On today's BradCast: Who could have foreseen it? Oh, yeah, we did. For months. Years, actually. At this point, even decades. [Audio link to show follows below.]

American voters finally had their chance on Tuesday to respond to the ongoing, two-year national emergency precipitated by the 2016 election of Donald Trump and full Republican control of Congress. Control of the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House and dozens of governorships were up for grabs today. But Election Day 2018 was --- yet again --- marred by completely predictable disasters for voters, including hours-long lines and failing voting and registration computers at polling places across the country.

Today we cover just some of the worst reported messes (there are still more to come to light and many more that we simply couldn't get to)...

• In New York City, where paper ballot computer scanners failed leading to hours-long lines across city;

• In Georgia, where many voters in African-American precincts stood in line for hours due to failing electronic pollbook systems and too few 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting machines (amid the tight race between the vote-suppressing GOP Sec. of State and Gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp and his African-American Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams);

• In North Carolina, where high humidity and a very long ballot reportedly prevented scanners from accepting them in a number of precincts in Wake County (Raleigh);

• In South Carolina, where oft-failed, 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems made by ES&S were reportedly flipping votes and officials were (outrageously) said to be making calibration adjustments to them in the middle of Election Day (a very dangerous idea!);

• In Kansas and Missouri where voters also reportedly fought with many problems, incluing long lines, voting systems that failed and poll workers unlawfully demanding Photo IDs to vote. In Kansas, Sec. of State and GOP "voter fraud" fraudster Kris Kobach is overseeing his own very tight race for Governor, and in Missouri, Democratic U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill is fighting for her life as Democrats hope to claw back a majority in the U.S. Senate or keep Republicans from expanding their current one.

Then, we're joined by Emmy award-winning journalist and documentarian LULU FRIESDAT with a troubling exclusive report for us out of Dallas County, Texas, amid the reportedly close contest for U.S. Senate between Republican incumbent Ted Cruz and his popular upstart Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke.

Friesdat reports on two different serious concerns out of the Long Star State's second-most populous county, where numbers reported by the County's ES&S tabulators from the state's March primary are still not adding up correctly (yes, months later, questions are still emerging), and from the County's counting room, where a Texas election integrity group is reporting today that a computer in the tabulation facility appears to be hooked up to WiFi. That Friesdat tells me, is highly unlawful and potentially very troubling for a number of reasons.

"It is not okay for it to be around voting machines and tabulators, because that is one of the easiest ways for election results to be hacked," says Friesdat, who has been covering concerns about voting systems for many years now. "So there are usually very, very clear laws regarding internet connectivity or Wi-Fi in a tabulating area. And that is the case in Texas. They have laws that forbid Wi-Fi or connectivity." That, in a county where their vendor is ES&S, the nation's largest voting machine vendor, which recently lied to the New York Times about whether their systems include remote access software. (Turns out many of them do, but that's not what they initially told the Times, even as it still remains unclear which counties use ES&S systems with such capabilities, and even with cellular modems.)

Friesdat does close on a positive note, however, noting that many in the public are becoming aware of these concerns and that observations by the public are helping. "The more people get involved and keep looking, down to the nitty gritty, what's going on in your elections --- it's helping, folks! Keep it up!"

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us today for our latest Green News Report, with some bad news about plastic and the air we breathe, but some good news from the U.S. Supreme Court (believe it or not) and from the World Bank, which has now said it will no longer help finance coal-fired power plants anywhere in the world, because renewables are now cheaper than coal.

Results --- as reported...probably --- tomorrow...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Category 5 Super Typhoon Yutu slams into Mariana Islands and other U.S. territories; 2018 hurricane season now the most powerful ever recorded; New York sues ExxonMobil for defrauding investors about climate change; US Supreme Court stays landmark kids' climate liability lawsuit; PLUS: Canada places a price on pollution with a national carbon tax... 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): A Green New Deal is on the ballot in Washington state this year; Yes, ExxonMobil and Chevron are still distorting climate science; Three campaign ads that put climate change on the agenda; Austin, Texas, issues citywide boil-water notice after historic flooding; Trump threatens CA funding over 'ridiculous' wildfires; Report: More than 500,000 US households had water cut off; New report says world must boost efforts to suck carbon dioxide from the air; Ban entire pesticide class to protect children's health, experts say; European parliament approves sweeping ban on single-use plastics... PLUS: How scientists cracked the climate change case... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, as my producer Desi Doyen likes to say, we once again attempt "to squeeze a 10 pound show into a 1 pound bag." [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up, the latest on Hurricane Florence, now downgraded to a tropical storm but wreaking extraordinary havoc, storm surge, flooding, hundreds of rescues and now at least five deaths. The monster storm has largely stalled over the Carolinas to dump, according to one meteorologist, 10 trillion gallons of rainfall, or enough to fill more than 15 million Olympic-size swimming pools.

Also today, Donald Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort finally pleaded guilty in a deal to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller that requires him to cooperate on the Trump/Russia investigation and, as Marcy Wheeler describes, is "pardon proof".

Next, an update on the still-unexplained natural gas explosions that set dozens of homes ablaze north of Boston, a story which broke at the very end of yesterday's BradCast.

Then, a brief followup on the reported widespread problems with voter registrations in New York during their state and local primaries on Thursday, the final primaries of the season before the crucial 2018 midterm elections in November. Those reported failures for some voters at polling places helped underscored at least one of the important outcomes from Thursday's contests.

We're joined by The Intercept and New Republic contributor DAVID DAYEN to discuss reported results out of New York, where progressive actress and activist Cynthia Nixon challenged two-term Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and progressive Fordham University law professor Zephyr Teachout vied for the Democratic nod to become the state's next Attorney General. Alas, those underdog progressive upstarts on the statewide ballot were unsuccessful, though, as Dayen reports, Teachout was undermined by a rightwing Democratic Congressman who, he tells me was likely "placed in there to depress Teachout's upstate numbers on behalf of Wall Street special interests."

Still, he says, both challenges managed to force Cuomo and his party to the left on a number of important matters already. That move to the left was more of a lurch, however, at the state Senate level, where 6 of 8 members of the so-called Independent Democratic Conference (or IDC, a group of corporate Democrats who had caucused with Republicans in the Senate, giving the GOP control of the otherwise Democratic-majority body) were turfed out by progressive challengers. That, Dayen argues, is likely to result in a huge difference in the legislation enacted by a state legislative body that has been blocked for years, with Cuomo's help, from adopting a number of long-overdue progressive reforms on everything from healthcare to fiscal matters to New York's antiquated election laws.

"There was this host of progressive legislation that was clogged in the state of New York because of Republican control of the state senate, which was facilitated by Democrats. It's confounding that this went on for so long!," he observes."Andrew Cuomo is a throwback to the New Democrats, the Clinton era. And he believes that if he was forced to sign progressive legislation, it would hurt his ultimate ambition, which is the presidency. He's still stuck in a 1990s mindset that you can't go any further left than, I guess, 'midnight basketball' laws in order to win the Presidency."

And, as primary season voting is finally now wrapped up, we discuss the various ways in which voters and broadly diverse candidacies have helped to redefine the Democratic Party over the past year. "The Democratic Party is one of the more diverse parties at this point in history that we've seen, certainly ever in America, maybe elsewhere. Representation absolutely matters. The people who are the workhorses of the Democratic Party --- women, people of color --- want to see themselves represented in the leadership that is going to carry the party forward."

Also, on this week's 10th anniversary of the 2008 global financial meltdown, Dayen, author of the widely acclaimed Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud, explains how even a decade later no real accountability has ever been brought to the elite who caused the crisis and how even Barack Obama's own Treasury Secretary was allowed to undermine him in a way that is not dissimilar to the actions discussed in the recent anonymous New York Times op-ed regarding a "resistance" inside the Trump Administration.

Dayen also discusses several other way in which the ramifications of the Wall Street bank bailouts still reverberate throughout the American body politic, by "set[ting] the table for demagogues. And that's what happened in 2016."

Finally today, some details from concerned scientists on the nuclear plants currently threatened by the massive flooding of Florence, specifically, the Duke Energy-owned Brunswick plant in North Carolina which houses two reactors almost identical to the GE-designed reactors which melted down after power-outages following the 2011 tsunami-caused flooding in Japan...

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Perhaps our title for today's BradCast, which is a quote from North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper in advance of Hurricane Florence, should have its apostrophe removed. "Disasters at the Doorstep" may better describe the multiple disasters, breaking and otherwise, covered on today's show. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

It was the final primary election day of the year today, before the crucial November midterms, and we've got coverage of results out of Rhode Island, which voted on Wednesday, and problem reports out of New York, which voted on Thursday. But first, the latest on Hurricane Florence as she begins to make landfall on the U.S. southeastern seaboard and, while downgraded to a Category 2 as of air time, still poses an extraordinary and potentially catastrophic threat to millions of Americans from not just winds, but massive storm surge and rainfall (and a host of toxic threats to go with it.) That's the first, but hardly the only disaster covered on today's program.

Then, reported primary results from the final federal primary election of the year in Rhode Island on Wednesday, where a "computer glitch" via a third-party vendor who runs the state's DVM website imperiled thousands of voter registrations this week. Thankfully, in what may be one of the only disasters averted, as covered today, the problem was discovered in time for those voters to be properly added to the rolls before polls opened for Wednesday's elections. The largely "blue" state saw victories for both centrist and progressive Democrats alike. We report on a number of the noteworthy results.

The news may be less good for voters in New York, which is holding the final primary contests of the year for state and local offices --- their federal primaries were held in June. Problems are being reported today by voters in New York City who said they did not appear on the rolls at precincts today as expected or whose party registrations were inaccurate. Several closely watched contests by progressives are on the ballot, including actress Cynthia Nixon's Democratic primary challenge to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and progressive activist Zephyr Teachout attempt to win the Dem nod for state Attorney General.

We discuss what we know (and don't yet) about those widespread voter registration problems being reported today, which echo massive disenfranchisement problems during the 2016 Presidential primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in the Big Apple. That 2016 disaster was due to an unlawful purge of more than 100,000 voters by the NYC Board of Elections. However, despite persistent claims by many Sanders supporters to this day, no evidence exists to tie the illegal purge to either Clinton or the Democratic Party itself. The cause for what may --- or may not --- have happened today, remained even murkier as of airtime.

Next --- after disturbing breaking news out of Massachusetts where fires have exploded in at least 60 homes in three communities north of Boston, for still-unknown reasons, and out of Hawaii, where Tropical Storm Olivia has nearly topped an earthen reservoir, threatening thousands who live below its dam --- a brief, if angry rebuttal to Donald Trump's twisted and wholly fabricated claim today that some 3,000 Puerto Ricans did not die due to last year's Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

Yes, the President of the United States is now a Maria Denier, claiming that Democrats are somehow behind the officially confirmed numbers --- which are higher than 2005's Hurricane Katrina or the 9/11 attacks --- and simply made them up to "make [him] look as bad as possible". We share the actual facts behind the (conservatively low!) numbers and some of the broad condemnation in response to his false claim from both Democrats and Republicans alike today.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with more on the many threats posed by Florence, Trump's latest undermining of action meant to curb global warming, and a new dire warning from the U.N. Secretary General regarding the quickly growing threat of climate change...

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Everything --- EVERYTHING --- is not normal right now. From an imploding Presidency to the GOP's unprecedented withholding of documents for a SCOTUS nominee, to the more "normal" abnormalities we've become shamefully accustomed to, like mass shootings, election fraud and voter suppression in advance of another huge election and, yes, a global climate in crisis. Among the related stories covered on today's very busy BradCast [Audio link to show follows below.]...

• At least four were killed, including the shooter, in another mass shooting today, this time in downtown Cincinnati. Shamefully, the bloodbath barely cracks today's national headlines."This is not normal, and it shouldn't be viewed as normal. This is abnormal. No other industrialized country has this level of active multiple shootings on a regular basis," Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley said at a news conference today;

• It was day 3 of U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Republicans continue to rush through his confirmation while withholding tens of thousands of documents from both the Senate and the public, leading Democratic U.S. Senators Cory Booker (NJ), Mazie Hirono (HI) and others today to risk expulsion by releasing several "committee confidential" documents which are being withheld from the public. The documents being withheld, as suggested by several of the Senators, either reflect poorly on Kavanaugh or show him as having misled Congress in previous Senate testimony during his years as a George W. Bush staffer. "We are in uncharted and unprecedented territory here that the process has broken down, reflecting what is happening in our nation generally," warned Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT);

• The White House is reported to be in "total meltdown" and the President "absolutely livid" after Wednesday's publication of a bombshell New York Times op-ed said to have been written by "a senior official in the Trump administration". The explosive piece claims the President is unstable, out of control, and that a group of Administration insiders have been working to contain the worst of his impulses. One top Administration official after another on Thursday denied penning the column, as Trump has suggested it to be "TREASON", called for the Times to turn over the writer's identity to "government at once", and as a former CIA Director (and Trump critic) John Brennan warns the situation is "dangerous" and "will get worse before [it] gets better."

Then, after a short remembrance for the late Burt Reynolds, who died today at 82, we move to the one thing Americans can and must do to try and restore a semblance of normality to the nation: participate in the November 6th midterm elections! To that end, we have several items of note regarding election integrity...

• In Texas, the 2018 dirty tricks are officially under way. An infiltrator into Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D)'s surging campaign to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz (R) used the campaign's text messaging system to send fraudulent messages regarding bringing "undocumented immigrants to polling booths" and "the dangers of socialism";

• In Michigan, two white, male, Republican-appointed federal appeals court judges overturned a lower court judge who, after a full trial, blocked the state GOP-majority legislature's ban on straight-ticket voting, finding the measure "a disproportionate burden on African Americans' right to vote". Both the lower court judge who previously blocked the measure and a third appeals court judge who dissented from her fellow appeals court panelists, were African-Americans appointed by a Democratic President. The U.S. Supreme Court, in the recent past, has blocked a host of court rulings that change election law just before elections, even when they might have protected thousands of voters from disenfranchisement. Will they step in to block this late federal court ruling?;

• In Virginia, Shaun Brown, an independent candidate for the U.S. House in the Commonwealth's 2nd Congressional District, was removed from the November ballot after a judge determined fraudulent petition signatures were used to place her on the ballot in hopes of peeling off votes from Democratic candidate Elaine Luria. Staffers from the office of first-term incumbent GOP Rep. Scott Taylor are said to have submitted many of those fraudulent signatures. Five of Taylor's staffers invoked the Fifth Amendment in the case, refusing to answer whether they were acting on Taylor's instructions. (We also take the opportunity to review just a few of the similar cases of election and signature petition fraud from former top GOP officials, such as Newt Gingrich, Thaddeus McCotter and Mitt Romney).

And, finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our 900th(!) episode of the Green News Report! In which we cover the dangers posed by Kavanaugh to the environment as illustrated during his Senate confirmation hearings, and a round-up of the latest havoc being wreaked around the globe from our climate in crisis.

If you are able and/or haven't done so recently, please consider a donation to support our work on both The BradCast and in celebration of the 900th Green News Report! We rely only on you to keep going! Really. Please stop whatever you are doing and take about 60 seconds to help us continue! It's greatly appreciated and much needed!...

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On today's BradCast: Some good news and bad for voters in New Hampshire and Georgia. Bad news for breathers. And Donald Trump has the worst. Attorney. Ever. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Among the many stories we cover on today show...

• A federal court has struck down New Hampshire's law that allowed local election workers, without expertise in hand-writing analysis, to toss absentee ballots, essentially, due to bad penmanship. The law had allowed officials to disenfranchise voters --- without notice or time to cure the problem --- if they judged a signature on an absentee ballot does not match closely enough with the signature on the voter's absentee ballot application form. We discuss the story of one of the plaintiffs in the case, 94-year old, legally blind Mary Saucedo, whose 2016 Presidential election ballot was tossed, without her knowledge, until she was contacted by the ACLU months after the election. This is a problem with absentee vote-by-mail ballots in many states. The good news is, it may stop in NH, at least.

