On today's BradCast: Honestly, I tried. But it was really hard to find any part of the case heard by the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday that wasn't just absolutely ridiculous. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

For nearly three hours this morning, the nine Justices themselves --- including a number of its rightwingers --- seemed to struggle to pretend that any of this made sense. In Trump v. United States [PDF], the disgraced four-time indictee is arguing that former Presidents of the United States have "absolute immunity" from any and all crimes they may have committed while serving in office, including murdering his political opponents or anything else you can think of.

As absurd as it sounds, Donald Trump has used this novel claim to, so far, successfully delay his federal trial on four criminal counts brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith related to Trump's many failed efforts to steal the 2020 Presidential election. SCOTUS has helped by delaying today's hearing for months and may help further depending on when they decide to release their opinion, and whether or not that opinion will lead to still more delays in the lower courts.

After losing this argument at the trial court last year and then unanimously at the D.C. Court of Appeals, Trump brought the case to SCOTUS, packed with three of his own appointees. They did him the favor of taking up his losing argument and putting off their Oral Argument on it until today, almost certainly delaying his trial for trying to steal the 2020 election until AFTER the 2024 election. [Transcript and audio of today's proceedings here.]

"This Court has never recognized absolute criminal immunity for any public official. Petitioner, however, claims that a former President has permanent criminal immunity for his official acts, unless he was impeached and convicted," argued Michael Dreeban, Counselor to Jack Smith, in his opening statement. "His novel theory would immunize former Presidents for criminal liability for bribery, treason, sedition, murder and, here, conspiring to use fraud to overturn the results of an election and perpetuate himself in power. Such Presidential immunity has no foundation in the Constitution."

In taking the case, the Court decided to hear the following question: "Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office."

But what "official acts" are they even talking about? Smith's indictment accuses Trump of things like organizing fake slates of electors; pressuring state officials and the DOJ and his Vice President to fraudulently change certified election results; and directing supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 after telling them to "fight like hell or we won't have a country anymore." The Justices --- as well as our two guests today --- all seemed to have a very difficult time finding any "official acts" for which Trump is being accused.

We're joined today by two excellent guests. Former Chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption unit at the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C., RANDALL D. ELIASON now teaches at George Washington University Law School, publishes the SidebarsBlog newsletter, and contributes to New York Times. Former Deputy Asst. Attorney General at DoJ, LISA GRAVES is now Executive Director of Truth North Research. They each know far more about all of this and the specifics of the Rule of Law than I do. But they too had trouble coming up with much of anything Trump has been charged with that has anything to do with "official acts" as President.

Its an "astonishing argument," says Graves. "What's at issue in this case is a set of conduct by this President to basically subvert our democracy through a variety of means. None of these are official acts. But even if somehow a President were engaged in an 'official act,' like appointing an ambassador, he couldn't take a bribe in the context of doing so. It just seems crazy that here we are with the U.S. Supreme Court basically delaying the prosecution of Donald Trump for a set of acts that are clearly outside the bounds of a Commander-in-Chief, whose job is to take care that the law is faithfully executed."

There was no conflict in the lower courts to resolve, but at least four members of the High Court decided they wanted to hear this silly argument nonetheless in which Trump and his attorney John Sauer have been arguing that, without immunity, Presidents would be unable to take bold, decisive action. It would "chill" their ability to do their job for the American people.

"The easiest response is that for nearly 250 years, that hasn't deterred Presidents from taking bold, decisive action," Eliason responds today. "Because they've also been willing to recognize that they need to act in compliance with federal criminal law, and they might be held accountable if they don't. On the one hand, he's saying there's a chilling effect on all these Presidents, even though it hasn't bothered any President in the past. On the other hand, he's saying 'But of course he could be prosecuted IF he's impeached and removed.' Well there's a chilling effect. So why doesn't that undercut his argument?"

We share audio clips from today's hearing, along with much more insight on all of it from Eliason and Graves, including why this case was accepted in the first place; the "Bizarro Superman world" in which we are having this argument and the "repugnant" idea of Clarence Thomas sitting on this case at all, as Graves observes; the argument by Sauer that unless statutes specifically say they are to apply to the President, like the federal bribery statute, they can't be held against him (Eliason, who headed up the DOJ's bribery prosecutions unit in D.C., notes the bribery statute actually "does not name the President, but nobody thinks that the President is immune for bribery"); and, of course, how and when they believe the Court will ultimately rule.

ALSO TODAY... On Wednesday, a grand jury in Arizona indicted Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, his attorney Rudy Giuliani, his other attorney John Eastman and 15 others, including 11 Republican fake electors (including two sitting state Senators and the former head of the state GOP), for their efforts to try and steal the 2020 election for Trump in the state.

AND FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with grim-as-ever news, but also some really cool news from out here in California, where the state has been powered by 100% renewable energy --- largely solar --- for much or all of the day for a whole bunch of days in a row in recent weeks. So, there's that positive note to end today with, in any event!...

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The warnings came from safety experts, insurance companies and environmentalists. Years ago. So, of course, they were all ignored by both the then Republican Governor and big business, including Big Oil, who all got their way over safety concerns and the public interest, as discussed on today's BradCast. [Audio link posted below this summary.]

But first up, some other news of note...

• Ohio's Republican Secretary of State informed Democrats on Friday that they must change the date of their party's national convention this summer or Joe Biden will not qualify to be on the state's 2024 ballot under state law. Or, of course, the state's GOP legislature could simply change the law, as they did in 2020 when the Republican National Convention was scheduled too late for Donald Trump to qualify for that year's ballot. But the state legislature will have to do so by May 9. Mark your calendars.

• On Monday in Wisconsin, President Biden unveiled yet another plan, this a very big one, to relieve hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt, this time for 30 million Americans after the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court, last year, blocked his original plan to do so for 40 million borrowers.

• Also on Monday, Donald Trump released a rambling video on his social media cite purporting to be his new position on abortion rights. He takes credit for his SCOTUS majority overturning Roe v. Wade, but says nothing about whether he would sign a national abortion ban; have his FDA block the use of abortion medication; or allow his DoJ to block abortions entirely if he is re-elected this November. So, how did pretty much every single corporate mainstream media outlet headline the "news"? By falsely claiming that "Trump Says Abortion Law Should be Left to the States". But, of course, he didn't. And you wonder how it can be that so many Americans are so misinformed about the threat to the nation and world posed by Donald Trump? There's your answer.

Then, we're joined by investigative journalist HELEN SANTORO of The Lever, who has been digging deep into the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster ever since its deadly collapse two weeks ago, after being struck by a massive, 980-foot mega-container-ship in the Port of Baltimore.

We discuss two of her recent articles on the tragedy today, both of which underscore how corporate greed and industry lobbyists have been allowed to run roughshod over common sense, public safety, and corporate responsibility.

