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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: While we were out: Trump's government shutdown is seriously impacting national parks and federal scientific research; Trump EPA launched another serious attack on public health; PLUS: New Democratic U.S. House majority pledged to act on our climate crisis... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Democrats are shockingly unprepared to fight climate change; U.S. greenhouse gas emissions spiked in 2018;
U.S. Supreme Court rejects Exxon in climate change document dispute; US Interior Dept. plans to skirt FOIA requests; Colorado could save $2.5 billion by rapidly shutting down its coal power plants; Sharp drop in monarch butterflies in California; PG&E could be prosecuted for murder in record CA wildfires; Waste Management's 20-year path to 'moonshot' climate goal... PLUS: 10 easy ways to reduce your plastic use in 2019... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Very bad news in the latest Arctic Report Card; Coal state Democratic Senator gets top energy committee position; Washington state Governor unveils ambitious climate change legislation; PLUS: Trump EPA rolls back yet another major water protection rule... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Welcome to the Eocene, where ice sheets turn into swamps; Big Oil's covert campaign to rewrite American car emissions rules; The race to understand Antarctica’s most terrifying glacier; Democrats shift toward impact on jobs as climate change moves to front of 2020 agenda; California is turning farms into carbon-sucking factories; Radical fixes get a boost at climate talks; California wildfires take toll on insurance industry; Minneapolis moves to eliminate mandatory parking... PLUS: More floods and more droughts: climate change delivers both... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: The complicated death of a U.S. President during the Trump-era and fresh updates on several midterm election count controversies, fiascos and fraud investigations. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up: George H.W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States died on Friday. Remarkably enough, there was a question as to whether Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States would attend his memorial service, given his obnoxious attacks on the Bush family in recent years, as recently as this past summer. Reportedly, Trump will attend, even after making Bush Sr. the butt of campaign rally jokes just months ago. We review parts of Bush Sr.'s legacy today --- without either dancing on his grave or lionizing --- particularly on the environment, while leaving the more unsavory parts of that legacy to callers who ring in with their own thoughts on "41".

Also today, updates on several recent stories we've been closely following of late, including a state House District contest in Alaska that was tied after the initial tally and then "recounted" on Friday, with control of the entire state legislature hanging in the balance. The state's "recount" of hand-marked paper ballots was carried out by hand late last week, and also ended in a tie, until one previously untallied ballot was added after finding that it had been wrongly excluded from the count. That one vote was enough to hand the election to Republicans and, with it, the full reigns of state government to the GOP which now controls the state House, Senate and Governor's mansion. We explain.

In another follow-up from Friday's show, a lawsuit filed by the Democratic Party in Georgia was settled late last week to allow more time for absentee ballots to be received in Tuesday's crucial midterm runoff elections was resolved in favor of voters. With the state's next Secretary of State on the line in the runoff, scores of counties had waited until just one week before Election Day to mail out absentee ballots, requiring that they be returned by Election Day on December 4th. An agreement with the state now allows such ballots to be tallied, as Democrats had sought, so long as they are post-marked by Election Day and arrive up to three days afterward.

Finally today, still more new details on the growing GOP election fraud scandal in North Carolina, which has kept a reported 905-vote Republican U.S. House "win" from being certified by the State Board of Elections. New details have emerged on the rather stunning criminal record of GOP contractor McCrae Dowless [pictured above right], who was hired to run an absentee ballot campaign in NC's 9th Congressional District in Bladen County on behalf of GOP candidate Mark Harris. Analyses of absentee ballots both returned and, mysteriously, not returned, reveal inexplicable irregularities in both the 2018 GOP primary and the general election. In both cases there are now more and more indications of a massive absentee ballot fraud scheme that may have affected the final results.

The controversy and likely criminal investigations come after evidence from the 2016 election suggested Dowless ran a similar absentee scam in that election as well. Dowless, according to police records, spent time in jail from an outrageous life insurance fraud scheme in the 1990s. So, naturally, he was hired by the GOP to work on their elections in 2016 and 2018. We discuss some of those stunning new details in a state where Republicans, ironically enough, have been claiming for years that new restrictions are needed at the polling place in order to deter fraud by Democrats!...

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Every. Single. Vote. Matters. Or, at least it's supposed to. On today's BradCast we've got a bevy of stories, almost a month after the midterm elections, to prove it. Also, a rightwing broadcast media behemoth --- the nation's largest single owner of local television stations --- faces new blowback for offensive, anti-immigrant commentary they forced their local news outlets to carry. [Audio link to today's jam-packed show is posted below.]