• A two-person county election board in Randolph County, Georgia will vote this Friday on a scheme to close 7 of 9 precincts for this November's crucial midterm elections in the rural, poor, predominantly African-American county. There is no public transportation in most of the county, where many do not own cars. The closures would result in some voters needing to walk three and a half hours to cast their votes, the ACLU of Georgia argues. Voter registration at one of precincts to be shuttered is 97 percent black. That, in a year when Georgia could elect the nation's first African-American female governor, Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams.

• The blistering summer of record heat, fire, flooding and related deadly disasters continues around the globe. Monsoon rains have, so far, killed hundreds and dislocated more than 800,000 in the southern Indian state of Kerala. That story underscores, yet again, the horrible if expected news that...

• The Trump Administration is set to announce a plan this week which would roll back President Obama's "Clean Power Plan" which would have, in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement, greatly curbed carbon dioxide and other deadly emissions from coal-fired power plants. The Trump EPA scheme would allow states to devise their own plans for emissions reductions at coal plants. Where Trump's plan would result in the equivalent of 2 to 5 million cars being taken off the road, Obama's would have removed the equivalent of 75 million vehicles and more than 265 million metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. The reduction of carcinogens that cause diseases such as asthma and lung cancer in the Obama plan similarly dwarfs the toxins expected to be reduced by Trump's plan, which the dying (and deadly) coal industry is applauding today.

• Finally, Rudy Giuliani may be the worst lawyer ever. And his client, the President of the United States, deserves him. We discuss Giuliani's already-infamous "truth isn't truth" statement on NBC's 'Meet the Press' on Sunday, and what the documented truth actually is, regarding the Trump Campaign's 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian government-allied attorney said to have been promising dirt on Hillary Clinton that year. Giuliani's gob-smacking admissions that Team Trump committed a crime in 2016 by meeting with the Russian attorney "for the purpose of getting information about...Clinton" --- along with his evidence-defying claim that "she didn't represent the Russian government" and that Team Trump may not have known "that she was Russian at the time" --- will certainly be of note to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into the alleged conspiracy to manipulate the 2016 Presidential election...

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On today's BradCast: The Election Administrator's (and Election Integrity journalist's) Prayer was decidedly not answered on Tuesday, based on reported results in at least two key races, and problems in the four states (Kansas, Missouri, Michigan and Washington) which held midterm primaries and the one (Ohio) which held the final major U.S. House Special Election of the year. [Audio link to complete show is posted below.]

But, first up today, Republican Congressman Chris Collins of New York, the first sitting member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump's candidacy, was indicted Wednesday morning, along with his son and the father of his son's fiancee, for an insider trading scheme, after he had tipped off his son to failed testing for a multiple sclerosis treatment by an Australian company in which Collins was the top shareholder and a member of its board. According to the indictment by the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, it sure looks like they've caught Collins red-handed. Though he vows to fight the charges and remain on the ballot this November, his once-safe seat is now believed to be in danger.

Then, onto yesterday's Election Day and the very long night that followed.

In the OH-12 special election, Democrat Danny O'Connor trails Republican Troy Balderson by about 1,700 votes out of some 200,000 cast, mostly on 100% unverifiable touch-screen systems across seven Ohio counties. About 3,500 uncounted provisional and late vote-by-mail ballots could change the outcome in the days ahead, or at least lead to a state-mandated "recount" in the district that, for decades --- until Tuesday --- had been solidly "red". In 2016, Trump carried the district by 11 points and the now-resigned House GOP incumbent had carried it by 36 points. That has clearly changed with a virtual dead heat contest on Tuesday, leading to growing confidence in a "blue wave" this November by many Democrats and, yes, a "RED WAVE" in the same crucial midterms, as predicted today by Donald Trump.

In Detroit, where voters cast hand-marked paper ballots, they were able to continue voting even during power outages at more than a dozen polling places on Tuesday, following storms the night before. We have results from MICHIGAN's closely-watched Gubernatorial primaries and the somewhat bizarre, two separate Democratic primary races (one normal, one special) to fill the U.S. House seat left vacant last year by Rep. John Conyers resignation. State Dems will now host an historic, all-female slate at the top of the ticket for Governor, U.S. Senator, Attorney General and Sec. of State, and Rashida Tlaib will become the first Muslim woman in Congress.

In KANSAS, $10 million wasted on new, unverifiable touch-screen voting systems didn't help voters as some of the brand new ES&S ExpressVote ballot marking devices failed to work at all on Tuesday morning, and electronic tabulation grounded to a halt all together in Johnson County, the state's most populous, due to a problem that remains unclear at this hour. All of it resulted in another "too close to call" race today, in the GOP's gubernatorial primary between current Gov. Jeff Colyer and the controversial Trump-endorsed Sec. of State Kris Kobach. He leads, according to unverifiable touch-screen results finally reported on Wednesday morning, by just 191 votes(!) out of some 300,000 cast. A "recount" (overseen by Kobach himself) almost certainly awaits, as do future failures on the ExpressVote systems which produce unverifiable barcoded "paper trails" instead of hand-marked paper ballots. Sadly, the same systems are also being adopted by many other jurisdictions around the country as well.

In MISSOURI, a few Republicans came up with a novel new way to stop voters from voting. But that didn't deter the state which voted for Trump by double digits in 2016 from soundly rejecting a GOP anti-union (so-called "Right-to-Work") measure by a 2 to 1 margin. And, in St. Louis County, in a triumph of democracy, Bill McCulloch, the 7-term Democratic prosecutor who failed to bring charges in the 2014 police killing of Ferguson's Michael Brown, was defeated by Wesley Bell, one of the African-American leaders of the 2014 protests there. Bell had become a City Council member in Ferguson in 2015 and he will now be St. Louis County's Prosecuting Attorney.

