It was another impossible news day to cover on today's BradCast, but we did our best with two historic hearings happening in D.C. at the very same time and a few special elections around the country just to keep us on busy. [Audio link to show is posted below summary.]

One hearing was on Capitol Hill and the other was at the U.S. Supreme Court --- or, at least, on the live-streamed telephone conference call that has now replaced traditional in-person oral argument at the actual Court, thanks to the still worsening coronavirus pandemic.

We begin today with the SCOTUS hearing. Two of them, in fact. Both on the attempts by federal and state officials to obtain Donald Trump's financial records stretching back 10 years from before he became President. One case concerns subpoenas from three different U.S. House Committees to Mazars USA, the President's longtime accounting firm, as well as to Deutsche Bank and Capitol One, with whom Trump has done business. The other case is over a subpoena by by the Manhattan District Attorney for many of the same documents and tax records from the same financial institutions. That document demand is part of a state grand jury investigation related to unlawful hush money payoffs Trump gave to two women in advance of the 2016 election, and his convicted lawyer Michael Cohen's allegation that Trump and his companies fraudulently inflated and deflated his net worth when applying for loans or filing taxes.

Trump is not actually a party to the subpoenas, but is suing the financial institutions to prevent them from responding to the lawful subpoenas. To date, he has lost every hearing in the cases in lower Courts, where his lawyers actually argued that a sitting U.S. President could shoot people on 5th Avenue and could not be stopped, arrested or investigated for doing so. While the Justices didn't seem to entertain that argument, several of them, particular the Republican-appointees, seemed to be trying to find a way to help Trump out of this jam. We discuss what seems likely to result in either a split on the two different cases --- with the Court blocking the Congressional subpoenas while allowing the ones in the state criminal investigation in NY --- and/or one or both cases being remanded back to lower courts for a more narrow reconsideration that would likely prevent Trump's tax returns and other financial records from being released in advance of the 2020 election.

As those arguments were playing out today, the heads of Trump's CDC, FDA and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified before the U.S. Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. They did so remotely from their homes, where they are each self-quarantining after recently coming into contact with infected individuals at the White House. One of those individuals was Vice President Mike Pence's Press Secretary who tested positive on Friday, just before Pence appeared at a meeting with food producers in Iowa. As the company CEOs waited for the round-table discussion with Pence to begin, they were asked by an aide to the Vice President to remove their masks! That, despite advice from health officials (including the White House's own), and even though two of the executives run meatpacking plants where thousands of workers have contracted COVID-19. One represents Tyson Foods where more than 1,000 workers --- a third of its workforce --- at a meatpacking plant in Waterloo, Iowa have now tested positive. At least three workers at the plant have died.

Rural counties, especially in the heartland --- many with meatpacking plants and prisons --- are seeing a spike in cases of late, along with metropolitan areas where mostly Republican Governors have begun to prematurely lift stay-at-home orders to try and help the economy recover. An unreleased White House document prepared by the CDC and Department of Homeland Security, obtained by NBC News on Sunday, details hotspots all over the country, with many "red" states and counties seeing huge increases in cases over the past week. For example, last Friday, Arizona saw its largest single-day increase in cases, just about a week after Republican Gov. Doug Ducey began reopening the state.

A separate analysis of infections by the Associated Press today finds increasing cases in many of the same hotspots cited by the unreleased White House document, while noting that thousands of people are now getting sick from COVID-19 at their workplaces, including in recently reopened sectors such as construction workers in Austin, TX. At the same time, health workers continue to be hit especially hard, with more than 28,000 now having tested positive with more than 230 deaths in the industry. That, as well over 81,000 Americans have now been killed by the virus over the past two months.

No doubt, all of this is why Fauci warned Senators today of "really serious" consequences, including "suffering and death that could be avoided", if businesses reopen too soon. "There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control," he cautioned. "Which, in fact, paradoxically would set you back. Not only leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to trying to get economic recovery because it would almost turn the clock back, rather than going forward."

But Donald Trump has an election to win this November, and it appears no number of dead Americans will get in his way of winning a second term. On that note, it's Election Day in several states today. And Trump was offering a preview of this November by lying over the weekend about today's Special Election for the U.S. House in California's 25th Congressional District. On Saturday, Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), who heads the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) issued a memo to House Republicans with an "urgent call to arms", telling them to "raise hell" because Democrats in California were "doing all they can do to steal the election". Naturally, Trump took the lie and ran with it, tweeting about the addition of an extra in-person polling place for early voting over the weekend in a diverse part of the District, opened at the request of the city's REPUBLICAN Mayor!

