On today's BradCast: Republicans continue to pretend we don't face a gun violence epidemic in the U.S., that human-caused climate change isn't happening and that massive tax cuts help, rather harm, the economy and the middle class. They may need to pretend harder. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

First up today, a number of multiple victim shootings that played out across America --- from San Diego to Topeka to Dallas --- in the past 24 hours, but received very little media coverage, for some strange reason. At the same time, on Saturday, hundreds of thousands turned out across the country for the People's Climate March --- nearly 200,000 of them in sweltering 90 degree heat (in late April!) in Washington D.C. alone. The latest mass demonstration against the Trump Administration's attempts to deny science and cut funding to climate-related programs came just hours after Trump's EPA began the removal of climate change-related facts and scientific data from its website.

And, all of that happened as Donald Trump's Presidency hit its first 100 days, a period marked by, among other things, a failure to pass any of the legislative goals announced during his campaign. In hopes of distracting from that failure to date, Trump's Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin (pictured above) released a hastily compiled one-page outline for what the White House describes as "The Biggest Individual And Business Tax Cut In American History."

But, as critics from the right, left and center, including my guest today, Dave Johnson, a Senior Fellow at the progressive Campaign for America's Future notes in response to Trump's proposal, bigger isn't necessarily better. In this case, the proposed cuts would actually hurt poor and middle-class Americans, Johnson explains, while defunding the very things that help boost the economy, serving as a huge gift to the very wealthy, and blowing a massive hole in the federal deficit to boot.

Johnson explains the "smokescreen of bamboozlement [and] propaganda" by Republicans for decades on these issues which, he argues, citing similar cuts and claims from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, have never "paid for themselves" as the Trump Administration is claiming once again. "How many times have they done this and the results have not come through?," Johnson rails, describing how even the Congressional Research Service, when asked by Republicans to create a report in 2012 looking back at tax cut data all the way back to 1945, found that "cutting taxes does not boost the economy."

Moreover, he notes, "corporate profits are at the highest ever right now," making it hard to justify Trump's proposed corporate tax cuts (from 39.5% to 15%) as anything more than an economic boost to a small handful of very wealthy investors. Cutting taxes, he argues, is meant for little more than enriching the already very rich and "forc[ing] cuts in government by forcing a crisis in budgeting."

"Democracy doesn't have an advertising agency, but all of these anti-government people do," Johnson tells me, in response to my questions about how GOPers are still able to continue arguing for something that has proven time and again to be little more than a myth, albeit one that many Americans still seem to fall for. We also discuss whether or not Congressional "Tea Party" Republicans will actually approve such a huge increase in the federal deficit, or if, as with attempts at health care reform, they, not Democrats, will be the real obstacle.

Finally today, more firings and fall-out announced at the Fox 'News' Channel, in response to the myriad and systemic sexual harassment complaints against its now-former creator Roger Ailes and its now-former top star Bill O'Reilly...

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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...

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On today's BradCast, not that we enjoy saying "we told ya so," but, yeah, another election result goes south on 100% unverifiable Diebold touch-screen systems in a key election for Democrats, as we've been warning for weeks (years, really). And, yes, the disgraced Bill O'Reilly has finally been fired by Fox 'News'. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

In Tuesday's U.S. House special election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District, Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff appears to have soundly defeated a split Republican field in a very Republican district, in the "jungle primary" race for a House seat held by the GOP since 1978 and recently vacated by Trump's appointment of Rep. Tom Price as Director of Health and Human Services.

However, the final results of Tuesday's contest, as taken from the state's 100% unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting systems, report that Ossoff just failed to go over the 50% threshold by which he would have won the seat outright. Instead, he'll compete in a run-off in June against the second place finisher on Tuesday, Republican Karen Handel, former GA Sec. of State.

So, are the reported results accurate? It is impossible, in fact, to know, as I've long been warning. That fact is made even more maddening by the fact that a reported central tabulator "error", said to have been caused by a faulty memory card from one of the voting machines, stopped all results from being reported for hours in Fulton County, as Ossoff results were stuck at 50.3%.

