It's 'Super Duper Tuesday' Midterm Election Day today in Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota and California. The good news on today's BradCast? So far, no noteworthy reports, as of airtime, of voting system disasters that we've heard about or been able to find. But the night is young. Results from today's elections, such that we have them, on tomorrow's show. But, don't worry, we've got tons of elections and democracy related news for you nonetheless. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Among our many stories covered today...

• As Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch described it in his email newsletter today, "the multi-millionaire celebrity doctor from New Jersey officially defeated the multi-millionaire hedge fund CEO from Connecticut to become the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania." He's mostly correct. The Connecticut hedge fund millionaire, Dave McCormick, did concede late last week to the New Jersey millionaire TV doctor, Mehment Oz amid Pennsylvania's recount in the very close May 17 race to become the GOP nominee for the Keystone State's U.S. Senate contest to replace retiring Republican Senator Pat Toomey. But a concession doesn't actually mean anything. Oz will not become the "official" nominee until the recount is finalized over the next day or so. Then, the Trump-endorsed celebrity TV doctor, who is not a resident of Pennsylvania, but is a Turkish citizen, will become the GOP's "America First" nominee to run against PA's Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman this November. Presuming Fetterman's health holds out. Dems see the seat as among the most flippable this fall...assuming Fetterman's health etc...

• In other very close primary news, two Democratic recounts in U.S. House primaries now await in Texas. In the state's 28th Congressional District, rightwing, pro-gun, anti-choice Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar ended the canvass period up by just 281 votes (out of about 45,000 cast) over progressive favorite Jessica Cisneros after their May 24 runoff election. Today, Cisneros officially requested a recount --- and must pay for it, unless she ends up winning it --- despite some obnoxious comments from Cuellar who, himself, ended up winning a 2004 primary recount against his Democratic opponent when he first went to Congress. Back then, he had lost by 145 votes after the canvass, but ended up winning the race by 58 votes after a recount. So, you'd think he'd be a bit less obnoxious in this case...but you'd be wrong. Whoever wins the recount will probably take the House seat in the "blue"-leaning district.

• In another Democratic primary race for U.S. House in Texas, there was an even closer race, with progressive Michelle Vallejo topping the more conservative Ruben Ramirez by just 30 votes (out of about 12,000 cast) in the state's 15th Congressional District. Ramirez says he too will seek a recount. Whether either of these races will be recounted by hand in the state is unclear. But if the candidates want to know who really won or lost, they will fight for a count by hand, rather than by the same computers that tallied the results in the first place. The winner of the race will face off with Republican Monica De La Cruz in November, in what is expected to be one of the most competitive House races in the state after this year's round of gerrymandering.

• And speaking of gerrymandering...last month, a state court in Florida found Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' new U.S. House map to be in violation of the state Constitution after voters, in 2010, added an Amendment that outlaws partisan maps and specifically those that diminish the ability of minority voters to elect their chosen candidate. The DeSantis map was enacted after he vetoed the GOP legislature's already-gerrymandered map and made it even worse by removing a district currently represented by Democratic African-American Rep. Al Lawson. Last month, the state court ordered a new, fairer map, but a state appeals court blocked that order. The appellate decision was quickly appealed by voting rights groups. But late last week the state's GOP state Supreme Court allowed the appeals court's stay to remain in place. That means that DeSantis' extremely gerrymander U.S. House map --- found to have been in violation of the state Constitution --- will almost certainly be used anyway this year. The unconstitutional map allows a GOP advantage in 20 of the state's 28 districts, despite DeSantis having barely won his own election in 2018 in the closely divided state by less than one-half of a percentage point.

• In somewhat brighter gerrymandering news (at least until the ruling is overturned by the very rightwing 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals), a federal judge in Louisiana on Monday found the state GOP's U.S. House map in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The map --- originally vetoed by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, but overridden by the GOP state legislature --- includes just one black majority Congressional District, out of six, even though the state's population is almost one-third black. LA's Republican Sec. of State has vowed to appeal the court ruling which bars the use of the gerrymandered map. But, given the corrupt 5th Circuit Appeals Court and the GOP's corrupt, stolen and packed U.S. Supreme Court above them, it's a safe bet the state's unconstitutional map will be allowed for the critical 2022 midterms anyway. It'd be nice if we're wrong about that. But don't bet on it.