Trump falsely claimed the polling place was added by the state's Republican Governor Gavin Newsom. (It wasn't, it was added by L.A. County --- at the request OF THE REPUBLICAN MAYOR who, while supporting the Republican in the race, was furious there was no polling place within his city's boundaries.) Trump falsely declared a "Rigged Election!" and lied to his Twitter followers that the election "was supposed to be mail in ballots only". That is also untrue. For the record, last Friday, Newsom did announce that every registered voter in the state would be sent a postage-paid absentee ballot for the November Presidential election. The move is said to be for safety reasons due to the pandemic --- the pandemic which Trump originally ignored, made much worse, and is now pretending to be over.

Finally today, Desi Doyen brings us the latest Green News Report, as the Administration reopens national parks despite the growing risks of coronavirus; as tax-payers are forced to pay for cleaning up old wells of bankrupted oil companies; and as France offers an airline bailout in exchange for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Now there's an idea...

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On today's BradCast: It was another very bad day in the federal courts for Donald Trump, though another very good one for the Rule of Law (for those who still care about such things), even as a new phase in the President's ongoing impeachment inquiry begins in the U.S. House. [Audio link to full show is posted at the end of this article.]

First up, some quick news of the day. California Senator and one time "top tier" 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate is dropping out of the race exactly two months before voting begins in Iowa in next year's nominating contest and just two weeks before the next Presidential debate set for her home state on December 19. We discuss the ramifications for the race and for the woman who might have been the first black female President (but who could very well still become the first such Vice President).

There was more bad news today for Trump and his family and his businesses in federal court on Tuesday, as a three-judge panel on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York agreed with the lower court ruling that both Deutsche Bank and Capital One must turn over Trump-related financial documents to two House committees which had subpoenaed them. Trump and his family sued the banks to block the disclosure of what could be a treasure trove of damning documentation detailing years of Trump's dubious financial history and the sources of his funding after several bankruptcies and denials for loans from banks other than the German-based Deutsche. Despite his many business failures, that bank, for some reason, reportedly loaned Trump and his businesses well over $2 billion. Now that he's lost in court again, he has been given seven days to decide if he wishes to appeal to the Republicans' stolen majority on the Supreme Court before the banks will be required to turn over the records to Congress.

Tuesday's serious legal blow follows another one for Trump on Monday, when U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson refused to place a Stay on her ruling from last week ordering Don McGahn to appear before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee regarding the former White House Counsel's testimony on Trump's many instances of obstruction of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. The judge ruled the Trump Dept. of Justice's claim that the Presidency would suffer "irreparable harm," if McGahn was allowed to testify was baseless. She did, however, determine that the House Judiciary Committee's ongoing investigation would be "unquestionably harm[ed]" without it, "and by extension" the lack of testimony by the former White House legal chief "would also injure the public’s interest in thorough and well-informed impeachment proceedings."

Speaking of which, the impeachment action moves from the House Intelligence Committee to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, with Judiciary's first public hearing on the Ukraine matter. They will work from a searing 300-page report released by the Intelligence panel on Tuesday, documenting serious abuses of power and obstruction of Congress by Trump that have been revealed during the past several weeks of public and private testimony regarding the President's campaign to withhold military assistance from Ukraine until they agreed to help him in the 2020 Presidential election. The Judiciary Committee's central aim, after the House Intelligence panel found Trump "placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States," will now be to determine if Articles of Impeachment are merited against the President.

Our guest today, who has written several books on impeachment and testified to Congress about "high crimes and misdemeanor" is Constitutional law expert JOHN BONIFAZ, Co-Founder and President of Free Speech for People. Bonifaz testified to House Judiciary Democrats during the George W. Bush era, explaining how the founders definition of "high crimes" was easily met by Dubya via his unlawful war in Iraq. He also favored impeachment of Bill Clinton back in the 90s, but tells us today that "nothing rises to the level of the kind of abuses of power we've seen under this President".

Bonifaz offers a preview of what four Constitutional law experts are likely to offer during their testimony at Wednesday's first hearing before the House Judiciary panel and explains how the Constitution's term "high crimes and misdemeanors" was meant to refer to abuses of office that were not necessarily defined as statutory crimes (since there were very few such crimes on the books when the Constitution was first adopted!) "This is not about demonstrating in a court of law that the President has committed x or y violations of the federal statutory code, a federal crime or state crime," he tells me. "This is about abuse of office, abuse of power, abuse of the public trust."