First today, in Kentucky, where nearly half a dozen state House races were determined by half a dozen votes or less, a Republican incumbent has now filed a contest in House District 13 after reportedly losing to his Democratic challenger by just one single vote. No matter how that challenge ends, and it may take a while, Republicans will still hold super-majority control in the Bluegrass State.

But, in Alaska --- which, incidentally, was struck by a major earthquake today --- one single still-uncounted "mystery ballot" in one single state House race may determine control of the entire body for the next two years. We explain.

Meanwhile, in Georgia (the nation's apparent new headquarters for mass voter suppression) the midterms aren't over yet either, with two statewide runoffs set for Tuesday in the Secretary of State and Public Service Commissioners race. But, on Thursday, the state Democratic Party sued the state to allow absentee mail ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted. Their complaint charges that many counties in the state failed to timely send out requested vote-by-mail ballots until just one week before next week's December 4th runoff. That, they say, will not allow enough time for many voters to receive their ballots and mail them back to the county by Election Day, when state law says they are due.

Dems note that overseas and military votes are tallied, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day and arrive no later than three days after the election. They want the same rules applied to all absentee by mail voters, thanks to the Secretary of State and Counties' delay in sending out tens of thousands of ballots. The GA Sec. of State's office, incredibly, blames the delays on Democrats for trying to ensure all votes were tallied from the November 6th general election! [Post-air update!: GA agrees to count ballots that arrive by December 7th, if post-marked by Election Day!]

In North Carolina, the U.S. House election mystery in the 9th Congressional District has now fairly clearly become a GOP election fraud case. We've got new details today, based on affidavits from voters in Bladen County who describe an unlawful scheme, apparently by a GOP contractor for the Republican candidate, to collect absentee ballots and either alter them before delivery to the County or not deliver them at all. This follows on the surprise State Board of Election decision on Tuesday to not certify the NC-9 race, as previously expected, between Republican Mark Harris and Democrat Dan McCready. Until the new revelations of apparent election fraud, Harris had reportedly won the race by just 905 votes out of more than 280,000 cast. However, as recent analyses have revealed, Harris apparently received a virtually impossible number of absentee by mail votes in Bladen County. On Friday, the NC State Board of Elections decided to delay action until after a a hearing to review evidence in the matter on 6 December 21. They have the authority to, among other things, order a completely new election in the Congressional District.

Finally today, in a widely-reported skirmish at the U.S. southern border with Mexico near San Diego last weekend, U.S. officials fired tear gas into Mexico, sending many women and children migrants from Central American running for the lives. 42 arrests were made by U.S. Customs and Border officials, but AP reports this week that none of the migrants detained will actually be charged with any crimes!

Nonetheless, in the wake of the U.S. use of tear gas on asylum seekers, former Trump staffer Boris Epshteyn, who is now Sinclair Broadcast Group's Chief Political Analyst, offered a commentary in response which local news outlets at hundreds of Sinclair-owned television stations around the country were told to run. Epshteyn's offensive "must-run" commentary charges that migrants were "attempting to storm" the U.S. border in an "attempted invasion of our country. Period." The commentary, as usual, echoed the politics and rhetoric of Epshteyn's far-right nationalist fear-mongering former boss who had sent thousands of U.S. military troops to the border in the days before the midterm elections to, purportedly, help propel the so-called "invasion" by men, women and children fleeing violence and poverty in Central America by foot.

We're joined today by PAM VOGEL of Media Matters who has been documenting Sinclair's abuse of our public airwaves at otherwise-trusted local media outlets, which are now required to carry Epshteyn's "must-run" commentaries as often as five times a week. While Sinclair initially distanced themselves from their own Chief Political Analyst in a "tepid response" after public outrage emerged following Epshteyn's offensive "invasion" commentary, the company has since come out in his support, turning their efforts to false attacks on Media Matters instead. Vogel details the shameful story and how Sinclair could --- and indeed may --- face license renewal problems from the FCC for their abuse of our public airwaves with biased, false and far-right propaganda on their nearly two-hundred television stations across the nation.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: GNR Special Coverage --- Big wins and losses for the environment in the 2018 midterm elections; Science to return to the U.S. House Science Committee; PLUS: Big Oil's big money overwhelms state energy ballot initiatives... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The First Climate Election; Federal jury sides with sickened workers and families in Tennessee coal ash cleanup case; Voters rejected most ballot measures aimed at curbing climate change; The nation just elected a bunch of governors who campaigned on clean energy; Science candidates prevail in US midterm elections; What I learnt pulling a straw out of a turtle's nose; UN says Earth’s ozone layer is healing; After Hurricane Michael, toxic algae has again spread; Is warming bringing a wave of new diseases to Arctic wildlife?... PLUS: The left vs. a carbon tax: The odd, agonizing political battle playing out in Washington state... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Nobody said it was going to be easy. But the fight to vote in next Tuesday's crucial midterms continues, and beyond the House and Senate, there may be some very good news for Democrats in dozens of currently GOP-controlled states. [Audio link to show follows below.]

But first up: More trouble at the polls today reported out of Texas, where voter intimidation is said to be higher than seen in decades; In Georgia, where voters are still trying to overcome suppression in absentee Vote-by-Mail voting in DeKalb County (suburbs east of Atlanta) and with failing, unverifiable voting machines at all polling places across the state; And in Illinois, where voters are also reportedly encountering failures on DuPage County's similarly unverifiable touchscreen voting systems in the Chicago suburbs.

Meanwhile, there's been a fair amount of coverage of high profile gubernatorial races with Democratic takeover chances in Florida and Georgia (where Oprah is now lending a hand), and in a number of the similarly tight U.S. Senate races that will determine partisan control of the upper chamber in Congress for the next two years. But there has been far less national coverage of several other gubernatorial contests around the country where Democrats are also in very close "Toss Up" contests to take control of dozens of executive mansions.

These races are crucial not only between now and the next Presidential Election, but could well determine control of the U.S. House over the next decade. That's right. The way voters vote on Tuesday, November 6, 2018, may well help determine who is in charge of the U.S. House beginning in 2022, once redistricting takes place around the country following the 2020 Census --- and then for another ten years thereafter!

While Dems hope to win a majority in the House next week, control of Governorships by Democrats in a number of key swing states could help add anywhere from 15 to 30 more winnable seats in the U.S. House over the next decade, according to experts.

Political reporter DYLAN SCOTT of Vox.com joins us to detail which states will be most important to that decennial reapportionment and why state Governors are so crucial to the process.

"Republicans won a lot of governor seats in 2010," he explains. "That gave them a lot of control over redistricting in 2011. And even though in 2012, 2014 and 2016, the Democrats actually won more votes for their House candidates across the country, the maps were drawn as such that Republicans were still able to hold a majority for all of the last decade. I think the stakes should be pretty clear to people after what we've seen with GOP control across the country over the last ten years," Scott argues. But are they? We discuss.

Also, Scott breaks down what appears to be a host of very good opportunities for Democrats in more than a dozen states beyond Florida and Georgia, currently controlled by GOP Governors, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, New Mexico, Maine, Alaska and even South Dakota! We cover a lot of ground on this today --- along with the politics and polling involved --- and much of it should be very encouraging for Democrats.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with news on some potential accountability for Donald Trump's corrupt Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke, more disturbing indications that the effects of global warming will be much worse, much sooner than previously thought, and more related news underscoring why Tuesday's election is so crucial to the existential fight against man-made climate change...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Brazil's election of extreme far-right Jair Bolsonaro has grave implications for the Amazon rainforest and climate change; PLUS: Energy and the environment are on the November 6 ballot, with landmark ballot propositions in several states... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The unseen driver behind the migrant caravan: climate change; Oil kingdom and a 'high priest' stall action for 30 years; 5 midterm votes that could have an outsize impact on climate change; More than 90% of world's children breathe toxic air, report says, as India prepares for most polluted season; Coastal Pacific oxygen levels now plummet once a year; Trump and Rauner administrations knew about Sterigenics cancer risks months before telling public; Cloud Peak cancels health care plan for retired miners; Army Corps, Texas officials propose sweeping hurricane protection plan... PLUS: Driven by Trump policy changes, fracking booms on public lands... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, the fallout, both political and legal, continues today after the extraordinary news events of the past 24 hours, when Donald Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort was found guilty of eight federal felonies and the President's longtime personal attorney and 'fixer', Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to another eight, including two that implicate Trump in a serious criminal campaign finance violation conspiracy related to hush-money payoffs made to two women just before the 2016 election. [Audio link to show follows below.]

But all of that wasn't the only bad news for Trump and Republicans yesterday. Late on Tuesday, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and his wife were indicted on 60(!) astonishing counts of fraud, conspiracy and campaign finance violations. Hunter was the second member of Congress to support Trump's 2016 run for President, after Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY), the first in the U.S. House to endorse him, was federally charged earlier this month with insider trading. Hunter's indictment may not be all that surprising if one is familiar with his (and his father's) track record of lying to the public. His previously-believed-to-be "safe" Republican House seat in his San Diego Congressional District may now be in peril.

All-in-all, it's starting to feel a whole lot like 2006, when a similar avalanche of failures and corruption by a GOP Administration and a scandal-ridden Republican House resulted in a "blue wave" election in November.

We're joined again today by Salon and Hullabaloo's award-winning opinion journalist HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, as we try to make sense of what feels, in her words, like "the weirdly unfamiliar impression that something real and recognizable had happened".

We discuss the fallout from the Manafort and Cohen guilty verdicts and pleas, including the new subpoena Cohen received today from the state of New York in the case against Trump's phony charitable foundation, and the remarkable statement from Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis last night, that his client "has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel," regarding Team Trump's infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians and the "computer crime of hacking" that year. Davis now says Cohen is "more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows."

"Digby" shares her thoughts on what surprised her from the Cohen plea deal, what all of this may mean for the President, the GOP and Democrats just over two months out from the crucial 2018 midterms and for Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Also today, a rare, if very dangerous, Category 5/4 Hurricane Lane bears down on Hawaii and we cover noteworthy results from Tuesday's primary elections in very Republican Wyoming and occasionally-independent Alaska, where a three-way race for Governor could result in a Republican win this November...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricanes are moving slower thanks to global warming; EPA's weakening of clean air rules could kill 80,000 Americans over the next decade; China's retaliatory tariffs hit US energy companies and Alaska's seafood industry; McDonald's to phase out plastic straws --- in the U.K.; PLUS: Climate change is already eroding home values across the country... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Dr. James Hansen: Global warming cooks up “a different world” since 1988 Congressional testimony; Guyana faces 'resource curse' after discovery it owns enough oil to "solve all its problems"; EPA Pruitt's data restrictions may block use of major Harvard public health study; How Georgia became a Top 10 solar state in spite of state lawmakers; Enbridge offers new Line 3 concessions to MN regulators; Records show Trump Tower Chicago fails to protect downstream fish, fisherman; UN aims to eradicate inefficient incandescent light bulbs; EPA gives coal industry a victory in oklahoma... PLUS: How the billionaire Koch Brothers are killing public transit projects across the country... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: It was a huge night in Wisconsin on Tuesday, as a progressive candidate for the state Supreme Court trounced a so-called 'conservative' who was backed by another full court press by state and national GOP groups. [Audio link to show follows below.]

It was the first such victory for a progressive vying for an open seat on the state's high court in almost 25 years. Or, as our guest today, author/journalist and Wisconsin's own JOHN NICHOLS describes it: "The first statewide race that really pitted left against right in this kind of way, in the country, in 2018. And the progressives won. And they didn't win by a little."

In fact, the reported results find that progressive Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Rebecca Dallet crushed Sauk County Judge and GOP attorney Michael Screnock, "literally a point-man for much of [Gov. Scott] Walker's agenda", says Nichols, by 12 points. Walker also saw his ballot proposition that would have done away with the statewide office of Treasurer --- allowing the executive office more control over billions in public education funds and tens of thousands of square miles of public lands --- defeated by an even larger margin.

For his part, Walker, who faces re-election this November, took to Twitter to warn again of a "#BlueWave" coming this November, a continuation of the "WAKE UP CALL" panic he first unleashed after a long-held Republican seat in the State Senate was lost to a Democrat in a special election in January. Nichols observes: "One of the most disciplined political figures in the United States, a guy who really, by any measure, keeps his calm through some of the toughest political fights you've seen, appears to be losing it. He appears to be freaked out by election results he can't control."

"I must say it's especially nice to be talking about something good happening in Wisconsin, rather than our many complex and sad stories," adds Nichols, describing last night's outcome as "the first genuinely good election night for Wisconsin progressives" in many years.

Nichols and I also discuss --- and, yes, debate --- the danger to democracy posed by partisan judicial elections like those in the Badger State and elsewhere across the country. And The Nation's Washington Correspondent and longtime Associate Editor of Madison, Wisconsin's Capital Times also rings in with his thoughts on whether U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) could actually be unseated this November and/or whether he might drop out of the race all together.

