On today's BradCast: Day One of Donald Trump's Republican National Convention in Cleveland was insane. But it was all going well enough until it became apparent late on Monday night that portions of Melania Trump's headliner speech was plagiarized directly from Michelle Obama's 2008 Democratic convention speech.

Incredibly, the man who made 'You're fired!' a catch phrase can't seem to muster up the ability to hold anyone in his own campaign accountable for it. As such, the oratorical fraud and, more importantly, how its being handled (and denied) by Team Trump, offers a stark warning to voters as to how a Trump Presidency might handle the actual serious issues and difficult decisions that need to be made.

Or, at least, it should.

Speaking of warnings, new national polling remains tight between Trump and Hillary Clinton, who continues losing ground in several of them. That, as several new cases and disturbing allegations of voter registration fraud by Republican election insiders in a number of states, along with some very troubling news from the U.S. Dept. of Justice concerning their plans to no longer send observers to polling places in certain jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination, should serve as yet another stark warning for American voters...

But will it?

All of that and Desi Doyen with today's Green News Report on the latest BradCast...

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On today's BradCast, the GOP Convention finally gets underway in Cleveland as we try to make sense of the attempted military coup in Turkey over the weekend and the release of 28 previously classified pages of the 9/11 Commission's report.

First, as the RNC kicks off amidst a cycle of gun violence in this country and on the heels of another mass shooting of police officers over the weekend, this time in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the Cleveland Police union begged Ohio Gov. John Kasich to restrict guns outside the gathering during the convention, despite the state's open carry provisions. Kasich refused, citing Ohio's Constitution which, he says, does not permit the Governor to restrict real guns from the perimeter of the Quicken Loans Arena, even as toy guns and tennis balls are disallowed.

As the official proceedings finally began today inside the convention center, Republican opponents of Trump clashed with GOP officials after a thwarted attempt to force a roll call vote on the approval of the rules. Not a good start.

Then, we're joined by my guest today, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern. The longtime agency veteran, who used to deliver Presidential Daily Briefings to Reagan and Bush Sr. among others, joins us to discuss the apparently-failed military coup attempt that took place over the weekend in Turkey. We discuss what appears to have happened in the NATO nation, what it may mean for their hopes of joining the European Union, as well as what President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's mass arrests of police, military and judges in its wake may mean for Turkey, NATO, the EU, the U.S. and other nations.

The veteran analyst turned anti-war advocate and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), also details his opinion on whether the attempted coup by a faction of the Turkish military was at least partly a "false flag" event orchestrated by Erdogan, how much the U.S., an allly, may or may not have known about the uprising in advance, and why the U.S. will continue to be friendly with the Islamic nation, come what may.

"The bottom line on the Turkish coup," McGovern says, "is Erdogan has been given a terrific present here. He'll be able to change the constitution further, and he'll be able to exert dictatorial powers without much dissent. And that is very dangerous for NATO and the whole Near East area because he is the very definition of a loose cannon."

On the related topic of increasingly authoritarian friends of the U.S., we discuss the newly declassified 28-pages [PDF] of the 9/11 Commission's Final Report regarding a much closer relationship between the 9/11 hijackers and the Saudi government than either the Obama Administration or a number of major media outlets have so far reported. "These are damning, damning pieces of evidence of extensive Saudi government support for some of the 9/11 hijackers," he explains, before also explaining how the information revealed by these pages could have even come about in the first place --- and his quick thoughts on the rise of Donald Trump.

Finally today: It looks like Roger Ailes, longtime mastermind of the Fox "News" Channel scam, is about to be pushed out of his job in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against him by a former Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson; Donald Trump's Art of the Deal ghostwriter says he has a "deep sense of remorse" for "put[ting] lipstick on a pig"; and a bit of somewhat encouraging polling news for Hillary Clinton over the weekend...

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We will not be hijacked by fear and terror, as many hope, on today's or any other BradCast, even after the horrific attack in Nice, France. A few words on that, before the rest of today's show [audio link below] including...