At the time, all counties in the district but Fulton (Handel's home county) had reported 100% percent of their results. Hours later, after the computer tabulator problem was said to have been corrected, and results started coming in again from Fulton, Ossoff's numbers dropped to 48.6%, below the threshold that would have prevented a run-off.

So, was the election stolen? Or was the all-too familiar problem during the tally just a routine error on the state's unverifiable, easily-manipulated, oft-failed voting system? The state's Diebold voting systems and tabulators were first installed in 2002. They are, shamefully, still used today, despite multiple massive vulnerabilities, including one that allows results to be flipped without detection, as first reported by The BRAD BLOG as early as 2006. At the very least, as I noted last night on Twitter during the hours long freak-out over the reported faulty memory card(s): "If I'm Ossoff, I get to court and have ALL of those memory cards in Fulton locked down and sequestered for forensic inspection."

Adding to the concerns in that GA-06 election: The reported "massive data breach" last month at the facility which programs both the voting machines and the state's electronic pollbook systems and, over the weekend, the theft of a number of those e-pollbooks from a poll workers car. (Widely mis-reported as a theft of "voting machines".)

I discuss all of the above, in much more detail (including the political fallout from the race, which is still very bad for Trump and the GOP), on today's show --- and take a number of calls about it all of it as well.

Also today: Bill O'Reilly, the biggest star on Fox "News" since it's inception, has finally been fired, following the latest round of multiple sexual harassment allegations against him, millions of dollars in settlements paid by both him and Fox to his accusers, and dozens of advertisers who pulled out of the show following the latest round of allegations. (Here's the recent BradCast where I discussed the latest allegations with Media Matters' Eric Boehlert late last week, and where he pretty much predicted what has finally happened today.)

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report', with toxic oil and chemical spills, new heat records, and some otherwise encouraging news about London's iconic black cabs...

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Today on The BradCast: Will war be avoided on the Korean Peninsula amid Donald Trump's continued saber rattling? Will Bill O'Reilly ever return from his "vacation" amid newly revealed sexual harassment allegations? And will the U.S. corporate media ever stop rooting for war? [Audio link to show posted below.]

Donald Trump continues to rattle U.S. sabers against North Korea which, in turn, is rattling back, as tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula, with fears that either country could launch a "pre-emptive" attack. China, in the meantime, is hoping to settle nerves and find a way to peace through diplomatic, rather than military means.

All the while, the U.S. Congress remains on its 18-day holiday break, and apparently still unwilling to carry out their Constitutional duties as the (supposedly) sole arbiters of whether the U.S. goes to war with a sovereign nation whether in North Korea or Syria.

And, speaking of vacations, questions and investigations continue into multiple sexual harassment allegations against Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, currently on a much longer than usual vacation for some reason. Dozens of major corporations have pulled their ads from Fox's highest rated show, and the company has re-hired the same independent investigators whose previous probe last year into similar allegations against former Fox chief Roger Ailes finallly led to his golden-parachuted ouster. But why were O'Reilly and top executive enablers at FNC allowed to remain, even though they were aware of millions of dollars in secret settlements paid to O'Reilly's accusers?

Media Matters' Eric Boehlert joins me today to discuss the latest charges and revelations against O'Reilly, Ailes, Fox "News" co-president Bill Shine and FNC's long "culture of predatory harassment".

"That excellent New York Times report that detailed five lawsuits that had been settled totaling $13 million over the years, they pointed out that O'Reilly's contract was just renewed and Fox News knew about these lawsuits. On what planet does someone on your staff file five sexual harassment lawsuits, and then you re-up and give him another contract, in this case apparently for $18 million?," Boehlert asks.

"The Murdoch sons in particular could have cleaned up the culture at Fox News when they just went through this exact same thing last summer with Roger Ailes," he charges. "They completely covered it over. They paid off Roger Ailes to go away quietly. They promoted people who enabled him. And now where are they? They thought they were free, and now they're right back where they started."

We also discuss the corporate media's return to cheerleading for U.S. Presidents who start new wars and a disturbingly ridiculous new rightwing hire for the New York Times' op-ed page.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us with the latest Green News Report as Florida's climate change denying Governor declares a statewide state of emergency for a global warming related issue, and I share the results of my recent Twitter poll asking whether or not Donald Trump is actually insane...

