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Latest Featured Reports | Thursday, March 28, 2024
BRAD BLOG Spring Breaking
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It's Up to You, New York: 'BradCast' 3/21/24
Trump staring down barrel of both civil and criminal accountability in NY; Also: Biden forgives another $6B in student loans; U.S. seeks 'sustained ceasefire' in Gaza; Scientists baffled by spike in record global heat...
'Green News Report' 3/21/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
Biden EPA issues biggest climate regulation in U.S. history; Rio hits 144°F heat index!; Exxon CEO blames YOU for climate change; PLUS: U.N. issues climate change 'red alert'!...
Previous GNRs: 3/19/24 - 3/14/24 - Archives...
'It All Comes Down to Brett and Amy': 'BradCast' 3/20/24
Guest: Slate's Mark Joseph Stern on another stunning week of federal judiciary debacles; Also: Primary results from AZ, FL, IL, KS, OH, CA; Biden EPA's 'biggest climate move yet'...
American 'Bloodbath':
'BradCast' 3/19/24
Trump is promising political violence whether he wins or loses; Also: Navarro goes to prison; Scofflaw MI MAGA attorney arrested; SCOTUS allows TX to override federal law, Constitution; Biden's SOTU success...
'Green News Report' 3/19/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
EPA finally bans all uses of asbestos; Biden unveils billions for rebuilding communities broken by highway construction; Extreme heat in Africa; PLUS: MA coastal town follies...
Previous GNRs: 3/14/24 - 3/12/24 - Archives...
Corporations 'Taking a Bazooka' to NLRB, Hoping to Declare it 'Unconstitutional': 'BradCast' 3/18/24
Guest: Labor journo Steven Greenhouse; Also: Putin's 'election'; Trump can't find $450M...
Sunday 'Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya' Toons
FEATURING: Moses Mike...Trump II Terror...TikTok Truth...and more in our latest collection of the week's most secular toons!...
Schumer Steps Up; Trump Associates Paid Biden 'Bribe' Liar $600k: 'BradCast' 3/14/24
Also: TikTok foolishness; NY hush-money trial delay?; Navarro must go to jail; Trump owes $400k for failed 'Steele Dossier' suit in UK...
'Green News Report' 3/14/24
FL bans heat protections for workers; Methane leaks continue; GOP Project 2025 would ban Paris Agreement; PLUS: CA snowpack is back, but too late for salmon...
After Accountability for Fraud, What's Next for the Corrupt NRA and Gun Safety Reforms?: 'BradCast' 3/13/24
Guest: Brady Center's Kelly Sampson; Also: Biden, Trump clinch; GA judge nixes 6 counts...
How to Media Better and Other Smart Ideas:
'BradCast' 3/12/24
Press quietly resets weeks of misreporting on Biden; Suggestions for NYT; Stephanopoulos v. Mace; Also: Buck quits; RNC 'bloodbath'; WI's MAGA Speaker Recall...
'Green News Report' 3/12/24
Biden touts climate jobs boom at SOTU; Feb. obliterated global temp and ocean heat records; PLUS: Great Barrier Reef hit with yet another 'mass bleaching event'...
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GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...

Criminal GOP Voter Registration Fraud Probe Expanding in VA
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...

DOJ PROBE SOUGHT AFTER VA ARREST
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...

Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...

ALL TOGETHER: ROVE, SPROUL, KOCHS, RNC
His Super-PAC, his voter registration (fraud) firm & their 'Americans for Prosperity' are all based out of same top RNC legal office in Virginia...

LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
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...

'Fired' Sproul Group 'Cloned', Still Working for Republicans in At Least 10 States
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...

FINALLY: FOX ON GOP REG FRAUD SCANDAL
The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...

COLORADO FOLLOWS FLORIDA WITH GOP CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
Repub Sec. of State Gessler ignores expanding GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, rants about evidence-free 'Dem Voter Fraud' at Tea Party event...

CRIMINAL PROBE LAUNCHED INTO GOP VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL IN FL
FL Dept. of Law Enforcement confirms 'enough evidence to warrant full-blown investigation'; Election officials told fraudulent forms 'may become evidence in court'...

Brad Breaks PA Photo ID & GOP Registration Fraud Scandal News on Hartmann TV
Another visit on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture with new news on several developing Election Integrity stories...