Bonifaz, whose latest book on impeachment with Ron Fein and Ben Clements is called The Constitution Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump, argues that there is a long list [PDF] of abuses that merit the removal of this President. "We've laid out a number of Impeachment Articles that should be presented in Congress that go beyond the Ukraine scandal. They include racist abuses of power, the abuses of power at the southern border separating children and their families, violating their Constitutional rights. The abuse of the pardon power, in pardoning of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The list goes on," he says. "And this president need to be held accountable for the full range of his high crimes."

He also explains why he is critical of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats for not moving more quickly when they took control of the House in January, noting that had they initiated the various court battles over testimony and documents at that point, "we would be in a much different position today."

"We are where we are in part because of the unwillingness of the Democratic leadership in the House to do its duty the moment it assumed control of the House of Representatives. They ran on a platform in 2018 to be a check on this Presidency, and it took another nine months into their holding of the House control to start that process of being a check on this Presidency. And that's why we're in this predicament."

I also ask Bonifaz for his thoughts on the White House's legal claims of "absolutely immunity" (it "has no basis in the law," he tells me); whether Chief Justice John Roberts will find a way to block high profile witnesses, like Mulvaney and Bolton, when they are called by Democrats during an impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate (Roberts may "apply the argument that 'these matters are still pending in the federal courts,' so he's not going to override that"); whether he concurs with Robert Reich's argument today that impeaching Trump (whether he's removed or not) makes him legally and Constitutionally "unpardonable"; and how it is up to we, the people, to "stay alert, awake and engaged in fighting for our democracy and our Constitution because we cannot rely on those in power to save us and to save our democracy. We have to fight to protect it, and fight to protect our republic."

Finally, beyond the fight to protect our republic, there is the fight to save our civilization itself. On that matter, we are joined by Desi Doyen with our latest Green News Report, as several disturbing new studies on "catastrophic" tipping points for the climate are published as the nations of the world convene in Madrid this week for the latest U.N. Climate Summit...

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With a brief break in the hot impeachment action, we're able to pick up on a couple of stories on today's BradCast that got buried yesterday, some breaking news from today, a continuing story that should have everyone's hair on fire right now (in advance of the 2020 elections!) and, sadly, the story that already has the planet on fire. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First, some quick news on today's school shooting in Southern California, north of Los Angeles, where a 16-year old shot five students from 14 to 16-years of age. So far, two are reported dead and the shooter is said to be in grave condition from a self-inflicted wound from his .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol.

On Wednesday, Trump lost yet again in one of his many different lawsuits seeking to block the release of his taxes to Congress and state prosecutors. The latest defeat was the refusal yesterday by the full U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. to rehear his lawsuit seeking to block the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee's subpoena of his accounting firm, Mazars USA, seeking several years of his financial records. With that loss, the case will now almost certainly be going to the Republican's stolen U.S. Supreme Court (on which two of Trump's appointees now sit). And in Trump's separate and so-far-similarly unsuccessful suit in federal court in New York, seeking to block the release of tax documents from Mazar's in the state's criminal probe involving Trump's hush-money payoffs before the 2016 election to women with whom he was having affairs, his attorneys on Thursday officially filed their appeal with SCOTUS.

In elections news, former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, a conservative Democrat, has announced his late entry into the race for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination. And both Trump and Republicans are going all in to try and win the Gubernatorial runoff this Saturday in Louisiana, in hopes of avoiding another Kentucky-style embarrassment.

Last week, Trump went all in for KY Governor Matt Bevin, who reportedly came up a few more than 5,000 votes shy of defeating Democratic challenger Andy Beshear. Bevin refused to concede last week, however, requesting a recanvass that was carried out by the state today. The procedure --- essentially re-checking the same computer-reported numbers again --- resulted in few changed votes, unsurprisingly. So, Bevin finally announced his concession. But that came only after his election night claims of "well-corroborated" voter fraud, including thousands of illegally cast votes.

While his promise of evidence never materialized in the week since the election, Bevin recently changed his argument to focus on concerns about the state's electronic voting and tabulation systems. While there is scant evidence of problems on that score (all the other Republicans on the statewide ballot last week, other than the unpopular Bevin, won their races), his newly found concerns --- whether he actually means them or not --- regarding the difficulty of voters to oversee and have confidence in the accuracy of electronically-cast and tabulated results, should be taken to heart by voters of all parties. These concerns are real, and could have a devastating effect on next year's elections.

To that end, one need look no further than the many disasters we've been reporting on over the past two weeks that befell voters attempting to use brand-new touchscreen computer Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) in the key swing states of Pennsylvania and Georgia last week. In the roll out of the new systems in those states, which many election integrity and cybsersecurity experts warned strongly against, many voters were unable to vote at all. Some faced hour-long wait times --- during sparsely attended, off-year municipal elections! --- followed by completely inaccurate results reported by the computers.