The first story, filed shortly after the tragedy which killed six bridge workers and has shut down all traffic in or out of one of the East Coast's largest shipping ports ever since, focuses on Maryland's Republican former Governor --- now U.S. Senate Candidate --- Larry Hogan, who ignored multiple, repeated warnings, year after year, in his continuing efforts to bring ever larger vessels into the Port. In doing so, he discounted safety warnings from an insurance giant and an international transit group, while accepting millions in federal funding from the Trump Administration to expand the port and push for still-larger cargo ships. Environmental groups also sounded the alarm about Hogan's efforts, as did a top state engineer as long ago as 1980, when he warned that the Key Bridge could not withstand such a crash, even by smaller vessels, without falling down.

"It seems very clear that [Hogan] really prioritized private interests again and again, wanting Maryland to be this point of business," Santoro explains. "And, it seems like, with prioritizing these private interests, the safety of the bridge was clearly not considered."

The second of Santoro's investigative articles that we discuss today focuses on the 173-year old federal Limitation of Liability Act which caps the amount that shipping companies may be held liable for in such disasters. It earned the nickname "The Titanic Law" back in 1912, when White Star Line, the British-owner of the doomed ship, invoked the Act to pay no more than $430 for each of the more than 1,500 passengers who were lost in that fatal tragedy.

The Act has seen some small reforms over the years, but most attempts in recent years to finally modernize the 1851 law have been stymied by Congressional Republicans at the behest of lobbyists from Big Oil and other industries in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster and the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling that same year.

"It was pretty crazy going back and seeing that people have been complaining about this law since the Titanic crashed in 1912," Santoro tells me. "And yet the reforms have been, I would argue, pretty minimal, in terms of upping the amount that a company has to pay."

"Big Oil has really latched on to the Limitation of Liability Act to get themselves out of paying a lot of money for the Deepwater Horizon fiasco and other issues," she says. "There's a lot of industry funding and interest that is big on keeping damage control and the amount they're paying out for damages as low as possible."

Will Maryland's popular former Governor Hogan face accountability in his Senate race to fill the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin this fall for dismissing years of warnings about the very tragedy that has now befallen his state (and the national economy along with it)? Will Congress finally update the antiquated Titanic Law when they return this week, so that major corporations --- which, unlike in the 1850s, are well insured to cover the costs of such disasters --- can be held to real account for the damage they cause in the name of greater and greater profit? Those are just some of the many questions we discuss with Santoro on today's program...

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Corporate media failure and a small, if noteworthy, success (for a change) are just part of today's BradCast, which also includes a 'bloodbath', more House GOP dysfunction, a wingnut Recall, and plenty of rape victim shaming...by a rape victim. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

• Colorado's far-right Republican Rep. Ken Buck, who announced he would not be running for reelection earlier this year due to party dysfunction, announces he is quitting Congress entirely next week instead, further narrowing the House GOP's razor-thin majority. Buck says he has another "job to do out there", claims that voters are unhappy with both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and vows to find "the right organization to join" and "start working on the issue" of "hav[ing] better candidates up and down the ballot." Is he on his way toward joining the supposedly bi-partisan Presidential "Unity Ticket" promised by secretive, Republican-funded, third-party group No Labels?

• Donald Trump's personal takeover of the Republican National Committee is now complete, with his inexperienced daughter-in-law as co-chair, his Campaign's information officer as RNC Chief of Staff, and a "bloodbath" of firing as many as 60 longtime officials on Monday, their first day of operational control. The fired will be replaced with Trump loyalists (or with nobody, so Trump can pocket more RNC cash?) If you are wondering what he will do to tens of thousands of federal agency workers on his dictatorial Day One if he's allowed to win the Presidency this year, what he is doing to the RNC right now should be considered Exhibit A. Don't say you weren't warned.

• More eating their own, this time in Wisconsin. A Trump-endorsed MAGA group says they've submitted more than enough signatures to the state to schedule a Recall Election for the far-right, longtime Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos for, apparently, not being Trumpy enough. Or, at least being unwilling to break the law to steal the 2020 election in the state for the disgraced former President. [UPDATE since air time: Looks like the effort is not going well so far.]

• Mainstream corporate media outlets begin quietly resetting their dozens of misleading reports last month on Special Counsel Robert Hur's findings about Joe Biden's "faltering memory" after the release of the actual transcripts of recorded interviews with the President by Hur (a Trump-appointee at DoJ) reveal a pretty different story. The interviews were part of Hur's probe of classified documents found by Biden's attorneys in one of his old offices and elsewhere. Hur determined "no criminal charges are warranted," but slimed Biden in the bargain and media ran with it. Now, they are quickly revising the earlier misleading reports. NYT: Biden was "clearheaded". WaPo: Biden "doesn't come across as absent-minded as Hur made him out to be." WSJ: Biden was "not stumped on basic factual questions". That after each paper published dozens of stories each in the days following the release of Hur's report questioning Biden's mental faculties and fitness for office...just as Republicans had been hoping they would.

• George Stephanopoulos deserves kudos for refusing to fold or be intimidated by the ridiculous and relentless attack from South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace who claimed that the ABC reporter, during his interview with her on Sunday, was attempting to "victim shame" her by asking her to justify her endorsement of Donald Trump after he was found liable for rape and repeatedly defaming the victim by two separate juries in New York. Mace bizarrely charged that, because she was a rape victim herself, Stephanopoulos' question was a "disgusting" attempt to "shame" her. In the bargain, she offered a mountain of victim shaming for Trump's rape victim, E. Jean Carroll and suggested that rape wasn't real because Trump's nearly $90 million liability for the rape and defamation came from civil trials instead of criminal ones.

• Longtime media critic Dan Froomkin accuses the New York Times of "repeatedly abus[ing] the English language in its political reporting," and offers some really good suggestions for much-needed additions to their style guide. Smart suggestions from the former, longtime Washington Post, HuffPost and Intercept columnist include the proper use of words such as "baseless", "Congress", "conservative" and "moderate".

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with climate related news from Joe Biden's State of the Union Address; horrific global temp and ocean heat records from February; and more terrible news for Australia's Great Barrier Reef (and, in fact, coral reefs everywhere!)...

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Brad is still under the (non-COVID) weather today, so guest host Nicole Sandler joins us to take the captain's chair for today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST: We start with some of today's breaking news (and there was a lot of it that came after airtime today, which we'll try to get to tomorrow), beginning in Congress, with Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announcing plans to retire from Senate leadership (although not from the Senate itself) after this November's election. Also, the question of whether the House GOP majority will be able to agree on a government funding package to avoid another Republican government shutdown by Midnight on Friday.

Also today, what to make of the reported results of Tuesday's Primary elections in Michigan, where both Joe Biden and Donald Trump easily won each of their respective party's contests, but where the New York Times and other corporate outlets found a strange way to spin the results. (As Brad pointed out on Twitter last night, Biden faced "significant challenge" in winning over 81% of the vote, while Trump "coasted to victory" with just over 68% on the GOP side against Nikki Haley's 27%, according to the Times' headlines.)