CAUGHT ON TAPE: COORDINATED NATIONWIDE GOP VOTER REG SCAM
The GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal reveals insidious nationwide registration scheme to keep Obama supporters from even registering to vote...

CRIMINAL ELECTION FRAUD COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST GOP 'FRAUD' FIRM
Scandal spreads to 11 FL counties, other states; RNC, Romney try to contain damage, split from GOP operative...

RICK SCOTT GETS ROLLED IN GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL
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...

VIDEO: Brad Breaks GOP Reg Fraud Scandal on Hartmann TV
Breaking coverage as the RNC fires their Romney-tied voter registration firm, Strategic Allied Consulting...

RNC FIRES NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION FIRM FOR FRAUD
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...

EXCLUSIVE: Intvw w/ FL Official Who First Discovered GOP Reg Fraud
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...

GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD FOUND IN FL
State GOP fires Romney-tied registration firm after fraudulent forms found in Palm Beach; Firm hired 'at request of RNC' in FL, NC, VA, NV & CO...
The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...


Guest: Mike Liszewski of Drug Policy Alliance; Also: Goodbye, Chris Christie and other encouraging news from the states...
By Brad Friedman on 1/16/2018 5:39pm PT  

On today's BradCast, the consequences of elections, from D.C. on immigration, to VA and NJ on gun safety legislation, and across both D.C. and dozens of states when it comes to marijuana policy under Trump's Attorney General. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

The White House, lawmakers and corporate media continue to squabble today over Donald Trump's racist and reportedly vulgar slur of black majority nations as either "shitholes" or "shithouses" during a bipartisan meeting on immigration last week, even as his Departments of Justice and Homeland Security issued a new and misleading report on terrorism that downplays the far greater threat of domestic attacks by homegrown white Americans, in favor of a focus on foreign-born terrorists.

In the meantime, as the White House and Congress attempt to strike a government spending deal that includes protections for DACA recipients in time to avoid a government shutdown at the end of this week, a changing of the guards in both New Jersey and Virginia following last November's elections is taking place and already reshuffling public policy.

NJ's wildly unpopular Republican Gov. Chris Christie was finally replaced on Tuesday by the new Democratic Governor Phil Murphy, one day after Christie finally signed a law that will ban deadly bumpstock devices, like those used to kill 58 people and wound hundreds of others in minutes in Las Vegas last year, in the Garden State. (To his discredit, he had little choice, as the legislation passed both state chambers with zero votes opposing it.)

At the same time, in VA, where Republicans managed to barely hang on to majorities in the state legislature, thanks to some gaming of several House races and of legislative district maps across the state (allowing them to retain control despite losing statewide by a 55% to 45% margin), the GOP's majority control in the state Senate resulted in the gutting of most of the gun safety agenda on which that state's new Democratic Governor Ralph Northam ran and won by a landslide.

Then, we head back to D.C., where Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced after the turn of the new year that the DoJ was reversing Obama-era enforcement guidance on federal law, in order to crack down on states where marijuana has been made legal for medicinal and/or recreational use after decades of prohibition.

As Drug Policy Alliance advisor and marijuana legislation lobbyist MIKE LISZEWSKI joins us to explain, the new DoJ guidance, rolling back the so-called "Cole Memo" from the Obama years, has not gone over well, even with a number of Republican lawmakers, particularly those from cannabis-friendly states where they have seen a dramatic rise in tax revenue thanks to new policies adopted by voters and state lawmakers.

"The Cole Memo was just guidance, it was never binding. But by removing it, Sessions has really given the green light to US Attorneys throughout the country to say, if you want to prosecute against state marijuana conduct you have our backing," Liszewski tells me, before arguing that there is no need for such policy, given that state laws, where pot has been legalized, are already very tough. "If someone was using a state marijuana law to shield some sort of bad activity, they're clearly in violation of state law. There's so much oversight, you're likely going to get caught rather quickly. So there's really no need for additional federal prosecution. It's really addressing a concern that doesn't actually exist --- unless you have some hysterical views about marijuana."

