52 years following LBJ's Voting Rights Act speech, and four since the VRA was gutted by SCOTUS, two recent cases prove it's still much needed...
By Brad Friedman on 3/16/2017, 6:24pm PT  

On today's BradCast, it was another bad day in court for Donald Trump, a disturbing day in the nation (and around the world) for those who care about science, the arts, the war ravaged and the poor, and a pretty encouraging week for those voters who actually give a damn about racial discrimination at the polling place. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Donald Trump's second attempt at a travel ban is, so far, not faring much better than his first one. Two federal courts have now blocked his newer Executive Order attempting to block Muslims and refugees from entering the country.

In the meantime, Trump finally released his alarming budget proposal, detailing draconian cuts to science, the arts, and policies that assist and aid the poor, in order to pay for a massive $54 billion increase in military spending and the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. The cuts, if they were to be enacted, are far worse than you might have imagined, and even more drastic than many Congressional Republicans --- and even some in Trump's own Administration --- had been calling for. We detail the cruel mess and some of the responses, including one from the Corporation for Public Broadcast (for which each American pays just $1.35 per year), and who, along with the National Endowment for the Arts and organizations which help the poor and hungry across the globe, would be wiped out by Trump's "American First: Budget Blueprint to Make American Great Again".

Then, on the 52nd anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson's historic 1965 introduction of the Voting Rights Act in Congress following the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Alabama --- and four years since the U.S. Supreme Court gutted that landmark voting law in 2013 --- several court cases over the past week have, once again, found racial discrimination at the polling place by elected officials. We cover two such cases today, one that unlawfully purged African-American voters in a rural Georgia county before a white man unseated a black incumbent mayor in 2015, and the other, with far-reaching implications, in Texas, where a 2 to 1 appellate court ruling finds the state intentionally discriminated against Hispanic voters when drawing up its 2011 Congressional redistricting maps. That ruling (with a remarkable dissent) could result in the state being required to once again obtain federal pre-clearance under the VRA before enacting any new voting laws in the future.

Finally, we close with an amusing --- and telling --- look at what Fox "News" considers to be "anti-Trump media bias"...

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Article Categories: Fox 'News', Election Reform, Texas, Georgia, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, National Security, Rights And Freedoms, Iran, Mainstream Media Failure, Dept. of Justice, Voter Registration, Vote Caging/Intimidation/Suppression, Republicans, U.S. Supreme Court, State Department, EPA, KPFK, Donald Trump, Voting Rights Act, Election 2016, Syria, BradCast, Religion, John Roberts, Election 2015, Race, Lyndon Johnson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg