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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Yet another round of extreme weather hits the Midwest; Yet another U.S. coal company declares bankruptcy; BP and Shell lobby for a carbon tax (but there's a catch!); PLUS: 2020 Democratic hopefuls Gov. Jay Inslee and Sen. Elizabeth Warren unveil ambitious, comprehensive climate policies... 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): Trump EPA plans to lower air pollution deaths by changing how it calculates them; Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg featured on Time Magazine cover; Fossil fuels are underpriced by a whopping $5.2 trillion; New evidence may explain why more coal miners are dying from black lung; Trump threatens to cut millions from fire departments in CA; Climate change deniers win federal elections in Australia; Use of Antibiotics To Fight Citrus Bacteria Alarms Health Officials... PLUS: These huge new wind turbines are a marvel. They’re also the future... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: GNR Special Coverage: Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey introduce The Green New Deal. What's in it, what's not, and what happens next... 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): Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten collapse of nature'; Los Angeles ditches plan to invest billions in fossil fuels; The East Coast Is Going to Get Arkansas-ified; America's Energy Future: What the Government Misses in Its Energy Outlook and Why It Matters; 'Astounded': former fire chief unloads on politicians over climate change inaction; TVA proposes to close Paradise, Bull Run coal units despite Trump tweet; Keystone Pipeline Likely Cause of Oil Spill in Missouri... PLUS: Cashing In on a Warming Arctic: In Maine, some see the melting ice to the north as an opportunity.... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Desi and I are back after the holidays --- and to end the shutdown! You're welcome! There's a LOT of news to catch up on as Democrats officially settle in to their new U.S. House majority with the federal government remaining partially closed thanks to Donald Trump's new demand for $5 billion in tax-payer money (not Mexico's) to fund his southern border wall. [Audio link to show follows below.]

The federal shutdown is beginning to cause very real and negative effects across the country, particularly at our national parks and monuments and, if it goes on much longer, in food assistance to the poor. Oddly enough, National Park Service rangers are still deployed to one historic site in D.C. --- the one that happens to be inside the Old Post Office building....which is now the Trump International Hotel.

Meanwhile, Trump has announced plans for a prime-time speech to the nation on Tuesday night to address his pretend "National Security crisis on our Southern Border" and is requesting airtime for it from the national TV networks. However, while Trump is standing firm on his demand for some $5 billion to fund his border wall, (and Dems are standing equally firm in not giving it to him), his very own proposed budget plan for 2019 [PDF], as given to Congress last year, requested just $1.6 billion for the wall. (Seriously, open on the PDF and click on the section for the Dept. of Homeland Security, where it details the Admin's 2019 request: "Critical investments include $1.6 billion for construction of the border wall.") That's almost exactly what the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate voted to give him last year, which Trump agreed to...before criticism from Righwing media led him to increase his demand two weeks ago.

So, it's left to me, I guess, to explain how Democrats should give Trump exactly what he asked for in that proposal last year --- as written by Office of Management and Budget chief and now Trump's Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney --- in order to solve the very real shutdown crisis.

Also, among the many other stories covered on today's show:

• For the first time in her career as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, recuperating from cancer surgery, was not present for oral argument at SCOTUS on Monday.

• In better SCOTUS news, the Court rejected ExxonMobil's plea to save them from an investigation by the Massachusetts Attorney General into the oil giant's decades of apparent fraud regarding climate change.

• Over the weekend, newly-minted progressive Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for restoring the 70 percent income tax rate for the lucky few earning more than $10 million a year, in order to help fund a 'Green New Deal' to save the planet. Republicans, predictably, are both freaking out and lying about her proposal.

And, finally, we open up the phone lines to callers on all of the above and much more, including what listeners hope to see Democrats take on as their top priorities in the new Congress...

