Climate crisis woven into 2024 DNC; 99% of Americans affected by extreme weather since May; PLUS: 2024 second only to 2023 for billion dollar weather disasters so far...
Guests: Heather Digby Parton of Salon, 'Driftglass' of The Pro Left Podcast; Also: A problem worth noting after FL's Congressional primary elections on Tuesday...
Catastrophic flooding in CT; Climate change dramatically increased record wildfires last year; PLUS: As DNC gets underway, climate groups endorse Harris-Walz...
Ernesto takes down Puerto Rico grid, again; Wealthy beachfront property owners cost taxpayer dollars; U.S. Forest Service tells freeloading bottled water company to beat it...
CO election clerk 'guilty' of vote software breach; NY rules RFK Jr. used 'sham' residence for ballot; Musk, Trump charged with labor complaint after disastrous Twitter chat...
Hurricane Debby releases tons of raw sewage across FL; July 2024 was hottest ever; PLUS: Repubs' Project 2025 aims to delete all govt references to 'climate change'...
THIS WEEK: Rs Get Weird and Weirder ... Ds Try Something New ... RFK's Bear Bones ... and more! In our latest collection of the week's best political toons...
Debby isn't done with the East Coast yet; Hottest oceans in 400 years threaten Great Barrier Reef; PLUS: Dem VP candidate, Gov. Tim Walz, is a proven climate champion...
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...
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...
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...
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...
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...
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...
The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...
FL Dept. of Law Enforcement confirms 'enough evidence to warrant full-blown investigation'; Election officials told fraudulent forms 'may become evidence in court'...
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...
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...
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...
Today on The BradCast: The U.S. electoral disasters continue, GOP takeover and theft, and what non-Rightwingers can do about it all. [Audio link to show posted below.]
House Republicans snuck in something else in their new U.S. House rules yesterday, beyond their aborted attempt to gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics: a provision to make it easier to give away federal lands. Desi Doyen fills us in on the scheme.
Then, a few updates --- troubling ones --- on the attempted Wisconsin Presidential 'Recount', where at least 11,000 votes were revealed to have been mistallied (in a state that Donald Trump reportedly won by just 22,000 votes), only half the ballots were allowed to be counted by hand, the cost was about half of what Green Party nominee Jill Stein had been forced to pay, and the final turnout and voter registration numbers in the state are still unknown (ensuring the results still cannot be verified as accurate, even as Congress will accept the Electoral College results on Friday.)
Those are just a few of the reasons why WI is found near the bottom of the list of states in the Electoral Integrity Project's newest report. Most of the lowest-ranked states (14 of the bottom 15) are in the South and/or have both legislatures and governorships controlled by Republicans. The survey, a project of Harvard University and the University of Sydney, also determined the U.S., once again, to be near the bottom of the list of established democracies when it comes to how world political scientists and election experts rate our elections.
Finally, we open the phone lines today to ask listeners: What now? What can progressives, Democrats, the left, the center-left, the center --- basically, the non-Right --- do as Republicans take control of Congress, the White House and a stolen U.S. Supreme Court? Lots of thoughts, with lots of perspective from a lot of great callers...though the last caller of the show may offer our favorite plan of action...
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On today's BradCast, Desi and I are back from holiday break, and just in time for the start of the new Congress, where the GOP had hoped to break the U.S. House even further by gutting the independent Office of Congressional Ethics. [Audio link to show posted below.]
First: A huge thanks to Nicole Sandler and Angie Coiro for filling in for us while we were gone and allowing us some much-needed time off! Please support them, their work and all independent media, wherever you can find it! As today's show makes clear, it's more important now than ever!
The U.S. House watchdog office was formed by Democrats in 2008 after the massive Jack Abramoff influence-peddling and bribery scandals of the George W. Bush era. After voting last night --- with no advance notice or public debate --- to hobble the OCE, Republicans were forced to reverse their plans thanks to public outrage expressed through phone calls to Congress. Nonetheless, Donald Trump is being inappropriatelycredited by the corporate media for the reversal, despite the lack of evidence that he actually opposed the move or that his tweets were responsible for the GOP changing course.
The episode suggests that public opinion, outrage and shaming maystill matter in these United States, even in the Age of Trump, and even if the corporate media fail to notice. But we'll see.
At the same time, as NBC News guts their own news reporting outlets, they've announced today they are hiring Fox "News" star Megyn Kelly for untold millions. And, in Wisconsin, the agency responsible for environmental protection has solved Climate Change...by simply changing their website to pretend it no longer exists.
While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!
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On today's BradCast, hosted by me, Angie Coiro, it's all about effective activism in 2017 --- where we can at least hold our ground and maybe even gain a skosh more, in three critical areas.
