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Guest: Helen Butler of The People's Agenda, purged from the Morgan County, GA Board of Elections; Also: Listener mail!...
By Brad Friedman on 12/15/2021 6:28pm PT  

If you're wondering how to stay positive as America appears on the brink of a very dark authoritarian takeover by Republicans, we may have just the answer for you in the form of today's guest on The BradCast. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Reuters has been doing an incredibly well-reported series of special reports of late on the Republicans' ongoing assault on democracy itself in America. They've covered, among other aspects, the attacks on elections officials stemming from Donald Trump's attempt to steal the 2020 election by blatantly lying about it, and even citing certain election officials by name who were subsequently targeted and terrorized --- sometimes, along with their family members --- with threats of violence and death by his supporters. They have also been very smartly covering the effects of new voter suppression laws being adopted in GOP controlled states around the nation, as part of the opportunistic fall-out from the lies that Trump told in his effort to steal last year's Presidential election.

Recently, Reuters' James Oliphant and Nathan Layne took a detailed look at the effect all of this is having on local elections officials in a state we have covered in great detail on this program: Georgia, where longtime, local election board officials --- specifically, Democratic election officials ... specifically black Democratic election officials (and frequently black Democratic women) --- are now being purged from County election boards across the state at an alarming rate.

The purge is thanks to two different state laws. One is GA's terrible new anti-voting law, SB 202, passed earlier this year, which allows for --- among other anti-democratic things --- officials on the State Board of Elections, which is controlled by the GOP state legislature and Republican Sec. of State, to replace county election officials with partisan operatives (for virtually any reason) who can then overturn election results (also, for virtually any reason.) [FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a named plaintiff, representing media, challenging several provisions of SB 202 in a federal lawsuit filed by the Coalition for Good Governance.] The other law being used even more, referred to as "local legislation", has been in place for a while, but was rarely invoked until this year in the wake of Trump's "Big Lie" after Democrats won the Presidential election in the state for the first time in years, along with both of the Peach State's U.S. Senate seats. The state law allows County Commissions to restructure their County Boards of Elections pretty much anyway they like after receiving approval for the restructuring from the state legislature.

In at least half a dozen Georgia counties that have restructured their election boards so far this year, Oliphant and Layne report, "the legislature shifted the power to appoint some or all election board members to local county commissions, all of which are currently controlled by Republicans. Previously, the appointments had been split evenly between the local Democratic and Republican parties." They detail how black Democrats --- often long-serving champions of voting rights --- have been systematically purged from those county boards and replaced with White Republican majorities in advance of next year's critical mid-terms, where popular black Democratic voting rights advocates Stacey Abrams and Sen. Raphael Warnock will both be on the ballot, for Governor and U.S. Senator respectively.

"In Morgan County, the majority-Republican county commission reconstituted its election board, ousting two outspoken Black Democrats," Reuters reports, "Helen Butler and Avery Jackson were removed after the new law eliminated political-party appointments and handed appointment power to the Republican-dominated commission. Butler and Jackson sought reappointments but were denied."

We're thrilled to be joined once again today by one of those two ousted officials, HELEN BUTLER, who served honorably on the Morgan County Board of Elections and Registration for a decade until she was pushed out this year. Butler, who we first spoke with over the summer, after she offered testimony in the U.S. Senate, is the Executive Director of the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, a civil rights organization founded by the late, great civil rights icon, Reverend Dr. Joseph Lowery (who founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr.).

She is also the winner of the Voter Empowerment Collaborative's 2021 Love Award, named after the 40-year old civil rights group's legendary founder, Reverend Albert E. Love, known as "Mr. Vote," after dedicating his life to registering, educating and mobilizing voters. And Butler is also a 2021 "Defender of the Dream" awardee by the AFL-CIO Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Civil and Human Rights Conference. We leave it to you to decide if those awards are as prestigious as Butler being named last month as a "Goddess of Democracy" in Glamour magazine's "Women of the Year" issue.

Butler describes today what is going on right now in Georgia, largely under the national media radar, as being part of the GOP's "insurrection plan nationally, that 'We are going to take over every aspect of controlling the outcome of elections, so if I don't like the results, I can put in the results that I want to have.'" She also notes that it is happening not only with boards of elections in her state, but at school boards as well.

"They're not stopping with just elections. They're trying to take over control of all aspects of government. Education departments are the largest generators of revenue in counties, so if they get to control that, they get to control all money, they get to control what our children learn, what they get, where schools are located," she warns. "So again, it's a total takeover process that they're going after...They are stacking control of all levels of government."

When I ask how much control local county boards of elections have over elections and voting processes, and even outcomes, as compared to the state itself, Butler pulls no punches: "The county levels are the ones where the rubber meets the road. They do all of the voter registration, making sure people are registered to vote. They get to determine with their redistricting process, how the maps are drawn, how people are put into those maps for purposes of voting. They also control who gets an absentee ballot, whether it gets counted or is rejected. If there are provisional ballots, they get to determine which ones are counted, which ones are rejected. They get to certify the results --- they get to count all of the votes that are cast. And they get to certify who gets to win each race. So they are very critical... and if you stack it so those people can conform to a lie versus the truth, then you don't get true democracy... you get an autocratic form of government, because someone wants it to go a certain way, and not necessarily to the will of the voters."

With that, Butler explains, "they can control the outcome of all elections." And while all of this sounds --- and is --- quite chilling, Butler's optimism, as you'll hear, is absolutely infectious. As dark as the topic of discussion is, you'll be astounded to walk away from this conversation actually feeling somewhat better about everything...including the possibility of federal legislation in the form of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act actually being adopted by the U.S. Senate, and maybe even saving democracy in Georgia and everywhere else before all is said and done. She explains how those bills will go a long way toward reversing the worst of the GOP's now-ongoing assault on American democracy and, if passed, could be "our saving grace."

"I always try to be optimistic, to look for the good things rather than dwell on the bad," she tells me, as she also explains how Americans across the country can help right now. "It's very important we get those bills passed...As my leader, the late Dr. Joseph Lowery said, 'Voting is a sacred right, but it's also a moral obligation.'"

Tune in for much more in today's conversation. You can thank me later.

Finally, we close today with a listener mail segment, including some great letters from listeners in response to several recent shows that may help you keep Butler's infectious optimism going through the holidays...or at least for the next few hours...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Guest: FSFP Legal Director Ron Fein; Also: Jan 6 Comm. homes in on members of Congress; House COVID Comm. faces off with Trump official; Trump judge rejects Trump tax case against Congress...
By Brad Friedman on 12/14/2021 6:46pm PT  

A whole lotta Trump Accountability News going on all at once again on today's BradCast. Too slowly, to be sure, but going on nonetheless. Even if not (yet) at the DoJ. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

On Monday night, the bipartisan House Select Committee on the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol voted unanimously to refer criminal contempt charges to the Dept. of Justice for Donald Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. During their hearing, Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) read a number of texts from Fox "News" personalities and from Don Jr., sent to Meadows during the hours the Capitol was under attack after Trump incited the riot in his last gasp effort to steal the 2020 election. The messages were pleas to get Meadows to convince Trump to call it off. Those same Fox personalities would soon go on the air and pretend that "antifa" was behind the deadly assault. The texts prove they knew otherwise and, according to Cheney, serve as more "evidence of President Trump's supreme dereliction of duty during those 187 minutes" when he failed to act while the U.S. Capitol was under assault by domestic terrorists.

Committee member Adam Schiff (D-CA) shared several damning text messages from unidentified members of Congress that were sent to Meadows as well, noting that, due to the ongoing investigation, the lawmakers were not being named "at this time." Separately, Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said those names would eventually be made public, as the Contempt referral for Meadows also referenced several "members of Congress" who participated in phone calls and White House meetings to help strategize before the eventual bloody insurrection.

Meanwhile, another House Select Committee investigating the coronavirus crisis may be heading toward separate contempt charges against former Trump official and prominent COVID denier, Peter Navarro. He says he cannot cooperate with that Committee's probe because Trump gave him a "direct order" not to, claiming Executive Privilege (which former Presidents do not have), and that because of it, "this matter is out of my hands."

"Trump's supreme dereliction of duty" in 2020 is unspeakable in many cases, but it's only part of his unspeakable legacy and a seemingly unending list of criminal culpability.