And finally today, in WASHINGTON state, results of several U.S. House primaries suggest incumbent Republicans previously thought to be in safe "red" districts --- including Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the highest ranking female in Congress --- may not be quite as safe in this November's midterms as they had thought...

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On today's BradCast: Desi and I are back today. (Our thanks to Angie Coiro of In Deep Radio for filling in over the last couple of shows!) And we've got a lot to catch up on today --- including the fact that the crucial midterm elections are now less than 100 days away, and the paper ballots and other materials from the 2016 Presidential election may be destroyed entirely in just over one month, with nobody, to this day, actually knowing for certain who actually won it. [Audio link to show follows below.]

But, first up today, for some reason Donald Trump's lousy personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has spent the last few days seemingly making things much worse for his client. Most notably, in addition to suggesting that Trump may have known in advance about the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his son, son-in-law, campaign chair Paul Manafort and a team of Russians promising "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, both Giuliani and Trump have now extended their ubiquitous claims of "no collusion" to become "no collusion, but even if there was collusion, that's not illegal."

They are both wrong, however, as we explain today. Collusion --- better known as "conspiracy", in this alleged case, with a foreign power working to influence the 2016 U.S. Presidential election --- would most certainly be unlawful. But why the sudden media offensive by Team Trump on this point, just before the first of two federal trials for Manafort was scheduled to begin today? We discuss.

Then, just over than three months from the crucial 2018 midterm general election, U.S. computerized voting and tabulation systems remain wildly unsecured and virtually impossible for the public to oversee (for the most part) in order to confirm that computer-reported results actually reflect the will of the voters. Today, better late than never, I guess, the Dept. of Homeland Security announced a new cybersecurity task force to help protect against attacks on critical infrastructure such as the power grid, our banking systems and, yes, the election system. But, in announcing the new effort, DHS once again misled the American people by suggesting that no votes were manipulated in the 2016 election. In truth, that point that remains unknown since, as DHS admitted last year, they never actually conducted forensic analyses of voting and tabulation systems --- nor even bothered to count existing hand-marked paper ballots --- to determine if the most startling election result in U.S. history was, in fact, manipulated or accurate.

Moreover, the ballots in question from 2016 (where such hand-marked paper actually exists) may be destroyed as early as September, after the 22-month federal requirement for retention of all election materials --- such as ballots and ballot programming code, etc. --- expires. We call today on citizens and legal organizations --- and the media --- today to file public records request to examine those ballots and/or at least ensure they are retained beyond the September expiry date, since almost none of the ballots cast in 2016 have ever been examined by human beings to determine if they were accurately tallied.

That is true in all 50 states. But nowhere in the U.S. is it more difficult to oversee the accuracy of election results than in Georgia, where Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp reportedly won his GOP primary runoff for the gubernatorial nomination last week against Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution describes, based on a new study, Cagle's failure to defeat Kemp in the runoff election, after easily placing first in the state's May primary, was the most dramatic runoff collapse in Georgia political history. And the paper doesn't note, though we do, that it was all done on the state's 100% unverifiable Diebold touchscreen voting systems "overseen" by Kemp himself.

Today we're joined by longtime Republican election integrity advocate MARILYN MARKS, Executive Director of the Coalition for Good Governance, to discuss all of the above and, specifically, her group's ongoing lawsuit against Georgia. The complaint demands the state dump their 15-year old, easily manipulated, unverifiable electronic vote-casting system before November, in favor of the state's existing hand-marked paper ballot system long used for absentee voting.

Marks tells me how this can easily be done in time for this year's general election (and in other states as well!), how SoS Kemp has been lying about state law in order to avoid such a switch, and whether or not we have learned any more, since last year, about the mysterious wipe of the state's long-vulnerable election server (and its backup) just days after her lawsuit was originally filed last summer.

On destroying the 2016 ballots, Marks joins our call for folks to file FOIA requests to keep the ballots from being destroyed: "I fear that many election officials in those swing states, that they are standing there over their records with a can of kerosene in one hand and a book of matches in other, just waiting for a month from now. ... People need to understand that there is no requirement that the records be destroyed after 22 months. That is up to each election official in each county. They can retain them as long as they want. They can't destroy them before 22 months, although I fear some of them have. But even if local citizens can convince their election official not to destroy them, even that is progress."

On the claim by the Trump Administration that results were not manipulated in 2016: "I have never have any confidence in that. That's not to say that I believe that voters were changed, but I don't have any belief one way or the other because there is no evidence. How do these people make this claim when no one has looked, and no one has any evidence one way or the other?"

On what citizens can do in locations where voters are forced to vote on unverifiable touch-screen systems: "Go now --- I mean NOW --- to your local election boards, local board of county commissioners, and demand paper ballots. Because they can get it!"

Much more, must-listen thoughts in our conversation today!