Sessions, of course, famously has views. Last year, for example, he famously stated that marijuana was "only slightly less awful" than heroin. Liszewski breaks down the DoJ's announced change in prosecutorial guidance and the effect it is likely to have (if any) in pro-cannabis states where, he says, it has "turned out to be wonderful for generating state tax revenue...in terms of the money it's pulling in, but also the law enforcement resources, the jail resources, the court resources, that don't have to go into prosecuting low-level marijuana cases."

We also discuss how Congress may still be able to move forward on drug policy under an Attorney General who is an avowed enemy of pot users and a President who claims to favor states' rights on the matter. Congress, Liszewski argues, is close to having the votes to end prohibition at the federal level all together, if it doesn't have those votes already. But, he says, thanks to a few "old guard" Committee Chairs in Congress, it may take a full reshuffling of the deck in the 2018 mid-term elections to see it actually happen.

"The 2018 elections are going to be so crucial to the future of marijuana reform," he says. "Because whether it's a shift in which party controls each chamber, or if it's just voting out the old guard and getting some new Republicans in, either way would be helpful towards ending federal marijuana prohibition."

"It would be very, very difficult to get the genie back in the bottle at this point," Liszewski adds, "especially seeing a good number of Republicans as well as states continuing to move forward right after the Sessions announcement. It really shows that Sessions is alone on an island with this and has very few supporters. I think the writing is on the wall."

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Guest: Former Asst. DA Ames Grawert of Brennan Center...
By Brad Friedman on 5/19/2017 6:38pm PT  

So who is the "nut job" here? On today's BradCast, Trump appears to have dug himself even deeper into the Obstruction of Justice mire and, speaking of "justice", Attorney General Jeff Sessions rolls back bi-partisan gains on criminal justice reform made during the Obama Era. [Audio link for show follows below.]

A new report today from the New York Times alleges that, during his Oval Office meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador last week, the day after he'd fired James Comey, President Trump described the former FBI Director as "crazy" and a "real nut job". He reportedly explained that he'd been under "great pressure because of Russia," but that pressure had been lifted due to his firing. If accurate, the new report, said to have been based on documentation of the meeting from the White House itself, could serve as more evidence of Obstruction of Justice by the President, who has now departed for a nine day overseas trip.

Foreign diplomats are reportedly making special preparations to deal with Trump in the Middle East and Europe, including plans to compliment him on his Electoral College win, and by keeping presentations short enough for his, um, limited attention span.

But lost among the sturm und drang over the Comey firing and related dramas over the past week or more is the fact that Trump's executive agencies, such as the EPA, the Department of Interior and Department of Justice, are all moving ahead with some pretty troubling policies. Among them, Attorney General Jeff Sessions' harsh new guidelines requiring federal prosecutors to charge defendants with the "most serious" crimes possible in order to, among other things, force judges to impose mandatory minimum sentencing. This comes even while the U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population, but nearly one quarter of its prisoners.

The new Trump Administration policies, rolling back progressive Obama Era reforms, are being enacted despite decades of plummeting crime rates and broad bi-partisan efforts for criminal justice reform, both at the state and federal levels, according to my guest today, former New York Asst. District Attorney Ames Grawert, now counsel at the Justice Program for NYU's Brennan Center.

Grawert, co-author of the new report, A Federal Agenda to Reduce Mass Incarceration, speaks to the Trump/Sessions claims that crime is rampant and ravaging the nation, despite all evidence to the contrary. "Fear sells," he tells me. "He [Trump] and Sessions need something to convince people that there's a need to embrace these draconian blast-from-the-past policies on mandatory minimums."

About those policies, Grawert laments, "Whether you come to it as a conservative from a moral angle, a religious angle, or simply a budgetary common sense angle, there's a lot of Republicans who are willing to say that criminal justice reform is an imperative for the country. It's shocking that Sessions [when he served as U.S. Senator, blocking a bi-partisan reform bill] was not one of them."

Obama's Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates (yes, that Sally Yates), had issued a memorandum last year instructing federal prisons to end contracts with private prison corporations for a number of reasons supported by both Republicans and Democrats. "Sessions rescinded that very early in his tenure," Grawert notes, "with an ominous declaration that it was needed to meet the quote 'future needs of the federal correctional system.'"

"The problem is that when you have mandatory minimums like these, and when you have an order like the one Sessions just put out last week preventing prosecutors from deciding how they are going to charge a case, it takes a lot of the discretion out of the hands of prosecutors. So, rather than making sure that they, who know the case best of all, are able to help the judge fit the punishment to the crime, you have prosecutors with their hands tied, required to seek a draconian sentence that they, themselves, and that judges also may not feel is actually called for."

"The one thing we learned from the last thirty years or so, is that the federal government's power of the purse, and the tone set in Washington, they carry a lot of weight at the state level," he tells me. "So if you have an attorney general saying, look, we need to send more people to jail for longer, you shouldn't think for a minute that people in states, people running for D.A., people running for governor's house, won't listen to that and take their cues from that."

Please listen to the full show with much more on all of the above right here...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Guest: Washington Monthly's D.R. Tucker at the 'nexus of science, politics and media' | Also: Trump's Iran flip-floppery and court karma; Arkansas' killing spree; Lighting up Capitol Hill on 4/20...
By Brad Friedman on 4/20/2017 6:35pm PT  

On today's BradCast, we find Fox 'News' and its twisted wingnut agenda at the center of just about all of the stories and issues we cover today, from the remarkable need for scientists to stand up for science-based facts, to a continuingly clueless President, to a disgraced Bill O'Reilly and more. [Audio link to complete show follows below.]

The Trump administration is now seemingly both for and against the Iran Nuclear Deal, apparently. At least they seem to be taking every side of the issue this week, despite Trump's repeated campaign vows to rip up or renegotiate the deal and his 2015 charge that it "will go down as one of the dumbest and most dangerous misjudgments ever entered into in history of our country". But that's what happens when everything your President seems to know about policy comes pretty much directly from the scam artists and friends of sexual harassers known as Fox "News".

Which brings us to my conversation today with my guest, D.R. Tucker of Washington Monthly (and too-occasional BRAD BLOG contributor). As a former rightwinger turned climate change hawk and avid media critic, he has some strong opinions and smart thoughts in advance of this weekend's March for Science and next weekend's People's Climate March.

"For a long, long time in this country, there has been this sort of anti-intellectual, anti-science mentality. It's been monetized, as people like [Fox 'News' owner] Rupert Murdoch have proven. And it has to be resisted," he tells me. But, he adds, while "these marches are a long overdue attempt, I would argue, to resist it, marching alone is not going to accomplish it. The march has to continue right to the ballot box to throw out people who are anti-science, and elect those who are pro-science."

He does not reserve his ire only for FNC, however. The "false gods of false balance" at other news outlets are also to blame, he charges, for the intensifying climate crisis, much of its collateral damage and the fact that Americans remain so woefully uninformed about so much of it.

We also discuss the firing of disgraced Fox "News" star and alleged serial sexual harasser Bill O'Reilly, as he is reportedly set to receive a parting gift of as much as $25 million from his longtime enablers at FNC on the way out the door. Tucker also has some thoughts on the pretend rightwing "outrage" over the successful campaign to encourage corporations to pull their sponsorship from O'Reilly's show (a trick, he explains, learned from those "outraged" rightwingers themselves), as well as idea on where O'Reilly may find welcome employment next. (No, not in hell, but close.)

Finally today: Another prisoner receives a stay in Arkansas' unprecedented attempted killing spree; Some ironic federal court karma that may be about to bite Donald Trump (again); And pot activists in D.C. on 4/20 come up with a clever way to spark up interest for their issue among Congressional staffers and media on Capitol Hill...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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By Brad Friedman on 4/13/2017 5:55pm PT  

It's a serious question. Is Donald Trump insane? You can offer your opinion on my Twitter poll, if it's still open. But, on today's BradCast, we examine just some of the evidence, as our unstable U.S. President threatens war against the unstable leader of North Korea, with potentially unspeakable consequences now hanging dangerously in the balance. [Audio to today's show follows below.]