• 'Tea Party' wingnut Indiana Gov. Mike Pence gets the nod to become the GOP's Veep nominee, despite differing with Donald Trump on a number of issues central to the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee's campaign, and (perhaps because of?) Pence's denial of crazy "liberal" ideas like global warming and that cigarettes are deadly.
• Failed Presidential nominee and rejected VP candidate Newt Gingrich calls for the violation of both religious freedom and the U.S. Constitution;
• GOP blocks last(?) "Never Trump" effort to derail Trump's nomination and begs billionaire Sheldon Adelson for millions to help pay for their convention next week in Cleveland after some corporate sponsors bail out;
• A major new poll now finds Trump leading Hillary Clinton nationally (though within the margin of error) as Senate Democrats reportedly "freak out" about the presumptive Democratic nominee's plunging numbers --- even after outspending Trump 40 to 1 in swing states;
• California set to finally certify results from its June 7 Presidential primary;
• And remarks from the UK's new Prime Minister serve as a reminder of what 'center-right' actually means.

All of that and much more on today's BradCast, at the end of yet another disturbing week.

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Nobody really knows what the GOP convention in Cleveland next week will look like, or even if the delegates there will vote for Donald Trump as expected. Joining us today on The BradCast to offer perspective on all of it is Doug Wead, Presidential historian, author, advisor to two Republican Presidents and a number of campaigns, and an expert on GOP political conventions and rules. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

But first, briefly, corporate media are reporting today that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence will be Trump's Veep nominee and that the list of star-studded speakers Trump had promised for the convention may not be studded with quite so many stars after all. But, BENGHAZI! Also, following on the heels of yesterday's disturbing polls for Hillary Clinton, both nationally and in several key swing-states, another new poll out today, this one showing her tied with Trump nationally, confirms her falling support in the wake of the recent closure of the FBI investigation (and often-misleading reporting on it) into her use of a private email server as Secretary of State.

Next, Wead joins us to answer a lot of my questions of what can and can't happen under Republican rules in Cleveland next week, and to offer his thoughts on whether the "Never Trump" movement still has a chance in hell --- legally or otherwise --- at blocking Trump's nomination.

"They say, 'release these delegates to vote their conscience!' It's not like these are people who have a conscience!," he tells me with a hearty laugh. "It's insider-establishment people who want to be free to use the power they have as a vote, to get money and to get things in exchange." Wead also confirms that, yes, it is perfectly legal for the various campaigns to offer gifts, even cash if done carefully, to delegates in exchange for their vote at the convention.

He goes on to lament what he believes has come of his party: "I was astonished when I went into the White House to have some of these conservatives come into my office and say, 'Now you gotta get us federal dollars for this and for that, and all these companies', and I said, 'Hey, wait a minute, I thought we're the conservatives, I thought the liberal Democrats did that?' They said, 'Well, we gotta to do it when we're in power, just like they do it when they're in power. That's the way it works.' So you've got all of these people feeding at the pig trough, that are part of the Republican establishment."

Wead offers an historical perspective on all of this (the 1880 election may have been as insane); reports what both the Bush and Paul families (he has worked for both) currently think of Trump's rise to become the standard bearer of the Republican Party; what effect, if any, Vice Presidential nominees have on Presidential races; and how, he believes, establishment power brokers (in control of both the Republican and Democratic parties, he says) will come out of the election as the winner, one way or another.

As to Trump's chances of becoming the next President of the United States, the historian offers a chilling warning for Democrats: "Yeah, he could win. It could happen, very much so. Don't underestimate this guy. Ronald Reagan was seen as a warmonger and a racist and no way he could get elected. But he defied the prognosticators and won."

Finally today: Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, including coverage of the one ridiculous word added to the Republican Party platform this week to undermine the environment and for what may be the funniest 'snarky comment' ever on a GNR (this one, courtesy of Sen. Al Franken)...