For example, some candidates reported receiving zero votes at some precincts in Northampton County, just outside of Philadelphia (which also used the same new systems last week for the first time, despite warnings from cybsersecurity experts, and had similar problems.) In a contest for County Judge in Northampton, a Democratic candidate for County Judge reportedly received just 164 votes out of more than 100 precincts reporting on Election Night. In fact, as a manual examination of computer-printed records revealed, he is believed to have received 26,142 votes instead.

Unfortunately, there is no way to know if even that number is correct on the County's new 100% unverifiable BMD systems, which are proliferating across the nation, including PA, the entire state of GA next year, and in counties in more than a dozen other states (including here in Los Angeles County, the nation's largest!) for 2020.

We're joined today by SUSAN GREENHALGH, a longtime Election Integrity champion who now serves as Vice President for Programs at the National Election Defense Coalition (NEDC). Following last week's disasters, her group has called for the immediate decertification of the 100% unverifiable ES&S ExpressVote XL systems used last week for the first time in Northampton County and Philly. Greenhalgh explains why such systems, which use touchscreens to help voters use a computer to mark and print "paper ballot"" summaries, should never be used other than as an assistive device for disabled voter who may choose to use one to help cast their ballot.

"What's really concerning about these ballot-marking devices is that there's been a false equivalency created by the vendors," she tells me. "And I think it's been accepted my many people in the election official administration space, and in the election community at large, that there's a paper record there, so therefore the voting system is verifiable. The problem is that all evidence that we have so far to go on, indicates that that the paper record [from] the expensive touchscreen ballot-marking devices is not actually verified by the voter. And that's the critical point." The NEDC advocates hand-marked paper ballots.

After years of working with elections officials and elected officials across the country, Greenhalgh offers her thoughts as to why so many of them --- Republican and Democratic alike --- continue to ignore the continued warnings from election integrity and cybsersecurity experts who strongly urge against the use of such systems, while listening instead to private vendors, such as ES&S and Dominion (the nation's two largest) who stand to make hundreds of millions from the sale of their poorly designed, oft-failed, easily-hacked, and completely unverifiable touchscreen systems.

"I've heard it said that we need a system that the Devil himself could run and you could still trust the results. It needs to be transparent, and verifiable to the electorate. And that means something that is auditable, that the voter knows that the election results are correct and that the officials can prove it." Greenhalgh argues. "There's no room for 'just trust us' in this. We shouldn't have to trust the vendors. We shouldn't have to trust the election officials. We should all be able to see and verify with our own eyes, through observation and auditing, that the election is being conducted in a fair and accurate manner, and in a secure way. Anything less than that is unacceptable in a healthy democracy --- or one that aspires to be healthy."

Greenhalgh, who is as concerned about all of this before 2020 as I am, says, however, that there is still time for jurisdictions to dump their expensive, unverifiable touchscreen systems in favor of much cheaper, far more secure, and completely verifiable hand-marked paper ballot systems. She also also explains why post-election audits of results cast on computer-marked ballot systems are worthless.

"Implementing hand-marked paper ballot systems, fortunately, can be done in very quick order," she says. "States have shown us they can do that, like Maryland and Virginia. So it's not too late to fix that. What we need is the will of the election officials to make it happen, and then it can be done."

Tune in for much more that you need to hear from this conversation!

Finally, we're joined by Desi Doyen with our 1001st Green News Report, with disturbing news on the enormous and raging Australian bush fires, climate-change fueled frigid weather in much of the U.S., Greta Thunberg's solar-powered voyage back to Europe, and the Trump EPA's latest --- and deadly --- attack on science...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: State of emergency in California, amid massive, wind-driven wildfire outbreak; Massachusetts sues Exxon Mobil over climate fraud; Poll finds Americans want less oil and gas exploration, not more; PLUS: Trump's plan to take Syria's oil has a small problem --- it violates international law... 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): Coal giant Murray Energy is 8th coal company to declare bankruptcy this year; GM, Toyota side with Trump in CA emissions fight; Secret deal helped housing industry stop tougher rules boosting energy efficiency, disaster resilience; 'Evil economics': Rev. William Barber condemns proposed plastics facility in Cancer Alley; Mars Candy still contributing to rampant deforestation, despite pledge; Global warming will cost rich and poor countries alike; CDC whistleblower says he was told not to use phrase "climate change" after Trump elected.. PLUS: Climate change has set California on fire. Are you paying attention?... and much, MUCH more! ...

It's NICOLE SANDLER, one more time, filling in for Brad and Desi on today's BradCast.