Biden did face just over 13% of Democratic voters who selected "Uncommitted" on Tuesday to register a protest vote against the Administration's policies in Israel amid its brutal invasion of Gaza. We try to offer a bit of context, however, amid the corporate media's too often misleading and/or context-free coverage.

THEN: Nicole speaks with investigative reporter JORDAN GREEN of Raw Story, who has spent months investigating a group of neo-Nazi teenagers who are working to recruit and indoctrinate even younger white kids online. Green reports on the neo-Nazi hate groups who are using the Internet to draw in teenage boys, "grooming children for a race war"; how their parents are reacting; and how these extremist groups have now turned to targeting Green, attempting to menace and intimidate him into halting his reporting.

He reports on being doxxed and seeing protests outside his own home, as the groups use similar fear and intimidation tactics against him that they also use to terrorize blacks, Jews, LGBTQ+ people and others.

Green discusses his investigation of the teen neo-Nazi recruitment group, his fight to protect his family and himself, and his resolve to continue: "That's not going to deter me from reporting," he tells Nicole. "This is the bedrock principle of democracy, to report without fear or favor. So I will continue to do that....They are certainly using the same tactics against journalists that they use against other groups that they dislike."

FINALLY: We finish up today with our latest Green News Report (featuring an ailing Brad!) which happens to be our 15th Anniversary episode! As a new study reveals that extreme weather disasters displaced 2.5 million Americans from their homes in 2023; Texas home prices have plunged in areas affected by a new state flood risk disclosure law; Chicago's lawsuit against Big Oil over climate damages. All of that as we celebrate 15 years of environmental news, politics, analysis and snarky comment over your public airwaves! (Thanks to YOU!)...

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On today's BradCast: As of this week, if it wasn't clear before (and, obviously, for many, it was not) it is now clearer than ever that the U.S., its corporate media, the Republican Party, its front-runner for the 2024 Presidential nomination (and, sadly, even too many on the "left"), have all fallen prey --- knowingly or unknowingly (it doesn't really matter) --- to a wildly successful, decade-long Russian intel op. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

From the Hillary emails in 2016 to the Hunter Biden laptop in 2020 to the Biden Burisma "bribery" allegations that fell apart so spectacularly this week with the arrest of the man who House GOPers cited as the lynch-pin for their entire Revenge Impeachment case against President Biden, it turns out it was all part of a wildly successful foreign campaign to divide and threaten American political system.

Turns out Alexander Smirnov, that guy with the false Burisma claims about the Bidens, apparently got it all from Russian intel operatives who have, for the past ten years, been pushing all of these phony narratives straight out from the Kremlin through various useful idiots, onto the set of Fox "News" and the rest of the rightwing media, into the mouth of the disgraced former President, and straight through to the hearing rooms of the U.S. Congress where it was shared --- either knowing or unknowingly (it doesn't really matter) --- by GOP dupes.

It's quite an extraordinary success story, in truth. For Vladimir Putin. And a shameful failure of our corporate mainstream media to even notice much of it happening in real time. They also played the role of useful idiots when it counted the most over much of the past decade and right on up until today.

Josh Marshall described it as "A Bigger Story Than You Can Possibly Imagine" this week, and I believe he is correct. Much more on all of that --- and Putin's deadly rise --- on today's program.

ALSO TODAY...

• MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is not only an election denier and grifter. He also won't pay off a bet. In 2021, Lindell claimed to have obtained "irrefutable" evidence that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump by China over the Internet. His evidence was Internet data packets that he claims to have obtained from a "whistleblower". He offered $5 million to anyone who could prove the data wasn't from the election. A two-time Trump voter did so in 2022. The data, he proved, was nothing but junk. But Mike wouldn't pay up the $5 million he offered via his "Prove Mike Wrong" challenge. A private arbitration panel agreed the man was owed the money. Cheap chiseler Mike still wouldn't pay. This week, a federal judge ordered him to do so.

• Corporate media spend a lot of time focusing on Joe Biden's bad polling numbers against Donald Trump. This week, a new survey by Quinnipiac University, a major pollster, found Biden beating Trump among registered voters nationally by 4 points. So Politico covered the new survey with this headline: "Poll: Nearly 70 percent of voters say Biden is too old to serve again".

• Is it any wonder so many on the left are still under the misguided impression that someone, anyone, who knows who?, but certainly someone, should replace Joe Biden on the 2024 ballot! Because that unidentified someone would certainly have a better chance of defeating Donald Trump this year! Well, even if there was evidence of Biden not running this year (there isn't), recent polling doesn't even back up the assertion that other Dems would do better against Trump than Biden would. But, hey, if you've got a realistic scenario to replace Joe Biden that won't result in a second Trump Presidency, please feel free to email me! I'd love to hear it and maybe even share it with listeners!

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as SCOTUS seems set to gut yet another landmark environmental protection; A bizarre winter heat wave slams Japan; and the Biden Administration continues moving forward with its historic effort to replace all of the nation's toxic lead water pipes...

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We covered so much territory on today's BradCast that I'm having trouble writing about all of the seemingly disparate pieces in a cogent narrative here. So I won't try. I'll give you the pieces, and hopefully you will listen to the show to see how it all ties together (or doesn't). [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among the many stories covered on today's program...

• Wednesday's mass shooting at the Kansas City Chief's Super Bowl victory rally; Wednesday's mass shooting at an Atlanta high school; President Biden's official response.

• Special Counsel Jack Smith's speedy filing [PDF] at SCOTUS in response to Donald Trump's continuing attempt to further delay his federal trial related to his attempts to steal the 2020 election with his absurd claim that Presidents enjoy "absolute immunity" for any and all crimes committed while serving in office.

• New York State Judge Juan Merchan on Thursday confirmed Trump's trial will begin on March 25 on 34 criminal felony charges related to hush-money payments made to a porn star to help him win the 2016 election. The judge rejected Team Trump's argument that sitting for a trial related to cheating to win the 2016 election will hamper his efforts to win the 2024 election. The trial is expected to last for six weeks.

• A salacious sidebar to the 13 criminal felony counts Trump is facing in Georgia for his failed conspiracy to steal the state's 2020 election played out in a Fulton County courtroom on Thursday. A defiant District Attorney Fani Willis responded on the witness stand to charges from one of Trump's 18 alleged co-conspirators that the D.A.'s romantic relationship with one of the prosecutors on the case was either inappropriate or somehow a conflict of interest effecting the charges brought against Trump and his co-defendants. Willis was defiant in her response to questions and her testimony will continue on Friday.

• BREAKING DURING SHOW!: A former FBI informant named Alexander Smirnov was arrested and charged with lying to government officials in the summer of 2020 about Joe Biden and his son Hunter receiving millions of dollars in bribes from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. Those lies have been a central part of Trump and Rudy Giuliani and House Republicans' phony, years-long attempts to smear the Biden family and impeach President Biden. Today's felony charges were filed by Trump-appointed Special Counsel David Weiss, who was tapped by Trump A.G. Bill Barr five years ago to try and find dirt on the Bidens. He found it instead on those spreading the dirt.