But never mind 2020. Some good government groups are still seeking accountability for the 2016 campaign that put the disgraced former President into the White House in the first place. Last week, Free Speech for People (FSFP) and the Campaign for Accountability filed suit [PDF] in D.C. federal court against the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for failing to take action on a complaint they filed in December of 2016. That complaint alleged unlawful "coordination" between the Trump Campaign and the Russian Federation.

"Even today, despite multiple investigations, critical information about the money spent in the 2016 election is still unknown," said RON FEIN, Legal Director of FSFP, in a statement announcing the new lawsuit. "How much did the Russian Federation spend? When and for which efforts did it make the payments? How much (and which) of that spending was ‘coordinated’ with the Trump campaign? Answering these questions is the FEC’s job, and they’ve sat on it for almost five years."

Now, says Fein, who joins us on today's program, the groups have no choice but to take the FEC to court to force the government's long-dysfunctional federal campaign regulator to investigate the complaint. Fein explains how "coordination" has a very different meaning in campaign finance law than it does in the matters that Special Counsel Robert Mueller looked at in his two-year probe. "Congress passed a law specifying that coordination 'shall not require agreement or formal collaboration,'" he says. "It could be a wink and a nod. Put that into the context of things like Trump saying, 'Russia, if you're listening, I hope you find those emails'," after which Russia attempted to hack the Clinton campaign, and the question of unlawful coordination under campaign finance law becomes plain to see.

"I don't mean this as a personal attack on Mueller or anyone who worked on that team," Fein clarifies, "because they're not campaign finance experts, but they missed an important area of the law that the Federal Election Commission has the authority to investigate, and the obligation to at least make a decision on our administrative complaint that alleged this."

FSFP's "2016 administrative complaint alleged that the Russian government paid for computer hacks, social media posts, and paid political advertisements to influence the 2016 election, and that the Trump campaign engaged in 'coordination' with the Russian government," the group notes in their statement announcing the new suit.

"There were many aspects of what happened in the 2016 election that were extremely troubling, from a legal as well as from a broader, democracy-preservation standpoint," Fein tells me today. "For example, even illegal political spending is required to be disclosed. That's what both the Russian government and the Trump Campaign failed to do. And that's the information that we would have if they disclosed it."

The six member FEC, with three Commissioners appointed by each major party, is notorious for tie votes that end up killing action against campaign finance violations that even the FEC's own staff argues should be pursued. In this case, Fein says, the FEC didn't even hold a vote on their complaint over the past five years. Their lawsuit is meant to force the Commission to hold that vote. If the court orders them to do so and the complaint then fails to receive the necessary four votes to proceed with a full investigation, FSFP can sue the Commission again. It's potentially a long road, but one that could actually be short-cutted.

"Because it takes four votes to do anything in the FEC, if there is not a four-vote majority to appear in court --- this has happened several times recently --- the FEC has simply defaulted," explains Fein. "And then the statute provides --- and this was rarely, if ever, used until just the past year or so --- the statute provides that if there's a default judgement, then the plaintiff can just go ahead and sue the parties that they filed the administrative complaint against directly. In other words, if that plays out that way, then we'd be in a position to sue the Trump Campaign and the Russian government and cut the FEC out of the picture entirely."

Still a long road, but a much shorter one that doesn't rely on the corrupted FEC.

In the meantime, FSFP --- as we discussed with its co-founder and President John Bonifaz early last month --- is continuing its campaign calling for the resignation of Attorney General Merrick Garland for failing to meet the moment in taking action on the endless list of criminal allegations against Trump and his minions before, during and after his Presidency. When I inquire with Fein as to whether the recent criminal Contempt indictments against former Trump lackey Steve Bannon has changed the group's outlook, he notes that, if anything, "the call for Garland to resign is even stronger right now."

You'll need to tune in to find out why.

And then, one more bit of breaking Trump Accountability that came in during today's show, as a Trump appointed federal judge rejected the former President's lawsuit seeking to block House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richie Neal (D-MA) from obtaining Trump's tax records. The ruling is the latest in a roller-coaster legal battle that begin in April of 2019. Trump's Treasury Department refused to turn over the documents to Congress, as required by law. Biden's has agreed to. Trump sued to stop them. Trump now has 14 days to decide if he will appeal.

Finally, we close with Desi Doyen and today's grim Green News Report following the deadly, climate change-fueled tornado swarm that slammed Kentucky and several other states over the weekend. Though she also has some slightly brighter news at the same time, as the Biden Administration reveals its new, electric vehicle charging strategy, made possible by the recent passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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By Desi Doyen on 12/14/2021 10:53am PT  


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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Unprecedented, deadly December tornado swarm plows path of destruction in the Midwest; Yes, man-made global warming is increasing the risk of massive tornado outbreaks; PLUS: Biden Administration unveils ambitious strategy to build national network of EV charging stations... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Lower 48 states could have warmest December on record; How rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities; Farallones poison drop would put Bay Area wildlife at risk; The controversies at the heart of California’s solar net-metering fight; Crucial Antarctic Ice Shelf Could Fail Within 5 Years; Plant Has Been Spewing Sulfur Dioxide For Years; Now EPA Will Act... PLUS: Coal Powered Industrial Revolution, Left Behind Environmental Catastrophe... and much, MUCH more! ...

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Guest: American Prospect's David Dayen; Also: Omicron lab studies suggest booster shots critical; Congressional priorities laid bare...
By Brad Friedman on 12/8/2021 6:15pm PT  

The U.S. economy, of course, has been rigged for years. The pandemic, in the meantime, has now made that clearer than ever. Not that the corporate media is bothering to explain it to Americans. So, w try to do so on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

But, first up, results from several, eagerly awaited new lab studies on the effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna on the Omicron variant have been released over the past 24 hours. Two independent studies, one from South Africa and another from Sweden, along with a press release on findings of a study by Pfizer, all suggest that getting a booster shot as soon as possible is the best way to avoid severe illness both from Omicron and all of the other previously-known variants. We walk you through the details and explain the findings today.

The upshot: Two vaccine doses and natural immunity from COVID is way better against Omicron than just two vaccine doses. Two vaccine doses and a booster shot is as good or better than two doses and COVID. So, unless you want to try your luck by getting COVID to protect yourself against it, a booster shot, right now, is your very best best. That, as infections, hospitalizations and deaths are all beginning to sky-rocket again, as the nation is on the verge of 800,000 COVID deaths.

Next, we've been reporting for the past several weeks on the lousy job the corporate media have been doing in covering what is, overall, a surprisingly robust economic recovery in the first year of the Biden Administration, as the nation (and world) struggles to emerge from our nearly two-year pandemic.

One of the media's worst and most misleading points of coverage has been on the matter of inflation. And, while our regular, global supply chains have certainly become knotted up, leading to legitimate upward price pressures, much of the added costs for goods and services is now thanks to good old profiteering and price fixing by companies which have been enjoying record profits, even during the worst of the pandemic and subsequent supply chain snarls.

As our guest today, author and financial journalist DAVID DAYEN, Executive Editor of The American Prospect recently reported, "In a time of high inflation, you hear a lot about companies 'passing costs' on to customers. In order for companies to maintain their God-given right to earn a profit, they must raise prices to offset the cost of producing goods and getting them into peoples’ hands. And thanks mostly to the hidden risk, exposed by the pandemic, of neoliberal gospels like just-in-time logistics, deregulation, and offshoring, prices really are going up."

"But," he continues, "there’s something else mixed in with this latest bout of inflation. Companies aren’t just passing costs onto us. With corporations using inflation as a cover for raising their prices, you and I are passing profits onto companies."

Dayen, author of the new book Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power, details how companies are not only profiteering, price-fixing and colluding to do so, they're actually bragging about it, out loud, on corporate earnings calls. That is sending up both stock prices and profits up for hundreds of the most profitable public corporations, many of whom have monopolistically been allowed to corner their markets, giving consumers few, if any, cheaper alternatives for the products and services they sell. Companies that don't play ball --- like Target, which announced they would not be raising prices --- have been punished, in turn, by Wall Street for daring to do so.

"The problem is that we have a business climate today where people have locked in their customer base. Your customers can't escape, because we have a series of consolidated companies that have a stranglehold on market share, and we don't even know that it's happening. You stroll down a grocery aisle and you see hundreds of items, but you don't know that the same handful of companies have created all of them," Dayen explains today. "And that's why you have large companies like Proctor & Gamble and Unilever saying 'We know we can raise prices on people...and we don't have to worry about any kind of material reaction.'" The same is true, of course, with many other companies, such as the Big Oil cartel, which is raking in record profits as raw materials fall, but failing to reflect those falling costs at the pump.

So, what, if anything, can be done about it? Are Presidents and their Administrations actually able to take actions that might roll back the corporate profiteering? Yes, Dayen explains, at least some, both with the use of the bully pulpit --- which, in the model of JFK, Biden has begun to try and do --- and also with the use of existing anti-trust and anti-price-fixing laws that are still on the books today, if rarely enforced.

"It is price-fixing," Dayen tells me. "But we don't spend a whole lot of time on that anymore in America. It's still unlawful. It's still occasionally prosecuted. And now we do have a different regime at places like the Federal Trade Commission, and the anti-trust division at the Justice Department." He believes that several key, progressive Biden appointments at both may be able to "turn the tide" back against corporate mergers and unapologetic (and potentially unlawful) corporate greed. "There is certainly a faction within the White House that feels like this is a serious problem and that we have to do everything possible to stamp it out," he says, but "they're swimming upstream, as it were."

There is a lot on these points to discuss with Dayen today. As well, we also get his reaction to the announcement today that Biden is withdrawing his nomination of Saule Omarova as Comptroller of the Currency, a key banking regulator, after red-baiting by Republican Senators (she was born in the Soviet Union) and concerns from conservative Democrats that she might be too tough on big banks. He also offers his two cents on our complaints, of late, about the terrible job that corporate media are doing in covering both Joe Biden and the economy.

Finally, after months of pretend complaints by Republicans and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin that spending $1.75 trillion in paid-for taxpayer dollars to expand health care, education, child care, elder care, and fight climate change over the next ten years in the Build Back Better bill is just too much money to spend for a poor country like ours, the House on Tuesday night, in record time, passed its latest annual defense spending bill with a lopsided bi-partisan vote in favor (opposed largely only by progressive Democrats). It'll cost nearly one trillion dollar ($768 billion, $24 billion more than the Biden Administration even asked for) for one single year of military spending --- much of which will go to stuff we never use and/or literally blow up.

Priorities.

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Guest: Activist, author Kenny Bruno on 'DEFCON for Democracy'; Also: Fourth student dies after MI high school gun massacre...
By Brad Friedman on 12/1/2021 5:51pm PT  

On today's BradCast: It's a grim day in America. But it's one that every American should be paying very close attention to nonetheless. [Audio link to full show posted at the end of this summary.]

First up today, a fourth student, a 17-year old, has died following Tuesday's mass shooting by a 15-year old at Oxford High School in Michigan. The other three victims who were killed, as well as seven other students who remained in the hospital overnight after being shot, were all aged 14 to 17. The shooter used his father's new semi-automatic pistol purchased just last Friday to carry out the massacre. There were still seven more bullets in the weapon when he surrendered to authorities. But, that's "freedom" for ya in 2021 America, apparently.

On Wednesday morning, the Republicans' stolen and packed 6 to 3 U.S. Supreme Court majority met to consider removing the previously long-settled freedom for a woman to determine her own reproductive rights in all 50 states. The case heard at SCOTUS was Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the last remaining abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi, where legislators have adopted a law that would ban all abortions in the state after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The measure was overturned in lower courts after being found a clear violation of the nearly 50-year old Roe v. Wade precedent set in 1973 and reaffirmed as settled law in 1992's Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

When MS filed their initial appeal at the Supreme Court they sought approval for their then-radical 15-week ban. It was only after last year's death of abortion rights champion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and her subsequent replacement on the Court by the far-right Amy Coney Barret just eight days before the 2020 Presidential election, that the state decided to also ask the court to strike down Roe in its entirety.

Little, if anything, has changed legally since 1992 regarding the reproductive rights Constitutionally guaranteed by Roe and reaffirmed by Casey. But the make-up of the High Court itself has changed radically. Its majority has been stolen by Republicans who cancelled the filibuster in the Senate in order to pack three, hard-right Donald Trump appointees onto it. That fact, made clear by MS legislators themselves, led Justice Sonia Sotomayor to aptly ask the state's Republican Attorney General today: "Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?"

Good question. Of course, the answer is that those on the political Right don't actually care. As the twice federally indicted Steve Bannon recently noted on his War Room radio show/podcast, Republicans are only interested in "taking over" --- from school boards to the White House --- and whether or not their hardball methods result in "a Constitutional crisis," they really don't care. "We're a big and tough country and we can handle that," he preached to his followers.

To that end, Republican officials across the country are, right now, hoping to break American democracy itself, by installing loyalist Trump party apparatchik in key election administration positions, from precinct judges to county clerks to canvassing boards to Secretaries of State, as Washington Post reported in great detail on Monday. The Plot to Steal the 2024 Election is underway RIGHT NOW. Ignore these warnings at all of our peril.

We're joined today by longtime progressive activist and author KENNY BRUNO who offered a similarly chilling --- and even more direct --- warning at Truthout over the weekend, spelling out how Trump and the GOP have already "laid the groundwork for assuming the U.S. presidency regardless of the result of the 2024 election." He details today how "most of the conditions they would need to execute [their plan] is already in place."

"Often you see it covered, or you see various aspects covered, as if they were disparate things," Bruno explains, "like the treatment of Liz Cheney, the sham audit in Arizona, the repetition of the Big Lie, the new voter suppression laws in 19 states --- covered as if they are disparate things. But the simplest explanation is that they are all part of a plan," he charges, before spelling out exactly how that plan is meant to work between now and the certification of state electors on January 6, 2025.

To "undermine faith in elections" in order to steal a Presidential election, Bruno argues, "you would want radical state legislatures, especially in swing states. You would want a majority of states with a majority of loyal members of Congress. You would want to purge moderate representatives and election officials who might not go along with ending democracy, who might not play ball. You'd want a compliant Supreme Court. You'd want to intimidate the election officials who are left. I could go on...These are things that you need in place. If you look now at Trump and the GOP, most of those boxes are already checked. And they're part of a comprehensive plan."

What --- if anything --- can be done about it? Well, the options in response, as also spelled out by Bruno in his op-ed and on today's program, are not great. But knowing and understanding what is going on is a critical first step. While we have been warning and reporting on this stuff seemingly forever (for example, while the actual attempt to steal the 2020 election was underway in advance of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol), it seems the warnings are not being adequately amplified by either corporate media or Democrats, as Bruno sees it.

He goes on to note that his originally suggested title for his Truthout piece was "DEFCON for Democracy," before the headline was somewhat softened by editors. "I think if you understand the threat to be that severe, then you have to take drastic action. Unless you're talking about it, and preparing people for drastic action, they're not going to understand why it's justified," cautions Bruno. "This is a real threat, it's a real plan. The evidence is that it's being carried out. And if you want to stop it, you might have to take some drastic action."

"I would love to be wrong about the whole thing, to be honest," he concedes. "I think the most important thing at the moment is to talk about it, to call it out. Because if you don't socialize people to the idea that this steal, subversion, gaming of the Electoral College is underway, they won't be ready to accept your actions to defend it."

As noted, it's a grim day and a grim show today, but one that we hope will be well worth your time to listen in full...

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We're back! Setting the record straight with REAL news on the economy, COVID, Ukraine and more. Plus: Callers help out on all of the above...
By Brad Friedman on 11/29/2021 5:46pm PT  

We're back live on today's BradCast after a week off for travel and downtime over the holiday --- and the need to set the record straight on a few things that have been misreported in our otherwise blissful absence. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

There's plenty to worry about right now in this country and on this planet. Just not necessarily the stuff the corporate media (and GOP) are telling us (or hoaxing us) to worry about. So, after a week away, we ease our way back in, beginning with the process of trying to help reset what Americans should be worried about, should not be worried about, or should otherwise be thankful for. And we also open up the phones to callers to help us do all of the above.

Among some of the source material for stories covered and/or records set straight on today's program...