Finally today, the Koch Brothers' Republican political network --- which has spent hundreds of millions each election cycle over the past decade or more, supporting GOP candidates and attacking Democrats --- say they're now having second thoughts about Donald Trump and his toady Republicans in Congress. We explain why you shouldn't believe their crocodile tears of disappointment for a second...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Environmental groups mobilize against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump's anti-regulation nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court; New report finds Trump Administration's proposed coal bailout means more pollution, and more death; Companies begin harnessing poo power to generate electricity in North Carolina and New York; PLUS: Shell Oil CEO calls on UK to speed up transition to electric vehicles... 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): Wheeler tells EPA employees, ‘You can’t lead unless you listen'; House Republicans vote to gut lauded law that saved America’s fisheries; US judge allows lawsuits over Monsanto's Roundup to proceed to trial; In about-face, utilities urge EPA to keep mercury rule; Climate science denier sued by his allies at denial think tank; The Russian pipeline to Germany that Trump is so mad about, explained; Heatwave seems to make manmade climate change real for Americans; Bhopal: World’s worst industrial disaster is still unfolding; Scientists assessed the 'grim' options for using nuclear power for decarbonization ... PLUS: Russian mining firm puts Trump's face on its asbestos products... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast we take a precious few minutes to duck out of the horrific breaking news cycle this week --- sort of --- for some words of wisdom and perspective from a number of very smart folks in response to the news that Justice Anthony Kennedy is resigning, and all of the fear, panic and depression that is going with it for many progressives. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Among the smart folks we turn to for sage thoughts today: longtime newsman Dan Rather, civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis & Daily Kos' "Meteor Blades", blogger and activist Zawn Villines and journalist David Dayen. Each offer helpful, non-pollyannaish advice on keeping our current moment in the appropriate perspective. That, while the struggle for justice and to somehow save the U.S. Supreme Court from an onslaught of GOP/Trump hypocrisy, extremism, lies, cynicism, and far-right schemes to roll back decades of hard-fought civil, voting, human and reproductive rights, will demand persistence and steady, determined courage in the days ahead.

Nonetheless, both pessimism and despair are counterproductive to progress. So I hope today's program helps us all (including me!) to stay a bit more hopeful, optimistic and healthy, during these seemingly ever-darkening hours.

Also providing a bit of hope and inspiration today, some more news from Tuesday's primary elections, in which an extraordinary progressive 28-year old Latina from The Bronx unseated a 10-term Democratic member of the U.S. House Leadership establishment in New York's Democratic primary, despite being outspent 15 to 1; A record third LGBT person this year has now won a Democratic nomination for Governor, this time in Colorado; And Oklahoma voters unseated a host of Republicans in the state House and Senate who voted against recent tax increases to fund education following a two-week long teacher walk-out and years of slashed funding to pay for massive corporate tax cuts; And, as if that's not enough good news from supposedly "conservative" Oklahoma, voters also approved a citizen-sponsored statewide ballot initiative for medical marijuana, in defiance of GOP elected officials and a well-funded campaign against it. We join Steven Colbert's celebration on that today.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with more on Kennedy's climate legacy at SCOTUS, environmental concerns in the wake of his retirement, and a few other encouraging results from this past Tuesday's primaries in seven states...

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On today's BradCast: Political earthquakes. Several of them. All shaking up the political world just within the past 12 to 24 hours. As if we needed still more chaos. [Audio link to show follows below.]

We do our best to navigate through as many of those temblors --- one or two of them quite encouraging, the rest, not so much --- as possible, with the help of our guest today, JOHN NICHOLS, longtime progressive champion and Washington Correspondent for The Nation.

Among the several earthquakes covered today: Antonia Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year old Latina and political novice unseated Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley, the fourth most powerful Democrat in the U.S. House, by a huge margin (some 15 points) during Tuesday's midterm primaries in New York's 14th Congressional District. The defeat of a 10-term incumbent, previously thought to have been a potential future Speaker of the House, by a self-described Democratic socialist who raised and spent millions less than Crowley, has sent shockwaves through the Democratic establishment.

"When we vote, this is what happens," Ocasio-Cortez declared today after her stunning upset victory, following on the heels of her viral campaign video in which she declared the race "about people versus money. We've got people, they've got money." In the strongly Democratic district in Queens and The Bronx, she is almost certain to win this November.

In Maryland, meanwhile, another proudly progressive Bernie Sanders acolyte, former NAACP Chair Ben Jealous bested several other Dems to win the nomination to run on his bold populist agenda against popular GOP Gov. Larry Hogan this November.

Also on Tuesday night, a federal judge in San Diego --- a George W. Bush appointee --- issued a ruling requiring the Trump Administration to reunite families separated at the border within 30 days or less. (Within 14 days, if children younger than 5 are included.)

On Wednesday, however, things to several turns for the worst. First, the stolen 5 to 4 majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, in yet another far-right ruling overturning decades of established law, struck down so-called agency fees that public sector unions had been allowed to charge non-union members in exchange for representing them in collective bargaining negotiations. Though federal law still requires that non-union members receive the same pay and benefits as union members, the Court's final ruling issued before Summer recess means public sector unions are likely to lose millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of members. The decision is seen as a huge blow to labor and a long-sought victory for Republicans. In her dissent to Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion finding the 40-year old violated First Amendment free speech rights of non-union members, Justice Elena Kagan charged her GOP colleagues with "weaponizing the First Amendment" for political purposes. "At every stop," she charged in her opinion, read from the bench, "there are block-robed rulers overriding citizens' choices. The First Amendment was meant for better things."

But the day's largest earthquake, by far, came shortly thereafter, as 81-year old Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative Ronald Reagan appointee, who was often the swing-vote on issues such as abortion, gay rights and other progressive causes, announced he would be retiring at the end of July.

Nichols, author of The Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse, helps us navigate all of the above today, with analysis and insight on all of today's political earthquakes, as well as my argument that Senate Democrats must now follow the so-called "McConnell Rule" --- which Senate Republicans used to prevent a vote on Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee to fill a vacant SCOTUS seat, for nearly a year in 2016 before it was ultimately filled by Trump's nominee Neil Gorsuch in 2017.