After an update on the latest news, I'm joined by Blogger TOM SULLIVAN, aka BloggersRUs, who writes for Digby's Hullabaloo blog. After publishing a post about Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC report on Donald Trump and Deutsche Bank, Tom received a letter from Donald Trump's attorney demanding a retraction and an apology. He explains what happened.

Then we turn our attention across the pond to the UK, where the new Prime Minister Boris Johnson appears to have engineered a coup of sorts. The Queen approved his plan to suspend Parliament for five weeks to allow him time to push through a "no deal" Brexit. People have taken to the streets in protest. I'll speak with American ex-patriot DENIS CAMPBELL, an author, journalist and broadcaster, who does his best to explain what's happening over there.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

Before we get to the "crapshow" in D.C. today and much more related to it on today's BradCast, a few quick, important points. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First, the St. Louis Blues, incredibly enough, are going to the Stanley Cup finals for the first time in 49 years. Okay, that's not all that important to most, but I've been waiting a really long time, so forgive me my momentary joy.

Second, and much more important (and disturbing): the City of Baltimore's computer networks have been crippled and shutdown by a ransomware attack for more than two weeks now, grinding all city services to a virtual halt and likely requiring a complete rebuild of everything from backup data onto new hardware. Baltimore is reportedly the 20th U.S. municipality to be hit by such an attack so far this year.

Among Baltimore city offices struggling to continue their work is their "dead in the water" Board of Elections, where all local computers are shut down with BOE employees now working remotely out of the State Board of Elections, as well as County Boards in Baltimore and Hartford. The ongoing disaster led the city Board of Elections' Deputy Director to opine: "Thank goodness it's not an election year." Um...yeah..."thank goodness" indeed. But what if it were? And shouldn't this be a much greater concern than, well, pretty much everyone is currently admitting, as city, county and state elections now rely, from top to bottom --- from voter registration to ballot programming to vote tabulation and election results reporting --- on similarly vulnerable computer networks? Without paper poll books at each precinct and HAND-MARKED paper ballots for all, it would be impossible to run an election under such circumstances. But...."thank goodness it's not an election year" and, otherwise, why worry about such crazy "conspiracy theories" as the ones we've been warning about for more than 15 years now?

In other, yes, related news: the Donald Trump Presidency continues to swirl still deeper into the bowels of its own disastrous making while the continuing stand-off with Congress intensifies and more bad news arrives from the federal courts for this President. Today, among too many other things, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Congressional Democratic leadership to discuss the growing cries for an official impeachment inquiry and emerged to declare that "the President of the United States is engaged in a cover-up". That completely unsurprising statement was used as a predicate for Trump to storm out of a planned meeting at the White House with Democratic leaders on an infrastructure bill after just three minutes. He then held what media falsely characterized as an "impromptu" news conferences in the Rose Garden where the President discussed "the i-word" and, with a straight face --- in front a pre-printed sign inaccurately declaring "No Collusion, No Obstruction --- claimed to be "the most transparent President, probably, in the history of this country" and that he doesn't "do cover-ups".

Hours later, his ongoing efforts to cover-up his financial records was dealt a second blow this week by a second federal judge who flatly rejected the Trump family's attempt to block Deutsche Bank and Capital One from turning over Trump financial records in response to a lawful Congressional subpoena. Earlier this week a different federal judge found similarly against Trump's attempt to cover up his financial records held by private accounting firm Mazars USA, which are also the subject of a separate lawful Congressional subpoena. And, all of that is related, as we explain, to the cover-up payments to Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen who was "directed" by Trump to give hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels just prior to the 2016 election to cover-up their alleged affair.

Of course, as Trump's administration continues to cover-up their own growing private email server scandals (remember that li'l problem they had with Hillary Clinton about that?), the man who has helped carry off Trump's greatest cover-up to date (at least that we know of, so far) is his new Attorney General, cover-up artist and personal fixer William Barr. Our guest today, author and media critic ERIC BOEHLERT argues Barr has not been appropriately held to account by the corporate media, even after being found in contempt by the House Judiciary Committee for failing to answer a lawful Congressional subpoena to hand over the full Mueller Report and its underlying evidence. Boehlert explains as he wrote this week, where and why he sees the corporate media dropping the ball.

"New York Times, Washington Post --- they haven't called for his resignation," Boehlert tells me. "It is inconceivable what Bill Barr could possibly do which would trigger major newspapers in this country to call for his resignation. People say, 'Well, who cares? He's not going to resign.' That's true, but, it sends this message that we are in a crisis. We are in a possibly defining crisis in American history. But these major news organizations don't want to go there. They don't want to raise the temperature."