  • No, as we discussed just before we left for Thanksgiving break, post-pandemic inflation is not the disaster that Republicans (and the nation's corporate media) have a stake in pretending that it is. Especially not with the recent, under-reported statistics regarding the lowest number of new weekly jobless claims filed since 1969 (a story that both the media and the GOP haven't spent nearly as much time telling you about, even as Republicans are describing Americans suffering from inflation and high gas prices as a "gold mine" for their party.)
  • The corporate media have spent most of the weekend freaking out about the scary-sounding new COVID variant called Omicron. It might be scary. It might not be. Frankly, health officials just don't know enough to know either way. But, if you're already vaccinated (especially with a booster!) and wear a mask when indoors in public places, you are likely to be just fine. That, before the mRNA vaccines get quickly updated to handle the Omicron variant in a remarkable 100 days or less, as both Pfizer and Moderna are now working toward. As President Biden correctly noted at the White House today, "This variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic." From what little we know, at least to date, no, this isn't worth being overly worried about...at least not yet --- unless you're unable to or are dumb enough or hoaxed enough to not have gotten vaccinated by now.
  • Very much worth being worried about? What is now going on --- potentially --- in both the South China Sea and Ukraine. With the pandemic, the economy and, most appallingly, the Republican Party working to destabilize the U.S. right now, China and Russia are far greater threats in both regions than they might otherwise be.
  • There is much more to be either worried or not worried about as we detail on today's program, along with a bunch of callers who help along those lines...or don't...

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Guest: Nicolás Rivero of Quartz; Also: House finally passes Biden BBB agenda, hard part waits in Senate; VA school board unbans books; Fight for majority control of VA House of Delegates not over yet...
By Brad Friedman on 11/19/2021 7:00pm PT  

Apparently it's another myth busting episode of The BradCast today. It would be nice if lousy reporting from the corporate media --- particularly regarding the economy --- didn't make these so frequently necessary of late. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

But, first up today, a few other stories of note today...

  • The 17-year old white kid who crossed a state border into Kenosha, Wisconsin to unlawfully wield a semi-automatic weapon before using it to shoot three anti-racism protesters, killing two of them, was acquitted of all charges today. So, we guess it's now open season to shoot anyone ya like, as long as you claim it was done in self-defense. And, yes, as long as you're white.
  • Democrats in the U.S. House finally came together today to pass the Build Back Better Act, President Biden's nearly $2 trillion landmark spending bill to expand healthcare, childcare, education, eldercare and much MUCH more, including the most substantive action to combat the global climate crisis in the history of the nation. Every Republican in the chamber voted against it. The transformative legislation includes scores and scores of long-overdue provisions that, if virtually any one of them were passed on their own as a standalone bill, it would be, to paraphrase the President, a BFD. But, of course, while getting it through the House took months, that was the easy part. Now, the crowning achievement of Biden's agenda will have to get through the U.S. Senate, where, without any Republican votes, all 50 Senators who caucus with the Democrats will have to sign off on in order to pass it under Senate budget reconciliation rules. That means obstructionist Democrats like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema may feel free to water it down further than they already have, or kill it all together. We'll find out what happens when the upper chamber picks up the measure, after the Thanksgiving holiday.
  • A few days ago, we reported on the Spotsylvania County, Virginia School Board's 6 to 0 vote last week to begin removing certain books from their school's libraries after a debate about whether they should ban the books or both ban and burn them. It was one of several stories we highlighted to underscore the unmistakable drumbeat of rising authoritarianism in our country right now. But, at least on that story, there is some good news this week. Democracy struck back! After 4 and a half hours of public comment at the Board's subsequent meeting this week, cut off only because it was midnight, the Board voted to reverse it's ban! Though the Board's two book burning proponents stood their ground, they lost in a 5 to 2 vote. All thanks to excellent local media reporting and a huge turnout from teachers, librarians, parents and teachers who spoke passionately in favor of libraries and books while calling for the book burners to resign.
  • Following up on another story we covered earlier this week, on the media's horrifically misleading reporting on inflation, we share part of a Paul Waldman excellent column from WaPo that sounds as if it could have been ripped straight from The BradCast's coverage that day, myth busting the very same issues that we did.
  • Then, picking up on a related-ish myth that needs busting as well this week, we're joined by NICOLÁS RIVERO of Quartz, to discuss his recent myth-busting, deep-dive reporting on our current, pre-Christmas, "post-pandemic" supply chain issues and why, despite no shortage of bad reporting on this, a shortage of truck drivers is not actually to blame.

    In fact, the industry has been claiming virtually every year since 2005 (and, really, going back to the late 1980s as Rivero documents), that they have a shortage of drivers. Last month, the American Trucking Associations announced a shortage of 80,000 drivers, declaring it "an all-time high for the industry." That, despite the fact that states issue more than 450,000 new commercial driver's licenses every year. Something doesn't add up here. At the same time, as Rivero tells me today, "between 1995 and 2017, the turnover rate at big trucking companies averaged 94%," according to the industry's own data. "That means that every year, they are refilling the equivalent of virtually every driving position, because people are quitting and leaving."

    "The real shortage," he explains, is not of truckers, but "of good trucking jobs that can attract and retain workers in a tight labor market." So, why isn't supply keeping up with demand in that supposedly free market? Rivero discusses the industry's "race to the bottom," leading drivers to take equal or better paying jobs elsewhere that don't come with all of the burdens --- especially for long-haulers --- the industry now forces onto their drivers.

    We also discuss the trucker's unions' part in all of this, and how --- and if --- Biden's new infrastructure bill might actually improve the situation, for drivers, for the industry and, yes, for our "post-pandemic" supply chain woes.

  • Finally, in our closing few minutes (before standing down to hit the road ourselves for the holiday next week!), the fight for control of the Virginia House of Delegates may not be as over as it appeared almost three weeks ago, when Republicans were declared by media to have taken the majority back from the Democrats during the off-year elections. A very close race in one district and a tallying error in another very close race (leading the Dem who currently holds that seat to withdraw her concession), has now resulted in two upcoming recounts. Republicans will control 50 seats in the 100-seat chamber. The question is now whether the GOP will control the chamber outright or --- long shot as it may be --- if both races flip to the Democrats resulting in a 50-50 power sharing agreement. Luckily, the commonwealth recently moved from 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems to hand-marked paper ballots. So a fair, overseeable count of voter intent is now possible in the state where Republican Glenn Youngkin was declared the winner in the Gubernatorial race and Republicans swept the other two statewide races on November 2nd for Lt. Governor and Attorney General.

We'll be watching over the holidays, even as 'The BradCast' and 'GNR' stand down next week for a much needed recharge of batteries and some long-overdue family time. We'll see ya after the holiday! Desi and I both hope it will be a healthy and happy one for all!...

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Guest: Jon Schwarz of The Intercept: Also: 'QAnon Shaman' gets 3+ years (while Trump runs free); Gosar censured by House; Biden seeks probe of Big Oil profiteering; Sanders on Defense spending hypocrisy...
By Brad Friedman on 11/17/2021 6:18pm PT  

Yes, inflation is real. But the panic around it is, if you will, wildly inflated and horribly misreported by the American corporate media. As Paul Waldman notes at WaPo this afternoon, "Inflation is a genuine problem, but it's hardly spinning out of control. Inflation PANIC, on the other hand, is getting ridiculous." Our guest on today's BradCast made the same argument last week as the media touched off the panic. He joins us to explain and go even further than Waldman. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

But, first up, the so-called 'QAnon Shaman' Jacob Chansley, the guy with face paint and a horned hat who took control of the dais in the U.S. Senate during the Trump-incited attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, was sentenced to 41 months in prison on Wednesday. That's more than three and a half years, for a man with mental issues who was not particularly violent while serving as a henchman for Trump's attempt to steal the 2020 Presidential election that day. Meanwhile, the organizers and planners of the assault --- namely Donald Trump himself and a whole bunch of others --- have faced zero accountability, much less jail time for their crimes lighting the fire in the first place.

In more accountability news, Arizona's far-right Republican Rep. Paul Gosar was censured by the U.S. House in response to an animated video he posted to Twitter, appearing to show him murdering Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and threatening the same for President Biden. House Republicans refused to reprimand him, so a rare censure vote was held today and Gosar was removed from his House committee assignments in the bargain. He's the second Republican to be removed from committee seats this year, after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) faced a similar punishment for support of violent threats against Democrats prior to being elected and a similar failure by her own caucus to take action in any way. Accountability is always good, but, as with Chansley's punishment, there are some nuances and concerns worth discussing on this point as well today.