• A few thoughts on how corporate mainstream media headlines, social media posts and mobile phone alerts can dangerously distort news.

• A few thoughts on how Phoenix, Arizona media outlets 3TV and CBS 5 are seemingly doing the bidding of the fossil fuel industry while pretending to be consumer advocates. We details some of their dishonest and misleading coverage of the cost of battery replacements for hybrid Electric Vehicles. Sadly (and shamefully), they are not the only media outlets undermining humankind by doing the bidding of Big Oil in misreporting on EVs in America.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with sad news on a mysterious and massive oil spill on the pristine beaches of Trinidad and Tobago; big changes happening in Greenland as it continues to get warmer and greener; and how climate change is now coming for your chocolate...

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Once again today, we try to stuff a 10-pound show into a 5-pound BradCast. Wish us luck! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our many stories for your listening pleasure, amusement and outrage today...

• Jon Stewart is back on The Daily Show! At least on Monday nights. At least for this year. And, boy howdy, was he missed. Other than looking about 20 years older, he literally hasn't missed a step over the 9 years since he's been away from the show, both comically and, more importantly, politically. His first night back included an epic opening monologue that framed the various concerns among Democrats about Joe Biden's age in a way that nobody else has or could. Hopefully, it helps to kick off the serious conversation that Democrats need to start having amongst themselves to begin coming to terms with the fact that one of the most effective and, yes, oldest Presidents of our lifetimes (or ever) will be running for re-election this November. We've got lots to say here. But, much more importantly, so did Stewart last night.

• Battling a massive Nor'easter and racing the clock against whatever may happen in the Special Election for U.S. House in New York's 3rd Congressional District tonight, in the contest to fill the expelled Rep. George Santos' seat, House Republicans take a do-over on Tuesday after their embarrassing failed effort last week to Revenge Impeach the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. The first impeachment ever of a sitting cabinet members is not for any actual "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" as required by the Constitution, but for...something something ...border policy...something something. (And because they haven't been able to figure out yet how to Revenge Impeach Joe Biden.)

• After insisting that any new aid package for Ukraine must include a massive new package for the U.S. Border Security. And then after striking a bipartisan deal with Democrats for that Border Security bill they insisted on. And then after insisting that any new aid for Ukraine not include a massive new package for the U.S. Border because Donald Trump told them to kill the Border provisions, because he needed an issue to run on in November....Senate Republicans (some of them anyway) joined Democrats after an all-night filibuster to pass a foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. House Speaker Mike Johnson, however, has already said he'll do everything he can to keep this National Security measure from ever being allowed up for a vote on the House floor. Because Donald Trump told him to.

• In the greatest tradition of Banana Republic strongmen, Donald Trump is reportedly planning to install his own daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-Chair of the Republican National Committee and the Chair of his own Campaign as the RNC's Chief Operations Officer. The GOP takeover by a twice-impeached, four-time criminally indicted, one-term failed President is now all but officially complete.

• And then we finally get to the Hur Report today and the corporate mainstream media's epically failed coverage of it's release by Special Prosecutor Robert Hur, who was appointed by Trump to the DoJ. Last week, the Dept. unsealed the full, unredacted, nearly 400-page report [PDF]. Hur was tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland to probe the small number of classified documents that Joe Biden's attorneys discovered at one of his old office spaces and in his home.

  The headline for the report's release should have been "Special Prosecutor Fails to Find Evidence of Crimes in Biden Classified Docs Probe", at least if one bothers to read what Hur actually detailed in the bulk of his report.

  That, as Hur himself points out, by way of contrast to the many reasons that 40 criminal felony counts were brought against Trump under the Espionage Act after he stole tens of thousands of pages of highly classified documents upon leaving office and then refused to return them to the Government.

  "Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite," writes Hur on page 11. "According to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it. In contrast, Mr. Biden turned in classified documents to the National Archives and the Department of Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview. and in other ways cooperated with the investigation."

  The report went on for hundreds of pages, laying out exculpatory evidence after exculpatory evidence, as former DoJ prosecutors Andrew Weissman and Ryan Goodman detail. That, even as Hur rifled through Biden's personal diaries searching for evidence of a crime, as brilliantly highlighted by national security journalist Marcy Wheeler.

  But the screaming HEADLINE NEWS!!! that our corporate media took away from all of it in dozens and dozens of stories was that the Trump-appointed Hur included remarks in the report having nothing to do with whether Biden should be charged with a crime or not, but that Hur, not a medical professional, describes as the President having a "poor memory" and "diminished faculties".

  And you wonder why our country is going to hell in a handbasket?

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with coverage of a new type of Super Bowl EV ad; The big investment into the Trump campaign by Big Oil and Gas this year; and a jury award of $1 million to Pulitzer Prize-winning climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann in his defamation case against two far-right climate science liars and harassers...

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Some days these days on The BradCast, it's hard to believe we're covering what we are covering. I'd say that's the case on most days, these days. Today is, yet again, one of those days. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

FIRST, we try to bring you up to date following Donald Trump's rigged GOP Caucuses in Nevada last week. Given that he and some guy named Ryan Binkley were the only two on the ballot, Trump won with Saddam Hussein-like or Vladimir Putin-like numbers, taking 99.1% of the vote and all of the state's available RNC delegates in the bargain. Nikki Haley, having competed in the state-run Primary just two days earlier, was not allowed to participate in the state's GOP-run Caucuses.

The Virgin Islands also held a GOP Caucus on the same day. Trump won there as well, defeating Haley (who was allowed to be on that ballot) by about 74% to 26%. Only about 250 voters bothered to show up, so don't read too much into it.

On the Dem side of the aisle, Joe Biden's only noteworthy competitor on the Nevada Primary ballot last Tuesday (which he handily won), was self-help guru Marianne Williamson. She dropped out of her run for the Democratic nomination the next day.

Tomorrow, however, expect an actual contest in the 3rd Congressional District in New York, where voters on Republican-leaning Long Island will select a replacement member of the U.S. House for the recently expelled pathological liar and Republican con-artist, Rep. George Santos. The polls suggest a close race for the seat between conservative Democrat and former Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi and his Republican opponent, the Ethiopian-born Israeli-American Mazi Pilip. The winning party will explain why the contest in the district should be seen as a bellwether for November's elections. The losing party will insist that it isn't.