The crisis he refers to, of course, has "been a problem since Inauguration Day 2017, [but] no one will break the glass on the alarm."

We also discuss whether Congressional Democrats are falling short as well, as the internecine debate among Democrats in the House over whether to begin a formal impeach inquiry continues to grow and intensify. Among the many points discussed in that conversation: whether the conventional wisdom that Senate Republicans would never vote to convict and remove Trump from office is actually true...

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Why tell the truth and follow the rule of law when BS'ing and obstructing truth and justice (and Congress) now appear to be a far more successful way to get ahead in life...and in the Presidency of the United States? As Donald Trump recently reached a new milestone of having told more than 10,000 lies while in office, according to Washington Post's fact-checker database, these are among the related stories covered on today's BradCast. [Audio link is posted below]...

• A fascinating new study finds that wealthy men are more likely than women and those of lesser means to simply make stuff up. That's right, lying appears to work for many, and is carried out far more frequently in North America than in other English speaking countries around the world. Or, as WaPo's headline summarizes the academic survey: "Rich guys are most likely to have no idea what they're talking about, study suggests". (Though, as you'll also learn, both Desi and Canada should be ashamed of themselves);

• That may also help us understand today who our President is and why he and his supporters do what they do, as a new CNN analysis catalogs 77 different "lies and falsehoods" by Trump and his associates, documented in Robert Mueller's redacted Special Counsel report. The lies were told by Trump, his "campaign staff, administration officials and family, Republican backers and his associates" who all "made false assertions to the public, Congress, or authorities," according to the analysis. While a handful of those lies were prosecuted as crimes (for example, some of those told to the FBI by Trump's former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and to Congress by his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen), most went unprosecuted for varying reasons, including the fact that lying to the public and the press is not a crime, even when the White House does it, repeatedly, apparently. Among the many lies cataloged, a plurality of which were told by the President himself, many concerned his dealings with Russia and those of campaign staff and administration officials;

• Speaking of which, in March, Trump's 2020 Campaign Manager Brad Parscale flew to Romania to deliver a paid speech to Romanian politicians and policy experts, raising questions among U.S. legal experts about conflicts of interest and whether Team Trump has learned anything after their extensive dealings with Russia during the 2016 campaign. They paid little price for that, however, so why worry about a Trump/Romania Special Counsel investigation now?;

• Mid-show today we covered some breaking news regarding today's U.S. support for a military coup being called for by Valenzuela's opposition leader and self-declared "President" Juan Guaido, and claims by U.S. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo that the nation's actual President Nicolas Maduro was preparing to leave the country in response. At the last minute, however, according to Pompeo, Maduro was talked out of it by Russia. But, of course, our Sec. of State is a huge and very successful liar as well, so there's no particular reason to believe any of his assertions regarding the attempted U.S. overthrow of Venezuela today;

• In other breaking news, a federal judge today determined that a lawsuit filed by some 200 Congressional Democrats against Donald Trump charging he is in violation of the Constitutional Emoluments clause may move ahead, allowing plaintiffs to gain access to information about Trump's private business dealings;

• And, in related news, Trump's private attorneys on Monday night filed a lawsuit on behalf of him, his company and his children's behalf against Deutsche Bank and Capital One in hopes of forcing them to not respond to lawful subpoenas for Trump financial documents as issued by a number of Congressional committees. Normally we'd say "good luck with that", but for Trump's stolen Supreme Court majority who have proven themselves capable of doing anything on his behalf at this point;

• The obstruction also continued today by Trump's Attorney General William Barr, who, the Justice Department has said, still plans to appear before the Republican-majority Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday to give testimony regarding the Mueller Report, but that he is objecting to a planned appearance before the Democratically-run House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, where members may allow counsel from both the majority and minority to question Barr during the scheduled testimony. House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler asserts it's not up to Barr to determine who gets to question him or how the hearing is to be carried out, suggesting he may ultimately need to subpoena the A.G. to force his testimony. But if Barr defies that subpoena, as other Administration officials have been ordered by Trump in recent days, then what? Who would enforce a Contempt of Congress citation against the nation's top law enforcement official? And how would it even be done? Well, there is a House Sergeant-at-Arms and, reportedly, a jail in the basement of the Capitol Building. We discuss;

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, on the back-to-back devastating cyclones in Mozambique, a delay to the Interior Department's plan to expand off-shore drilling, air pollution getting worse under Donald Trump, and voter support for a Green New Deal in Spain's recent elections...