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Today on The BradCast, a story out of France today, discussed at top of show, proves that things could be much, much worse. That said, with things as bad as they are, we discuss what needs to be done to restore sanity to Congress and how to save the Supreme Court, the right to vote, the truth, and everything else that is supposed to come with "democracy". [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Among the stories covered on today's show...

• Civil rights opponent Jeff Sessions of Alabama was confirmed last night as the U.S. Attorney General largely on party lines, save for West Virginia's Democratic Senator Joe Manchin who voted for him. Should Manchin be primaried? Or is the fight for a Democratic majority as a check against Trump and the GOP more important? (I welcome your short and sweet comments on that for possible use on air! Email me, if you like: BradCast - at - BradBlog.com)

• Then, are Democrats taking the bait by taking the side of Trump's stolen Supreme Court nominee Neal Gorsuch, who claims to be "disheartened" by Trump's recent attacks against a federal judge? Answer: Yes, they are. But you can help stop that.

• Next, after new Attorney General Sessions takes office and immediately lies about violent crime statistics, what would he be willing to lie about next in order to make it harder for Democratic-leaning Americans to vote? Michael Slater, President and Executive Director of Project Vote joins us to discuss not only the "voter fraud" myths being perpetuated by Trump, but how American voters need to start working NOW on how to prevent (more) voter suppression and assure the right to vote.

While Slater tells me he believes the media are getting much better in their response to GOP "voter fraud" lies, he warns that Democrats still need a lot of help and organizations when it comes to keeping their eye on the ball. "The Democrats have never been as supportive of voting rights, and put as much energy into expanding voting rights, as we have seen the Republicans in their efforts to restrict voting rights," he notes, during our, at times, chilling, but hopefully enlightening conversation.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, as news breaks that the 3-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has unanimously rejected Trump's bid to restore his stayed Executive Order banning immigrants, travelers and refugees from seven majority-Muslim countries...

All of that and much more on today's BradCast!...

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On today's BradCast, yours truly, Angie Coiro, picks up the reins from Nicole Sandler, in our joint effort to keep Brad and Desi on vacation.

First up: a look at the Professor Watchlist and one of its targets: a Costa Mesa college professor afraid to leave her home. Then an Atlantic story on the economic revival of Elkhart Indiana, where even a vast upswing in manufacturing and employment leaves residents still in denial that Barack Obama has been good for the economy.

Author Meg Elison joins me to discuss her trek through the US class system and its mythology, and her novel The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, with its dystopian world of male dominance and destroyed class distinctions.

Finally, a contrast: how Carrie Fisher's openness about her bipolar diagnosis helped America, while Donald Trump's almost certain Narcissistic Personality Disorder might doom it.

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On today's BradCast [audio link posted below], our coverage of the Democratic National Convention continues; a fascinating conversation with a longtime Sanders supporter who explains his gut-wrenching decision to vote for Clinton this November; and pundits on the Right continue to melt down as the two major party conventions illustrate stark differences in world views between Democrats and Republicans.

First up, Donald Trump does not want you to watch the proceedings in Philadelphia, as he told supporters in a fund raising email today. Wednesday night's blockbuster DNC speeches from President Obama and Vice President Biden to the one from Vice Presidential nominee Tim Kaine to a particularly stinging Trump critique from self-made billionaire and former Republican-turned-Independent NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, make the case for why Trump would be delighted if you didn't notice what was going on in Philly.

But it's not all unity and flowers at the DNC, as some Sanders supporters and anti-war advocates continue to protest, and as polls between Clinton and Trump remain very tight for now.

Then, we're joined by Black Lives Matter advocate and fierce Bernie Sanders supporter Shaun King --- former Daily Kos blogger turned NY Daily News journalist --- to discuss his column this week describing the difficult choice he's made to support Bernie Sanders by supporting Hillary Clinton.

He explains, in detail, that while he's "disgusted that the Democratic establishment clearly did everything in its power to make sure Bernie didn't win," he has determined that Trump represents a "dangerous threat" to the nation that must be stopped with "a necessary vote" for Clinton this fall.