And, before we get to our guest, President Biden on Wednesday asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate potentially "illegal conduct" by Big Oil companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron who may be inflating gas prices, even as their profits have risen and the cost of refined fuel has fallen. But the recent spike in prices at the pump has helped fuel economy-wide inflation. That, in turn --- thanks, at least in part, to some really bad reporting by the American corporate media --- has also undercut Biden's approval ratings, and is being used (disingenuously) to try and jeopardize passage of Biden's Build Back Better (BBB) social spending and climate change reconciliation bill.

Unlike the recently signed $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, the $1.75 trillion BBB is fully paid for with increases on taxes to corporations and the wealthy. And, unlike stimulus bills passed recently under both this President and the previous one, the BBB's spending is spread over the next decade, instead of as a quick jolt to the economic system. Thus, the consensus of economic experts is that it will not cause inflation and its expansion of the economy may, in fact, help ease inflation in several ways, particularly for the working class.

Still, West Virginia's obstructionist Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is using inflation fears again to try and put the brakes on the BBB package, and the corporate media are certainly helping him. For example, while largely ignoring undeniably positive news about the economy in recent months --- on everything from record job growth to very low unemployment to three months of rising retail sales --- last week, the media offered breathless reports on new inflation numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

You may recall some of the panic when the media informed us that inflation had risen to a record 6.2% in October! If true, a one month 6.2% increase in prices would be a panic. But, in truth, inflation was just 0.9 percent last month. As our guest today points out, "products that cost $10.00 in September now cost a terrifying $10.09." But lost in the panicked coverage was that the 6.2% rise in retail prices was in comparison to what they were a full year ago, in the middle of the worst of the pandemic. They didn't rise "6.2% in October" as many have misleadingly reported.

But all of that also ignores something else that most Americans do not understand about inflation, according to our guest today: It can actually be good for the working class and very very bad for corporations, in particular, for big banks. That may be just one of the reasons why media are so quick to report on inflation numbers as terrible, terrible news for the country.

We're joined today by JON SCHWARZ of The Intercept to explain all of this, as he detailed recently in an article with what he admits is "a little bit of a troll-y headline", "Inflation is Good for You". In fact, as we discuss, he's not entirely "troll-y" on that point. For one, the booming economy has resulted in rising wages (for the first time in years) at almost the same rate as inflation over the past year. He notes at The Intercept: "As prices increased 6.2 percent over the past year, wages for regular people went up 5.8 percent. In other words, inflation barely touched their purchasing power."

The larger point, however, that he explains today is why inflation can be actually be good for workers but not for big corporations like banks: "Household debt in the United States is a gigantic number, difficult to comprehend. It's like $14.5 trillion --- that is mortgages, credit card debt, student debt, it's a whole bunch of things... And when there's inflation of this kind, 6.2%, that is around $850 billion-worth of that debt falling in value. That is a transfer of wealth from creditors, the people who loaned out the money, to borrowers."

Those creditors/lenders "are the richest people in America, and they are losing a lot of money. And they don't like that! People with tons of money do not like losing enormous amounts of it," Schwarz notes. "Inflation is the absolute worst for people who have loaned out a lot of money. It is something that is never discussed, because it is a sort of clear class issue. It makes you realize that, just as a great economy for regular people is not so great for people at the top, it makes you think about what inflation actually does, and who it affects the most."

While he recognizes that "inflation can be real trouble for some people," (and there is some nuance here) the overall effects are often more positive for the working class and not even particularly harmful to those on a fixed income, such as the elderly living on Social Security, which increases each year as its tied to inflation.

There is a lot to discuss on this matter that the corporate media fail to adequately cover (for reasons which we also discuss) while misleading the nation and delighting Republicans and, yes, Joe Manchin, who has fresh (if false) evidence to use in further cutting back on Biden's Build Back Better agenda or even stopping it dead in its tracks.

Finally, as long as we're myth busting today, Congress is preparing to approve the annual National Defense Authorization Act, with nearly as much spending --- for one single year --- as BBB would cost over ten years. Yet, you'll hear almost nothing about how the U.S. can't afford to spend so much money, or that it might lead to inflation, etc. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has a thought or two on all of that, with which we close today's program...

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Bannon turns himself in; U.N. Climate Summit concludes with noteworthy agreement; Biden signs landmark, $1.2T roads, bridges, environment bill...
By Brad Friedman on 11/15/2021 6:16pm PT  

On today's BradCast, we try and wrestle the Monday blizzard of incoming news to the ground --- some of which suggest that maybe we're getting somewhere. Finally. Maybe. A little. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

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

  • Steve Bannon turns himself in to federal prosecutors to face two charges of criminal Contempt of Congress, each of which could earn him as much as a year in prison. But the message sent with his indictment by Attorney General Merrick Garland to the other three dozen or so Trumpers who have also been subpoenaed by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attempt to steal the 2020 election, is the most important point here. Donald Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows may face similar charges after defying his own subpoena on Friday. Trump himself could also still be subpoenaed by the tenacious, bipartisan House Committee.
  • It took an extra day or so, but the nearly 200 nations that gathered for the COP26 U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland over the past two weeks finally reached an agreement [PDF] that all parties could sign onto over the weekend. For the first time, this year's agreement --- while not nearly enough to take on the worsening threat of our climate emergency --- finally calls for the "phase down" of coal and other fossil fuels. Incredibly, until this year, neither the words "coal" or "fossil fuels" have appeared in any of the previous 25 agreements signed by the parties over the years. And even "phase down" was a last minute change demanded by India and China from "phase out". Desi Doyen explains that and much more, including the continuing problem of securing commitments from developed countries who caused the problem to cover the enormous costs of developing countries who didn't, even as many of them are paying the greatest immediate and long term price for our climate catastrophe.
  • Beto is in. Former Democratic Congressman Beto O'Rourke declares his intention to run for Governor next year against Texas' far-right incumbent Republican Greg Abbott.
  • Leahy is out. The 8-term Democratic U.S. Senator from Vermont, Patrick Leahy, currently the longest servicing member of the upper chamber, announces he will not seek a ninth term.
  • The fate of Kyle Rittenhouse is now in the hands of the jury. The 17-year old counter-protester used a semi-automatic rifle to shoot three demonstrators, killing two of them, in Kenosha, Wisconsin last year after the police killing of George Floyd. Before handing the case to jurors, the judge --- whose bizarre behavior throughout the televised trial suggested he's in the bag for Rittenhouse --- dropped a less significant charge of being a minor in possession of a firearm.
  • Far-right propagandist and conspiracy theory profiteer Alex Jones and his Infowars media outlet were found guilty by default in the latest defamation case against him in Connecticut. The suit was brought by families of eight people killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. Jones declared the massacre to be a "giant hoax" by the federal government. It's the fourth Sandy Hook case in which Jones has been found guilty of defamation. The first three were in Texas, where Jones' media empire is based. Juries in each state will decide how much Jones must pay in damage and court costs to the families next year.
  • The biggest political news of the day was the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill finally signed into law on Monday by President Biden in a ceremony on the White House lawn. It is the latest component of his sweeping "Build Back Better" agenda following the devastation of COVID, Donald Trump and, in this case, decades of failure to invest in rebuilding and shoring up the nation's crumbling infrastructure. We explain what's in the landmark bill, including the largest single investment in roads and bridges since the Eisenhower era. There are also a number of key environment and climate related elements in the bill, for replacement of toxic lead water pipes, hardening and expansion of the nation's power grid, investment in electric vehicle charging stations and zero- and low-emission public transit and consumer vehicles. The Administration vows the measure will create millions of jobs over the next five years. And while infrastructure has traditionally been one area on which both Republicans and Democrats tend to find common ground, the post-Trump Republican party has described the bill as a "communist takeover" of the country, and has turned on Republicans in both the House and Senate who voted for passage. That has resulted in death threats for a number of the GOPers in the House who voted for the bipartisan measure supported by such noted "communists" in the Senate as Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham.
  • And yes, we take a few calls from listeners on all of the above throughout today's program...

