We do our best to avoid being Pollyanna-ish on The BradCast. But not everything that happened on Tuesday (or since) has been terrible. Just a lot of it. But, in fact, some of it was quite good and worth taking notice! [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among our many stories today...both good, bad and otherwise...

• A quickly moving wildfire exploded northwest of Los Angeles on Wednesday, fueled by dry brush and wind gusts up to 80mph. As of Thursday afternoon it had scorched some 14,000 acres, burned through several homes, mansions, ranches and agricultural areas and threatens another 3,500 other structures in the suburban community. 10,000 residents have been evacuated. The so-called "Mountain Fire" was 0% contained at air time. "It's like trying to put out a blowtorch with a squirt gun," said a Ventura County Fire Dept. official in a climate changed wildfire season that has, so far, burned three times as much land as last year at this time.

• Speaking of California and climate, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday called an emergency special state legislative session beginning next month "to protect our state against any unlawful actions by the incoming Trump Administration." He declared on Twitter that "California is ready to fight. Whether it be our fundamental civil rights, reproductive freedom, or climate action --- we refuse to turn back the clock and allow our values and laws to be attacked."

• AP announced late this afternoon that carpet-bagging hedge-fund billionaire and Pennsylvania's Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick had defeated three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey on Tuesday, adding yet another pick up for Republicans in next year's U.S. Senate, where they are already set to take back majority control. (After we got off air, however, Democratic election attorney Marc Elias countered, "The Pennsylvania Senate race is not over," citing a statement from PA's Republican Sec. of the Commonwealth estimating another 100,000 ballots remain to be adjudicated in the race where McCormick currently leads by a reported 32,000 votes over Casey.)

• This morning, President Joe Biden took to the Rose Garden to offer his first public remarks since Election Day, following Kamala Harris' apparent loss to the lawless former President, noting, "You can't love your country only when you win,". By way of contrast to Trump, Biden vowed a peaceful transfer of power, lauded Harris' run, discussed the importance of democracy (even when ya lose) and offered encouragement to staffers and supporters by telling them that "setbacks are unavoidable, giving up is unforgivable." We share his brief remarks today in full.

• Protecting and/or expanding reproductive freedoms was on the ballot in 10 different states on Tuesday. Abortion rights won in seven of them, including Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York. In fact, otherwise "deep red" MO became the first state in the union, since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, to reverse a near-total abortion ban and enshrine reproductive rights into the state's constitution!

  Similar initiatives failed, however, in three states: Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota and for various reasons in each, which we discuss today. Most notably, in FL, the measure to restore freedoms and repeal the state's Big Government six-week ban was supported by a healthy 57% to 43% majority of voters. But the state mandates a 60% supermajority for adoption of Constitutional ballot amendments and, at the same time, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis applied state muscle and seemingly unlawful measures to prevent passage.

  Politico's longtime Capitol Hill heath care reporter ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN joins us today to break down what happened in each state, and where the never-ending battle for and against reproductive freedoms goes from here.

• In other good ballot measure news, voters in Washington state overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to repeal the state's landmark climate law, adopted two years ago under outgoing Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee. The new law slashes dangerous carbon emissions by charging fossil fuel polluters for their pollution. The law has already brought in some $4 billion for habitat restoration and hardening the state against the worsening ravages of climate change. Voters reportedly voted by a 24-point margin to keep the law in place!

• Finally, Desi Doyen is here with our first post-election Green News Report, with details on the troubling worldwide implications for climate under the incoming Trump Administration, as environmental groups vow to press forward. Also, details on both the wildfires in Los Angeles and the rare, late-season Hurricane Rafael which has knocked out power to Cuba (again) and is making its way into record warm Gulf of Mexico waters...

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The headline, and stunning heartbreak over the past 24 hours, likely explain today's BradCast well enough. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

But, as Kamala Harris said today in her brief concession speech at Howard University (shared in full on today's program) after setting an example by vowing to "engage in a peaceful transfer of power" with Donald Trump...

We are joined today (much sooner than anticipated for some odd reason, after speaking with them just last week), by our old friends and fellow old-school bloggers, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo blog and 'DRIFTGLASS', who writes at his eponymously-named blog and co-hosts the weekly Professional Left Podcast from his home in "Flyover Country, Illinois."

Among the questions asked and discussed...

• What did we all miss last week during our final conversation before Election Day, when we were clear-eyed, but bullish on Harris' odds this week?
• What, if anything, could the remarkably well-run Harris Campaign have done better? And what does this actually reveal about Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss to Trump?
• Are a huge number of Americans, millions of whom voted directly against their own self-interests, cruel and stupid or just wildly disinformed by our failed and/or corrupted media?
• Why would so many Latinos vote for the guy who promises "mass deportations"?
• Will Democrats ever figure out how to counter the "perpetual 50 state campaign" that is run by Republicans over their enormous and extremely well-funded media outlets (who have also poisoned the well of otherwise legit corporate media outlets?)
• How soon and/or how badly will Trump and his Republican over-reach after taking power?
• Got any helpful advice for how best to handle all of this and move forward in the days ahead? (Turns out, they do.)

As usual, both of them have much wisdom for us...even on a dark, dark day like today for the nation and the world...

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I'm writing today's BradCast summary much quicker than usual, as polls are now beginning to close with unofficial results coming in momentarily. But we've got a lot packed into today's show no matter when you tune in, that may help you make sense of what will happen tonight and over the next several days (and weeks and even months!). [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Among our coverage today....

• Not much help on who's gonna win from the voters of first-in-the-nation Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, the first town in the nation to both open and close their Election Day polls just after midnight last night. Their six total voters tied 3 to 3 between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. But four of those voters are registered Republicans and two are independent. So it might actually tell us more than originally appears.