Also today: Progressives in Alaska appear to have defeated a so-called "bathroom bill" referendum in Anchorage that would have gutted the city's anti-discrimination law for transgender people; GOP-backed legislation to replace 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems with HAND-MARKED paper ballots moves forward in Missouri's state legislature, despite shameful resistance from Democrats; And Pennsylvania begins to move away from 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting, but leaves the door wide open for unverifiable computer-marked paper ballots, using weasel words in its announcement for vendor bids, seeking systems that feature a "voter-verifiable paper ballot or voter-verifiable paper record of votes cast by the voter" (as opposed to systems featuring hand-marked voter-verifIED paper ballots.)

Finally, we pause to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated 50 years ago today --- while the fight for "what kind of nation we are and what direction we want to move in," as Bobby Kennedy asked on the night of King's death, still continues...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Harvey's toxic legacy much worse than publicly revealed; EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt gives another gift to the U.S. auto industry; PLUS: Massive omnibus bill has surprisingly good news for national parks, firefighting, and a tiny village in Alaska... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): 'Dead zone' in Gulf of Mexico will take decades to recover from farm pollution; These Climate Pollutants Don't Last Long, But They’re Wreaking Havoc on the Arctic; New Study Finds Children's Blood Lead Levels In Flint Are Declining; Interior Department Denies Ryan Zinke Told Staff ‘Diversity Isn’t Important; U.S. Asks China Not To Implement Ban On Foreign Garbage; Why Climate Change Skeptics Are Backing Geoengineering; 5 electric cars tested in cold Norwegian winter... PLUS: Scott Pruitt’s Dirty Politics: How the Environmental Protection Agency became the fossil-fuel industry’s best friend... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Debunking President Trump's latest lies and disinformation on climate science; The U.S. is now importing less oil than ever before, thanks to Obama; EPA reversal on Pebble Mine is qualified good news for Alaskans; PLUS: Thanks to Trump, the Doomsday Clock has been moved up to 2 minutes to midnight... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): FEMA ends food and water aid to struggling Puerto Rico; Germany condemns emissions tests on monkeys, humans; Scientists saved a burned bear with fish skins; EPA ends clean air policy opposed by fossil fuel interests; Treating contaminated household water costly for cities; Seine River bursts its banks in Paris after days of non-stop rain; Why climate change is worsening public health problems; New Jersey's new Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy directs state to re-enter Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative; New emails reveal Scott Pruitt was personally involved in erasing climate data from EPA website; Trump’s pre-Harvey rollback of flood protections was a priority for his real-estate mogul friend... PLUS: SunPower puts U.S. expansion on hold over Trump tariff... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today's BradCast took several unexpected turns as news broke, callers called, and the Trump-era debunkery continued. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Among the many stories covered and/or debunked on today's program, before we opened up the line to callers...

• In a surprise reversal, some good news to start off, as Donald Trump's EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt puts the brakes on a huge, dangerous, proposed Canadian mining project in Alaska's pristine Bristol Bay watershed;
• In a weekend interview, Trump once again made clear he knows nothing at all about climate science (beyond what they told him about it on Fox "News) and doesn't care to learn. Desi Doyen joins us to correct at least some of the misinformation offered by the President of the United States' embarrassing comments to Piers Morgan;
• Former Colorado Republican Party Chair and rightwing radio host Steve Curtis (pictured above) was found guilty of forgery and voter fraud in the 2016 Presidential election last year, after claiming on air, just before the election, that only Democrats commit voter fraud and they should be prevented from voting at all. On Friday, he was sentenced to four years of probation and community service, even as he claims he didn't know that voting his ex-wife's absentee ballot was unlawful. ("He knew exactly what he was doing," the prosecutor argued during the trial's closing arguments. "He received it in the mail, opened it, voted, signed it, sealed it back up and sent it in." All in his wife's name. She had moved out 11 months earlier.)
• We then contrast the white Republican Curtis' lenient sentence for voter fraud to that of a Mexican national who came here as an infant, has long been a permanent US resident with four U.S. citizen children, but was sentenced last year to 8 years in federal prison and likely deportation thereafter for unlawfully voting. She thought she was allowed to do so as a permanent US resident;
• On the encouraging side of election and voting rights news today, however, the North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday sided with the state's new Democratic governor, and effectively reversed a years-long effort by the state's Republican legislature to roll back many voting rights in the key swing-state.