Among the stories on today's program:

  • U.S. drops the largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed, for the first time, in the 15th year of our war in Afghanistan;
  • Coalition forces "misdirected" air strike in Syria, killing 18 allied fighters;
  • Japan's Prime Minister warns that nuclear armed North Korea could deploy chemical weapons in response to U.S. provocation, as Trump sends U.S. Navy battle group to Korean Peninsula in advance of an anticipated NK nuclear test;
  • Russian Asia expert warns a conventional weapons attack by North Korea against South Korea's nuclear power plants could result in "five-six Chernobyl-type disasters";
  • Over the past 48 hours, Trump completely reverses long-held positions on NATO, U.S. military strength, China currency manipulation, and more, and reveals that he learned, after speaking with China's President "for 10 minutes" recently that China's relationship with North Korea is "not so easy" (before threatening to "go it alone" in a strike against North Korea, which, he says, "means going it with lots of other nations");
  • EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt goes on Fox "News" today to blatantly lie about U.S., China, and India's obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the UN's landmark Paris Climate Agreement;
  • Proposed cuts to specific EPA programs are draconian, dangerous and ridiculous;
  • And, to help us forget about all of the above, Canada's Prime Minister introduces legislation to legalize recreational marijuana across their entire country...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Guest: Attorney, veteran, BRAD BLOG legal analyst Ernest A. Canning...
By Brad Friedman on 11/1/2016 5:20pm PT  

On today's BradCast, it looks like "Giant Meteor" could win after all! With one week to go, the race could be back up in the air, as polls tighten, Democrats sue Republicans in federal court, and we take a look at some key statewide ballot measures in California and elsewhere. [Audio link for show is posted below.]

The reverberations from FBI Director James Comey's unprecedented and (so far) evidence-free announcement last week concerning a potential new aspect of the agency's investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails continues to rock the 2016 Presidential Election, just one week before Election Day. Polling is moving back in Donald Trump's direction and we discuss other concerns that are not reflecting by polling numbers. Oh, and it turns out there is "voter fraud" at the polls, at least in Iowa, and you'll never guess who the alleged perp was caught voting twice for! (Sound familiar? Seems to happen a lot this time of year.)

Then, attorney and Vietnam veteran Ernest A. Canning, long time BRAD BLOG legal analyst now back from his Primary advisory role with Veterans for Bernie, joins us to discuss a number of California ballot initiatives he's been writing about here, as well as the several lawsuits filed by Democrats over the weekend charging "voter intimidation" by the Trump campaign and state GOP operations in Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, in violation of both the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.

All of that follows on a decades-long consent decree barring the Republican National Committee from certain racially targeted "poll watching" and "ballot security" activities. That is a restriction they agreed to after getting caught using race-based intimidation tactics at polling places in the early 1980s, when one of the named defendants, Roger Stone --- a long time advisor to Trump and GOP dirty trickster going back to the Nixon era --- actually worked on the "ballot security" operation that got the RNC in trouble in the first place back in NJ in 1981.

Then, Canning details a number of state initiatives on the California state ballot next week --- and some well-funded lies about them --- which could have a major effect on prescription drug prices, legalized marijuana (and ending the disastrous "War on Drugs"), the death penalty (two different, competing measures), Citizens United and much more...even porn is on the CA ballot this year!

Speaking about one of the initiatives, Prop 61, which he wrote about over the weekend, and which the pharmaceutical industry is spending tens of millions to defeat by falsely claiming that it will harm veterans, Canning explains: "This proposition, more than any other, shows you the problem with money in our political system. They put these [false] ads on --- and naturally, the TV station should say, 'We should fact-check that. That's not true.' But they're not going to do that because that would be like biting the hand that feeds them. These ads have become a major source of revenue for our commercial media" which, he ads, are "the ultimate beneficiaries of Citizens United, which is perhaps one of the reasons why they don't ask questions in the debates about repealing Citizens United!"

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Guest: Michael Collins of Drug Policy Alliance | Plus: 'Third-party' Presidential woes, disturbing climate news and more...
By Brad Friedman on 8/16/2016 6:02pm PT  

It's a very 'green' show on The BradCast today, on a number of levels, from marijuana policy to the Green Party Presidential candidate's position on environmental issues, to another rather disturbing Green News Report.

But first up today, some news about 'third-party' Presidential candidate troubles getting on the ballot and being kept out of Presidential debates, and a Republican governor who has now vetoed a law that would have added millions of voters to the rolls in his state.

Then, Michael Collins, Deputy Director for the Drug Policy Alliance's Office of National Affairs in Washington D.C., joins us to discuss the recent announcement by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) that it will not reclassify marijuana from its current 'Schedule I' narcotic status --- which, like heroin means that it's classified as having "no accepted medical use" --- despite some 25 states which currently allow its sale and use for either medicinal or recreational purposes.