"Donald Trump has out-maneuvered and out-thought seventeen other candidates in the Republican primaries, and I think he's doing it now in this presidential race," King warns. "I think it's going to be a dog-fight to the very end. There's a distinct likelihood he could win. And anybody who says otherwise doesn't really have their finger on what people are thinking right now."

I think it's important that you, particularly Sanders supporters, listen to the conversation, hear out the reasons for his decision --- which he has clearly struggled with --- and then decide for yourself what to make of it. So, I don't want to quote too much from our conversation today. I will note, however, that he tells me: "I trust Bernie as a person and as a politician. He's maybe the only politician I would say that about. I felt like if he could swallow not only a sense of pride but compromise on some of the things that matter most to him --- be it disagreements he's had with the Clinton campaign --- then if he could do that then I could do it."

I also get King's thoughts on why he has long supported (and still supports) Sanders; on the belief of Bernie partisans that the primary was "stolen" by fraud; about the option for voting "third party"; on the idea that only after a Trump win, as some suggest, will the Democratic Party finally learn its lesson; and why it is that some folks at his former journalistic home Daily Kos (one of the places where The BradCast is posted every day) seem to absolutely freak out whenever I report on polling that suggests Clinton may have a difficult time defeating Trump. (Or, frankly, when I report on anything that they perceive as being critical, somehow, of the Democratic nominee. That, even as Sanders supporters elsewhere have been accusing me for months of being a "HillBot". Sigh. As much as I love democracy, sometimes I really hate elections.)

Finally, Bill O'Reilly seems to be melting down, again, as he plays the victim card on behalf of himself and Fox 'News', again, following his recent comments about slavery. All of that and more on today's show...

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Today on The BradCast, the Republican Party remains a mess, some Democrats remain in denial, Cleveland remains a tinder box in advance of next week's RNC convention, and if only the concerns about electoral fraud and the need for citizen oversight were taken as seriously in this country as they are in other nations.

While the Democratic platform becomes vastly more progressive this, thanks to the leverage retained by Bernie Sanders and his supporters, the GOP platform stays dumb or dumber. Speaking of dumb, clueless rightwingers (from Bill O'Reilly to Donald Trump to a Canadian singer at the MLB All-Star Game) still don't understand, or want to understand, what 'Black Lives Matter' means. And speaking of jackassery, the Republican National Convention is set to take place next week amidst angst over the party's presumptive nominee and the possibility of protests and racial tensions, even while state law will allow the open carry of loaded guns on the street outside of the convention center. What could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile, as some Democrats laugh among themselves about who the GOP is likely to nominate for President, several major new polls find Hillary Clinton plummeting against Donald Trump both nationally and in several of the most key swing-states (including OH, PA and FL.)

But with so much talk of electoral fraud during this year's Presidential Primary cycle, some may be pleased to know that a court has finally ordered a new Presidential Election! In Austria! That, not due to fraud necessarily, but to the mere possibility of it. Attorney Ernest A. Canning, long time legal contributor at The BRAD BLOG, joins us to explain what happened, how the nation's Constitutional Court ruling will benefit a far-right candidate, but is a victory for the Election Integrity movement nonetheless, and to discuss why concerns of election security and oversight aren't taken as seriously in the U.S. as they seem to be elsewhere.

"People have a tendency to be blind to this issue so long as their side wins. And that's not what election integrity is supposed to be all about," Canning explains. "The Austria constitution has a constitutional requirement for complete transparency of the count. If it was applied in the United States, most of our elections would have to be re-done. As far as the Austria Constitutional Court was concerned, it's irrelevant whether or not there was actual manipulation [of vote counting]. The fact is, if you had enough ballots that could have been manipulated because it wasn't a completely transparent count, then they're going to set it aside. The mere possibility that the count could have been manipulated is enough in Austria to overturn the results."

Imagine that.

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On today's BradCast the fights over bullets and ballots both continue following the massacre in Orlando over the weekend and the official end of primary voting following Tuesday's Democratic Primary in Washington D.C. [Audio link for show posted below.]

First up today, the Democratic response to the horrific mass shooting in Orlando seems to be to revise legislative initiatives repeatedly rejected by the NRA and GOP in years past. Both President Obama and Hillary Clinton call for measures to keep suspected terrorists from easily buying semi-automatic weapons of mass destruction, and Dems in the U.S. Senate stage a 'filibuster' in hopes of forcing Republicans to allow votes on some of the most low-hanging-fruit gun safety legislation.