THEN, it's back to the last few mad days since we last spoke, during which Trump (just before airtime today) filed his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping that his friends and appointees on the High Court will agree, unlike anyone on the lower courts, that U.S. Presidents have complete immunity to commit any crime they like while in office; Robert Hur, a former Trump-appointed DoJ prosecutor tapped by A.G. Merrick Garland to be a Special Counsel, ended a year-long nearly 400-page investigation [PDF] by finding there were no crimes to charge President Biden with concerning his possession and return of some classified documents following his two terms as Vice President. But, Hur took pains to also note, Joe Biden is old; and, our disgraced former President attacked Haley, his final GOP opponent, because her husband, Maj. Michael Haley is in the Horn of Africa for a year-long active duty deployment with the South Carolina National Guard. (No word on the whereabouts of Trump's wife Melania. Though it's a safe bet that she, like the entirety of the Trump family going back generations, is not out serving her country as a member of the military.)

But it was Trump's remarks about NATO at that very same South Carolina rally over the weekend that have, appropriately, received the most coverage since then. (If nothing near the absurd coverage that the corporate media has given to Special Counsel Hur's inappropriate insinuations regarding Biden's mental fitness.)

Trump relayed a story at the rally in which he claims that, when he was President, he told the leader of a NATO nation that, if they hadn't "paid their bills" to NATO, and were attacked by Russia, the U.S. would NOT come to their defense. That, in defiance of the NATO Treaty's Article 5 agreement that states that if one member is attacked, “each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked".

NATO nations, however, don't "pay" to be in NATO. In 2014, President Obama led an agreement among the treaty's 30+ member nations to work toward each spending a minimum of 2% of their annual GDP on defense. That's the "bill" for which Trump (who has been sued thousands of times personally for not paying bills) claims that many of those countries are "delinquent".

Making matters worse --- unimaginable just a few short years ago, in fact --- Trump also claims to have told that NATO leader that while the U.S. would not come to their defense, he would also encourage Russia "to do whatever the hell they want" to such countries.

NATO's Secretary-General, as well as the governments of several NATO nations, including Germany and Poland, issued unusual and harsh rebukes on Sunday in response to Trump's astonishing --- once unthinkable --- remarks.

FINALLY today, we open up the phone lines to listeners to get their thoughts on all of the above and anything else they may wish to ring in on today. And so they do. And so we're delighted, as always, to hear from those listeners who may not agree with us. Those are always the best calls after all, right?...

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I fear we are still far from peak madness, even if it feels like we're getting dangerously close on today's BradCast, with our Special Coverage analysis of New Hampshire's First-in-the-Nation Primary results and whatever the hell may be happening next. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Donald Trump defeated Nikki Haley on Tuesday in NH, though only by 11 points, the same number by which he defeated his GOP challengers in last week's Iowa Caucuses, according to the latest reported results. Once again, he received just over half of the votes cast by those who participated in the Republican contest. Trump's tally is currently just over 54%, Haley's is just over 43%.

On the Democratic side, where Joe Biden's name didn't even appear on the ballot, as the first sanctioned Democratic Primary is set for South Carolina instead early next month, the President won easily in NH nonetheless. Thanks to an unofficial Write-In campaign, he garnered nearly 56% of the vote, with a whole bunch of Write-In ballots still to be hand processed as of airtime today. Biden's final vote share is likely to climb to 60% or above. MN Congressman Dean Phillips received just below 20% of the Democratic vote, while self-help guru Marianne Williamson came in at just below 5%.

On the GOP side, Haley offered what sounded like a victory speech Tuesday night, deriding Trump and as loser and vowing to continue the race through her home state of South Carolina and "dozens of states left to go". A furious Trump responded, as he does, with disjointed, angry remarks and thinly veiled, if evidence-free, threats regarding criminal investigations of his former U.N. Ambassador. "I don’t get too angry --- I get even," he promised.

What sense does any of this make? We're joined today by our very smart old pals HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of The Professional Left Podcast for whatever analysis any of this may be worth. Among the many questions discussed on today's program...

• What's the most important 2024 election news today? Results from the NH primary or the fact that Jon Stewart is coming back to The Daily Show in time for the 2024 elections?
• What does Haley think she will accomplish by remaining in the race?
• Is there any remaining chance that Trump won't actually become this year's GOP nominee?
• Are media outlets such as CNN and MSNBC, who break away from lies told during Trump's victory speech, doing America a favor or a disservice?
• While key establishment GOP donors have thrown support behind Haley, will they eventually come around to Trump anyway?
• Is the Biden camp, which reportedly wanted the GOP race to be over after NH, wise in rushing toward a two-person race against Trump?
• Would a conviction for Trump in any of his four felony indictments really dampen support for Trump among Republicans as recent polling suggests?
• Why is Trump still tied with or beating Biden in a number of polls right now?

"It's mobster stuff," notes Driftglass about Trump's vague threats to Haley during his victory speech on Tuesday. "In an alternate universe," he contends, Haley might have been a good candidate for the GOP. But "the universe that we live in is one where Trump has a full-blown cult behind him." He adds a reminder to his "Never Trump friends that you built a Doomsday machine with no off-switch."

Parton joins Driftglass in arguing that Trump WILL now be the GOP nominee, unless he "falls face-first into the omelet bar at Mar-a-Lago." Other than that, she warns, "we're looking at a Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden campaign." The GOP donor class will "be there no matter what" for Trump, she observes, noting, "these guys are the zombies of the American political system and they're never going away." As to Haley, Parton adds: "If last night was any example of what Trump is going to do to her, it's about to get very, very ugly."

You mean it's not ugly yet?!...

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No matter what happens in this year's election, the year will be like none other in the U.S. Are the mainstream media --- which arguably helped lead us to our current mess at the edge of a potential collapse of American democracy --- able to meet the challenge? To serve a nation that badly news an unapologetic press able to call out the corrupted without "both sidesing" every issue? That's where we begin on today's BradCast, before covering a whole bunch of accountability for rightwingers and rightwing organizations in recent days and weeks. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

It seems impossible to believe that the U.S. mainstream media will be able to meet this moment. And yet, there are signs, suggests our guest today, longtime journalist and media critic DAN FROOMKIN of Press Watch, formerly of Washington Post, Huff Post, The Intercept and Harvard's journalism watchdog, the Neiman Foundation.

In a column late last year, Froomkin detailed the "intense internal pressure to defend democracy" that newsrooms will be facing in 2024. The greatest pressure, he reports, is likely to come not from outside those newsrooms, but from inside, where "traditional bosses are still in control," holding fast to "both sides" journalism, but where they are finally being challenged by what he describes as a "silent journalistic majority", an often younger and/or more diverse group of reporters "whose sense of self is defined by more than just not taking sides. It’s defined by informing the public of the truth."

With the stakes now higher than ever, he observes, there are signs, at least, that some in the traditional, unhelpful mainstream are begin to change in order to meet the moment. It's a tall order --- especially after so many decades of failure --- but there are some positive signs that even the traditionalists are beginning to understand the threat posed to American democracy itself by a Republican party which has now all but fallen to the fascistic, autocratic demands of its cult leader.