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(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Porn is dirty, but coal is clean, says the Republican Party platform; Senate Democrats call out the 'web' of professional climate deniers; June 2016 was the hottest on record for the U.S.; PLUS: Another fracking explosion, this time in New Mexico... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): Republicans just escalated the war over ExxonMobil and climate change; Once-respected science group has one more chance to reject Exxon Mobil funding; Transportation Dept. proposes new oil train rules; Puget Sound to close another coal plant; State's Delta smelt plan calls for more water flowing to sea; Fake bio-diesel factory made millions; Loneliest natural gas terminal bucks pipeline trend; Number of Americans “alarmed” by climate change rises in latest poll... PLUS: Clean energy investment in 2016 undershoots last year’s record... and much, MUCH more! ...

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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It's been a rough week, so today on The BradCast, we try and catch up on a whole bunch of stuff we haven't been able to get to over the past several days in the wake of Orlando. [Audio link to complete show follow below.]

It's now been one full year since Donald Trump entered the race --- and since we accurately predicted the precise effect he would have on the GOP's 2016 Presidential Primary. Sure enough, the wheel's are now falling completely off for Republicans. Among the fresh evidence: John McCain declares (repeatedly) that Obama is "directly responsible" for the Orlando Massacre, while lying about how and why we 'left' Iraq. It's now so bad for Republicans that George W. Bush, of all people, is coming to the party's 'rescue'. Good luck with that. But, no worries, the GOP has declared the Republican National Convention a gun-free (and fruit-free) zone, so all is well.

On the Democratic side of the aisle, Bernie Sanders offers an online message to supporters, calling on them to work together to defeat Trump and to run for office at the state and local level to the continue the "political revolution". Meanwhile, polls begin to look very good for Hillary Clinton nationally and even in a number of traditionally very "red" states (could a Dem actually win in Utah and in Kansas this year?) All of that would seem to be good news for Democrats, but only if they are allowed to vote this November, which may just have gotten slightly easier for some in Kansas, where GOP "voter fraud" fraudster, Sec. of State Kris Kobach, continues to shame the state.

Finally today, we finish up with the latest Green News Report following the hottest May ever recorded on Planet Earth, and the emergence of new proof that Trump was for action on climate change before he decided to pretend it was all "a hoax".

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

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We're happy to keep informing the electorate, one important fact, data-point and reality-based story at a time, so that we might all be better prepared to do our job as voters. That, even as one young woman heard on today's show charges, correctly, that so much of what is going in our country of late "reflects back on our nation and makes us look ridiculous."

With all of that in mind, among the many reality-based stories covered on today's BradCast [Audio link for the full show posted below.]...

• Thanks to some excellent reporting by the LA Times, tens of thousands of CA voters who might not have been able to cast a ballot in the party primary of their choosing on June 7th, will now be able to do so;
• Donald Trump is endorsed by the terrorist-supporting NRA, lies about Hillary Clinton, and vows no more "gun-free zones" (even though his own major properties are "gun-free zones");
• Republican voters, party leaders and major funders continue to coalesce behind the presumptive GOP nominee;
• Clinton continues to struggle in still more state and national polls against Trump, even as Sanders continues to outperform her against Trump in the same polls;
• Revisiting some of Clinton's reasons from 2008 for staying in the race against then-Senator Obama, long after it was clear she was unlikely to win the Presidential nomination;
• Oklahoma's GOP governor vetoes a bill that would have criminalized abortions, even as her Republican state legislature passes an "emergency" anti-LGBT bathroom bill;
• A brilliant Connecticut woman smacks down anti-LGBT laws and hate, after she is harassed in a public restroom for being transgender (which she isn't);
• And, our latest Green News Report with a startling number of victories this week for environmental champions...

Enjoy!...

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On today's BradCast, just as we warned you on the day he entered the race back in June of 2015 (when everyone else told you his candidacy was a joke), Donald Trump will now be the 2016 GOP nominee for President of these United States. No joke. And, yes, Bernie Sanders is still both running and winning against the front-runner on the Democratic side.

We cover the reported results from Indiana yesterday, including the GOP dead-enders Ted Cruz and John Kasich who have seen the writing on the wall and both finally dropped out of the race. We also cover the upset victory of Sanders over the corporate media's presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, how he is likely to have more such victories in the weeks ahead, and how the MSM does an amazing job of not noticing.