• Polling guru Nate Silver's final forecast model for the 2024 Presidential election, which ran 80,000 simulations just after midnight, based on the latest pre-election polling and other noteworthy data, finds that Kamala Harris won precisely 40,012 of them. Or 50.015% of the time! Not much help there either. We may have to wait for actual, ya know, votes to be actually, ya know, counted before we can find out if all the polls telling us that everything is "tied" are actually right. (I wouldn't bet on it.)

• There were a number of problems for voters around the country today, though not widespread, so far, and, thankfully, not violent (so far) as some had feared. There were bomb threats in Georgia, said to have come from Russian sources. But most of the issues that have come to light so far were with voting systems, of the type we've seen many times in the past. Hand-marked paper ballots that failed to scan in a very Republican-leaning county in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where polls were ordered to stay open an extra two hours to accommodate. Print-on-demand ballot printers that failed in a very Democratic-leaning county in battleground Arizona, leading to long lines for Native American voters. Similar isolated problems in a Democratic-leaning Louisville in Kentucky, as well as in parts of Alabama and Iowa. Thankfully, in most cases reported so far, voters were able to continue voting on hand-marked paper ballots, even if they will be tallied later --- and, in some cases, by hand --- as opposed to by computer tabulators at the polls. In some cases, lines grew longer as the problems were worked out, and judges ordered polls to stay open a bit longer tonight in the bargain. While rain drenched parts of several states, reports today suggest that voters were happy to tough it out with raincoats and umbrellas in long lines in order to cast their votes in the most critical Presidential election in U.S. history.

• We run down what is now expected to lie ahead over the next few hours, days, weeks and even months, particularly in the event that Kamala Harris is declared the winner by the media either tonight or over the next few days, and how Donald Trump will likely declare victory tonight no matter what.

• Relatedly, longtime election data researcher and author Richard Hayes Phillips helps us break down the battleground states likely to offer a "red mirage" in their reported results beginning this evening. That is where initially reported results misleadingly suggest a Republican win before more Democratic-leaning results come in because of various factors, including absentee ballots taking longer to tally in states where officials are not allowed to begin processing them until Election Day. He advises to be on the lookout for that "red mirage" effect tonight --- and to not panic when it inevitably does! --- particularly in the critical battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Many more details on that in today's show.

• And, while we wait...a couple of somewhat related moments out of television's "Golden Years", including a 1958 western featuring a conman actually named Trump (seriously!) who is trying to terrify a town into paying him for a wall(!) to protect them from what he warns will otherwise be complete and total destruction. (Yes, seriously!) We played this clip originally back in 2019, but hauled it out again today in hopes that it might be the last chance for it to be relevant ever again. (Wishful thinking?)

• And, some thoughts from TV's 98-year old legendary icon Dick Van Dyke who, yesterday, endorsed Kamala Harris and, along with it, included a video in which he reads a speech he initially delivered at an event with Martin Luther King, Jr., as written by Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, in Los Angeles in the Spring of 1964, just before passage of the Civil Rights Act. "Hatred is not the norm," Van Dyke reads from the 60-year old speech this week, during a moment in history that, he says, makes the speech "mean as much today, if not more, than it did then."

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our Election Day Green News Report, as wet weather complicates voting after October was one of the driest on record in almost every state; as a new tropical storm threatens the Gulf Coast; along with a boatload of actually very positive climate news for the U.S. as President Biden begins to wind down his term in office amid landmark climate achievements...

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It's now or never. It's our final BradCast before Election Day 2024 and our last chance to open our phone lines to callers to have their say. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Either Kamala Harris will become the next President of the United States and the first Black, Southeast-Asian American woman to do so, or Donald Trump, a 78-year old, 34-time convicted criminal felon, adjudicated rapist and self-proclaimed wannabe-Dictator will. Those are the two choices.

So today we take a bit of time to make that case to those who are either undecided, planning not to vote at all, or considering voting for a so-called "third-party" candidate.

To that end, we open up the phones to listeners to make their own such case to other voters. Among those who did so was listener "Maura", who described herself as being "a Republican and business owner most of my life." Her argument to those voters is that, while Harris may not be perfect, "voting is a bit like getting on a bus. You have the option to get on a bus or not get on a bus. And if you're going somewhere, you go to the bus that goes closest to where you are trying to go."

She also went on to spell out a number of other things she likes about Harris' policies and added at the end: "Plus! Plus! She is the only candidate that is likely to have the support in Congress, and to be able to support and protect our civil rights across the country. If we have civil rights, we must have them nationally."

Before we get to a full slate of callers today, however, a few very related news items of note...

• Just another heads up: Donald Trump will declare victory on Tuesday night, whether he has actually won or not. Do not be surprised. Do not be alarmed. Do not be frightened. Do not be gaslit. It is completely, 100% expected in the event that he is losing and it will be your first post-election indication that he is attempting to steal the 2024 election as he tried, but failed, to do in 2020.

• On Sunday, Donald Trump reiterated his disturbing homicidal ideation at a rally by telling supporters he wouldn't mind if someone "shot through the fake news" which was covering the event. That followed, just days earlier, a similarly appalling remark in which he mentioned Republican former Congresswoman Liz Cheney and suggested the idea of having "nine barrels shooting at her," asking how she feels about being so pro-war "when the guns are trained on her face." (For those Trump apologists who say those remarks were just fine, because "context", I'd ask if they would be just fine with Kamala Harris, at a rally, declaring in any context: "Let's put Donald Trump there with a rifle, with nine-barrels shooting at him, with guns trained on his face.")

• Stunning news out of Iowa on Saturday, where the "gold standard" Des Moines Register poll run by Ann Selzer found Kamala Harris actually was leading Donald Trump --- in IOWA --- by three points on the last weekend before Election Day. If Harris is actually leading in deep-red Iowa, as the survey finds, what does that tell us about all of the other polls, particularly in so-called battleground states, that pre-election polling averages claim to be tied just before E-Day? Selzer has a remarkably accurate record over the years in her Iowa polling to the extent that polling guru Nate Silver, creator of polling average site 538, said about Selzer and her shock poll results on Saturday: "In a world where most pollsters have a lot of egg on their faces, she has near-oracular status."

