to recount the state.

I was also joined by Sarah Manski of WisconsinWave.org who, with her group and her husband Ben (who I worked with years ago during another recount, when he worked for the campaign of Green Party Presidential candidate David Cobb in 2004), is raising funds to support Kloppenburg's efforts.

Again, our written coverage of today's breaking news is here. Our audio coverage for KPFK follows below...

Download MP3 or listen online below [appx 28 mins]...

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Article Categories: Election Irregularities, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Wisconsin, Election 2011, KPFK, WI Supreme Court Election, BradCast

My show on KPFK/Pacifica today follows below. We featured a quick word on Obama's fiscal speech today at George Washington University; quick updates on both the Fukushima nuclear crisis (with the lovely Desi Doyen) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plot to use tools developed for the "War on Terror" against progressives (including me and my family!)

The main segment is detailed coverage of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election debacle, including some fresh news with my guest John Washburn of Fair Elections Wisconsin, himself a Justice David Prosser voter, a self-described "Ron Paul Republican" and someone who has even spoken on behalf of the hapless Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus in the past.

Even Washburn, as you'll hear, is unable to explain the holes in Nickolaus' explanation for the reason she failed to report 14,000+ votes from the city of Brookfield on Election Night, and for a number of newly discovered anomalies from previous elections in her county. (Though, since air time, we've finally been contacted by Nickolaus, and may soon have an explanation for some of those new anomalies as discussed during today's show.)

Download MP3, or listen online below [appx. 28 mins]...

P.S. We're still trying to decide on a name for my weekly, half-hour KPFK show (Wednesday's at 3:30pm PT). "The BradCast" has been suggested by a number of folks, and it's not bad. Whaddaya think? Got any other ideas? Still open, pondering...

P.P.S. Here's the podcast RSS feed for the KPFK show each week, in case you'd like to subscribe (for free) and get notifications or downloads of new archives often sooner than I'm sometimes able to post them here!

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Article Categories: Election Irregularities, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Wisconsin, Accountability, Environment, Barack Obama, Election 2011, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Japan, Hank Johnson, KPFK, WI Supreme Court Election, BradCast

I was so busy this week, I failed to post my Wednesday show on KPFK/Pacifica Radio here in Los Angeles. This week, I covered the latest news in the revelations about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plot to use tools developed for the "War on Terror" to target progressive organizations, citizens and journalists (including yours truly and my family) here in the U.S., with an attempted smear campaign to discredit by planting fraudulent documents, infiltrating with "fake personas" via social media, and employing cyber-snooping tactics against the Chamber's perceived political enemies.

The show includes parts of my interview from Monday's Mike Malloy Show with Congressman Hank Johnson (D, GA-4) who is leading an effort in Congress to try and bring some accountability to the conspirators in the proposed $12 million plot hatched for the U.S. Chamber, the world's most powerful Rightwing lobbying group, their law firm Hunton & Williams, one of the nation's largest and most powerful, and three U.S. government contracted cyber-security, intelligence and data firms, HBGary Federal, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies.

MP3 Download, or listen online below [appx 28 mins...]

P.S. Still looking for a name for this weekly Wednesday, half-hour, usually-live show heard at 3:30pm PT each week on air in Southern California and around the world via KPFK.org. Got any suggestions?

P.P.S. Here's the podcast RSS feed for the Wednesday KPFK show, in case you wish to subscribe (for free) and get notified about new archives sooner than I'm sometimes able to do here!

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Article Categories: BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Accountability, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Hank Johnson, KPFK, BradCast

Today on my Wednesday show on KPFK (L.A.'s Pacifica Radio affiliate) we covered - guess what?! --- the latest news on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Desi Doyen, my partner on the Green News Report, joins me for the latest.

Also, a very few minutes (never enough time on a 30 minute show --- have to figure out how to do these!) on Diebold's touch-screen machines now being sold for pennies on the dollar at eBay, just in time for 2012, and a bit on the latest Republican voter fraud criminal, potential 2012 Presidential contender Jon Huntsman, Jr. of Utah.

MP3 Download or listen online below [appx 28 mins]...

P.S. I should probably come up with a name for this show. Anybody have any good ideas?

P.P.S. It's no April Fools Joke! I'll be guest-hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show again for a week starting this Friday, weeknights through next Friday (4/1 - 4/8). We'll be running our live chat rooms right here each night while the show is live from 6pm - 9pm PT (9pm - Mid ET), so please stop on by and say hey!. We'll also have links to live listening streams right here if you're not lucky enough to get Mike's show on the public airwaves where you live! Don't miss one thrilling episode!

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Environment, Mike Malloy, Japan, KPFK, BradCast

Today on my show on KPFK (L.A.'s Pacifica Radio affiliate), we covered the latest news out of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, recent setbacks, and the reports of radioactive iodine at dangerous levels to infants now discovered in Tokyo.

We followed on The BRAD BLOG's earlier report today, updated with new details from Desi Doyen in studio, and then live from Tokyo in an interview with Voice of America's VOA News' Northeast Asia Bureau Chief, Steve Herman.