Yes. All of that. In under one hour. Somehow. You're welcome...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Houston rocked by 3rd major industrial fire in two weeks; Climate change a key driver of migration to the U.S.-Mexico border; ExxonMobil loses potentially significant court battle in Massachusetts; Trump lies that wind energy causes cancer; PLUS: Burger King launches meatless "Impossible" Whopper in major market test... 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 Senate is rushing to confirm Trump NOAA nominee despite ethics concerns; Mozambique’s cholera cases top 1,000 in the wake of Cyclone Idai; “Innovation” is the latest GOP smokescreen on climate change policy; Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz who wants to ban the EPA just pitched an alternative to Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal; The toxic consequences of America’s plastics boom; Arab states face water emergency, urgent action needed; Colorado lawmakers pass dramatic drilling rule changes... PLUS: What remains of Bears Ears National Monument... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, I'm in for Brad and Des, dropping by from my own show, In Deep with Angie Coiro.

Today's Rose Garden press conference was drenched in irony: a faltering, incoherent, angry man declaring a "national emergency", even as he demonstrated that he's the crisis. Donald Trump yelled at reporters to sit down, fell into sing-song whimsy, showed off his version of a Chinese accent, repeated phrases when he lost his train of thought, wielding terrifyingly grown-up powers with the gravitas of a toddler in a man's suit.

Fortunately, enough roadblocks will be thrown down --- by Reps AOC and Castro, by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, by the ACLU, and presumably by property owners along the proposed wall sites --- that he should be kept busy and irritated for some time. The taxpayer money wasted will be appalling.

Republican former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld appears willing to throw himself atop the bomb: he says he may primary Donald Trump. He minced no words -– I mean, he was stunningly straightforward -– in criticizing his fellow GOPers, who he said exhibit all the signs of Stockholm Syndrome(!). Someone needs to step up, he says. He even hints that he's willing to act as a spoiler to damage Trump in the general.

Plus the latest on Facebook, Amazon, and what tech campuses have to offer their neighbors.

Finally, my guest JOEL SIMON of the Committee to Protect Journalists. His new book, We Want To Negotiate, makes a compelling case that both the US and Britain need to re-examine their "we don't negotiate with terrorists" policies. His research puts the lie to a lot of assumptions, for example, that to pay ransoms will encourage more kidnappings. It makes sense on the face of it, but --- wrong.

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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: Florence continues to wreak havoc and death on the East Coast; The strongest storm of the year (so far) slams into the Philippines and Hong Kong; PLUS: Boston-area residents slowly return home after natural gas explosions destroy dozens of homes... 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 Unequal Burden of Climate Change: Hurricane Florence and Super Typhoon Mangkhut laid bare the disproportionate consequences for poor communities; 5 things that must change after Hurricane Florence; 100% renewable energy is wildly popular. Utilities are struggling to deal with it; EPA administrator denies states' request to stop cross-state coal plant pollution; 8 ways that EPA's helping the coal industry; Watchdog: EPA asbestos protection for schoolchildren lagging; Feds allow construction of Atlantic Coast Pipeline to resume; Oldest nuclear plant in US closes, unable to compete... PLUS: Germany launches world's first hydrogen-powered train... 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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On today's BradCast: A stunning political upset in MA's primary on Tuesday, the Kavanaugh hearings continue, and a senior Trump Administration official drops an anonymous late day bombshell in the New York Times. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

First up today, primary election results out of Massachusetts, including the stunning, double-digit defeat of 10-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano by progressive challenger Ayanna Pressley. With no Republicans running in the state's 7th Congressional District this November, Pressley is set to become the first African-American woman to represent MA in the U.S. House.

Then, Judge Brett Kavanaugh dodges many questions as "hypothetical" --- including on whether a sitting President must respond to a subpoena and whether the Constitutional allows one to pardon to themselves-- from Democrats in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on the second day of confirmation hearings for Donald Trump's nominee to fill the U.S. Supreme Court seat of retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh also stumbled a bit when seemingly taken by surprise by a line of questioning from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) regarding about his knowledge of stolen emails from the Democratic Senator's office during the mid-2000s when, as a GOP operative, Kavanaugh was helping to shepherd George W. Bush nominees through Senate hearings. Leahy indicated that a number of emails still being protected as "committee confidential" for no legitimate reason, demonstrate Kavanaugh was aware of the ill-gotten information and lied about it during Senate testimony some years ago.

"There's a reason that Republicans don't want all of these documents released," argues my guest today, Roosevelt University political scientist DAVID FARIS, columnist at The Week and author of the recently published book It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. He joins us to discuss all of the above, including his thoughts on the Democrats' strategy to oppose Kavanaugh's nomination and to continue his call, first published in his book this Spring, for Democrats, once they eventually regain control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, to "pack" the U.S. Supreme Court with enough new seats to create a Democratic majority to replace the one stolen from them by Republicans in 2016.