• Over the weekend, European Green parties from nearly 20 different countries, issued a joint statement calling on "US Green Party candidate Jill Stein to withdraw her Presidential candidacy, and endorse Kamala Harris." The Euro Greens cite the U.S. party's "close relationship" with authoritarians around the world and an election in which the stakes "could not be higher" on a host of issues, including climate change. "We are clear that Kamala Harris is the only candidate who can block Donald Trump and his anti-democratic, authoritarian policies from the White House," they declared in calling for Stein to endorse Harris in a race they describe as "too close for comfort."

• Longtime election expert and fellow Election Integrity advocate Jonathan Simon recently penned an open letter to the Green Party's Jill Stein, including results from the so-called "Blue Wall" states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania back in 2016, noting that Stein's share of the vote that year in all three states was larger than the margin of victory for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton that resulted in his winning the White House the first time.

• And, finally, before we get to callers and their "closing arguments" to undecided voters or those considering voting third-party, we share the closing argument, in his own words, from independent, self-described democratic socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on why he believes it is critically important to elect Kamala Harris despite his virulent disagreements with the Biden-Harris Administration's policy on Israel and Gaza...

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The contrast and choice for American voters, as discussed on today's BradCast, couldn't be more stark, now less than a week before the most consequential Election Day in modern American history. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Last night, in the nation's capitol, on the Ellipse in front of the White House, on the very same spot where, on January 6, 2021, the now convicted felon and former President of the United States urged his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol in a desperate last gasp effort to steal the 2020 election, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered her "closing argument" to what her Campaign described as more than 75,000 supporters.

She summarized her many policy prescriptions to help boost young and struggling Americans and the middle class, underscored her calls to restore reproductive freedoms stolen from American women, accurately characterized her opponent as a threat to democracy itself, and promised to work to end the hateful divisiveness that he has turned into his singular political bludgeon.

Her remarks came just two days after Donald Trump offered his own "closing argument" in his old home town of New York City, before a packed house at Madison Square Garden, the site of a notorious 1939 American Nazi rally. The historic parallel was made impossible to ignore.

His six-hour raucous event was chock full of crude, racist and misogynistic attacks on his opponent, with mostly male speakers characterizing Harris as a prostitute, a "devil", and the "Antichrist," among other things. A comedian opened the affair by describing Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage", along with demeaning jokes about Black people, other Latinos, Palestinians and Jews. Trump, when he finally took the state, made no effort to disassociate himself from any of his fellow speakers who, by yesterday, he had characterized as taking part in a "love-fest".

These are the two major choices for President of the United States now before voters in a contest that pre-election polling averages, if you believe, describe as a virtual tie. "On November 5th," quips a popular social media post making the rounds in recent weeks, "it’ll be as if the whole world is waiting for the results of a biopsy to come back."

That is where we are. And that is why I needed to hear today, for the last time before Election Day, from our old and always very smart friends and fellow old-school bloggers, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo blog and 'DRIFTGLASS, who writes at his eponymously-named blog and co-hosts the weekly Professional Left Podcast from his home in "Flyover Country, Illinois."

I've got much to ask them both about today, as we try to make sense of this moment before the storm likely to be unleashed --- no matter who is ultimately announced to be the winner --- as early as next Tuesday night. Though Driftglass sagely warns today: "This election is not going to be over once the votes are counted. This election will be over in January, when hopefully Madame President is sworn in."

Hailing from Abraham Lincoln's birthplace in Springfield, IL, Driftglass explains why Harris' remarks on Tuesday led him to recall the Gettysburg Address. "Nobody can be Lincoln," he acknowledges, before observing that while his most famous speech "didn't end the Civil War, it changed the terms under which the war was being fought." He details a number of parallels with Harris' speech at the Ellipse on Tuesday, including: "The opening was about honoring the people who had fallen defending liberty --- the bastards who charged the Capitol --- and how we have to reinvent the country, how we have to come together. I think it was a very deliberate choice of venue and style, drawing explicit connections between what has happened on this ground, and what we need to do next."

Parton, for her part, characterized Trump's "fascist" rally at MSG as a "a hate-fest, not a 'love-fest.' The fact that he even said that is hilarious. They made it clear what they were doing. They were trying to gather the faithful through hatred, bigotry, racism and homophobia. This is something they did on purpose. They want to reach their low-propensity voters --- the 'Bro Vote' --- who basically don't pay attention to politics."

"By having all these other people say all these awful, ugly things, Donald Trump gets a pass on that stuff," she explains. "This wasn't him saying this stuff, this was all the people he lined up at his rally. That has an effect."

But, she argues, and Driftglass concurs, he may have made a fatal error in a contest that is purportedly this close by allowing that racist attack on Puerto Rican voters, who number nearly half a million in the battleground state of Pennsylvania alone.

We've got much more than that, of course, to discuss with them today, including...

• Why this election is reportedly so close and if it really is that close.
• If so, where all of these Trump voters coming from, given the number of Republicans --- and female voters --- who have abandoned him in favor of Harris.
• How Trump "cracked the code", as well as the media, in how to run for President as a Republican.
• How Harris is being "held to impossibly high standards" while Trump is "being held to no standards at all."
• What Trump's "little secret" with GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson might be, and how easily Democrats are "panicked" by it.
• How Trump and Johnson promise to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) if Republicans win the White House and Congress, even as some 50 million Americans --- including millions of Republican voters (who either don't notice or care?) --- now have health coverage thanks to that landmark legislation.
• And whether we are all victims right now of the greatest mass gaslighting in world history.

Before they go today, both Digby and Driftglass offer their own "closing argument" for our listeners who may still be either undecided, considering voting for Trump or a third-party candidate, or who may be thinking of not voting at all...