Collins explains what that classification actually means and how rescheduling it as a Schedule II drug wouldn't have been much more than a "symbolic victory" for proponents, particularly "in terms of prosecutions --- people getting arrested, the racial disparities we see because of the war on marijuana --- that would not have disappeared had the DEA rescheduled marijuana."

He goes on to describe the DEA as a "rogue agency", "rotten to the core", and long working against President Obama's "steps to unwind the war on drugs". "They're still fighting the drug war of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon," he tells me, in opposition to the advocacy of a number of elected Democratic (and even Republican) officials in Congress who were furious at the federal agency's decision.

"I think the DEA gets its science from the same people as climate change denialists," Collins quips. "To say that marijuana has no recognized medicinal value contradicts decades of scientific research and is a huge slap in the face to the thousands of people who use medical marijuana every day to alleviate their illnesses."

It's not all bad news, however. Collins notes that the DEA has announced they will allow an expansion of federal marijuana research facilities, ending what had been a monopoly, with just one facility in Mississippi, and that states are moving forward nonetheless, with expansive pot initiatives on the ballot in at least six states (California, Arizona, Maine, Nevada and Massachusetts) this November. "The question isn't 'Should we legalize marijuana?', but more 'When should we legalize marijuana?' The end is nigh," he tells me.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with breaking (and disturbing) news on more historic, deadly flooding in Louisiana and fires in California, July 2016 as the hottest month ever recorded on Planet Earth, and the official position on climate change action from Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party's freshly minted 2016 Presidential nominee...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Guest: Salon's Ben Norton | Also: Trump seeks torture, CA seeks weed, some seek 'Texit'...
By Brad Friedman on 6/29/2016 6:09pm PT  

On today's BradCast, the Presidential Primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders becomes a fight over the official party platform and whether progressive reform can actually happen from within; Donald Trump wants the U.S. to torture again; and California goes to pot. [Audio link to show posted below.]

In the wake of this week's horrific terror attack at Turkey's Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, the presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump wants to "Make America Commit War Crimes Again" as he calls for the U.S. to once again implement torture policies such as waterboarding. In the meantime, new Pew polling shows Trump's support from nation's outside of the U.S. is dismal, often in single digits. While back here at home, according to new Quinnipiac poll out today, he remains "neck-and-neck" nationally with presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton whose favorability ratings are also dismal, though not as bad as Trump's.

But as Bernie Sanders supporters quickly move toward Clinton, representatives for the two popular Democratic rivals hash out the party's official platform document to be adopted by delegates at the Democratic National Convention in July.

Salon political reporter Ben Norton joins us to discuss progress of the talks, specifically the Clinton camp's refusal to allow a demand for a $15/hour federal minimum wage mandate in the non-binding party manifesto, as well as the failure by Clinton surrogates to agree to more progressive language on a number of issues, from Israel to fracking to trade policies.

Norton goes on to report that the fight between surrogates for the two candidates at the DNC Drafting Committee's platform talks echoes the long Democratic primary race, suggesting, as he sees it, that the party, ultimately, may not be able to reform from within. "You have the Sanders' appointees pushing for more progressive measures, and the Clinton appointees opposing those measures. I think in some ways, we did see some progress, but overall I think there's reason to be pessimistic for a potential Clinton presidency, given the way that this has represented itself at the DNC committee drafting," Norton explains. "It really reflects the war going on within the Progressive community."

Real progressive policy change, he argues, will require new candidates to step up at the local and state level --- even as independents or under the banner of a third party, if necessary --- to take up the fight and seek office, he notes, just as Sanders did when he initially ran for office in Vermont decades ago.

Finally today, more calls for 'Texit'! California announces that an initiative to allow the recreational use of marijuana will be on the statewide ballot this November, and Colorado finds that teen use of pot has actually fallen below the national average since the state adopted a similar policy in 2014.

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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GUEST: Howie Klein of Down with Tyranny and the BlueAmericaPAC
Guest Hosted by Nicole Sandler...
By Nicole Sandler on 11/27/2015 2:43pm PT  

On today's BradCast, guest host Nicole Sandler of Radio or Not speaks with Howie Klein of Down with Tyranny and the Blue America PAC.