In the meantime, some Republicans, at least on Fox "News" (believe it or not), are finally calling for the enactment of some common sense measures, and even Donald Trump is set to meet with the terrorist-enabling NRA concerning their years long fight to assure that those who the U.S. Government will not allow to board an airplane can still easily purchase all of the assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines they may want.

Then, voting in the 2016 Presidential Primary season mercifully came to end with yesterday's Democratic Primary in Washington D.C. where Clinton reportedly defeated Bernie Sanders by more than 50 points before the pair held a two-hour long private meeting about the future of the party, after the close of polls. But the attempt to oversee the tallying, particularly here in California, where hundreds of thousands of Vote-by-Mail and Provisional ballots remain to be tallied, continues.

With a warning from the "U.N." that Donald Trump may be just months away from acquiring nuclear weapons, we open the phone lines to listeners on all of the above, before finally finishing up with our latest Green News Report. Listen up, spread the word and keep up the good fight!

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On today's BradCast, the power of protest and organization.

We start at the University of Missouri after African-American players on the football team there used their power over the weekend to collectively and courageously support a student hunger strike in a protest to force university system President Tim Wolfe to resign amidst a series of racially charged incidents on the Columbia, MO campus. The leverage used by the players is another great reminder of how smart and courageous protest can succeed in making substantive change --- even against some of the world's most powerful entities. Go Tigers!

Speaking of which, my guest today is, once again, Douglas Hughes. You may recall him as the 61-year old Florida postal worker who landed his homemade gyrocopter on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in a dramatic protest last spring. He was our guest back in April, just days after the incident where he had hoped to bring attention to the desperate need for campaign finance reform.

He was, at the time, arrested and charged with six felonies that might have netted him more than 9 years in jail for his attempt to deliver an important letter to all 535 members of Congress. Now, he has struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors and joins us to discuss the deal, why he took it, the latest developments in his case, and whether he feels his protest was ultimately worth the extraordinarily high cost.

Hughes tells us today that he has "no regrets" for having "stomped on the dragon's tail", despite losing his job at the Post Office, facing enormous fines, jail time, and even the loss of his ability to vote as a "felon".

"I stomped on the dragon's tail and I knew it was going to turn around and come after me," Hughes tells me. "And it has, and I have no regrets."

He credits the flight with helping to broaden the discussion about the need for reform, and says, despite the extraordinary cost, he'd do it again "in a heartbeat" as he continues his call for a "voters rebellion" to help "get the money out of politics so everybody that's in Congress knows they've got to answer to us."

Though Hughes was reluctant to mention it, he has a GoFundMe page where folks can donate to his legal defense fund and other needs as he is now struggling to survive day-to-date until his Social Security finally kicks in. Please consider helping him out if you can!

Lastly, it's wingnut v. wingnut over at Fox "News"! So, bust out the popcorn!...

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Um...wow... Who's the bigger "liar" and "hack" on Bullshit Mountain?

Tough call.

Bill O'Reilly and George Will have it out --- at each other...Wow...

[Hat-tip Oliver Willis on the Twitters...]

Today on The BradCast...NJ Gov. Chris Christie is officially in! He's running for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination with the slogan: "Telling Like It Is".

But was he telling it like it was when he secretly snuck out of New Jersey in 2011 to secretly give the keynote address at the Koch Brothers secret billionaire summit in Vail, Colorado, as we reported exclusively here at BRAD BLOG and at Mother Jones that year?

We'll tell you the real truth that Christie didn't and won't. And we'll play a bit of the secret audio tapes of Christie and David Koch (calling him "my kind of guy"), that we'd obtained and published at the time. (Read/listen to all the Koch Tapes stories, with audio and transcript, right here: BradBlog.com/KochTapes)

Also, wingnuts - from Cruz to O'Reilly to Huckabee and beyond --- melt down following last week's Supreme Court rulings on marriage and "Obamacare". After picking such stupid fights in the first place, what would you expect? We enjoy laughing at them.