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We've got a helluva BradCast for you today, on two different topics, both of hugely critical importance to American democracy and this year's elections. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

FIRST UP... On Tuesday, two different major media outlets offered alarming new reports on, among other things, Donald Trump's long-time admiration for Adolf Hitler. Both detailed stories are based in part or full on new interviews with Trump's longest-serving White House Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, who also served as Trump's Dept. of Homeland Security chief before being brought over to head up his White House.

The very conservative Kelly explains in his on-the-record, recorded conversations with the New York Times' Michael Schmidt (free link!) that he had been reluctant, as a longtime, high-ranking member of the military, to speak out publicly about his old boss, given his belief that the military should largely stay out of public politics. But Trump's recent, repeated comments about "the enemy within", in reference to the former President's personal domestic political opponents, and his remarks about unleashing the U.S. military against them, changed his mind.

As of late this afternoon, Fox "News" reportedly still hasn't found time in its 24/7 schedule to play any of the disturbing, freely available audio from Schmidt's three conversations with Kelly, as published yesterday. So we figured we'd go ahead and do so ourselves on today's program. You're welcome!

In short, Kelly's remarks detail how Trump...

• meets the very "definition of fascist", is "certainly an authoritarian", "admires people who are dictators" and "prefers the dictator approach to government;
• repeatedly praised Hitler during Kelly's time in the White House and insisted the German dictator "did some good things";
• doesn't understand either history or the U.S. Constitution, though frequently insisted he knew more about the President's Constitutional authority than the lawyers in the White House Counsel's office did;
• looked down on those who were disabled or killed on the battlefield, confirming that Trump would often described them as "losers and suckers";
• and that, never mind his policies, many of which Kelly might agree with, the man simply doesn’t have the character to serve as President of the United States, which is far more important than any particular partisan policy positions.

That, of course, is the quickest of summaries. Tune in for more. And for a really harrowing report on Trump's disturbing views of the military ("only suckers went to Vietnam"), the Constitution, rule of law, and extraordinary lack of character, see Jeffrey Goldberg's article yesterday at The Atlantic, headlined "Trump: I Need the Kind of Generals Hitler Had". It includes more from Kelly and opens with the story of a murdered woman in the military whose family was told by Trump at the White House that he would personally pay for her funeral. Then, when the bill arrived, he was reportedly furious, refused to pay it, and declared "It doesn't cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!"

NEXT UP... In a sharp, if perhaps welcome, turn, we're joined today by CHRIS MELODY FIELDS FIGUEREDO, the Executive Director of the nonprofit Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.

The record 11 different abortion rights related referendums on the ballot in 10 different states this year, in the wake of SCOTUS overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, have received a fair bit of attention from the media. But, in fact, there are more than 150 ballot measures on the ballot this year across 41 states right now, on everything from how elections are run, to how redistricting should happen, to who gets paid sick leave, to raising the minimum wage, to stuff like banning trophy hunting and cracking down on retail theft. All of which has the potential to reshape state policy on key issues nationwide for years to come.

In a very lively conversation today with Fields Figueredo, we discuss much of the above and more, including the explosion of the use of citizen ballot initiatives (and reasons for it); ongoing efforts in Republican-controlled states to make such citizen referenda harder to get onto the ballot and more difficult for voters to adopt; why very progressive initiatives are frequently adopted in otherwise very "red" states; how a number of critical initiatives this year could radically change politics as we know it in states like Ohio; whether there is a real correlation between initiatives on the ballot and partisan turnout; some of the sneaky initiatives on ballots in some states this year; and where progressives can go to get advice on how best to vote on often deceptive or confusing referendums. (I've got twenty of them on my ballot here in Los Angeles this year!)

"Ballot guides are my favorite thing," she tells me, admitting that she's a huge "nerd". "There are a number of organizations in your state that may be producing ballot guides that give you information in plain language," Fields Figueredo advises. "Go to organizations that you trust. Also a great resources is the League of Women Voters. Their ballot guides put it in simple language. We also have a Ballot Measure Hub. It's not going to have every single ballot measure in the country, but I would go to trusted news sources or local organizations that are going to try to put these issues into plain language."

Yup, it's another five pound BradCast in a one pound bag today! Enjoy!...

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Apparently it's Fascism Week on The BradCast, as the former President's rhetoric and threats become increasingly dark, and as all warning signs continue to blink brighter and brighter red, no matter how few seem to notice. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... before we get to our guest to discuss that today, a bit of mostly encouraging voting news out of two critical states...

• The first day of early voting on Tuesday in battleground Georgia smashed the state's record by more than doubling it, with at least than 328,000 ballots cast yesterday. Of course, that doesn't necessarily tell us who those voters were voting for. But the best news may be that lines were reportedly moving very quickly thanks to the state's new check-in procedure which is said to take seconds rather than minutes.

• More good news out of Georgia: After a state judge declared certification of results by County officials to be mandatory, as opposed to discretionary, in a ruling [PDF] released yesterday (they must do so by the deadline specified in state law, which is 5pm Monday following the Tuesday election), the same judge went on to temporarily block, at least for this election, a new rule instituted at the last minute by GA's MAGA-controlled State Elections Board mandating a hand-count of the number of ballots cast at the polling place at the end of the Election Day, before they are shipped off to the County. It's a smart rule, if poorly written. It's already done in many states. But the lateness of the adoption of that rule, according to the judge, threatens to result in chaos and confusion in an election that is already under way. (Late today, after airtime, a separate state judge blocked at least seven new SEB rules permanently, including the hand-count rule, declaring them "illegal, unconstitutional and void.")

• The Nebraska Supreme Court today spanked the state's Republican Sec. of State and Attorney General for their attempt to block a law adopted by the Legislature earlier this year mandating the immediate restoration of voting rights for people who have completed the terms of their felony sentences. That means hundreds or thousands of additional residents may now be able to vote this year in a state which could determine who wins the White House and which party wins control of both chambers of Congress.