They spoke about just about everything - from Alan Grayson's endorsement of Hillary Clinton (and the reported strong-arm tactics her campaign is employing to gain those endorsements) to Trump's dangerous rhetoric to medical marijuana. And, as if we didn't already know, Bernie Sanders' constituents love him!

And since so many are embracing the 'F' word as it relates to the GOP's frontrunner, Nicole brought out "The 14 Characteristics of Fascism", just to review.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

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Screenshots suggests disappearing 'Yes' votes on Election Night; OH Sec. of State's office offers us an explanation, downplays concerns
PLUS: Citizen calls for hand-count grows in Kentucky; And Fossil Fuel's very bad week...
By Brad Friedman on 11/10/2015 5:15pm PT  

Did someone or something flip election results last week in Ohio's statewide ballot initiative Issue 3 to legalize marijuana? We try to get to the bottom of that question --- and many others --- on today's BradCast. (Audio is linked below.)

As initially reported by Ohio's Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, and later by Steve Rosenfeld, screenshots captured from several different media outlets on Election Night last week show what appear to be impossible results on both Issue 3 and on Issue 1, a ballot measure for redistricting reform in the Buckeye State.

For example, according to screenshots from Dayton's WHIO-TV website, as published in the Fitrakis, Wasserman and Rosenfeld articles, Issue 3 reportedly had 969,662 "Yes" votes with 39% of precincts reporting. But later in the night, with 45% of precincts, there were only 614,866 "Yes" votes on Issue 3. That's a seemingly impossible drop of more than 300,000 votes in the initiative that is said to have ultimately failed, according to the unverified election night results reported by the OH Sec. of State.

Similarly, screenshots of results on Issue 1, which ended up reportedly passing, saw "No" votes drop impossibly from 990,555 to 486,596 later in the evening.

What explains these numbers? I spoke to Matt McClellan, Communications Director for Ohio Sec. of State John Husted (R) earlier today. He says that WHIO and the other media outlets whose screenshots were cited by Fitrakis, Wasserman and Rosenfeld, were all Cox Media outlets and "the problem was on their end."

"Someone was manually entering data," McClellan told me. "When they noticed the mistake, they made a correction." He went on to say that the Secretary of State's website had no such discrepancies or irregularities throughout the evening. His office does not take their own screenshots throughout the night, so we can't confirm that either way, at the moment, though McClellan says the office "went back and double-checked to make sure" after the issue was initially reported.

In response to the Sec. of State office's assertions (we offer more detail on them during the show), Fitrakis shared pre-election tracking poll results with me, that suggest the marijuana initiative should have passed, rather than lost, by a 2 to 1 margin. "Tracking polls suggest more that [results] were flipped than not flipped," he told me today. Fitrakis was is skeptical of the explanation from Husted's office, while adding that if Cox is manually entering results on the fly on Election Night, "then they need to stop, because it's absurd."

For the record, our calls to try and confirm the OH SoS' claims with WHIO and/or Cox Media have not yet been returned. But, again, much more detail during the program.

As if all of that isn't enough of a mess, the citizen movement to demand a hand count of the questionable results of last week's Kentucky Governor's race continues to grow. A petition has been posted to Change.org asking KY SoS Allison Lundergan Grimes to carry out a hand count of paper ballots statewide. So far, more than 10,000 have signed on to the effort, as we discuss today as well.

Finally on today's show, Desi Doyen joins us with the latest Green News Report on the fossil fuel industry's no good, very very bad week...

Download MP3 or listen to complete show online below...

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Guest: Dan Riffle of the Marijuana Policy Project...
By Brad Friedman on 7/24/2015 4:49pm PT  

Today, on another action packed episode of The BradCast...Another mass shooting at another movie theater --- and another GOP Governor/Presidential candidate who says all we can do is 'pray' about it. How misallocation of resources from crime and domestic terrorism to international terrorism is killing us. Literally.

Then, encouraging movement this week in the U.S. Senate concerning the absolutely absurd way that legal pot shops around the country are forced to handle their huge amounts of cash, since federal law still prohibits banks from doing business with them. Dan Riffle, Director of Federal Policies at the Marijuana Policy Project joins us to explain the Congressional news and the "crazy, crazy, crazy situation" that legal dispensaries face.