"The good news --- and it is unusual for me to focus on the good news in the media --- is that I think we're seeing two steps forward, one step back, in that I do see some braver, more honest, more upfront journalism happening on occasion at the major institutions," Froomkin tells me, before adding, "And then every so often, they'll backslide terribly."

He argues that many are "getting really impatient with this 'both-side'-ism, this 'a pox on both your houses' stuff."

"If you talk to any journalist who is not personally invested in the old way of doing things, you'll find that they actually agree with this critique. It is not a radical critique anymore. It is very much a 'How do we do journalism in this day and age?' question. And I think the answer is increasingly becoming that we need to call it out the way we see it. And that we need to stand up for democracy and for a free press, and for core journalistic values. It doesn't mean telling people to go vote Democratic, it doesn't mean being easy on the Democrats. But it does mean pointing out what this danger is right now."

"If Trump takes power, he's going to go after the media. And he will criminalize journalism in a lot of ways, and the free press will be under a lot of pressure. I don't think any journalist can sit there and say, 'I'll be fine if Trump wins.' They should all be terrified," Froomkin asserts, adding: "An increasing number are. You're seeing some of that, for instance, in this story on political violence. That was one of the big issues swept under the rug until recently."

As Froomkin explains, the jury is very much still out. But what he once saw as a "generational project" now needs to happen much quicker. "The stakes feel so high right at this moment --- for obvious reasons --- that I think there’s pretty good chance of change before November," he wrote last month. We'll see if he's right about that.

In the meantime, there has been some encouraging news elsewhere, at least from the court system in recent weeks, resulting in a rush of long-overdue accountability for people and organizations of the corrupted right.

• Last week, New York Attorney General Tish James' office filed motions seeking $370 million from Donald Trump, his company, and its top executives for years of massive bank, tax and insurance fraud. She is also seeking a lifetime ban from the NY real estate market for Trump, and a five-year ban for his eldest sons. The whole crew has already been found liable by the state judge overseeing the case. The only question now is what the penalties will ultimately be. Closing arguments are this week and Trump will not be allowed to make part of them himself, after failing to agree he would do so without attacking prosecutors, the judge or his staff, or turn the remarks into a political statement.

• Also last week, Wayne LaPierre, the wildly corrupt 30-year leader of the terrorist-supporting National Rifle Association, finally resigned on the eve of his corruption trial --- also thanks to Tish James in New York --- which began this week. LaPierre and other top NRA officials allegedly bilked millions of dollars from the non-profit organization to fund their own lavish lifestyles. James hopes to force LaPierre and the others to pay it all back and permanently bar them from serving on the board of any NY charity. Thoughts and prayers.

• Longtime Republican grifter James O'Keefe's sleazy, fake "journalism" organization called Project Veritas, finally seems to be all but permanently dead. That, after O'Keefe was found to have overseen years of "financial malfeasance" according to its Board and newly seated CEO, Hannah Giles, who resigned last month citing "an unsalvageable mess" at the organization, "one wrought with strong evidence of past illegality and past financial improprieties." Giles originally played the "prostitute" in heavily edited videos published years ago by Andrew Breitbart targeting the community organizing and voter registration group ACORN. O'Keefe --- as we spent quite a bit of time some years ago detailing to mainstream media outlets who had also fallen for the hoax --- pretended to have dressed up as a "pimp" in those fraudulent videos. Though scams, they still resulted in rightwing millionaire, billionaire and just plain old dupes donating tens of millions of dollars to O'Keefe's organization over the years in support of their phony, frequently unlawful, partisan schemes targeting groups and individuals on the left. The organization and O'Keefe himself are reportedly under criminal and/or civil investigation for a number of those schemes.

• Remember Kim Davis? The sleazy, far-right Kentucky county clerk who, in 2015, refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples after the U.S. Supreme Court's Obergefell ruling? Last week, a federal judge found her liable for $260,000 in legal fees and expenses incurred by one of the couples who she unlawfully refused to license. In 2022, a federal jury said she had to pay the couple $100,000 in damages. The rightwing legal organization representing Davis for free, Liberty Counsel, says they will appeal the original verdict, the order for attorneys fees, and Obergefell itself at the U.S. Supreme Court.

FINALLY, as today's show ended, it looks like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has decided to suspend his 2024 GOP Presidential campaign (much as we called for him to do --- if he was truly serious about keeping Trump out of the White House --- on yesterday's program.) The announcement comes just hours before a debate tonight between Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis in advance of Monday's Iowa Caucuses. Presumptive frontrunner Donald Trump won't be at this debate either, but we will have Special Coverage, nonetheless, for some reason, on tomorrow's BradCast...

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Today's BradCast picks up, by and large, where yesterday's show warning, left off. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the stories covered today...

• First up, it looks like the U.S. House has passed a Continuing Resolution to temporarily fund the federal government through early next year in advance of this Friday's otherwise scheduled shutdown date. With the farthest right of the GOP House conference balking, of course, Democrats were once again needed to save the day to pass the measure, which now heads to the Senate for likely adoption. New Speaker Mike Johnson's move is the exact same thing that got then Speaker Kevin McCarthy tossed from his Speakership by the extremists in his own caucus. Johnson, however, is apparently being given a pass, for now.

• Then, we return to my argument from yesterday regarding the failure by most of the corporate media to properly inform the electorate about the two currently most likely candidates to win next year's 2024 Presidential nominations. In the case of President Biden, media are failing to accurately and proportionately report on his remarkable successes. In Donald Trump's case, they are still not fully covering the very real threat his own promised policies for a second term present to the nation.

  But some are getting it, including former Republican Congressman turned morning show host Joe Scarborough and his guest yesterday, global politics Professor Brian Klass. After Scarborough cited Trump's recent Nazi-like rhetoric for what it is, Klass made clear, in no uncertain terms: "I study the breakdown of democracy, and I don't know how to say this more clearly: We are sleepwalking towards authoritarianism, and people are not waking up to this."

• After receiving blow-back for Trump, at a Veterans Day rally over the weekend, describing his perceived domestic enemies as "vermin", just as Hitler and Mussolini did before him, Trump Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung attempted to reject the criticism from some corners over the remarks...by doubling down in a statement promising that Trump opponents' "entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.” --- Not really helping, Steve.

• Moreover, after a number of chilling recent news reports cited Trump's own vows, along with his campaign's and affiliated outside rightwing groups to create extremist plans for a second term in office --- including promises to prosecute, jail and even execute opponents and to construct major "camps" to hold millions of immigrants and homeless Americans --- his Campaign's co-managers, Susie Wilies and Chris LaCivita, issued a statement hoping to downplay detailed policy plans issued by anyone but the campaign as "purely speculative" and "merely suggestions". Unfortunately, many of those plans have been discussed with media by former top White House officials and Trump loyalists like Stephen Miller at the suggestion of the Campaign itself. And, as the New York Times observes, "the most incendiary rhetoric and proposals have come from Mr. Trump’s own mouth."