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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! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Bad news. As U.N. climate summit begins, global carbon emissions are now on the rise again; France suspends fuel tax hikes after violent 'yellow vest' protests; Greenland's ice melt has gone into overdrive, new study says; PLUS: Good news. World's largest shipping company targets 100% zero emissions by 2050... 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): We're destroying the climate faster than we thought; Tackling climate change could save millions of lives, report says; Major changes needed to feed world population in 2050; Trump to rollback sage grouse protections to open more land for oil drilling out West; Trump EPA proposes rolling back another Obama-era coal rule; US coal consumption drops to lowest level since 1979; Final hurdle cleared in California’s solar mandate for new homes; Luxembourg to become first country to make all public transport free... PLUS: Poisoned Cities, Deadly Border... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Another guilty plea and more trouble for Donald Trump; More details from the newly revealed North Carolina election fraud mystery; And, Maine's first statewide Ranked Choice Voting election predictably results in a challenge, confusion and a "recount". [Audio link to full show follows below.]

First up, in a surprise new guilty plea in Robert Mueller's Special Counsel probe on Thursday. Trump's former personal lawyer and "fixer" Michael Cohen pleaded guilty today to lying to Congress multiple times last year about a proposed plan to build a luxury condominium complex in Russia. He said he did so to protect the President. In papers filed in federal court on Thursday, Cohen revealed that Trump's attempt to make a deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow continued until at least June of 2016, after Trump had already clinched the GOP nomination for President and many months later than previously known. That, despite Trump's repeated claims during the campaign and after that he had no business with Russia.

The President responded today by calling Cohen "weak", describing him as a liar, and pretending that these details were already publicly known. (They weren't.) But if the written answers Trump submitted just last week to Mueller in response to a series of questions in the Special Counsel's Russia probe are in conflict with the information and evidence detailed by today's guilty plea and court filing, it could raise serious new legal issues for his increasingly erratic and manic Presidency.

Then, we have a number of new details today in the stunning mystery regarding the U.S. House election in North Carolina's 9th District, which the State Board of Elections declined to certify earlier this week after an objection from a Democratic board member. Republican Mark Harris reportedly defeated Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes out of more than 280,000 cast in the contest. But the state board unanimously voted 9 to 0 to delay certification only in that House race, due to allegations of "unfortunate activities" which, the Board member charged, have been "ongoing for a number of years."

Today, we learn that state investigators are eyeing absentee ballot applications and envelopes in at least two counties in NC-9, one of which had an extraordinarily high rate of absentee votes, as well as absentee ballots that were never returned to the counties. Moreover, a new analysis finds "unusual" absentee numbers in the GOP primary as well, back in May, when Harris is said to have defeated incumbent Republican Rep. Robert Pittenger by just 828 votes. All of this in a state were Republicans, ironically enough, have long (falsely) accused Democrats of fraud and have worked for years (in repeated violation of federal law) to make it more difficult for them to vote.

Next, Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin has filed for a "recount" in Maine's 2nd Congressional District, after winning the first round of vote counting, but ultimately losing the election to Democratic challenger Jared Golden in the state's first Ranked Choice Voting election. Poliquin's campaign accurately charges that the tabulation relied upon a "black-box" voting system and "computer algorithm" that "no one is able to review".