"Employees and customers in those businesses are just crossing their fingers that nobody comes in and robs the place," he tells me. "We've seen dispensaries that pay their taxes by putting the cash on to a pallet and then loading it into a Brinks truck and then driving it over to the state or county auditor's office," he says.

Riffle also discusses the wildly varying positions on marijuana legalization from the 2016 Presidential candidates (and between the two major parties), and whether 'Big Pharma' is behind the recent denial of legal medicinal use by PTSD victims in Colorado (of all places.)

Also today: breaking news on GOP Governor turned Presidential candidate Rick Perry's felony charges and Donald Trump has, officially, cracked the code on how to run for President as a Republican --- and it is driving his Republican opponents crazy...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

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Guest: Dan Riffle of the Marijuana Policy Project...
By Brad Friedman on 6/5/2015 3:58pm PT  

You'll be shocked to hear on today's BradCast about the completely predictable blow-back from the GOP after Hillary Clinton displayed the temerity to call for restoring and even expanding voting rights for all American citizens 18 years of age and older. (As we covered in depth on yesterday's BradCast.) Yes, Republicans really do not care for democracy, apparently.

And, yes, a new Progressive Age is dawning, whether you've realized it or not --- even as "conservatism" is quickly disappearing. (Which also explains why Republicans hate democracy.)

Speaking of the dawning of a new Progressive Age, former Ohio state prosecutor Dan Riffle of the Marijuana Policy Project joins us to discuss this week's remarkable "Marijuana Vote-a-Rama" in Congress, and the Republicans and Democrats who are finally coming on board to end the government tyranny and prohibition. A fascinating discussion of where we've been, where we now are and how we got here.

Plus: A very moving --- and ironic --- lesson one blogger improbably learned via Caitlyn Jenner...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

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GUEST: Physicist Joe Romm of ClimateProgress.org...
By Brad Friedman on 4/8/2015 9:07pm PT  

On this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio (and many other fine affiliate stations), we talk to physicist, former Clinton Administration official and founding editor of ClimateProgress.org Joe Romm about Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell's "immoral" attempt to undermine the U.S. in international climate talk negotiations as the big U.N. treaty summit is set for Paris later this year.

Romm, who served as Chief Science Adviser for last year's Emmy-award winning Years of Living Dangerously series on Showtime, also breaks a bit of news on The BradCast by confirming that there will be a season two for the groundbreaking environmental documentary series. He promises that "it will be on a cable network that has a far greater reach" than Showtime, though he can't let us know which one yet.

PLUS: Rand Paul jumps into the 2016 GOP Presidential circus; Ohio's Republican Gov. John Kasich does the right thing (sort of) in vetoing a new GOP voter-suppression scheme in the state; Jeb Bush appears to have committed a felony in Florida; California's Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom does the right thing before everybody else (again) in announcing support for full legalization of marijuana in the Golden State; and much more, including Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report.

Download MP3 or listen online below...




By Brad Friedman on 4/2/2015 10:58pm PT  

As its reputation goes to pot, it looks like Indiana's new "religious freedom" law has sparked up more trouble than even Gov. Mike Pence (R) expected.

U.S. News reports "Indiana's Church of Cannabis Growing Like a Weed":

A new religion glorifying cannabis is officially incorporated in Indiana, and adherents plan to take full advantage of the state's controversial religious freedom law.

That law - the Religious Freedom Restoration Act - generally bans state officials from burdening a person's exercise of religion, "even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability."

Opponents say the law blesses discrimination by business owners against people they dislike, with most news coverage focused on the possible effects on sexual minorities.

Bill Levin, founder of the First Church of Cannabis, believes his religion will help restore the state's reputation after an intense bout of bad press.

"I created the fastest-growing religion in America last week," Levin tells U.S. News. "I've got to cork the leak up that [Indiana Gov. Mike] Pence caused with love."

Levin says he and other church members "all smoke religiously" and says supportive attorneys are advising him. He's working to find a facility with a large sanctuary.

"We have people who will be pilgriming in from California, from Maine, from Florida," he says. "I planned this to be a small church of three to five hundred, but the numbers have staggeringly grown."
...
"Of course I'm going to test this law. I'm not going to test it, I'm going to beat it," Levin says. "We're building a church with the cornerstone of love, the way religions are supposed to be built."




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