Then, we're joined by our old friend Heather Digby Parton of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo. She was with us this year for a ton of our debate coverage, but was also with me on the show last year on Day 1 of the Trump campaign. At the time she joined me in my belief that Trump was going to receive huge support among the thoroughly brainwashed and fact-addled Rightwingers that now make up the Republican Party following years of fact-free propaganda passed on to them by wingnut talk radio and corporate "news" outlets.

Now that we know Trump will, barring "an act of God", as Parton says, be the GOP nominee, it seemed a perfect time to talk about what it all means and how the mainstream corporate media was so wrong for so long about Trump (and even about Sanders). As Parton notes: "He is the sort of zenith...He is the id of that conservative 'essence' over the course of the last thirty years. And without the media having prepared people for believing that this was normal, that this represented America, I'm not sure [he would have done this well]."

"Let's not forget," she adds, "this was supposed to be the deepest bench, the most awesomely prepared group of Presidential candidates in American history...and it came down to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Out of that entire group, that's what we were left with. And that is a legitimate reflection of the Republican Party."

But does Parton share my concern that Trump could do a helluva lot better in the general election than many gleeful Democrats currently believe? And will the Democratic electorate think twice about selecting Clinton as their nominee, now that Trump will almost certainly be the GOP's? For all of that, you'll have to tune in.

We close out the hour with a few more reminders of how the mainstream corporate media completely misinformed the American electorate about both Trump's rise and his likelihood of securing the Republican nomination. (They told you over and over he'd never win. We warned you over and over otherwise.) And then, finally, we end today's show with a fantastic story about some ballots and a boat and some folks in Rhode Island who helped make democracy possible for a few lucky voters last week...

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On today's BradCast [audio link below] we return to Republican Presidential politics for the first time in a while, as Ted Cruz and John Kasich announce a plan to team up, sort of, against Donald Trump. (Good luck with that.) But, first, a few stories that haven't received nearly the coverage they deserve from the corporate mainstream media over the weekend.

On Friday, Earth Day, world leaders gathered at the U.N. for the largest-ever first day signing of a worldwide global agreement. The signing of the landmark Paris Agreement to curb global greenhouse gas emissions comes not a moment too soon, as the world smashes heat record after heat record and faces a likely rise in temperatures that will far exceed the targets of the agreement unless further voluntary measures are taken. Desi Doyen joins us to explain it all, and how the Obama Administration plans to get around both ratification by the GOP's denier-controlled U.S. Senate and how the pact was designed to keep the next U.S. President from being able to easily undo it.

Also, another spate of mass shootings took place over the weekend in Republican-controlled states, from OH to GA to AL to WI to AZ, but, as with the Paris Agreement, the corporate mainstream barely noticed as such mass gun deaths have simply become commonplace in these Locked and Loaded States of America.

Then we're joined by Salon political writer Amanda Marcotte to discuss the new alliance between Cruz and Kasich in their desperate bid to take down the GOP front-runner Donald Trump. Marcotte, who describes the plan, much-ballyhooed by the corporate media, as "comically pathetic", explains why the GOP's latest "conspiracy" is unlikely to derail The Donald as hoped.

She says the scheme, which includes Kasich pulling campaign resources out of Indiana in exchange for Cruz pulling resources out of New Mexico and Oregon, doesn't even include telling their own voters to vote for the other guy in those states. "They're not even going that far. That's how dumb this plan is. They're not taking their name off the ballot or doing anything that might actually cause anyone to change their vote. They're just not campaigning in each other's chosen states."

Marcotte believes the move is even likely to help Trump. "For weeks now, Donald Trump has been running around the country claiming that he's a victim of an elite conspiracy to shut him out of his rightful nomination...And here they have come out with great fanfare and announce they are conspiring against him!"