• A judge in Michigan, just before airtime today, rejected a challenge to Trump's candidacy under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars those from public office who, after taking an oath to defend the Constitution, “engaged in insurrection” against it. Despite the repeated historical use of the Amendment over the last 150 years or so since it's adoption, the judge claims that Congress must act before it can be used to block a Presidential candidate from the ballot. (After tonight's show, with more details now out, it is clear that --- as with last week's ruling by the Minnesota Supreme Court in a similar challenge --- the judge's ruling is only in response to Trump's placement on the primary ballot. Both courts have left open further challenges to Trump's viability in a general election. Also, as with last week's Minnesota decision, the petitioners have vowed to immediately appeal the decision to a higher court.)

• Meanwhile, Trump's criminal defense team in the Georgia conspiracy case against him and 18 others for attempting to steal the 2020 election in the Peach State, appears to be the source of leaked videos of three former Trump attorneys (Ken Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis) and Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall. Each have pleaded guilty in the case and have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors against the other defendants. The selective videos, leaked to both ABC News and Washington Post, are of the four defendants being interviewed by Fulton County prosecutors just before they copped their pleas. They reveal a number of new details in the case, but appear designed to undermine their witness testimony, send a threatening message to other potential cooperators and witnesses, and otherwise highlight Trump's expected defense in the case. Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis is now seeking an emergency order from the judge to prevent any further leaks of discovery evidence. The judges in Trump's other criminal cases would be wise to take notice of what he appears to be doing in Georgia.

• The U.S. Government released a massive, 2,200-page report today, its Fifth National Climate Assessment, finding that climate warming in the U.S. is now outpacing the global average and warning that every part of the country is being adversely affected by worsening heat waves, drought, wildfires, heavy downpours, and more. Minority communities are being disproportionately harmed. The cost of climate crisis damage to Americans is now averaging more than $150 billion each year, with last year clocking in at $178 billion. Along with the release of today's report, President Biden announced $6 billion in new investments --- paid for by the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act --- to "make communities across the country more resilient to climate changes...focused on key climate goals, including modernizing our aging electric grid to withstand extreme weather...Reducing flood risks to communities. Improving drought resilience. Support conservation for our national parks...And advancing environmental justice for disadvantaged communities, because they’re the ones always left behind."

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report --- for which the new National Climate Assessment came in too late today --- to report on last week's GOP Presidential Primary debate in Miami(!) which failed to even mention climate change; Australia's new treaty with the nation of Tuvalu as it disappears for good beneath the rising seas; and much more...

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With Democrats still wetting themselves over last week's NYT/Siena polling showing Donald Trump beating President Biden a year from now in five of six swing-states, we finally carved out some time on today's BradCast to dig into the matter.

After a few news headlines, it's on to "that polling" that has freaked out so many regarding Biden's odds next year. It has spawned a thousand explanations. But mine, in short, is not unlike Margaret Sullivan's at The Guardian, where she argues that the bottom line is --- whether the polling is accurate or not --- the media are failing to accurately inform the American people. Not about the "horse race", but about Biden's accomplishments in office and the unprecedented dangers of Trump's vow to move the U.S. to become an authoritarian regime if he is allowed back in office.

President Obama's 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina argues today in Politico there is "no need to panic" over the polling numbers, based on his experience presiding over similarly grim numbers for the incumbent Prez back in 2011, when data guru Nate Silver suggested Obama was "toast" a year out from the election (which he ended up winning); New York Times Magazine gave him just a 17% chance of prevailing (apparently he beat those odds); polling by Politico showed Obama tied with Mitt Romney in 10 battleground states (Obama would go on to win 9 of them); and a December 2011 Gallup poll showed Obama losing to Romney across 12 battlegrounds states (he ended up winning 11 of them.)

In short, polling this far out doesn't mean much. But there are still plenty of reasons to be concerned. And plenty of reasons to spend time not on the horse race, but on the FACTS that Americans apparently aren't receiving from their mainstream media outlets. The FACTS of Joe Biden's extraordinary accomplishments in his first term, rivaling LBJ or FDR, and the chilling FACTS of what Donald Trump himself has vowed to do if he is re-elected, rivaling Hitler and Mussolini. (And, no, that is not hyperbole.)

As we discuss today, here is a new poll from Navigator Research revealing how wildly popular Biden's accomplishments are, whether the American people realize he has implemented them or not. And here is a list of 27 "insane things" Trump has promised, in his own words, to do if he wins a second term. And that list was created in September. He has doubled and tripled down on many of them since then.

After discussing much of the above, we open up our phone lines to listeners today, to get their explanations for all of this. Many of whom seem to get it, but a few, sadly, clearly do not. They are still buying the lies being spun by Trump, Republicans and Fox "News", because real news outlets are doing such a lousy job of telling the real story. The actual FACTS.

Reminder to our friends in the corporate mainstream media: Reporting independently verifiable FACTS, no matter how good or bad they may make any particular candidate look, is not a partisan act. It's your Constitutionally mandated and protected job.

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The remaining 2024 GOP also-rans gathered for another embarrassing "Presidential Primary Debate" on Wednesday night in Miami, The front-runner rallied instead with thousands of supporters about 30 minutes north of the venue. For some reason, we cover all of it and more on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

So much for those "culture wars". Let's have some real ones! Just in case you fell for the GOP's Trump-fueled hoax that the party has somehow become anti-war or something, Wednesday night's forum, sponsored and very poorly moderated by NBC News and the far-right Salem Radio Network, dispelled that old myth pretty quickly. The five candidates still in the running other than Donald Trump, called for wars in pretty much every corner of the globe, from Israel to Iran to China to Mexico to our own southern border. (Though some pulled their punches when it came to actually defending democracy from imperialistic autocracy in Ukraine.)

For the record, the participants on Wednesday were FL Gov. Ron DeSantis, former SC Gov. and Trump's U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former NJ Gov. Chris Christie, SC U.S. Senator Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy, who the NYT's David French aptly characterized as "a right-wing Twitter thread come to life."

As right-wing Twitter threads do, Ramaswamy worked hard to dominate the night with all sorts of obnoxious stuff and nonsense, no matter how off-topic, resulting in him being described as "scum" by the deceptively not-insane Haley. Though it was difficult to dispute his declaration that Republicans have "become a party of losers" following Democrats' abortion rights-fueled victories across the country in Tuesday's off-year elections --- and similar wins in 2018, 2020 and 2022.

We're joined once again for our (perhaps futile) attempt to make sense of it all in today's Special Coverage by award-winning Salon columnist and Hullabaloo blogger HEATHER DIGBY PARTON and "DRIFTGLASS" of the Professional Left Podcast from "Flyover Country, Illinois".

We discuss not only the return of full-throated, chest-thumping GOP war-mongering, in a debate that was arguably as much about the Republican Party as anything else, but a whole bunch of other stuff, including the GOP's "culture war" now in tatters, and NBC's Fox "News"-like failure to spend much time, if any, on the biggest elephant not in the room. (You know, the one that is seriously threatening the very survival of our Constitutional republic and even survival on the planet itself if he is returned to the Presidency next year.)