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Dems continue legislative struggle to protect voting rights, Repubs face new legal woes for trying to steal 2020; Also: More results from 2021 elections; Progress at U.N. climate summit in Glasgow...
By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2021 6:48pm PT  

On today's BradCast": Despite what you may hear from certain elements of the media, the differences between the two parties when it comes to democracy and voting rights could not be more stark. Democrats are currently trying (and still failing, so far) in Congress, to protect voting rights for all voters. Republicans, meanwhile, are undermining those most basic of American rights around the country, even while facing mounting legal problems for having been gullible enough to play along with Donald Trump's Big Lie effort to steal the 2020 election. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

But we've got a lot more than that on today's program. Among the many stories covered...

  • More ballot initiative results from Tuesday's off-year elections, including out of Tucson, Arizona where voters, by a nearly 2 to 1 margin, approved a new minimum wage of $15/hour. The victory for some 85,000 workers in the state's Democratic stronghold comes just months after its Senior Senator, Kyrsten Sinema, infamously thumbs-downed her own parties efforts to raise the federal minimum wage nationally to $15/hour. Hoping she noticed what happened in Tucson on Tuesday, because we're betting the folks in Tucson noticed her thumbs-down.
  • In New York state, all three election and voting rights reform propositions placed on the ballot by the Democratic legislature failed by wide margins. Republicans opposed all three and mounted an aggressive campaign to defeat them. Prop 1 involved redistricting reform. Prop 3 would have allowed same-day registration. Prop 4 would have allowed for no-excuse absentee voting in the Empire State. We discussed all three with two longtime NY election integrity advocates last week. Even though there was disagreement on several of measures, it's still a bit of a surprise that all three went down. That, even as Prop 2, a very progressive proposition on the same ballot establishing "the Right to clean air, water and a healthful environment" in the state's Constitution, did pass, by a more than 2 to 1 margin. Hmmm.
  • On Wednesday, back in D.C., a Senate vote on whether to proceed to debate on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act --- which restores much of what the U.S. Supreme Court has gutted in recent years from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 --- was blocked by Republicans. All Democrats voted in favor (including Joe Manchin) and even one Republican for a change (Lisa Murkowski). But as with the similarly Manchin-approved Freedom to Vote Act two weeks ago, a majority vote was not enough to overcome yet another GOP filibuster in the U.S. Senate, requiring 60 votes to even move to debate. So now we seem to be getting to the point where both Manchin and Sinema may need to put up or shut up on reforming the filibuster to allow for passage of these bills to help save democracy itself. In the meantime, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are vowing to "restore the Senate", whatever that may end up meaning, in order to push election and voting reform through. We'll see if that happens, because...
  • ...As New York Times reports late today, the Democrats' big money donors are getting restless. They are whining that Joe Biden isn't giving them enough attention (good!) and that they are very unhappy about the party's seeming inability to adopt critical voting rights legislation. One major donor has gone so far as to vow to withhold any more money until election reform is passed. The pressure, even from wealthy donors, is welcome and could be helpful. Though what they believe President Biden is actually able to do if two intransigent Democratic Senators refuse to change Senate rules for passage is a separate question. Hopefully these donors also give to Manchin and Sinema and are cutting them off as well while they refuse to stand up and do the right thing for the country.
  • On the other side of the political aisle, it's just nothing but ugly when it comes to democracy. Though some of our stories today may be worth popping some popcorn for. The Smartmatic voting tech company filed two new lawsuits on Wednesday against two "right-wing U.S. television networks," as Reuters properly describes them. One America News (OAN) and Newsmax are being sued for false claims made against the company, including that Smartmatic --- which doesn't have any election business in the U.S. at all other than a recent contract in Los Angeles County --- helped steal the election from Donald Trump in 2020. (And, yes, the fact that Smartmatic was brought into this at all is largely thanks to my series of exclusives from some years ago involving that company and its competitor Dominion Voting Systems, which Trump's dupes have happily misinterpreted and bastardized for their dumb corrupt purposes. You're welcome!) The two complaints are the latest billion dollar lawsuits filed by both Smartmatic and Dominion against the two right-wing networks, Fox "News", as well as Trump friends and attorneys like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Pillow Guy Mike Lindell. We wish them all the worst of luck.
  • Even wingnut Erick Erickson has had enough of the "Stop the Steal" falderal --- at least when he's drunk enough to say so after his party won a few elections on Tuesday night. His rant to his fellow Republicans includes stuff like this: "You idiots have spent a year peddling the fiction the 2020 election was stolen because you were so busy humping Trump's leg that you never really even tried to convince persuadable voters to vote. ... either admit the election wasn't stolen or STFU from here on out. ... And if you really have clung to the 2020 was stolen mythology that lets you sleep well at night as a professional victim, please unfriend me and unfollow me because your presence is needed in Neverland and not here in reality."
  • And, back in Arizona, the GOP-controlled Senate appears to be threatening and/or turning on the Cyber Ninjas they hired for their pretend audit of Maricopa County's 2020 election earlier this year. Or, at least, they are play-acting as much for the benefit of a judge as the Senate is facing potential sanctions for failing to turn over public documents related to the phony audit which claims to have found that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by an even larger margin than originally certified in the state. But, as it turns out, even those numbers appear to have been "made up out of whole cloth" by the Ninjas, according to experts who looked a bit closer. This could get ugly. At least we hope so.
  • Finally, Desi Doyen's got some seemingly good news for us coming out of the critical U.N. Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland in our latest Green News Report, along with results of a number of environment and climate related issues that were on the ballot across the country in Tuesday's off-year elections...

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Guest: John Nichols of The Nation on what went right and wrong; Also: E-Pollbook failures in NJ open door for loser to challenge results...
By Brad Friedman on 11/3/2021 6:24pm PT  

Today on BradCast: No, Tuesday's off-year elections were not nearly as disastrous for Democrats as the national media seems to want to insist. But there were both red flag warnings and important lessons they should absolutely pay attention to, and quickly. There were also wholly avoidable voting system failures which, unfortunately, open the door for some results to be challenged. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

First up, the latest summary on the marquee Gubernatorial races that seemed to encompass the entirety of the national media's coverage on Tuesday and into Wednesday. In Virginia, decades of modern history repeated itself, as the party that didn't win the White House last year appears to have taken control of the Governor's mansion this year. Trump-endorsed businessman and first-time candidate Glenn Youngkin was declared the narrow winner over VA's Democratic former Gov. Terry McCauliffe, after Youngkin dog-whistled his kinder, gentler not-Donald-Trump-at-all act into office.

His campaign leaned heavily on pretend, Fox "News"-generated phony outrage issues like opposition to teaching Critical Race Theory in public schools, even though there are no public schools in VA who actually teach it. But fake issues are much easier for Republicans to run on than the unpopular ones they actually support. So, with that, it appears Republicans may also have narrowly taken back majority control of the Commonwealth's House of Delegates, though those final numbers were still too close to call as of airtime.

In New Jersey, it appears that history will not repeat itself. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy was declared the unofficial winner by media outlets late during today's show. If officially certified, Murphy will have defeated Republican John Ciaterelli to become the first Democrat to win a second term in the Garden State since the 1970s. But Ciaterelli made clear on Election Night that he plans to challenge the results. Reported electronic pollbook failures across the state on Tuesday (little noticed by most of the media, though we covered the pretty serious issue in some detail on our previous BradCast) may well give him an opening to mount such a challenge --- not that Republican election challengers these days generally need real problems to buttress false claims of fraud when they lose. If Murphy ends up falling behind again, he too could use the failure in his own contest.

We detail what appears to have happened across the state, preventing many voters from being able to vote at the polls for several hours on Tuesday morning, and why we've been warning about issues exactly like this for years when it comes to electronic voting, tabulation and pollbook issues that continue to threaten democracy itself.

But while many Democrats have been beside themselves since the polls closed on Tuesday night, wondering where they went wrong --- at least in those statewide contests --- in truth, if you dig below the national headlines, progressives had a bunch of victories on Tuesday in local races and on ballot initiatives.