THEN... we're joined by longtime domestic extremism expert, journalist and author, DAVID NEIWERT to discuss the increasingly fascistic and alarming rhetoric and threats by Donald Trump --- and his supporters --- as Election Day nears.

The disgraced former President and convicted felon has, in recent days, added "the enemy within" to his ongoing threats of mass deportation of millions of migrants, citing his perceived domestic political enemies as "more dangerous" than foreign threats and suggesting he might use the National Guard or active duty U.S. military to take them on, if elected to another term in the White House.

Retired top military officials are now warning about the threat that Trump poses to the nation, its people and its Constitution, with Trump's own Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, recently describing him as "a total fascist" and "the most dangerous person to this country."

"The road to fascism is lined with people telling you to stop overreacting," Niewert, who has been warning about Trump's fascist tendencies for at least 9 years (read this, for example, from his blog back in 2015), quips today. "But I think in the past year, the mask has really come off. Especially in the last few months --- the explicit eliminationism" and his suggestion of directing the military against "the enemies within."

And, yet, the race, according to pre-election polling averages, is said to be a tie. Does half of the voting public not take Trump's threats seriously? Do they not know about them? Or do they know and take him at his word, but don't care and actually want such a ruler for the U.S.?

"I would say about two-thirds of the population is in basic denial about it," Neiwert tells me. "The vast majority, both Democrats and Republicans, they don't acknowledge that this stuff is happening, that this stuff is being said, and is building force." But, in particular, he notes, "The Republican Party is now really wholly owned by this element of the right," after having "utterly failed to redeem itself from that horrific moment [on January 6th, 2021] and instead has just doubled down."

The prolific Neiwert, whose most recent book is The Age of Insurrection: The Radical Right's Assault on American Democracy, has penned three books during the Trump-era, including 2018's Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump and Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us in 2020. After years of contributing to both major media outlets and smaller blogs alike, he also now writes on similar topics at his Substack page.

Today, he discusses how and when what was once describes as the "alt-Right" movement, eventually came to take complete hold of the GOP. "What we're really talking about here is authoritarianism," he argues. "It began really gathering steam in the early 2000s. Ultimately, the origins of that had to do with 9/11. The sheer flood-tide of fearmongering that erupted across the country and was sustained for years in the wake of 9/11. It had a really profound effect on the national psyche."

"You can actually jack up the levels of authoritarian personalities, the authoritarian response within the country, by fearmongering. That's why Trump's whole appeal all along has been fearmongering. He's fearmongering about the immigrants, the crime, Black people, whatever it is he can fearmonger on. That's how you get people to get into what I call an 'authoritarian crouch.'"

And that's where we now are, he explains, with Trump's first term "a practice run," Neiwert suggests we ain't seen nothing yet if Trump wins this year.

"I don't think Americans have any idea what that's going to look like, to have mass police raids, rounding up Latino families, taking people away and breaking up families and frequently deporting actual citizens. If Trump wins and he goes about doing the mass deportation, it's going to make America into a police state. And I don't think Americans are prepared for what that's going to look like."

Before we get there, of course, we've got to get past the election, which Neiwert predicts, if Trump loses, could look like "the Brooks Brothers riot times ten. Which, in a way, is what January 6 was about, too." But, aside from voting, what can be done to change the course this nation seems to be on? For that, tune in. Members of the mainstream corporate media may not like Neiwert's answer, given his argument that "the media plays a central role in all of this because they're the ones constantly telling us to stop overreacting" as they've spent years effectively working to "normalize Trump's behavior...normalize fascism."

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"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance," instructed James Madison, one of our nation's founders, "and a People who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives."

That maxim is especially apropos today when it comes to California's Initiative and Referendum process, adopted in 1911 to afford the People of California the right to exercise direct democracy. Unfortunately, democracy is undermined when the Initiative and Referendum process is used as a tool by corporate interests to manipulate and bamboozle voters.

Wealthy institutional landlords, operating as the California Apartment Association, have spent some $56 million to flood the airwaves with misleading No on 33 Ads, aspiring to block a measure that would allow municipalities across the state to institute rent controls. If adopted, Prop 33 would simply repeal the state's 1995 Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act signed into law by then Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. The nearly 30-year old Costa-Hawkins law prevents cities and counties from imposing rent controls on structures built on or after 1995. The statute also bars California counties and municipalities from imposing rent controls on single-family homes, even if those homes have been acquired by profiteering Wall Street investors.

Prop 33 does not directly impose rent controls, and it does not, as the landlords falsely claim in their well-funded campaign against the initiative, overturn "more than 100 housing laws" or eliminate "unjust eviction protections". Instead, if adopted by state voters this year, Prop 33 simply reinstates the right of cities and counties in the Golden State to enact rent-control measures that local governments possessed prior to passage of Costa-Hawkins.

Institutional landlords have not confined their assault on direct democracy to a deceptive ad campaign against Prop 33. They've also spent more than $35 million to advance what opponents of a separate measure, Prop 34, describe in the State Voters' Guide as a "Revenge Initiative." Prop 34 purports to make "permanent" a right that already exists: the right for MediCal, the state's version of Medicaid, to negotiate prescription drug prices. But the deceptive Prop 34 is carefully tailored by the same corporate interests opposing the rent control initiative to target and penalize just one single entity: the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has a history of backing rent control measures and is the principal supporter of Prop 33...

Tick-tock. Time is running out for all of the Trump scams, as detailed on today's BradCast. Unless, of course, he wins on November 5th --- or has more success stealing the Presidential election this year than he did in 2020. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the Trump scams, rackets and accountability for having fallen for them on today's program...

• Melania Trump, according to her new book, is virulently in favor of abortion rights. According to her publisher, she also wanted $250,000 to be interviewed by CNN.