Lisa Graves of The Center for Media and Democracy targets the fight against ALEC under Trump. Katie Klabusich, writer for The Establishment, focuses on reproductive, gender, and sexual freedoms. And Campaign for America's Future's Dave Johnson talks NAFTA, TPP, and other trade compacts, and their potential impact on wages.
While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!
On today's BradCast, I'm in for Brad again. We start by pick up where we left off yesterday, with another review of fake news - this time, contrasting it with lazy, bad, or mistaken news reports.
And - about that reported book contract a flamboyant neo-Nazi is crowing about: why it's way too early to say, "We're boycotting Simon & Schuster!"
Then Natalie Blake with the California National Party explains how a state can secede from the US (hint: more than one option here). This is NOT the same California independence group allied with Russia, although you'd never get that from most media.
And an excerpt from a live conversation with author and culture critic Jeff Chang. Kind of fun to hear the Executive Director of Stanford's Institute for Diversity in the Arts explain how diversity is problematic.
While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!
On today's BradCast, I'm in for Brad and Desi again.
I review the news of the day, including Stanford University's changes in sexual assault procedures, George Takei's plea to Donald Trump to take nuclear weapons seriously, flying accusations of false news, and a new book contract for Milo Yiannopoulos.
Then RJ Eskow joins me to talk Russia and Israel --- including why he uses the word "alleged" when referring to Russian email hacks. Finally, Susie Madrak on a story falling between the cracks: the GOP effort to undercut Medicaid.
While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!
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.
While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!
Just when you thought 2016 had taken all it could from us, it grabbed the life force from Carrie Fisher. Damn. Let this year end already!
I'm Nicole Sandler, back one more time to guest host the BradCast.
While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!
Brad & Desi are off enjoying the holidays, so you have me again, Nicole Sandler, guest hosting the BradCast.
My guest today is Jack Rice, an old colleague of mine from Air America radio. In addition to being a great radio host, he's a criminal defense attorney, and a former CIA agent. Contrary to Ray McGovern who was on with Brad last week, Jack does believe the hack was the work of Putin and Russia.
Jack also weighed in on Trump's tweeting about nukes, his cabinet and more.
And in my What's News? segment today, we remember some people who left us in 2016...
While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!
On today's BradCast, I shared a couple of interviews I conducted around the Miami International Book Fair a few weeks ago.
Ari Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot joined me onsite at the Book Fair to discuss the 2016 elections --- the first in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. He started our conversation with a bit of sarcasm when he proclaimed, "America will never be greater!"
I also spoke with another author at the Book Fair. He also happened to be the former Governor and former Senator from our state of Florida, Bob Graham. His book is a new edition of America, The Owner’s Manual: Making Government Work For You. Of course, I had to ask him about Saudi Arabia, the infamous 28 pages, and their involvement in 9-11.
Also today: The AP released its list of the Top 10 News Stories of 2016. I gave it the "What's News?" treatment.
While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!
I'm scramming for a few days for a short break that after any Presidential election year, much less this one, is more needed than I'd have time or ability to adequately describe. We'll have guest hosts on the show for the duration (thanks in advance for help making it possible, Nicole and Angie!), so please scroll down to listen to their BradCasts while Desi and I try to stand down for a bit.
On today's BradCast: Enough playing defense. It's time for Democrats to go on the offense, in states all across the country, to expand the franchise, in numerous ways, rather than simply defending against increasing Republican efforts to restrict voting rights. And where they won't, it's time for progressives to hold them accountable for it. [Audio link to show follows below.]
Nichanian explains where and how Democrats can and must take action, right now, even during the Trump years, to expand voting rights and access to the polls. Yes, it can (and must) be done in states across the country where Democrats still have control of legislatures and governorships. In many cases, as he describes, Dems don't even need to control both.
No need to wait for and hope that Congressional Republicans to restore the Voting Rights Act, which they probably will never actually do. There are many ways for Democrats to expand voter registration (such as automatic universal registration and other reforms), expand the pool of those eligible to vote (restoring millions of felons' voting rights, for example), ways to make it easier to vote (early voting and easier access to absentee voting), and many other tools to take a proactive stand in the new year.
"The Democratic Party has not been at the forefront of the voting rights issue in the past two years," Nichanian observes. "The issue has really come to a head since the wave of Republican takeovers of state houses in 2010 and 2014, when the Republican Party really prioritized, in state after state, putting in place a very ambitious and consistent agenda of its own to curtail voting rights. The extent to which the Republican Party has prioritized this issue, it keeps taking Democrats by surprise." But, he explains, "when the Democratic Party has power, in many places, they really don't get their act together to think about what has to be done on this issue, and actually get it done."
We discuss how Democrats can do so. We also try and hold them accountable for not having done so to date in so many places where they should have by now --- even in places like New York and California. I'm hoping the conversation, and Nichanian's piece at Vox, might give us all something positive to work for in the new year, even at the same time as progressives build the resistance against the destructive, anti-democratic agenda of Donald Trump and the GOP.