She also tells me about what she sees as "a complete tornado of incompetence" in the Republican Party in general, including from its great white hope in Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan. "The Republican Party has a bunch of ideologues, but they don't have anybody who knows how to do anything. Like basic politics, basic governance," Marcotte explains. "Donald Trump is one of the luckiest people alive because he just sort of wandered into this situation where everyone else is so bad he looks good in comparison."

But is all of this GOP dysfunction and a crumbling Republican Party actually good for Democrats and progressives? Tune in for that discussion and more.

Finally, as voters head to the polls on Tuesday in PA, MD, CT, DE and RI, a closing thought on Democrats "thinking big" about progressive policy, as shared by both Bernie Sanders and Vice President Joe Biden...

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On today's BradCast, we catch up on a number of items in the news, almost all of which underscore a rigged system in the U.S. and the need to unrig it.

From the new effort by more than 100 bipartisan state Attorneys General to see former AL Gov. Don Siegelman (D) turned political prisoner receive a pardon from President Obama; to the obscene amount of corporate and billionaire cash now pouring into U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan's Republican campaign machine; to new lawsuits filed in Arizona by the DNC (with both the Clinton and Sanders camps joining), as well as by transpartisans charging voter suppression in the state's disastrous March 22nd primary; to remaining concerns about the results of recent Presidential nominating contests around the country.

All of those stories, including the increasingly loud insistence (whether supported by the evidence or not) from Sanders and Trump supporters who believe that both major political parties have "rigged" the Presidential nomination selection process against their favored candidates, underscore how the broken U.S. system desperately needs fixing.

So what to do about it? Some of our listeners have ideas, even ones I may or may not agree with. All of that and much more, including our latest Green News Report, on today's program...

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On today's BradCast, we cover the results, the fallout and the voting disasters from Tuesday's Primary Election in Wisconsin --- the most important parts of which continue to be ignored by the bulk of the corporate mainstream media.

First up (after a bit of breaking news out of West Virginia), both Ted Cruz on the Republican side and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side, reportedly won their respective Presidential Primaries yesterday by huge numbers and record turnout. Yet, with the growing likelihood of contested conventions for both the Republican and Democratic parties, the corporate media continue to downplay the Sanders surge against Hillary Clinton (he's now won 7 of the last 8 nominating contests, most of them by 'yuge' margins), even as they continue to go round-the-clock in their coverage of Donald Trump and the GOP nomination fiasco.

They also continue to ignore the difficulties that so many Americans are having even casting their vote, thanks, in particular in Wisconsin, to the GOP's Photo ID restriction law that we've been warning about for a very long time and which resulted in untold thousands of voters, particularly at universities around the state, waiting in lines for hours --- if they were able to wait at all and if they were able to get the "proper ID" --- to simply cast a vote. (See this very short video of a very long line, by way of just one example, if you don't believe me.)

If it was this bad for a Primary in WI (and in AZ, IL, NC, MO, FL and elsewhere, so far this year), imagine what November will be like when all 50 states vote at the same time. The MSM better start ignoring those concerns immediately!

We then take a few listener calls and emails on all of the above (including my thoughts on the "Bernie or Bust" movement) before our latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen on the Keystone pipeline springing a leak, another heat wave in Alaska, new details on the number of Americans who will be killed by climate change, and much more that, coincidentally, is also being under-reported and/or completely ignored by the mainstream corporate media...

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On today's BradCast, several ominous signs for the days ahead --- for Wisconsin voters, for RNC convention goers, and for all the rest of us...

In WI, voter registration and DMV computers go down just days before the crucial primary elections when some 300,000 legally registered voters could find themselves unable to vote at all under state Republicans' disenfranchising Photo ID voting restriction, implemented for the first time in a major election this Tuesday.

Similarly ominous signs for the GOP, with growing evidence to suggest the party may be locked and loaded for a contentious and contested national nominating convention in Cleveland, as Trump may be fading and one (once?) powerful Republican calling for the nomination to go to a "fresh face". Good luck with that.