• You know about many of Donald Trump's legendarily failed rackets from the old days: Trump University, Trump Steaks, Trump Water, Trump Vodka, Trump Casinos, just to name a few. More recently, during the time he's been running for President again, there's been Trump Sneakers, Trump Bibles, Trump Digital Trading Cards, Trump Coins, Trump Cryptocurrency and, introduced just last Friday, "Swiss-made" Trump Watches. He's selling them for $100,000 a pop! Even though, according to experts, they appear to be Chinese-made crap, if they even exist, and appear just as likely to be an open invitation to foreign influence peddling and money laundering. We explain.

• All of the above enumerated rackets, by the way, are private rackets. Any profits from them do not go to his Presidential Campaign, but straight into Donald Trump's pocket. And so --- according to the new 165-page filing [PDF] by Special Counsel Jack Smith, unsealed by U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan on Wednesday afternoon --- was Trump's attempt to steal the 2020 election. New evidence in the filing from prosecutors in his 4-count federal indictment in D.C., further details how the disgraced former President and convicted felon was fully aware that he'd lost the election in 2020, but didn't care. He was going to fight to steal it anyway. He also knew he had put Vice President Mike Pence's life in grave danger on January 6th, 2021. His response: "So, what?" And all of that, as prosecutors argue in their brief, was done in Trump's capacity as a private candidate for office. It was not done as part of his official duties as President. Smith's motion is meant to make that case in hopes of preventing the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court from dismissing the case on the basis of their absurd, anti-American, anti-Constitutional, made-up-from-whole-cloth ruling in Trump v. U.S. declaring criminal immunity to sitting Presidents for crimes committed as part of their "official" duties.

• In Colorado today, a state judge unleashed a brutal, if accurate, take-down of disgraced former Mesa County Clerk, Tina Peters during her sentencing hearing. Once a MAGA superstar, she is now a convicted felon on charges related to a criminal scheme to breach voting system software in her own County, based on false claims that fraud software was implanted in them to flip votes from Trump to Biden in 2020. The judge told Peters today: "I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen. You are no hero. You abused your position and you’re a charlatan." He called out her continuing claims of evidence-free fraud as "just more lies. No objective person believes them. No, at the end of the day, you cared about the jets, the podcasts and people fawning over you." He then sentenced her to nine years in prison before she was handcuffed and hauled out of the courtroom to immediately begin serving her time. See ya, Tina! May she be the first of many.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the deadly disaster in six states continues to unfold in the U.S. Southeast following Hurricane Helene, which at least succeeded in finally helping to bring the issue of climate change to the top of Tuesday's Vice Presidential debate between Democrat Tim Walz and Republican J.D. Vance...

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We have, of course, Special Coverage on today's BradCast of Tuesday night's one and only Vice Presidential Debate, likely the last direct face-off between the two tickets before Election Day. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

It was somewhat disorienting to watch a Presidential ticket debate that didn't include name-calling, one-liner zingers and direct personal attacks. But with "Minnesota Nice" Democratic Governor Tim Walz taking on Ohio's Republican U.S. Senator J.D. Vance, who has an historically low favorability rating and a desperate need to improve his likeability among the electorate, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the debate ended up coming across more like an olde tyme, pre-Trump Era (even pre-Rove Era) 1990s Presidential debate.

But Vance's politeness was there only to try and mask his well-documented, far-right, autocratic MAGA policy preferences on everything from abortion to gun safety to climate change to health care to his running-mate Donald Trump's violent attacks on our democracy, leading to evasive answers to questions from both the CBS News moderators and Walz himself on whether he believed, for instance, that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. "Tim, I'm focused on the future," Vance said, refusing to respond. "That is a damning non-answer," Walz replied, adding: "He lost the election. This is not a debate. It's not anything, anywhere other than in Donald Trump's world." It wouldn't be the only direct question that Vance deflected.

While a nervous Walz stumbled through some of the early moments of the debate, he regained his footing thereafter and displayed a command of facts, data and reality on a host of topics raised by the moderators. The Yale Law School trained Vance also proved to be a competent debater, deftly smoothing over his extremist, hard-right record and former persona as a Trump-opponent, while doing his best to focus his fire on Kamala Harris whenever possible...facts be damned.

We're joined today, as we frequently are on such occasions, by longtime friends and old school bloggers, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of his eponymous blog and The Professional Left Podcast for some help in making sense of whatever played out in the New York City studios of CBS last night. (Reportedly it was in the same studio that Captain Kangaroo was taped. Make of that what you may.)

Both Parton and Driftglass agree that the two Vice Presidential candidates "accomplished what they set out to do" and, as Parton added, "as far as the niceness thing", that should be chalked up to the fact that "Donald Trump wasn't there being a jackass."

"Vance needed to soften all of the ridiculous extremist policies of himself and Donald Trump, and present himself as something other than a full-blown King Cobra, which I think he managed to do," she says, referencing her coverage of the debate at Salon today, in which she described Vance as possessing "all the charm and warmth of a King Cobra." On Tuesday night, she explains today, "he sounded semi-sane. I'm sure most people who haven't been following him probably thought, 'Oh, well, he's not that bad.'"

Both also agree that they would have have preferred to see a more aggressive Walz, even if that might not have been what the MN Guv needed to do to reach whichever undecided voters still exist out there. Instant polling of debate watchers released shortly afterward, gave Vance the slimmest of edges over Walz and a big bump in favorability for both candidates, even as Walz' favorability remains far higher than Vance's.

"Clearly they are executing a strategy," explains Driftglass. "I wanted to see [Walz] come out there with a sword in both hands and just scream, 'Liar!' for 90 minutes," when what he needs, "tactically, is to go out there and be the nicest guy you ever met. I think for the people he is striving to reach, it worked."

On the other hand, he continues, Vance's job was to "polish up the turd" that Trump put on the ticket "to make him look like a human being so that he can go out there and be the nice guy." The result, says Driftglass, "was a festival of whatabout-ism and lying."

We discuss much of the sane-washing, whatabout-ism, lies and damning non-answers to a host of topics raised during the 90-minute debate on Tuesday --- and Walz' responses to them --- in our very lively Special Coverage today...