Also on today's show: Fox "News" wingnuts continue their climate change hoax; Democrats in North Carolina end up playing Charlie Brown to the state Republicans' Lucy --- again. And, finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our year-end Green News Report as Obama, on his way out the door, bans off-shore oil drilling in large parts of the Atlantic and the Arctic, and not a moment too soon. The Arctic has turned freakishly warm over the past two months of what is likely to be the warmest year ever recorded on the planet (for the third year in a row). She also has some good news as the year wraps up, however: A new poll finds that Trump's voters actually support regulations on the burning of carbon that causes global warming and, something that even Trump can't change, solar power is now the world's cheapest form of energy. Take that, Big Oil, Big Coal and 2016!...
While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Arctic 40 to 50(!) degrees above normal; Obama bans offshore drilling in large parts of the Arctic and Atlantic; NOAA confirms climate change turbo-charged 24 extreme weather events in 2015; New poll shows majority of Trump voters support regulating carbon; PLUS: What Trump can't change --- solar energy is now the cheapest energy in the world... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
Thanks for your support in 2016! Please help us continue to connect the climate change dots over your public airwaves in 2017! PLEASE CLICK HERE TO DONATE!
Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.
IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Rex Tillerson's state of denial; Arizona Net-Metering Decision May Slow Solar Adoption; China demands emissions cuts as year's worst smog chokes Beijing; Exxon Mobil oil spill hits communities in southeast Nigeria; California Forests Failing to Regrow After Intense Wildfires; Jury Orders DuPont To Pay $2M In C-8 Case; Energy Dept. Offers $2B Loan To Louisiana. Carbon-Storage Project; Oklahoma Tries Stronger Measures to Stop Earthquakes in Fracking Areas; Accidental discovery spurs coral growth, ignites hope... PLUS: Outgoing EPA chief: Science is 'fundamental to absolutely everything we do... and much, MUCH more! ...
On today's BradCast, how corporate media control of our public airwaves helped elect Donald Trump, and a decades-long, top-level CIA intelligence briefer of U.S. Presidents responds to concerns about Trump skipping Presidential Daily Briefings and on, so far, evidence-free, anonymous claims that Russia hacked and manipulated the U.S. election.
First up today, speaking of questioning "conventional wisdom", there is no doubt that the stranglehold of our public airwaves by corporate media helped elect Trump. But a new report suggests their helping hand may have been even worse than we knew, as Sinclair Broadcasting, the infamously rightwing media behemoth and largest single owner of television stations in the nation, apparently struck a deal with the Trump campaign to provide non-critical coverage on its scores of television "news" outlets in the South, Midwest and elsewhere.
Then I'm joined by 27-year CIA analyst, Ray McGovern, who served as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and prepared and personally delivered the CIA's Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs) each morning to American Presidents from Kennedy to Clinton. Since leaving the agency, he has become an outspoken anti-war advocate and peace activist and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group which includes esteemed former intel officials, analysts, experts, and whistleblowers such as Daniel Ellsberg, Coleen Rowley, William Binney, Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, Karen Kwiatkowski, Col. Ann Wright and others. He is also a contributor at Consortium News and his writings and appearances can also be found at RayMcGovern.com.
I invited him back on today to offer insight as to how the preparation and delivery of PDBs to Presidents and Presidents-Elect have changed over the years and how important they are. McGovern offers some fascinating insight and inside Presidential stories on all of the above. But I wanted to talk to McGovern about this specifically in the wake of Trump's somewhat alarming recent admission that, he rarely attends the briefings because he's "smart", and doesn't "have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years." Instead, Trump says, he sends his national security team to attend what McGovern describes as "the acme of the intelligence cycle, just to give you an awareness off how important the process is."
But our conversation soon moved to the various allegations --- still without evidence and said to be from unnamed intelligence sources citing secret National Security Estimates (NIEs) that some respectable critics say don't necessarily make a lot of sense --- charging that Russia hacked DNC and other emails during the campaign in hopes of helping Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.
In short, McGovern and his fellow team of longtime intelligence analysts, experts and whistleblowers believe the allegations are, in McGovern's words, 'a crock'. He explains why he and his colleagues recently released a memo explaining their dispute with the charges, and what they actually believe is at the root of the thousands of leaked emails. While I agree with Ray on the lack of evidence presented at this time in support of the claims against Russia, I am also skeptical of VIPS' assertions about what they believe really happened, as we discuss on today's show as well.
But, of course, I am always skeptical of anything that cannot be independently verified, especially when it comes to anonymous claims and secret evidence used to lead us into wars. McGovern offers some fascinating details and reminders on the show today as to why such skepticism is a very good idea! Unfortunately, similar skepticism seems to be all too rare these days in much of the rest of our media. Either way, I'll look forward to your thoughts on today's program...
While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!
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About Brad Friedman...
Brad is an independent investigative
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