• Next, we've been covering, in great detail in recent months, the many schemes by Republican election insiders across the country, in the wake of the 2020 election, to breach proprietary computerized voting systems, make copies of the sensitive software, and even release it to the public in some cases. (See the Mesa County, Colorado County Clerk Tina Peters, who is now facing criminal charges for what she did, or the GOP Board of Elections in Coffee County, Georgia, for just two examples.) While Reuters reports that there have been at least 17 such incidents nationwide, their new exclusive finds that 11 of them took place in Michigan. Based on public records requests, the new outlet found discovered that there has been "a flurry of efforts by state authorities to secure voting machines, poll books, data-storage devices and phone records as evidence in a probe launched in mid-February." Luckily, the state has a Democratic Governor, Attorney General and Secretary of State, the latter of whom tells Reuters that law enforcement officials are now probing whether the broad election system breaches by GOP "fraud" dead-enders are coordinated. This in a state where even the GOP state legislature issued a report finding no evidence of widespread fraud and called for the prosecution of those who fraudulently claimed that there was. "If there is coordination," Sec. of State Jocelyn Benson told Reuters, "whether it's among those in our state or reaching up to a national level, we can determine that and then we can seek accountability for all involved." I expect we'll be hearing more about this effort in the days, weeks and months ahead.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as she gets us caught up on a whole bunch of stuff that happened while we were out last week. Happily, not all of it --- just some of it --- is terrible news...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Whistleblower says EPA chief Pruitt lied to Congress; Trump Administration's launches new effort to roll back fuel economy standards; Australia pledges of millions of dollars in bid to rescue Great Barrier Reef; PLUS: The U.S. now has its first-ever climate science denying Secretary of State... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Climate change will leave many Pacific islands uninhabitable by mid-century; House panel to interview EPA chief Scott Pruitt's former head of security in conduct probe; Pruitt's EPA is on the verge of 'regulatory capture', study says; Electric buses are coming, and they’re going to help fix 4 big urban problems; New York to electrify complete bus fleet; EPA grants ‘financial hardship’ waiver to oil refinery owned by billionaire, Trump confidant; The world’s bleak climate situation, in 3 charts; n the fate of the California Delta smelt, warnings of conservation gone wrong; In Cities v. Fossil Fuels, Exxon’s allies want the accusers investigated; U.S. Supreme Court rejects Constitution Pipeline over New York permit; Russia launches floating nuclear power plant, now headed to the Arctic... PLUS: It’s time to think seriously about cutting off the supply of fossil fuels... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Listen for yourself to the speech that top politicians and corporate journalists have claimed to be furious about since the annual White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night. Then ask yourself: What the hell are these people talking about? [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

Over the weekend, we learned that the U.S. Department of Justice has literally rewritten their prosecutorial guidance manual for U.S. Attorneys in order to, among other things, remove the section on the "Need for [a] Free Press". That, just a week or two after we learned, via memos [PDF] written by then FBI Director James Comey immediately after several private meetings last year with Donald Trump, that the President seemed obsessed with the idea of arresting and throwing journalists in prison. "They spend a couple days in jail, make a new friend, and they are ready to talk," Trump reportedly said to Comey, according to one of the contemporaneous memos.

Despite all of that, many elite journalists in the corporate media, from the New York Times to NBC News to Fox "News" and beyond, have spent much of their last two days claiming to be outraged by a comedian's routine at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner. The (somewhat grotesque) annual event, which usually features the President (but hasn't in the two years since Trump took office and has refused to attend) is specifically, according to the first several hours of the event and the huge banner on the wall behind the dais, meant for the purpose of "CELEBRATING THE FIRST AMENDMENT".

Nonetheless, NBC's Andrea Mitchell and the NYTimes' Maggie Haberman among others in the media, joined high-ranking Republicans to blast that comedian, Michelle Wolf, in the days since the event, demanding an apology for Wolf's jokes that, they claimed, were divisive and, worse, attacked the physical appearance of White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders. Only problem with that: Wolf didn't attack her physical appearance. She appropriately roasted Sanders (and many others) for lying to the press and the American people every day.

As many have probably heard about Wolf's outrageous "attacks" and what a "bomb" her routine was --- (Trump tweeted as much, along with the journalists, many times since) --- we thought it might be useful and informative to actually celebrate the First Amendment by playing Wolf's entire WHCD routine in full, so listeners can decide for themselves about the corporate media's bizarre response to it...at an annual event where thousands of the country's "access journalists" hobnob and back-slap with the very elected politicians they are supposed to be skeptically reporting on.

Then, we open up the phone lines to callers, just in case they heard the offense to Sanders' physical appearance that I must have missed. (Spoiler alert: Listeners didn't hear it either, even after I played Wolf's sometimes raunchy and satirically biting remarks in full! Go figure. But, listeners do have a few thoughts on why many elite politicians and members of the corporate media may have heard it that way.)

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