But there's some good news amongst the omens. An encouraging March jobs report; An infamous 'Wall Street Godfather' explains why he believes Bernie Sanders would be best for the economy; St. Louis, MO is set to use only paper ballots in their local elections on Tuesday (that's a mixed omen); A federal judge kills Mississippi's ban on adoption by same-sex couples; And there's even some encouraging news today amongst more ominous signs in our latest Green News Report today with Desi Doyen. What are the odds of that? Good luck, world!...

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On today's BradCast, we catch up on a lot that we didn't get to cover from last week (while covering all three Presidential debates and one Election Day) and from this past weekend, as the violence at Trump rallies --- and his willingness to blatantly lie about it --- has quickly devolved from bad to worse.

First up, we focus on three specific events at recent Trump rallies (in IL, OH and NC) and the fact that the GOP front-runner --- accurately described by Bernie Sanders as a "pathological liar" and by Hillary Clinton as a "political arsonist" this weekend --- is not only inciting violence, but also attempted to smear American protesters and Sanders supporters as Nazis and members of ISIS, even while offering to pay the legal fees for his own (actually) violent supporters.

Where all of this seems to be heading is now very dark indeed, as we make clear on today's program.

Then, we catch up on some of the primary and caucus results elections from over the weekend (yes, there were a few --- Were the results affected by the increasing ugliness of the Trump campaign?), in advance of tomorrow's "Super Duper Tuesday" primary elections in OH, IL, MO, NC and FL. And we also detail additional concerns about recent MI results and new details on inaccurate e-voting results reported from MA, where Jim Gilmore(!) was, for a short time, announced as the winner of the Super Tuesday Republican Primary election in the City of Chelsea. (The newest explanation for that error, by the way, may be even more disturbing than the original one issued by the city, as it becomes clear that the very same thing could happen anyplace where votes are tallied by optical-scan computers, but be much more difficult to notice.)

Also today, voting rights news out of both OH (where we have some very good news) and TX (where we have some very troubling news) from the courts.

And finally, as promised last week, Desi Doyen offers some thoughts on the latest round of Republican climate change denial offered at last week's GOP debate by Florida's U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate Marco Rubio, whose own constituents are begging him to take action on rising sea levels already impacting South Florida communities.

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On today's BradCast we examine what the big Super Tuesday wins mean, and don't, for both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, as well what the media is both misreporting and failing to report at all. [Audio linked below.]

First, the GOP is now in full panic mode following Trump's seven-state victory yesterday, as the DNC and corporate media use misleading numbers to describe Clinton's own seven-state victory. In addition to the general horse-race numbers, and the Republican drama, we examine how the MSM continues to ill-serve the public in their coverage of the Democratic race to date, specifically when it comes to the unpledged so-called "SuperDelegates".

We also look at a few more of the more than 2,000 reports of voting problems that came into the non-partisan Election Protection coalition yesterday; More touch-screen trouble, this time in TN; And what the hell happened in Chelsea, MA, where former VA Gov. Jim Gilmore(!?!), who dropped out of the race weeks ago, crushed the Republican Primary competition, at least according to the paper-ballot optical-scan computers that tallied the results last night?...

The paper ballots in Chelsea were initially tabulated by the same type of op-scan systems used in states all over the country and shown to be capable of flipping elections without notice in the jaw-dropping finale of HBO's Emmy-nominated 2006 documentary Hacking Democracy. Today, the numbers have now been "corrected" [PDF] by the clerk's office [Update: The link to the document at the Chelsea government site is now broken, so here's a copy of the PDF that had been linked there] and, apparently, chalked up to "the computer system that reported the results". Ya don't say. Was it anything like this similar failure from Stoughton, WI in 2014?

Also today: Listener email in response to my interview earlier this week with Current Affairs magazine editor Nathan J. Robinson, who had offered his persuasive case, based on his recent feature article, for why Trump is likely to win the Presidency if Democrats fail to nominate Bernie Sanders. We look at the arguments from a number of you who disagreed with Robinson.

Finally: A short, but refreshing break from politics as Scott Kelly, the American astronaut who has been in space for the past year, returns safely to Earth with his Russian counterpart in furtherance of NASA's planned manned missions to Mars...

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