"It was a tough night for pundits," quips Driftglass today. "You gotta feel sorry for the people whose job it is to spin this as bad news for Joe Biden." But, he also observes: "Donald Trump wasn't there, but he was there. He was the specter hanging over everything. The specter hanging over all of us." NBC, he notes, had a responsibility to "expose how much the Republican Party itself has become a reflection of Donald Trump and MAGA. And they didn't do it at all. They didn't bring up guns. They didn't bring up democracy, the election lies. They didn't bring up any of the things that are really animating our politics."

We also spend some time today on Tuesday's pretty remarkable Democratic election victories amid the ongoing panic by too many Dems freaking out this week following recent polling showing Trump defeating Biden a year from now in five of six critical battleground states.

While Parton dismissed the usual "panic artists" making hay of polling a full year out from the election, she concedes, "it's going to be close" next year. She then adds, ominously: "It really is keeping me up at night thinking about these tens of millions of my fellow Americans who still like this guy, Donald Trump. We've got a bigger problem, I think, culturally. Something really, really toxic is going on in our body politic. I don't think it's going to go away when he does."

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More voices over "the information superhighway" was supposed to make it easier for the public to discern fact from fiction. As discuss on today's BradCast, it seems to have done the exact opposite. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Two hot wars in both Israel and Ukraine, a still-simmering pandemic, a worsening climate crisis, the takeover of Twitter by a disgruntled rightwing billionaire, and a "master propagandist" running again for President of the United States, have all combined into a "perfect storm" of disinformation, my guest today explains.

We're joined by Boston University research fellow and best-selling author LEE MCINTYRE, author of 2018's Post-Truth, 2021's How to Talk to a Science Denier, and the just-published On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy.

He's here today to help us understand the difference between misinformation and disinformation; to discuss which is worse; and what, if anything, can be done about any of it. In short, as he explains, "Misinformation is an accident. Disinformation is a lie." For example, the New York Times' (and others') coverage of the deadly explosion at a hospital in Gaza City last week, which now appears to have been caused by an errant rocket fired by a Palestinian militant group, was misinformation when the Times reported it as having been caused by an Israeli airstrike in the immediate aftermath. The misleading reportage might have originated, however, as disinformation from Hamas sources, whose allegations the Times --- as they finally conceded today --- was not properly vetted before being used to drive traffic to its website.

McIntyre also focuses on the danger that social media sites like Twitter/X now pose to democracy and the world, particularly since its takeover by Elon Musk, his blowing up of the previously helpful blue-check "verified" system which helped users distinguish legitimate sources from fakes, and his removal of most of the company's trust, safety, and information moderation team.

He details how disinformation also serves the dual purpose of not just forwarding false information on any particular issue --- like the war in the Middle East or denial of the efficacy of COVID vaccines, our climate crisis, or democratic elections --- but also collapses trust in all verified information and news sources. "Through polarization and the raising of mistrust and distrust, one message that comes through with disinformation is, 'Maybe we can't even know the truth. How do we know? Is everybody biased?' Because in that situation, you might give up on the idea of truth. That paves the way for authoritarianism."

Among the other points we discuss with McIntyre today...

• How disinformation is now flourishing under Musk on Twitter/X and at competing sites like Mark Zuckerberg's Threads.
• How we are all victims of whatever algorithms people like Musk and Zuckerberg may wish to put in place to determine what information we see...and don't.
• How to walk the difficult line between content moderation and censorship, whether its via mainstream press outlets or social networking sites.
• How "master propagandist" Donald Trump has created a career and an industry out of disinformation which now threatens the veracity of the 2024 elections.
• How repetition works for both spreading lies and reporting the truth.
• How to fight back against our "perfect storm of more disinformation, less content moderation, and fewer safeguards."

"I wrote my book because I want people to understand there's a way to fight back against this," McIntyre tells me. "You don't just have to believe the first media accounts. There's a way to be critical, a way to be skeptical, but also a way to push back against social media, push back against cable news, and even the government, to try to make them better and more responsible in how they fight disinformation."

ALSO TODAY...

• The latest on the Israel-Hamas war, including the release of two more hostages from Gaza on Monday and the Biden Administration's reported efforts to try and forestall Israel's planned ground invasion of Gaza to allow for the release of hostages and foreign nationals and the delivery of humanitarian aid.
• The latest on the continuing embarrassment of the GOP U.S. House's failure to elect a Speaker and re-open Congress.
• The latest in the Georgia RICO case against Trump and his alleged co-conspirators for trying to steal the 2020 election in the Peach State. Following guilty pleas last week by Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Ken Chesebro, the New Yorker's Charles Betha and Sue Halpern reported on the 400-page Georgia Bureau of Investigations' probe of Team Trump's Coffee County voting system breach. It appears to confirm our repeated reporting over the past year that GA's Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger was instrumental in delaying, if not obstructing, the GBI's criminal investigation of the theft and distribution of Georgia's statewide voting system software [emphasis mine]...
  
  On January 7, 2021, the day after a right-wing mob stormed the Capitol building, several people paid a visit to the Coffee County elections office. A year and a half later, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation began formally looking into allegations that “computer trespass” had taken place that day. The delay seems to have been due to resistance from the Georgia secretary of state’s office, which, for months, denied that a breach had occurred.

  Whaddaya know?...

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It was another necessarily grim BradCast today, as conditions worsen and the death toll rises in Gaza while Israel continues relentless airstrikes in the wake of Hamas' horrific attack over one week ago. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children, have been killed over the past week in the Gaza Strip in advance of Israel's likely ground invasion. Food, water, medical supplies and fuel remains cut off to the territory of 2.3 million, with supplies now running dangerously low. The U.S., along with the U.N. and human rights organizations are calling for humanitarian aid to be allowed in, and for innocent victims and foreign nations to be allowed out of the region. The death toll is now in the thousands and 30 Americans have been confirmed as killed.

Hopefully, as grim as it may be, today's program is an insightful one, with both accurate news and a number of spirited conversations with callers. You'll be the judge of the that.

Among just some of the stories we covered before opening our phone lines to listeners today...

• Washington Post: "U.S. signals push to ease Gaza humanitarian crisis"
• U.S. State Dept: Secretary Antony Blinken's Remarks to the Press in Cairo on Sunday
• CBS' 60 Minutes: Interview with Joe Biden on Israel-Hamas conflict
• Reuters: "Slain Palestinian boy mourned in Illinois after suspect appears in court"
• NBC News: "Suspect in death of 6-year-old Palestinian American boy was obsessed with Israel-Hamas war, prosecutors say"
• NYTimes letter from Fadi Abu Shammala: "What More Must the Children of Gaza Suffer?"
• AP News: "Settlement over Trump family separations at the border seeks to limit future separations for 8 years"

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)