"We're still living in the dream palace of the previous normative order," he tells me. "And there's a lot of Senate Democrats who are clinging to the fantasy that if they adhere to Senate norms, then at some point in the future, we will return to what they see as regular order."

Faris discusses how Democrats might have fought harder or more effectively against Kavanaugh's nomination, while conceding they are most likely powerless to block his seating. "I think what's being revealed over the past two days is that they are stuck with a much worse nominee, with much greater baggage, than anyone understood," he says, before adding: "I wish I could say those revelations would be enough to have a couple of Republican senators vote against him, but I've really, over the last couple of years, just lost faith that there are even two people, two Republicans, in the US Senate who are willing to take a political hit to do the right thing."

He is optimistic, however, in describing what he sees as an incredible "generational transformation" of the Democratic Party over the past year or so, highlighted by the rise of more progressive, diverse and younger candidates vying for office, and details what he feels Democrats should do after the November midterms if they are able to regain control of one or both houses of Congress.

Finally today, just before we go off air, stunning breaking news of the anonymous op-ed by "a senior official in the Trump administration" published in the New York Times late on Wednesday. The remarkable column from a self-described member of a "quiet resistance within the administration" charges that Trump is unmoored from reality, that top officials must work to counter his "impulsive," "half-baked," "ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions" in order "contain" the worst and most dangerous of them. The author also asserts that cabinet officials had, at one time, considered "invoking the 25th Amendment" to remove the Trump from office given "the instability many witnessed", but decided against it in order to avoid "a constitutional crisis". Wow.

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On today's BradCast: GOP dirty tricks in Montana; why an alleged torturer should be imprisoned rather than promoted to CIA chief; and, abolishing the 2nd Amendment all together. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell admitted this week that stealing a Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court was his crowning achievement after three decades in Congress. But he's not done packing the federal courts just yet for another generation, which underscores his urgency in trying to hang on to the GOP's thin majority in the U.S. Senate this November.

That may also help to explain the bizarre situation in Montana's U.S. Senate race, where the GOP appears to have ginned up a fake Green Party candidate who was previously on the state Republican Party's payroll, in hopes of siphoning votes away from Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in an otherwise very Trumpy state. (But did the Dems do something similar in supporting a Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate back in 2012, the last time Tester was on the ballot?)

Meanwhile, the Senate returns from their recess next week, and will soon begin confirmation hearings for a number of recent high-level Trump cabinet and executive agency nominees. Among them is Gina Haspel, the CIA's Deputy Director who has been tapped to take Mike Pompeo's spot as CIA chief (after Pompeo was nominated to become the new Sec. of State following Trump's firing of Rex Tillerson.)

Haspel, however, was the CIA's chief of a secret U.S. prison in Thailand following the 9/11 attacks, where a number of terror suspects were tortured in 2002, in violation of long-held international treaties, to which the U.S. has been a party, at least, since the days of Ronald Reagan. She also reportedly signed off on the destruction of the video-taped evidence that documented the horrific torture by the U.S. at that prison.

We're joined today by ERNEST A. CANNING, attorney and longtime BRAD BLOG legal analyst, for whom the matter of someone alleged to have overseen torture becoming the next CIA director is very personal.

Canning's father, as he detailed in a recent article, was imprisoned and waterboarded by the Japanese during WWII, before testifying against his torturers during the war crimes trials held by the Allies after the war. We discuss what happened to his father at the hands of the Japanese command of the notorious Bridge House prison, why the U.S. has long held torture to be a violation of international law, and how the Democrats' failure to demand accountability of Bush-era torturers has resulted in Haspel's nomination, rather than imprisonment.

He explains that while the Japanese general in charge of the notorious Shanghai prison "did not personally take part in my father's torture, he was sentenced to a life sentence under a principle called 'command responsibility'. He had command responsibility over the people who were carrying out torture in an agency that he was responsible for. And if you use that same principle of 'command responsibility', which remains viable under intentional law today, Gina Haspel should be in prison. She should not be coming before the Senate to be confirmed as the CIA's next director. And, I think it's a slap in the face of everybody who has ever undergone such horrific treatment that Donald Trump would nominate her."

(Also, just to lighten things up a bit, I also get Ernie's take on Trump's asinine and evidence-free reiteration in West Virginia on Thursday, that millions of fraudulent votes accounted for his 3 million vote loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 popular vote count.)

Finally, a federal judge in Massachusetts on Friday upheld the state's ban on military-style assault weapons. And we share some listener mail in response to retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens' op-ed last week, wherein he suggested that it's time to repeal the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution...

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