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As discussed on today's BradCast along with some breaking news today, there is much more than simply voting and hoping for the best for your favorite candidates that you can do --- that we need you to do --- to help protect democracy this year. [Audio link to full program follows below this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Iran launched nearly 200 missiles into Israel on Tuesday in response to Israel's recent attacks on the leadership of the Iran-sponsored Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. Those attacks were in response to a year of Hezbollah rocket attacks over the border into northern Israel beginning the day after Hamas' deadly raid in southern Israel one year ago next week. Israel has now vowed retaliation for Iran's attack today, and Hezbollah vows to continue their own attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, in what U.S. officials and others see as a potential escalation into full-scale regional war, or at least a rekindling of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.

• After midnight last night, some 45,000 dockworkers from walked off the job, shutting down ports on the East and Gulf Coasts in the first strike by the International Longshoreman's Association (ILA) in nearly 50 years. The workers are demanding what they describe as long-overdue wage increases and contract guarantees against job-killing automation at the nation's ports. The White House is said to be encouraging a quick resolution between the ILA and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents port and shipping companies who've seen record profits in recent years. If the stoppage continues for several weeks, it is likely to result in higher retail prices and supply chain shortages again, just weeks before the Presidential election.

• Amid ongoing devastation in six southeastern U.S. States following the monstrous Hurricane Helene --- now the second deadliest U.S. storm in the past 50 years --- officials at the North Carolina State Board of Elections have begun issuing guidance to voters and local election officials in the most devastated counties in the western part of the state. That support now includes emergency kits described as "election offices in a box" to help local officials register voters and process absentee ballots until Internet and cell service is restored in those communities. More details, for NC voters and election officials alike, is now available via ncsbe.org.

• But it's not only in storm damaged communities where the public is going to have step up this year help carry off successful elections. In fact, public oversight of our elections is the best and only way to ensure they are free, fair and accurately tabulated in a way that Americans can have confidence in the reported results.

  Republicans appear to have finally figured that out this year, as the RNC claims to be recruiting and training tens of thousands of poll workers and watchers. I explain, on today's program, why I think that's actually a good thing...presuming they don't intimidate voters or election officials...and presuming that Democrats, independents and third-party supporters all do the same thing.

  We're joined today by longtime election integrity and protection expert EMILY LEVY, founder and director of Scrutineers.org, to explain how her non-partisan, non-profit organization is helping to train folks like you to be both poll watchers and poll observers, particularly after the close of polls, when tabulation at precincts is formalized and when members of the public can play a key role to help ensure tallies are accurate. These efforts can also prove helpful in disproving false claims of fraud after the election!

  "We encourage people to observe the processing and counting of votes," Levy tells me, in describing some of the group's training sessions for volunteer observers. While acknowledging that it's impossible to see inside of tabulation computers, she notes "the processes around it and the output, and what's done with the output, can be observed. In most places, you don't need any special authorization."

  "In our training, we talk about what you'll be able to see when you observe, how to check out what you need to do, what kinds of things to look for and then, also, what to do if you see something that doesn't seem quite right to you."

  In addition to discussing how Scrutineers works and what they do, we also discuss the unique challenges for many of us longtime election integrity champions in the wake of the past four years or so of Trump's blatant lies about election fraud and our electoral system.

  Please stop by Scrutineers.org for dates on upcoming training sessions that you can participate in from home, anywhere in the country. And thank you in advance for your helping to protect our democracy! We really need you this year!

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for a special coverage edition of our Green News Report in the wake of the devastation and tragedy of Hurricane Helene, which --- no matter how obscenely longtime climate change deniers like Donald Trump and Florida's Sen. Rick Scott are now attempting to lie about it --- has been perfectly predictable and warned about by scientists for years. That, as Republicans pretend they have no idea how such a monster storm and horrific disaster could have come about...

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Two organizations representing the Haitian Diaspora filed a civil Complaint [PDF] in the U.S. District Court in Miami on Friday on behalf of the terrorized Haitians who legally reside in Springfield, Ohio.

The named defendants include Republican candidates for President, Donald J. Trump, for Vice President, J.D. Vance, and Ohio U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno. The other named defends include Donald Trump, Jr., Ohio's Republican Attorney General Dave Yost, X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) and the State of Ohio.

The Complaint alleges that the defendants, with full knowledge of falsity, not only spread dangerous defamatory lies --- the false claim that Haitians were stealing and eating pet dogs and cats --- but have also engaged in hate speech, a contention, plaintiffs allege, that is bolstered by a federal judge's determination, in Segat v. Trump (2019), that then President Trump's decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitians was likely influenced by racial animus. The court based its conclusion in that case, in part, upon Trump's reference to Haiti as a "shithole country" and the former President's false claim that Haitians migrants were bringing AIDS to the U.S.

In addition to defamation per se, the Complaint alleges that the Defendants have engaged in a conspiracy to violate their civil rights, including the 14th Amendment right to Equal Protection under law. It goes on to allege defendants incited, aided and abetted violence against the Haitian residents of Springfield...

Republican Ken Paxton, the ethically challenged Texas Attorney General, who paid nearly $300,000 in restitution to plea bargain his way out of a securities fraud indictment that had been pending since 2015, is vehemently opposed to the effort by state county election officials to encourage voter registration via the unsolicited mailing of voter registration forms to likely eligible voters.

Paxton's effort at voter suppression in two of the Lone Star State's most populous --- and Democratic-leaning --- counties, has now resulted in several lawsuits. A suit in state court filed by Paxton against Bexar County (San Antonio), and two filed in federal court, one each by Bexar and Travis (Austin) Counties charging the Attorney General is attempting to suppress the vote in violation of long-standing federal law...