They argue that the RCV scheme "confused and even frightened" voters who felt their votes "did not count due to computer-engineered rank voting". This predictable outcome, of course, is just one of the reasons we've long warned against the use of RCV, despite many progressives who support the virtually unoverseeable voting scheme which allows voters to rank their choices, and reassigns second choice votes to other candidates if nobody obtains a majority in the initial round of counting. (Feel free to leave your hate comments below. Though please look at Approval Voting first, as a workable, publicly overseeable, hand-countable and far less confusing alternative.) Poliquin's campaign says they've filed for "a traditional ballot recount conducted by real people". Due to the complicated nature of RCV elections, a multiple-round hand-count could take as long as a month, according to state officials, potentially delaying Golden's expected swearing in to the U.S. House on January 3.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with a new report from the U.N., finding the world is not on track to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, Amazon's new HQ is in a flood zone, House Dems introduce legislation for a price on carbon and Australia is now facing massive wildfires, heat, and flooding as our global climate crisis continues to worsen...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The world is not doing nearly enough to cut emissions, warns new U.N. report; Amazon's new headquarters in Queens, NY will be hit with rising seas; House Democrats introduce a price on carbon; PLUS: Australia grapples with massive wildfire outbreak amid record heat waves... 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): Trump's comments defending his climate change denial are bonkers; The Depravity of Climate Denial; World's emissions gap is widening --- here's how to close it; Adani's controversial Carmichael coal mine to go ahead with plans to self-fund entire operation; UK company has ambitious plan to replace natural gas with hydrogen; Why focusing on money misses the big climate picture; Cost of keeping Asian carp from Great Lakes nearly triples; Rivian launches an all-electric 7-seat SUV with over 410 miles of range; Brazil backs out of hosting 2019 U.N. climate change meeting; Stop letting Republicans lie on TV about climate science.. PLUS: 3 issues to watch at the COP24 climate summit... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: 'GNR' Special Coverage: Major U.S. climate report warns global warming is already devastating America's environment and economy --- and unless we act aggressively to reduce emissions, it is going to get much worse... 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 world needs to quit coal. Why is it so hard?; Trump energy pick who falsely claimed renewable energy ‘screws up’ grid advances to full Senate for vote; Chemicals on our food --- when 'safe' may not really be safe; Super-bacteria show up in Puget Sound wildlife; Brazil says deforestation in The Amazon is at worst level in a decade; Hog farm waste agreement lacked teeth, North Carolinians left to suffer; Threatened ,ountain gorillas off ‘critically endangered’ species list... PLUS: The Insect Apocalypse is here... and much, MUCH more! ...

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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! ...

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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! ...

Among the many stories covered on today's BradCast, a bit more than one week from the crucial midterm Election Day. [Audio link follows below.]...

• A 56-year old white man from Florida, suspected of sending mail bombs to about a dozen perceived enemies of Donald Trump, is arrested and charged with federal crimes. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the alleged MAGABomber, Cesar Sayoc, Jr. turns out to be a huge fan of Donald Trump. Attorney General Jeff Sessions fails to call it terrorism;

• In Tennessee, a state court rules in favor of voting rights advocates who sued to require Shelby County (Memphis) election officials to allow thousands of new registrants to cure any alleged omissions or errors on their voter registration applications through Election Day, and to allow those voters to vote on normal, not provisional, ballots. The Republican-majority commission in the very Democratic-leaning county, has said they would appeal the ruling. The matter could be crucial to the tight race for U.S. Senate between popular former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen and Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn in the contest to fill the seat of retiring GOP Sen. Bob Corker;

• In Georgia, massive attempted voter suppression overseen by Republican Sec. of State and gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp, should qualify the entire state as a crime scene, at this point. More troubling news along those lines today, as the DeKalb County Election Commission appears to have lost nearly 5,000 vote-by-mail applications. The Democratic Party claims they turned in 4,700 requests, but the County tells the NYTimes they only received 48! The potential disenfranchisement of thousands of voters could effect the tight gubernatorial race between Kemp and African-American Democrat Stacey Abrams. Given the massive suppression attempts in the state, I don't see how a Kemp victory could possibly be seen as legitimate;

• In Texas, amid the very tight U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and his Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke, many of the 100% unverifiable electronic voting machines used across the state are reportedly selecting Cruz during some attempts at straight ticket Democratic votes. State and county election officials confirm the problem with their voting systems made by Hart-Intercivic of Austin has existed for years. Nonetheless, they are blaming voters, rather than themselves or Hart, their private election vendor, for the failure. That, despite conceding that it is those systems, used in many TX counties, that are at the root of the problem for voters;