Not only must Dems insist on no voting on any Trump nominee to SCOTUS until after the November Election and the seating of the next Senate, just as McConnell and the Republicans did in 2016, but since Repubs unilaterally changed the Senate filibuster rule in order to force Gorsuch's confirmation through with a bare majority, Dems should consider walking out entirely --- for months, if necessary --- if the absence of a Senate quorum might prevent a vote on whoever Trump nominates to fill Kennedy's seat.

Yes, shut it all down, if necessary. As I argue today, the stakes are now that high. In order to prevent the further erosion of enumerable long-held American rights and values, Democrats now need to put it all on the line in advance of the 2018 midterm primary, which could flip the balance of the upper chamber to the Democrats. Nichols responds with his own thoughts in response to my assertion, and much more --- including on some of the otherwise very good news for progressives from Tuesday's primaries...

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On today's BradCast: Happy birthday, Mr. President! To celebrate today, the New York Attorney general filed a civil lawsuit [PDF] against Donald J. Trump, his so-called "charitable foundation", and his children Eric, Don Jr. and Ivanka, charging that his foundation was used as little more than a personal and business slush fund, and to benefit his 2016 Presidential campaign. [Audio link to show follows below.]

All of that, NY Attorney General Barbara Underwood alleges in her suit, is in violation of both state and federal law. Many of the allegations against Trump's unlawful use of his foundation were reported in the run-up to the election, though much more self-dealing was discovered in the course of the AG's 2-year investigation, including that the Trump Foundation's board of directors had not met since 1999, that some board members had no idea they were even on the board, and that Trump's then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski personally directed checks to be written from the foundation for campaign purposes.

Underwood's petition seeks nearly $3 million in reparations and to bar both Trump and his children from sitting on the boards of other nonprofit charitable organizations. She also refers the matter [PDF] to the Federal Elections Commission and the Internal Revenue Service for further investigation.

In other important news today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 7 to 2 opinion finding that Minnesota's polling place ban on t-shirts and buttons with political slogans, such as those worn by 'Tea Party' members at the polls in 2010, is overly broad and violates Constitutional First Amendment free speech protections. Slate legal reporter MARK JOSEPH STERN joins us to explain the Court's opinion, as well as the far more disturbing ruling from the GOP's stolen SCOTUS earlier this week, when the Court found 5 to 4 in favor of Ohio's voter roll purge scheme by Republican Sec. of State Jon Husted.

That scheme begins the process for removing voters from the rolls after a voter fails to vote in one single federal election. Stern discusses the troubling opinion which overturns the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal's 2016 finding that the Buckeye State's scheme directly violates the 1993 National Voter Registration Act's restriction against removing a voter from the rolls "by reason of the person's failure to vote."

On today's ruling, I am somewhat less sanguine about what the Court ruled than Stern is, but it's a close call. On the Ohio case, I think we're both in agreement. As he notes: "First, you are identified for a purge because you didn't vote just one single time, and second, you are purged because you failed to cast a ballot. Again, that would seem to go against not just the text but the express purpose of both [the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Law]. So for Alito to claim that he's just following the text of the law, and dissenters are trying to enact their own policy --- that rings absolutely false to me."

Sterns explains the largely semantic trick that Justice Samuel Alito used to, essentially, flip the provision written by Congress onto its head on behalf of the court's five Republican appointees; how the state's massive purges have disproportionately affected minority and low-income voters; and how Trump and Jeff Session's Dept. of Justice has reversed an unprecedented number of positions on federal laws since taking office.

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, as even some Republicans appear to finally be turning against wildly corrupt fossil fuel industry "swamp monster" and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt...

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On today's BradCast: The nation appears to be lurching ever closer to a full-blown Constitutional Crisis, as Trump and his team offer a series of extraordinary and largely unprecedented (save for Nixon) claims in support of sweeping Presidential powers, over the past few days, which would place the Executive completely above the rule of law. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Over the weekend, Team Trump was once again on the offensive in the media, following the disclosure of a 20-page letter sent by Trump's attorneys to Special Counsel Robert Mueller in January, wherein they argued, among other things, that Presidents cannot legally be subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury, cannot be guilty of obstruction of justice, since they have unfettered power over all Dept. of Justice investigations, cannot be indicted while serving, and have absolute power to pardon anybody for any crime at any time for any reason.

Moreover, on Monday, Trump took to Twitter to charge that the Mueller probe is, itself "totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL" (his caps) and that he has "the absolute right to PARDON" himself. Many constitutional law experts disagree with many of those points.

In response, author, blogger, Slate contributor and Fordham University School of Law legal historian JED SHUGERMAN joins us on today's show to offer historical, legal, and Constitutional points of clarity and precedent on the power and scope of Presidential pardons, subpoenas, indictments and the expansive interpretation of those powers that Trump and his attorneys have been proffering in recent days.

Among the historically relevant cases and precedents referenced by Shugerman today: United States v. Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton v. Paula Jones, and even the more recent case of Rod Blagojevich, who, Trump recently said, he was considering pardoning after the disgraced Illinois Governor was convicted for trying to sell off the vacant U.S. Senate seat left by Barack Obama when he became President. "It's no accident that Trump is talking about pardoning [Blagojevich]," argues Shugerman, detailing how Trump sees him as unfairly convicted for simply using his constitutional powers, "even with a bribe, because that's just politics as normal. It's an incredibly cynical move."