I'm not sure I've ever declared a "winner" or "loser" in any Presidential debate, after covering them here for twenty years. They generally just don't work like that. But, as discussed on today's BradCast special coverage of last night's showdown in Philadelphia, there was one clear winner and one very clear loser. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Kamala Harris absolutely dominated her, perhaps one and only, face-off with Donald Trump from the moment she knocked him back on his heels by invading his space to reach out to shake his hand at the top, until she scraped up his lifeless husk of a soul off the debate stage at the very end.

Am I overstating the murder that some 67 million Americans witnessed with their own eyes during the ABC News debate on Tuesday night moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis? CNN's post-debate flash poll of those who watched it said Harris outperformed him by 63% to 37%. Other snap polls found similar. We'll see what the broader polling finds in the coming days. And, of course, none of that ultimately means anything. Only votes do. But I can't think of anything that Harris could have done better, particularly given Trump's years-long record of surprise successes at these things. Finally, someone figured out how to get under his skin and stayed there for 90 minutes, as we all got to enjoy his, at times hilarious, meltdown in the bargain.

Our roundtablers today --- two of our favorite fellow old school bloggers, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of his eponymous blog and the weekly Pro Left Podcast --- seemed to concur with the bulk of my assessment.

"This was a really great debate for those of us who care about the future of this country, because she absolutely decimated him. And it was beautiful," observed Digby. "All she was doing was telling him facts to his face, and calling him what no one in his circle will ever call him, which is a disgrace, a criminal, and creepy and old. He doesn't know how to deal with that."

"She rolled in there prepped to be a prosecutor of a person who is morally and legally unfit to hold any office in this country, and she prosecuted her case brilliantly," echoed Driftglass. She used "all the keywords that will trigger this lunatic into making dumb mistakes, because we know he can been provoked. Every time, he didn't just take the bait, he swallowed the hook."

I'd share more, but it might take some of the joy out of listening to today's special coverage. Among some of the many specific points we focused on:

• Was Trump catfished by Team Harris' "unsuccessful" pre-debate ploy to keep the microphones open all night?
• Does he actually even know how the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) works?!
• Are undocumented immigrants in Ohio really eating American pets? (Someone said they were "on television" after all.)
• Are those immigrants getting government-funded sex change operations in prison?
• Does Donald Trump know anything about either fracking or solar energy?
• What does that "late great Hannibal Lecter" rally joke actually mean?
• Is Trump being catfished yet again by Team Harris' immediate post-debate call for a second debate?

All of that and much, much, MUCH more on today's BradCast...

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I must try and keep today's BradCast summary short to finish up in time to watch tonight's Presidential Debate (which we will be covering in detail on tomorrow's program, natch.) [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We start off with breaking news out of Missouri, where the state's Supreme Court has overturned a lower court ruling that had blocked an abortion rights measure from appearing on this November's ballot. Now the measure --- enshrining the right into the state Constitution, if approved by voters-- will be on the ballot this year in the Show-Me State, along with about eight others, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and South Dakota. That news is likely good for Democrats, who support the freedom for women and their doctors to determine their own medical procedures, and bad news for Big Government Republicans who don't. In the seven states where voters have been allowed to ring on reproductive rights since the corrupted SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, all of them have sided with freedom, even the normally "deep red" states.

NEXT... We cover another right being attacked by Republicans, of late: the right to vote. In this case, the right for former felons in Nebraska, who have fully completed their sentences, including parole, probation and restitution, to register and participate as voters.

Back in 2005, the state adopted a law allowing former felons the right to register and vote following a two-year waiting period after completion of their criminal sentences. Tens of thousands were immediately re-enfranchised. Earlier this year, in April, in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of the state legislature, the two-year waiting period was removed. But in mid-July, just two days before the new law was to take effect, and advocates were gearing up to let folks know about it, the state's Republican Attorney General, Mike Hilgers, issued an advisory opinion that the new state law was unconstitutional and so was the twenty-year old measure adopted back in 2005! Furthermore, the state's Republican Sec. of State, Bob Evnen, used that opinion to notify election officials that registration for all former felons must immediately cease!

Voting rights advocates sued and the state Supreme Court is set to hear the case this week. In the meantime, however, chaos has ensued in the state, with former felons uncertain whether they can vote or even register to vote this year. Many, according to my guest today, journalist ALEX BURNESS of Bolts Mag, who recently penned an excellent deep dive article on this mess, are now afraid to register or vote at all, for fear of being sent back to jail for it. That, Burness explains, is largely the point of all of this.

Adding to all of it, as we discuss, is the fact that the Nebraska --- which is mostly a "red" state --- is one of just two that split up its Electoral Votes according to U.S. House Districts, rather than simply winner-take-all. This year, that means that, if Kamala Harris is able to win in all of the so-called Blue Wall States (MI, WI and PA) and all of the traditionally Democratic ones, she would wind up with exactly the 270 needed to win the White House...presuming she also wins the one electoral vote from Nebraska's 2nd District, which leans "blue". Tens of thousands of disenfranchised voters, however --- or, even just fearful ones --- in Omaha, could decide the Presidency this year.

"If you wanted to skew the electorate --- even by a few thousand votes in what could be a very close 2nd Congressional District, that could literally decide the presidency --- if you were looking for levers you could pull at this late hour, that's one of them," Burness tells me. "In fact, it's a very good one."

There is much more to discuss on all of these points with Burness today, including the outrage of using a Jim Crow-era law to suppress the vote in 2024, and the irony that 34-time convicted felon Donald Trump is allowed to run for President of the United States, even while former felons who have served all their time are being prevented from even voting for or against him. A similar outrage is underway in a number of other GOP-controlled states, including Mississippi as Burness recently reported, this year.

THEN... We answer some very smart --- and, even, moving --- listener mail, including a snail mail letter we recently received, if you can believe it!

And FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with coverage of the extreme heat and wildfires broiling California and elsewhere in the Western U.S., even as Hurricane Florence spins up seemingly overnight in the Gulf of Mexico, where it is now threatening Texas and Louisiana, including, potentially, New Orleans...

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