• Finally, we're joined by energy and politics writer DAVID ROBERTS of Vox.com, to discuss a very important initiative on the ballot in Washington state this year. Roberts explains Initiative 1631, which, if adopted on November 6th, would create a price for carbon pollution by creating a fee for the use of fossil fuels that cause global warming. The revenue raised by the measure would be used to fund key initiatives to improve the environment and help middle and lower income Americans. Roberts describes, as he recently wrote in much more detail, how the new initiative differs from the revenue-neutral carbon tax which failed at WA polls in 2016, and how the fossil fuel industry is spending tens of millions to crush this effort (just as they did in 2016).

  All of this on a week, which we also discuss, when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has staked his 2019 re-election chances on a new national carbon tax and dividend policy. The politically courageous effort was announced this week, despite what is predicted to be a neck-and-neck contest next year with his Conservative Party opponent. The scheme would tax the use of fossil fuels and send all revenue from the measure straight back to Canadians each year in the form of a check.

  Expect to see many more such efforts both in North America and across the world, to place a price on carbon pollution, as the globe continues to warm while fossil fuel companies continue to pollute the atmosphere for free. As Roberts notes: "Civilization is on the line."

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On today's BradCast: Like clockwork the righwing conspiracy theories regarding pipe bombs begin, as do the voting system failures around the country, less than two weeks before this year's crucial midterm election. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up today, a few quick updates on the mail bombs sent to several of the many vilified political critics of Donald Trump. In addition to explosive devices sent this week to former President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, John Brennan, Rep. Maxine Waters, George Soros and CNN, additional similar packages were reported today to have been delivered to former Vice President Joe Biden and actor Robert DeNiro. Where Trump and the White House called for unity and an end to divisive rhetoric on Wednesday, for about 5 minutes, both Trump and WH Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders quickly renewed their vitriolic attacks on the media shortly thereafter and again on Thursday.

Also on Thursday, as investigators reportedly focus on Florida as a possible source for the packages, the rightwing quickly cranked up conspiracy theories about the explosive devices being "fake bombs" meant to discredit the President in advance of the November 6 midterms.

Meanwhile, voting is already underway for those elections, as are the lawsuits aiming to prevent voter suppression and election fraud. A federal judge on Wednesday determined that Georgia may not discard absentee ballots on the basis of "signature mismatch" as determined by partisan officials with no training in hand-writing analysis. The state's legal defense for that statute was rather amazing, as we discuss. Happily, it was thoroughly dismissed by the U.S. District Court judge.

Also, the NAACP has filed official complaints with the state regarding reports of votes flipping in at least four counties on the state's 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems. Votes are reportedly hopping repeatedly from Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to her opponent, Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who oversees and has long defended the states easily-hacked and oft-failed Diebold touchscreen systems. We explain, however, why the reported flips are not likely to be hacks, but why that also doesn't really matter.

Similar, completely predictable voting system and ballot programming failures are beginning to rear their ugly head in other states as well with early, in-person voting now underway in some 30 states. The name of the Democratic candidate for Secretary of State in Arkansas was discovered left off of the touchscreen ballots in one Arkansas county, leading to lost votes and poll closures. And in DuPage County, Illinois, a fiasco erupted this week surrounding the appearance on the ballot (or lack thereof) for a Democratic candidate for the state House of Representatives, resulting in election officials scrambling to distribute paper ballots to early voting locations where, normally, only touchscreen systems are available to voters.

We're joined today by longtime DuPage County election integrity champion and government watchdog JEAN KACZMAREK, who is now the Democratic candidate for County Clerk in DuPage. She joins us to explain what is only the latest mess in a years-long stream of computer voting and tabulation system boondoggles by the Election Commission in the heavily Republican-leaning suburban county west of Chicago, where she has now been endorsed by the local Daily Herald.