And, with all of that, we then open our phone lines to all sorts of interesting listener calls, including one caller (one of our favorites) who argues that progressives should mount write-in campaigns to take on corporatist Dems, (we debate whether doing that or primarying such Dems is the smarter route to take), and another right-wing caller who pretends to have no idea how Photo ID voting restrictions suppress the legal votes of minorities --- or he simply doesn't care. (He also revealed himself to be a climate change denier, what a surprise, as the call turned quickly South)...

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On today's BradCast, the consequences of elections, from D.C. on immigration, to VA and NJ on gun safety legislation, and across both D.C. and dozens of states when it comes to marijuana policy under Trump's Attorney General. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

The White House, lawmakers and corporate media continue to squabble today over Donald Trump's racist and reportedly vulgar slur of black majority nations as either "shitholes" or "shithouses" during a bipartisan meeting on immigration last week, even as his Departments of Justice and Homeland Security issued a new and misleading report on terrorism that downplays the far greater threat of domestic attacks by homegrown white Americans, in favor of a focus on foreign-born terrorists.

In the meantime, as the White House and Congress attempt to strike a government spending deal that includes protections for DACA recipients in time to avoid a government shutdown at the end of this week, a changing of the guards in both New Jersey and Virginia following last November's elections is taking place and already reshuffling public policy.

NJ's wildly unpopular Republican Gov. Chris Christie was finally replaced on Tuesday by the new Democratic Governor Phil Murphy, one day after Christie finally signed a law that will ban deadly bumpstock devices, like those used to kill 58 people and wound hundreds of others in minutes in Las Vegas last year, in the Garden State. (To his discredit, he had little choice, as the legislation passed both state chambers with zero votes opposing it.)

At the same time, in VA, where Republicans managed to barely hang on to majorities in the state legislature, thanks to some gaming of several House races and of legislative district maps across the state (allowing them to retain control despite losing statewide by a 55% to 45% margin), the GOP's majority control in the state Senate resulted in the gutting of most of the gun safety agenda on which that state's new Democratic Governor Ralph Northam ran and won by a landslide.

Then, we head back to D.C., where Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced after the turn of the new year that the DoJ was reversing Obama-era enforcement guidance on federal law, in order to crack down on states where marijuana has been made legal for medicinal and/or recreational use after decades of prohibition.

As Drug Policy Alliance advisor and marijuana legislation lobbyist MIKE LISZEWSKI joins us to explain, the new DoJ guidance, rolling back the so-called "Cole Memo" from the Obama years, has not gone over well, even with a number of Republican lawmakers, particularly those from cannabis-friendly states where they have seen a dramatic rise in tax revenue thanks to new policies adopted by voters and state lawmakers.

"The Cole Memo was just guidance, it was never binding. But by removing it, Sessions has really given the green light to US Attorneys throughout the country to say, if you want to prosecute against state marijuana conduct you have our backing," Liszewski tells me, before arguing that there is no need for such policy, given that state laws, where pot has been legalized, are already very tough. "If someone was using a state marijuana law to shield some sort of bad activity, they're clearly in violation of state law. There's so much oversight, you're likely going to get caught rather quickly. So there's really no need for additional federal prosecution. It's really addressing a concern that doesn't actually exist --- unless you have some hysterical views about marijuana."

Sessions, of course, famously has views. Last year, for example, he famously stated that marijuana was "only slightly less awful" than heroin. Liszewski breaks down the DoJ's announced change in prosecutorial guidance and the effect it is likely to have (if any) in pro-cannabis states where, he says, it has "turned out to be wonderful for generating state tax revenue...in terms of the money it's pulling in, but also the law enforcement resources, the jail resources, the court resources, that don't have to go into prosecuting low-level marijuana cases."

We also discuss how Congress may still be able to move forward on drug policy under an Attorney General who is an avowed enemy of pot users and a President who claims to favor states' rights on the matter. Congress, Liszewski argues, is close to having the votes to end prohibition at the federal level all together, if it doesn't have those votes already. But, he says, thanks to a few "old guard" Committee Chairs in Congress, it may take a full reshuffling of the deck in the 2018 mid-term elections to see it actually happen.

"The 2018 elections are going to be so crucial to the future of marijuana reform," he says. "Because whether it's a shift in which party controls each chamber, or if it's just voting out the old guard and getting some new Republicans in, either way would be helpful towards ending federal marijuana prohibition."

"It would be very, very difficult to get the genie back in the bottle at this point," Liszewski adds, "especially seeing a good number of Republicans as well as states continuing to move forward right after the Sessions announcement. It really shows that Sessions is alone on an island with this and has very few supporters. I think the writing is on the wall."

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