Then, we're joined by attorney Michael B. Gerrard, director of Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, to discuss yesterday's Supreme Court ruling striking down the EPA's rule limiting mercury and other pollutants from coal-fired power plants (he explains a silver lining there), and the arguably even bigger news out of the Netherlands last week, where a court responded to a citizen lawsuit by ordering the Dutch government to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"I would say this is the most important decision on climate change law outside of the United States ever issued," Gerrard explains about the first-of-its-kind, landmark ruling. "Assuming that it stands, it is an extremely important decision."

Finally today, a bit of breaking news out of Cuba and then Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report on all of the above and more...

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Fallout continues --- much of it surprisingly encouraging, thankfully --- following last week's racist terrorist shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.

In its wake, I spoke to Sean McElwee of Demos on today's BradCast about his new study comparing the racist views of white Fox 'News' viewers versus white non-Fox 'News' viewers, and self-identified "conservative" Fox 'News' viewers with "conservatives" who don't watch Fox.

He describes the findings as "a deep indictment of the way that Fox News portrays the news." The analysis also examines whether regular viewers of Fox' The O'Reilly Factor are more racist than Fox 'News' viewers who do not regularly watch O'Reilly. The results, as they'd say on The Factor, will shock you! (Or not.)

"It's very clear that Fox News is playing on the racism and the latent racial resentment of many whites in the country," McElwee tells me. "You can see that on their coverage of the 'ground zero mosque'. You can see that on their coverage of the Trayvon Martin case. It's very clear." But does that racist coverage rub off on their viewers or vice versa? We discuss, you decide.

Also on today's show, several Senate Democrats help Republicans and President Obama move "Fast Track" authority for TPP and other trade deals forward in Congress; FEC Commissioners are not 'persons', according to the FEC; And an update on the federal case against postal worker Douglas Hughes, who landed his gyrocopter at the U.S. Capitol in April (our interview with him at the time is right here) in hopes of bringing attention to the need for campaign finance reform...

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After another (too-long) fund drive break at Pacifica Radio's KPFK, we were finally back today with a live and fresh BradCast!

And, if you've been following The BRAD BLOG lately, you'll know that I think so much of what's going on, in the media, in Congress, and just about everywhere else of late, is just insanely dumb.

So, on those topics today, I was delighted to be joined by our friend Eric Boehlert of Media Matters to discuss the media hypocrisy over Hillary Clinton's email "scandal" (while ignoring other, almost identical matters that actually are or were scandals) and the massive lies of Bill O'Reilly that somehow nobody seems to care about.

I also had a few words to say about the GOP's latest, embarrassing Iran idiocy, and their, um, unconvential methods of governing for the next two years, as well as the media's failure to say the words "global warming" and/or "climate change".

Yes, all of that and much more in a very lively hour! And Desi Doyen even joins us at the end for an uplifting Green News Report (sort of).

Download MP3 or listen online below...

[This article now cross-published by Salon...]

The longtime former host of the Fox 'News' media critique program, Fox News Watch, took to CNN on Sunday to blast both Fox and his former colleague Bill O'Reilly during an appearance on Brian Stelter's weekend media show, Reliable Sources.

Eric Burns, who worked at Fox for years before finally leaving in 2008, described the channel as a "cult" of "extreme right", and described O'Reilly as both the leader of that cult and a "liar."

"I think it's astonishing that that's the way they operate," Burns said, describing Fox' failure to take any action against their prime time star in light of documented evidence that O'Reilly wholly mischaracterized and/or blatantly lied about his coverage of the Falklands War, bombings in Northern Ireland, the murder of nuns in El Salvador, and the suicide of a key player in the JFK assassination saga, to name just a few cases recently brought to light by others in the non-wingnut media.

Burns went on to describe [video posted in full below] how O'Reilly has been caught telling "numerous lies" over the years by, among others, former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann who used "all the evidence possible" to detail the fabrications. But, he explained, because the lies were told at Fox, nobody cared.

"No one expects much out of O'Reilly as a Fox News host," said Burns. "No one expects the truth."

The way to understand what is going on right now at Fox in the wake of the allegations against O'Reilly, Burns explained, "is to make a distinction between the words 'culture' and 'cult'"...