We're joined today by one of our favorite post-election guests (following both good and bad nights for Democrats over the years), progressive champion, JOHN NICHOLS, Washington Correspondent for for The Nation, longtime contributor to The Progressive and Associate Editor of Madison, Wisconsin's Capital Times. We try to make sense of where both Dems and national media went both right and wrong during both the election and its aftermath. Why, for example, in both VA and NJ, where Democrats held control and adopted a host of very popular progressive policies in the past several years, did they have such a difficult time turning that record into victories yesterday? We also discuss several progressive wins that flew beneath the radar, and what Dems in D.C. and across the nation should take from what happened on Tuesday.

Finally, we close with a boatload of under-reported progressive wins in Tuesday's elections across the country, including historic mayoral victories from Boston to Pittsburgh to Albuquerque to Cincinnati to Durham, NC and beyond, along with a number of local ballot initiatives that defy the media narrative of the past 24 hours which seems to be arguing that Dems must immediately start acting more like Republicans if they hope to have any chance of victory during next year's critical 2022 mid-terms...

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Vote system failure in NJ; Another GOP gerrymander in OK; Too many Atlantic storms; Major climate deals in Glasgow; Breakthrough deal on drug pricing in Senate; NYC's vax mandate working well so far at NYPD...
By Brad Friedman on 11/2/2021 5:49pm PT  

Millions are voting around the country on Tuesday. Governors, Mayors, school boards and various initiatives are on the ballot (along with a couple of Special U.S. House elections) in a whole bunch of states in this year's off-year elections. Full results, such as we might have them, on tomorrow's BradCast. But for today, as voters vote (or try to), elected officials were making some pretty big and important and long-overdue deals today, from D.C. to Glasgow. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

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

  • The extreme partisan gerrymandering in states controlled by Republicans continues apace, with Oklahoma the latest to propose cracking a major Dem stronghold into three pieces in order to squeeze out another GOP House member for the next decade in the already very "red" state. All of that made much easier in states that, prior to the 2020 Census, had to win approval for new maps from the federal Government under the Voting Rights Act. The GOP's stolen and packed U.S. Supreme Court majority has helpfully done away with that little annoyance in advance of 2022 and 2024.
  • Thanks to lighter off-year election turnout and measures enacted before and during the pandemic to make early and remote access to the ballot box easier, we're not hearing about too many voting problems today so far...except for in New Jersey, where electronic pollbooks reportedly failed across the state for several hours when polls opened. Unclear if there were backup paper pollbooks available, but as one outlet reported: "When the Internet would go down, the machines would crash."
  • For the second year in a row --- and the third time in history (the first time was in 2005) --- the National Weather Service has once again run through all of the names in the alphabet for named Atlantic storms. With the naming of Subtropical Storm Wanda over the weekend, we are turning to the supplemental name set, which is starting over from "A" this year. Unlike last year, they won't be using letters from the Greek alphabet which seems to have confused a whole bunch of us. But the increasing number of storms is the real worry, despite absurd, years-ago-debunked climate change denialist talking points still coming out from the fossil fuel-sponsored Republicans in Congress.
  • With the critical U.N. Climate Summit (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland now officially underway, President Biden officially apologized to the world for Donald Trump pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate agreement, during his four disastrous years as President. (The U.S. was the only country, out of about 200 across the world, to withdraw from the pact.) Now that we're back in, two fairly big agreements were struck in the conference's opening days. One to stop and reverse deforestation and another to cut climate warming methane emissions by 30% by 2030. The first was signed on to by more than 100 countries, including the U.S., UK, China, Russia and Brazil. The second did not yet win the support of China or Russia, but the others, including Brazil, seem to be in. The agreements are pretty big deals, as Desi Doyen explains today --- even if there is much more work that must be done at this two week summit.
  • Speaking of big deals, apparently another big one was struck in the U.S. Senate between Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and all of the other Democrats to lower prescription drug prices in Biden's Build Back Better bill. The details are still not fully known, but the agreement will allow "lower prescription drug prices for seniors and families," according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The seemingly interminable negotiations continue on the BBB, but that news from Sinema and some encouraging remarks today from the other Democratic obstructionist, Joe Manchin (WV) are hopeful signs today, as Mitch McConnell makes clear that he is rooting for Sinema and Manchin to gut the (currently) $1.75 trillion social safety net and climate change legislation.
  • After anti-vax alarmists had warned for weeks that as many as 10,000 cops would be lost from the NYPD once Mayor Bill deBlasio's vaccine mandate kicked in on November 1, it turns out the number of uniformed police placed on unpaid leave was much smaller. As of Monday, the number was 34, or 0.15 percent of NYPD employees. Over the past week, NYPD's vaccination rate jump 15 points to 85 percent. As evidence from other states and industries reveals, mandates work.
  • Finally, we're joined by Desi Doyen for our latest Green News Report as host UK's Prime Minister Boris Johnson opens COP26 with a dramatic flair; as the U.S. House calls Big Oil on the carpet for decades of climate lies; and as the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court agrees to review a case that could dismantle the EPA's authority to regulate dangerous greenhouse gas emissions...

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FL blocks Univ. of Florida profs from serving as expert witnesses in lawsuits against the state; SCOTUS may be having second thoughts about TX' unconstitutional anti-abortion law; And more chilling stories of democracy dying before our eyes...
By Brad Friedman on 11/1/2021 6:23pm PT  

The through-line for today's BradCast comes courtesy of Meathead. Actor and director Rob Reiner was arguing, via Twitter over the weekend, that "until Donald Trump is prosecuted for leading a deadly Insurrection to overthrow the Government and Voting Rights are passed," we are witnessing the death of Democracy.

He was much more correct than he may have realized. But the stories we cover today --- only half of those we had hoped to get today, and none of which directly covered the two issues Reiner was referring to --- underscore that theme. If it's not immediately obvious, tune into today's show to find out how.

Among the stories covered, discussed, explained, warned about, expounded and ranted upon on today's program (along with listener calls throughout)...

  • Election Day is Tuesday in states across the country. As discussed last week, democracy itself is on the ballot in New York state. But most attention on Tuesday has been going to Virginia, where Trump-endorsed Gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin has now taken a lead in FiveThirtyEight's pre-election polling average over VA's former Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe. We explain why history is on Youngkin's side. Perhaps by Wednesday we'll find out if the voters in Virginia are as well, as democracy is not yet dead (hopefully) in some pockets of the nation.
  • In Florida, a simply remarkable and, yes, chilling story. The University of Florida has barred three professors --- each one an expert in democracy and voting rights (two of whom have appeared on The BradCast multiple times over the years) --- from testifying as expert witnesses for the plaintiffs in a challenge to the state's new voter suppression law passed earlier this year. The measure, signed on Fox "News" by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, surrounded by Trump supporters and with local media locked out entirely, restricts the use of drop-boxes for absentee ballots, while making it more difficult to obtain Vote-by-Mail ballots and harder to register to vote, among other democracy killing provisions. The university (whose Board of Trustees is headed up by a close DeSantis confidante and major GOP donor) claims that testifying against a state law would represent a conflict of interest for UF. That's an idea that is unheard of, frankly, and would prevent experts in their fields from being able to testify on their expertise in states in which they live and work. The same profs were never prevented from doing so in the past and experts on academic freedom describe this novel notion as unprecedented. A lawsuit seeking the review of documents from DeSantis on this matter, to determine his involvement in the University's decision, was filed on Friday.
  • At the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, the new "unprecedented" anti-abortion law in Texas, barring the otherwise Constitutionally protected medical procedure after just six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even known they are pregnant, was heard on SCOTUS' rocket docket just two months after they'd allowed it to take effect in the Lone Star State. The matter in question is whether a case filed by abortion providers in the state and another by the U.S. Department of Justice should be allowed to proceed, despite the virtually unquestioned matter of the new state law, S.B. 8, violating Roe v. Wade. The reason the question even arises is because Texas purposely structured the law in a way that hopes to side-step any and all judicial review of the law. That is done by the statute empowering members of the public with a right to file a civil lawsuit against anyone who, in any way, aids a woman in receiving an abortion after six weeks. Under S.B. 8, plaintiffs may even sue an Uber driver who brought a woman to a clinic, for at least $10,000, and the State argues that because they are not enforcing the law, members of the public are doing so, the law cannot be challenged in either federal or state court.