"Just because the Constitution gives someone the power to do something, it doesn't mean they can use it for whatever purpose they want," he tells me. "Even if you have five good reasons for doing something, but one illegal reason, that illegal reason still makes it illegal."

"The Constitution says 'the President shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed'," Shugerman notes, while explaining why many of the current arguments being made by Team Trump may work effectively for propaganda purposes, but appear to have little legal basis or precedent, particularly while describing that a President would be acting "faithlessly" by pardoning himself. But, even if that happens, he says, he is confident (more so than I) that state prosecutors who are unbound by federal pardons, will pick up the prosecutorial ball against Trump and his cohorts.

[Update 6/5/2018: Shugerman and more than a dozen other distinguished constitutional law experts outline their case against Trump's expansive pardon powers claim in a letter to Trump's Whitehouse attorneys now posted here.]

Shugerman also describes the "bombshell" disclosure from that newly revealed letter from Trump's lawyers, in their admission that the President "dictated" the false written response from Don Jr. after the disclosure of the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russian nationals to receive "dirt" on Hillary Clinton.

Also on today's show...

• Republican House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy --- believed to be the front-runner to become the next Speaker of the House if the GOP maintains control of the chamber this November --- refused to respond to CNN's on-air questions over the weekend about the Trump attorneys' concession that they and the White House had lied to the public about the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting;
• Despite his continuing lies and chaotic presidency, Trump remains wildly popular among Republicans, according to Gallup. As of his 500th day in office, he enjoys a higher "own party" approval rating than any other President since WWII, other than George W. Bush (following 9/11), at a similar point in their presidencies;
• The U.S. Supreme Court allows a baker in Colorado to discriminate against a gay couple. (More on this tomorrow.)
• Corporate CEOs are now admitting out loud that, despite record profits, a theoretically booming economy and huge recent tax cuts, they have no intention of raising pay for workers;

And, on the day before 2018 mid-term primary elections are held in eight states tomorrow, an Election Integrity author rings in to remind us that Russia isn't the only threat to vulnerable, easily-manipulated computerized election results in the U.S. --- not by a long shot...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: EPA chief Scott Pruitt --- who still has a job --- gets grilled by Democratic Senators; Extreme storms kill 5 in Northeastern U.S.; King County, Washington files climate liability lawsuit against major oil companies; PLUS: New study finds air pollution dangers extend even into the womb... 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): NASA scientists map human changes in world’s water; Someone, somewhere, is making a banned chemical that destroys the ozone layer, scientists suspect; GOP lawmaker says tumbling rocks are causing seas to rise; ‘Impossible to Ignore’: Why Alaska is crafting a plan to fight climate change; Sulfur dioxide damages lungs, and Scott Pruitt is letting more of it in our air; Trump mulls new global institution to promote fossil fuels; Ancient Rome’s collapse is written into Arctic ice; Why there’s no future for the coal industry; Judge blocks Oakland port's ban on coal shipments; Great Climate Hoax is putting fish in the wrong places... PLUS: We made plastic. We depend on it. Now we’re drowning in it.... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Another reminder that the nation's elections officials remain woefully unprepared for and under-informed about threats to this year's crucial mid-term elections, and clear examples of where our governmental institutions currently work to combat blatant corruption by top officials (Missouri) and where they don't (D.C.).

First up, an election night cyberattack in Knox County, Tennessee's local primaries on Tuesday should have officials there (and elsewhere) far more concerned than they appear to be. We discuss why this latest attack echoes similar incidents we've seen previously (including at the end of election night during the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio), why such attacks are likely to become more frequent, and how election and cyber-security officials continue to woefully underestimate and misunderstand the very real dangers to our elections when they (falsely) tell the public, as they are doing in Knox County this week, that their computerized voting, registration and tabulation systems are "never connected to the Internet, so can't be hacked." They are wrong.

Next, Missouri's Republican governor Eric Greitens is now facing three different felony charges, two separate court trials, and the GOP-majority state legislature has now overwhelmingly decided to call a special session to consider impeachment. Greitens maintains his innocence in both a sexual blackmail scandal and campaign finance scandal. We explain why the extraordinary historical moment --- despite the Show-Me State's Governor refusal to resign, echoing Donald Trump in calling the well-documented evidence against him the result of a "witch hunt" by prosecutors (and his own party?) --- is actually, at least so far, an example of how the system is supposed to work.

Contrast that to the quickly devolving mess in D.C. today, where Republicans in the House and Senate who ought to be demanding accountability from a corrupt President, are looking the other way and/or undermining prosecutors, and where prosecutors seem to (falsely) suggest they cannot indict a sitting President, no matter the evidence of serious crimes. That, even as whatever credibility this Administration may have once had, has now disintegrated so much amidst Trump's latest flip-flops on a number of scandals, that even one top Fox "News" anchor unloaded on the President on Thursday, with an astonishing smack down of Trump lies, which ends: "I guess you’re too busy draining the swamp to ever stop and smell the stink you’re creating. That’s your stink. Mr. President, that’s your swamp." When you've lost Neil Cavuto...

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us with an update on the evacuations, earthquakes and new eruptions near Hawaii's Kilauea volcano and on the state's recent deluge (50 inches in 24 hours!) of global warming-related rain. As well as another explosion, massive fire and evacuations --- the third within the past month --- at a fossil fuel-related processing plant, this time in Louisiana...

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: Desi and I are standing down for a much-needed week off, but In Deep Radio's Angie Coiro will be filling in for us on The BradCast next week! Be nice to her! And please click here to help us fill up our Prius tank! Thanks!

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