Kaczmarek also details the County's astonishing refusal to provide her with serial numbers for the replacement paper-ballot scanners scavenged from unknown sources and recently supplied to the County by its private voting system contractor to replace more than 100 of the machines (originally purchased from Diebold in 2001) after they were damaged by an astounding failure during this year's March primary. The County has told the County Clerk candidate that their refusal to provide her with the serial numbers --- so she may try and determine where the machines were previously used --- is due to a bizarre "security risk" claim.

"I'm concerned mostly because of the lack of a chain of custody. At least the old machines that are in DuPage County have been stored here, and have been maintained here. Yes, I do have issues with those machines, but we do have that," Kaczmarek tells me. "But these other machines, we have no idea where they've been, who has maintained them, how much mileage they have. And I'm concerned there might be problems on these machines, perhaps a virus."

Her concerns are not without warrant, and are similar to such replacement schemes by mystery machines in other states, such as Wisconsin and elsewhere. Earlier this year, for example, at the DefCon hacking conference in Las Vegas, attendees discovered Chinese pop tunes and other software on voting systems recently discarded by elections officials around the country. "Here we are again," she says. "We have no transparency and accountability, and we're told to trust the results."

Finally today, we're joined by Desi Doyen for our latest Green News Report, with a bunch of pretty major environment news regarding a massive hurricane striking U.S. territories in the Pacific, a record year for tropical cyclones, New York state's new lawsuit against ExxonMobil charging the company defrauded investors regarding climate change, and a landmark new carbon tax announced this week by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau...

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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! ...

Among the many stories covered on today's BradCast, with vigor and no small amount of occasional vitriol. [Audio link to show follows below.]...

• The catastrophic and climate change-fueled Hurricane Michael made landfall in Florida on Wednesday as a deadly and unprecedented Category 4, the strongest ever to strike the Panhandle since record keeping began in 1851;

• In not unrelated news, another major coal company, one of the nation's oldest, declares bankruptcy. It's the fourth to do so in the past three years;

• ExxonMobil gets some great publicity from Bloomberg by spending just $1 million (which they generated every two minutes in 2017) in pretending to support a carbon tax scheme (that would benefit them anyway);

• The U.S. Supreme Court allows a lower court's voter ID ruling to stand in North Dakota, despite the fact that the rule is a change from voting laws used during the April primary and is now likely to result in the disenfranchisement of thousands of Native Americans in a state where Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp faces re-election after winning by just 3,000 votes in 2012. (Here's the ridiculous effort that thousands of Native Americans without a residential address, as now required by ND law to vote, must now go through to get one registered somehow before November 6th.);

• A state court in Missouri blocks part of their new voter ID law for being "contradictory and misleading" and "impermissibly infring[ing] on a citizen's right to vote" in the state where Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill is in a very close re-election battle. Her opponent, Republican Attorney General Josh Hawley is defending the law and is likely to seek an appeal from a higher state court;

• After Georgia's Republican Sec. of State Brian Kemp was found to have purged hundreds of thousands of voters from the rolls over the past several years, AP finds that some 53,000 voter registrations are currently in a suspended state due to GA's "exact match" rule, which allows election officials to block registrants whose names aren't listed identically to the way they are on found on file at either the state's Department of Driver Services or the Social Security Administration. A missing hyphen or a typo by officials entering a name into one of the databases is enough to result in a suspension which, the AP finds, is disproportionately keeping black voters off the rolls. 70% of those blocked are African-Americans, even though GA’s population is just 32% black. Kemp is currently running for Governor against Stacey Abrams who, if successful on November 6th, would become the nation's first African-American female Governor;

• Some listener mail on a recent show regarding West Virginia's Sen. Joe Manchin, who voted in favor of Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court last weekend, as the coal state Democrat faces re-election after WV voted for Trump by 42 points in 2016;

• And, finally, a viral musical ditty to close us out today on the "very scary time for young men," as Donald Trump appallingly described it, following the multiple credible allegations of sexual assault by now-Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh...

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