Herman, who has been reporting from the Fukushima prefecture and in Tokyo since the March 11 quake and tsunami, brings us up to date with the latest on Friday morning in Japan: including news on "panic" buying of water in Tokyo; reports of "neutron beams" --- yes, "neutron beams" --- seen near the crippled power plant, as indications that nuclear fission may be occurring within the damaged fuel rods at one or more of the reactors; the often slow, sometimes contradictory information being given by the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), and whether it is to be trusted; and the way Japanese citizens from Fukushima to Tokyo are handling all of the "fallout" in the wake of this extraordinary, and ongoing disaster.

MP3 Download, or listen online below... [appx 27 mins]...

NOTE: If you missed my KPFK interview last week with BBC journalist Greg Palast on TEPCO's plan to build two new nuclear reactors on the Gulf Coast of Texas, it's right here...

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Article Categories: BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Environment, Japan, KPFK, BradCast

The first photos of the so-called "Fukushima Fift,y, the "anonymous band of lower and mid-level managers" (as described by the Daily Mail today in their photo essay) who stayed at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant last week, as the rest of the workers were evacuated when radiation had reached record levels there, have now been published by AP.

"Despite sweltering heat from the damaged reactors, they must work in protective bodysuits to protect their skin from the poisonous radioactive particles that fill the air around them," the Daily Mail writes, in its heartbreaking piece, "But as more radiation seeps into the atmosphere minute by minute, they know this job will be their last."

Workers were again evacuated from the Fukushima reactors 3 and 4 late on Thursday (late Wednesday US time), after black smoke once again began to emanate from Unit 3, where a dangerous mix of both uranium and plutonium fuel the reactor, as well as sit in largely unprotected spent fuel ponds in the same damaged building. The roof and walls were blown off of Unit 3 last week after venting of radioactive steam in the reactor led to a hydrogen explosion.

News reports today say that the black smoke, the cause of which is still unknown, has dissipated a bit at Unit 3, and this quick summary of the reactors' status at Fukushima (March 23, 20:00 UTC) from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) --- which has not always been as up to date as some of the actual news sources on the ground --- suggests workers have now returned to the plant.

"Crews continued today to use a concrete pump truck to deliver high volumes of water into the Unit 4 spent fuel pool, where there are concerns of inadequate water coverage over the fuel assemblies," according to the IAEA.

The biggest news last night was the announcement by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government that radioactive iodine levels in the city's municipal tap water has now increased to levels that are no longer safe for infants. That, according to VOA News' Steve Herman latest report (as well as other sources in Tokyo), has led to a "panic" and a run on bottled water at stores, many of which have now run out entirely.

As Herman reports:

Beyond that, despite those setbacks at this hour, the status at the Fukushima Daiichi plant seems to be largely in the same place as it was during our previous update yesterday, as lights are slowly coming back on at the various units now that power has been restored to all of them from the grid. But pumping and cooling equipment continues to be malfunctioning in all but the 5 and 6 units at the plant, so work continues to pump water in hopes of keeping down temperatures and radiation at Units 1 to 4.

NOTE: We will be interviewing, Voice of America's Northeast Asia Bureau Chief Steve Herman --- who has been in both the Fukushima prefecture and Tokyo over the past 13 days since Japan's 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami --- on the latest news out of Fukushima and Tokyo, later today during our show on Los Angeles' Pacifica Radio affiliate, KPFK 90.7FM at 3:30pm PT (6:30pm ET). You can listen live online at KPFK.org, and we'll try to post the full show later on this evening at The BRAD BLOG.

UPDATE 6:39pm PT: My KPFK interview with Herman, live from Tokyo, including the latest news on: 'Neutron beams', water 'panic', black smoke and the responses from TEPCO, the government and the people of Japan, is now posted here...

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Article Categories: BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Environment, Japan, KPFK, BradCast

I'm now doing a weekly thirty-minute show on Wednesday's at 3:30pm PT on KPFK, Los Angeles' Pacifica Radio affiliate. (Right! Public radio! No commercials! On our public airwaves! Come and get me, O'Keefe!) My first show yesterday was, by necessity, largely coverage of the breaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crisis, but also included a brief interview with Greg Palast, the BBC journalist, my fellow muckraking pal and author of the New York Times best-sellers Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Greg Palast.

Earlier this week, Palast wrote about the Obama-endorsed $4 billion plan to build two new nuclear reactors on the Gulf Coast of Texas by... wait for it ... TEPCO! That's right, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. responsible for the failing systems now at Fukushima Daiichi, as well as a number of local partners.

Palast offers insight from his pre-journalist days "as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations" during the 1980's, and explains how the same "bankrupt, corrupt and criminal companies" who were busted during his work investigating the Shoreham nuclear plant in New York are still in business, and ready to get to work again on nukes in Texas and elsewhere in the U.S.

MP3 Download, or listen online below. [Appx. 27 mins]...

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Article Categories: Greg Palast, Texas, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Environment, Barack Obama, Japan, KPFK, BradCast