    But even far-right Republican Justice Brett Kavanaugh (and, of course, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan) was able to put two and two together during today's hearing to realize that if this type of law is allowed to go forward, states could adopt laws that effectively outlawed many other long-settled Constitutional rights, and avoid judicial oversight in the bargain. So, yes, California could adopt a law similar to S.B. 8 that makes owning a gun a civil violation for which anyone in the public could sue a gun owner for, say, a million dollars. Are the Justices on the High Court --- who allowed this law to take effect two months ago, ending almost all abortions for now in TX --- sure they want the nation to go down this path?

  • One of the other several stories we quickly covered of democracy dying today, referenced the newly gerrymandered maps for the four U.S. House seats in Iowa. Last week, after Republicans rejected a new map that would have split the state into two districts that voted for Biden last year and two that voted for Trump, they instead approved a second version of a map in which Trump won all four districts. One expert in redistricting describes the new maps as "a dream Republican map." Yes. That is yet another way in which democracy dies...unless we fight like hell to prevent it from doing so.

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Guest: Heather Digby Parton of Salon and Hullabaloo; Also: Here we go again! Another QAnon GOP election clerk steals another voting system!...
By Brad Friedman on 10/29/2021 6:16pm PT  

Rogue Republicans and rogue Democrats on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

First up, the rogue --- and really dumb --- Republican in Michigan's Adams Township. The Township Clerk there, Stephanie Scott, was elected last November and is certain that the election must have been fraudulent, even though she won and Trump was certified as defeating Joe Biden in the County by 48 points. (That's more than Trump won by in 2016!) Scott was a QAnon loon before the 2020 election and even more so since then. This week, she was removed by the State Elections Bureau from her job and replaced, for now, by the Republican County Clerk in Hillsdale County (home of Adams Township), who discovered on Tuesday that the Township's tabulation computer, the "brains" of the whole system, is now missing in advance of next week's local elections.

Michigan State Police are said to have launched a criminal investigation, and Scott seems to admit to a Michigan news outlet that she stole it, claiming that the vendor, Hart Intercivic, was coming in to perform routine maintenance that was actually a secret scheme to delete all of the evidence of fraud on behalf Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Or something. The Township votes on hand-marked paper ballots. So if the new Clerk had any actual concerns about whether the computer accurately tabulated results last year, she might have tried hand-counting those paper ballots to find out. The population of the entire Township is only about 2,500 people. But apparently Scott is not particularly bright, despite all of her QAnon "research".

We unpack the entire insane incident, which echoes one from a few months back, where the Republican County Clerk in Mesa County, Colorado also had to be replaced by the Sec. of State after she brought two people with her into the secure area where voting systems are stored in the middle of the night, turned off the security cameras, made full, unlawful copies of the hard drives of the Dominion Voting System's Election Management software and then released it to the Internet during MyPillow CEO and failed conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell's so-called "cyber symposium" in South Dakota. The unlawful release wreaked havoc and a call for "emergency action" before California 's Gubernatorial Recall election just weeks later. The Mesa County Clerk is also facing a criminal investigation because, ya know, they're all "law and order conservatives" who think it's just fine to steal voting systems and software when they feel like it.

Of course, there are very real concerns about vulnerabilities in such voting systems, though zero known evidence to date that any of them were used to steal any election last year. But these lamebrains don't seem to have a clue what the vulnerabilities actually are or what to legally do about them, even though many of us real Election Integrity advocates have been showing them how to do exactly that for nearly 20 years.

As to the Democratic rogues in our stories today, we're joined again by the great HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hulaballoo to talk about Senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and if their real game is actually to undermine the entire Biden agenda by weakening, stalling and then ultimately just killing the Build Back Better bill.

The pair have already succeeded in gutting a number of the most popular key provisions of the bill favored by progressive and centrist Dems alike, and even by Republican voters (if not members of Congress). Though there are a boatload of critical, long-overdue and progressive programs still left in what the White House described as the bill's new "framework" [PDF] on Thursday. But do Manchin and Sinema intend to let even that much go through to full passage? Or are they playing a different game entirely? We discuss it all with Digby today.

We also discuss the painfully disinformed, so-called "progressives" out in the Twittersphere and beyond who are actually either gullible enough or disinformed enough to believe that Biden and Pelosi and Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal --- not to mentioned Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez(!) --- have all been coopted by "corporatists" (or something) to undermine Biden's own agenda and the bill that the entire Democratic caucus, save for Manchin and Sinema, would have approved months ago when it was twice the size in dollars.

The corporate media also come in for criticism again today, for their failure to accurately inform the American people of the wildly popular provisions that were and still are in the still-transformative Biden agenda (even as Democrats themselves share some of that blame). Instead, the media have turned the negotiations over Build Back Better into a misleading game of (paid for) spending numbers and a "showdown" between "progressives" and "centrists". In fact, it's always been a no-choice effort by Congressional and White House Dems to win the must-have votes of Manchin and Sinema --- ("The Diva Twins" as Parton calls them) --- who have opposed many of the bill's most popular programs in a 50/50 Senate.

Lots to discuss here with Parton today, as usual. Please tune in!...

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Biden claims 'historic deal' on Build Back Better agenda, details framework 'agreement' for critical social safety net and climate package; U.S. House Comm. calls Big Oil CEOs on carpet for decades of lies...
By Brad Friedman on 10/28/2021 5:15pm PT  

On today's BradCast: We appear (maybe, probably, hopefully?) one step closer to the end of the endless sausage making process in Congress to get Joe Biden's still-huge, still-transformative (at least for now) agenda through to final passage. At the same time, Big Oil was called on the carpet by Congressional Democrats in the Oversight Committee for their years of lies and deadly deceptions on climate change. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

I've seen a number of predictable, knee-jerk complaints today from some sectors of the Progressive Twittersphere that seem short-sighted, self-defeating and, frankly, both misinformed and stupid. The maddening problem for Democrats in getting Biden's agenda through Congress is not "Democrats". It's Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema! Not to mention every single member of the Republican caucus in both chambers! Everyone else in the Democratic caucus --- in the House and Senate and White House --- was good to go weeks ago with the Build Back Better (BBB) bill when it still clocked in at $3.5 trillion.

Thanks to Manchin and Sinema, however, the measure, according to a new framework "agreement" [PDF] released by the White House today, now clocks in at about $1.75 trillion in spending and is fully paid for with increased taxes on the wealthy and other measures.

Much of the news on this front from the last several weeks has been devoted almost solely to what Manchin and Sinema have forced to be cut from the bill. That, as the two corrupt Democrats push for final passage of the smaller bipartisan infrastructure bill (BIF) that progressive Democrats have smartly refused to pass in the House, using it for leverage to ensure Manchinema don't get their (not-paid-for, deficit-increasing) infrastructure bill and then bail on the larger reconciliation spending package. That critical package still includes climate change action and broad expansion of the social safety net, from health care to education to elder care to child tax credits and much more.

With a continuous drumbeat of what Manchin and Sinema have succeeded in killing from the bill, the American people may have lost sight of a whole bunch of really excellent, very progressive stuff that is actually still in it. Today, after claiming an "agreement among Democrats" on a framework for the Build Back Better Act, (we'll see if there really is such an agreement), President Biden offered remarks at the White House to remind everyone of what is very much still in his critical and transformative legislation. We share his remarks in full today.

Whether the "deal" really represents an "agreement", and whether everything currently in the framework remains in the final BBB, and whether Manchin and Sinema agree to vote for it, and whether enough of the rest of the Democratic caucus will still support it after all is said and done, remains to be seen. But it's long past time to wrap it up and get both the BIF and the BBB working for the American people. As Biden said today: "Let's get this done."

Meanwhile, in the House Oversight Committee on Thursday, the CEOs of six Big Oil companies and their major lobbying groups were called on the carpet for their decades of deadly lies about global warming and their hundreds of millions of dollars spent deceiving the American people about it. Desi Doyen joins us for coverage of the key takeaways and testimony from the Big Oil liars and their GOP apologists and facilitators in the House.

Finally, it's our latest Green News Report in advance of next week's major U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, known as COP (Conference of Parties) 26, where Biden and a bevy of top Administration officials headed today after his speech. It's being touted as the most important such summit since the Paris Climate Accord was hammered out in 2015, with the U.N. warning that current commitments from the nations of the world to curb greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change are still not enough to avoid the worst impacts of our growing climate crisis. But, as usual, Desi also offers some encouraging news on that front as well...

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