Still trying to make sense of it all on today's BradCast. But at least we've got confirmation today on a few different stories that we've been yelling and screaming about for years now. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among our stories today...

• A hand-count of ballots in Ashtabula County, Ohio last week found that two contests on the ballot --- one, a tax levy to fund city schools, the other, to fund a cemetery district --- were actually adopted by voters on November 5th, after previously being reported, inaccurately, as having failed. The hand-count in the contests took place after errors were discovered in the tabulation for all County Issues on the ballot during a hand-count of a fire district levy, which also flipped from NO to YES, thanks to the hand-count.

  Tomorrow, the 2024 Presidential Electors, chosen by the popular vote in each state, will meet in each state capital to cast their vote in the Electoral College. A majority of those votes will be cast for Donald Trump, based on the computer-tallied results in each state. Those results either accurately reflect the intent of the majority of the electorate --- or they do not. Without the publicly-overseen hand-counts that cybersecurity and voting system experts were strongly recommending this year in particular (we think it's a good idea for every election), Americans are unlikely to ever know one way or the other if Trump actually defeated Kamala Harris. At least in Ashtabula they now know that their levy issues were tallied as per voter intent, and the local high school which saw its roof collapse in early December under five and a half feet of snow, will now be able to afford to fix the damage.

• Former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov pleaded guilty on Monday to lying to federal agents about a supposed $10 million in bribes he falsely claimed were paid by Burisma, an energy company in Ukraine, to Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Those lies, which Smirnov said were peddled to him by members of Russian intelligence, were at the center of House Republicans' failed attempt to impeach President Biden, after they and Trump and his other supporters laundered that disinformation from Russian intelligence operatives into the American media and chambers of the U.S. Congress.

• Over the weekend, CNN reported that nearly three dozen of Donald Trump's nominees for his incoming Administration were donors to his campaign or to "outside" groups supporting him. Eight of Trump's nominees to Cabinet positions, so far, donated more than $37 million dollars. That doesn't even include the $277 million dollars spent by Elon Musk to help buy Trump's Presidency and his position of power within it. Musk has been named to head up Trump's so-called "Department of Government Efficiency." Compare that to the seemingly paltry $100,000 in donations to the 2020 Biden Campaign or super PACs supporting him, from a dozen members of Biden's Cabinet. As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) noted this weekend on Meet the Press, "Never before in American history have so few billionaires, so few people, had so much wealth and so much power. And never before, in American history, have the people on top had so much political power. We can't go around the world saying, 'Oh, well, in Russia, Putin has an oligarchy.' Well, we've got an oligarchy here too!"

• Of course, it's not just those hoping to abuse positions of power in Trump's next Administration. Over the past week, Amazon founder (and Washington Post owner) Jeff Bezos and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg each announced their companies were giving $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund. And over the weekend, ABC News --- owned by the Goliath, $200 billion Disney corporation --- announced they were settling a defamation case filed against them and George Stephanopoulos after the ABC anchors' on-air assertion that Donald Trump "had been found liable for rape" in the lawsuits filed against him by writer E. Jean Carroll, in which juries found Trump liable for some $88 million dollars after guilty verdicts for sexual abuse and defamation. The case they chose to settle would likely easily have been won by ABC for a number of reasons, including the fact that the Judge in Carroll's defamation case against Trump told the jury that the jury in the sexual assault case found Trump was indeed found guilty of what "many people commonly understand the word 'rape'" to mean. Instead of fighting, however, the Disney-owned company bent the knee, agreed to issue an apology, give $15 million to Trump's future Presidential Library fund as a "charitable contribution", and $1 million to his law firm. Why would they do that? Josh Marshall offers an excellent explanation, citing how legacy media outlets like ABC News and Washington Post (along with CNN, NBC, MSNBC and others) amount to a drop in the bucket to the major corporations which own them. While those corporations are willing to sacrifice their money-losing news outfits, they are willing to pay tribute to the "King" to help dissuade him from abusing his power to go after the rest of their multi-billion dollar corporations that are far more vulnerable to abuses of power by a corrupt President.

• Finally, we open the phone lines to listeners on all of the above --- or whatever else is on their minds today --- in what is likely to be our last call-in show of the year. And, for reasons I cannot explain, they were all suspiciously kind today. Hmmm....

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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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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...

From darkness to light on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... As an increasingly panicked Team Trump continues to find new depths in which to sink and new, more dangerous lows to drill down into --- Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world turned virulent Trump supporter, has gamed his increasingly rightwing social media site (which we still call Twitter) to force his obnoxious, dangerous, wildly false political commentary even beyond the nearly 200 million followers he has. All while turning off the very limited, crowdsourced fact-check system, for himself, even as it is supposed to apply to everyone else on the increasingly trash-filled site.

Among the results, a tweet of his this week that suggested someone should try and assassinated Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It became a rare incident where even he decided he had gone too far and deleted the tweet after tens, if not hundreds of millions, had already seen it. (And, upon deleting it, going to on to blame everyone else for not appreciating his brilliant sense of humor).

That came after dozens and dozens of tweets this year, which have reached billions of people, falsely claiming that Democrats are bringing non-citizens into the country to vote in this year's election. The Washington Post, last week, did a deep dive into how Musk's false tweets have translated into very specific threats against elections officials around the country. "He's by no means unique," Maricopa County, Arizona's Republican Election Recorder told WaPo. "He just happens to have a very, very large microphone."

He's not the only one.

Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have spent the last week endangering the residents of Springfield, Ohio by spreading false claims about legal Haitian immigrants there (who they falsely describe as "illegal") destroying the town and eating the pets of other residents. The results of those lies: dozens of bomb threats that shutdown City Hall, schools, hospitals and has turned the Republican-run city into somewhat of a police state, as OH's Republican Governor was forced to deploy state law enforcement officials to protect town residents.

Kamala Harris, who doesn't utter falsehoods that threaten the lives of Americans, was asked about all of this madness during an forum with the National Association of Black Journalists this week. We thought her answer to that question was worth sharing in full today. It ends with this assertion: "This is exhausting and it's harmful. And it's hateful. And grounded in some age old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for. So, let's turn the page and chart a new way forward and say 'You can't have that microphone again.'"

THEN... Despite all of the above, there remains a huge number of Americans who regard themselves as very religious and yet appear dead set on voting again for the most un-religious person who has ever run for the White House.

Recent polling, however, shows that at least some of Trump's support from the religious community may be falling, even as other polling makes clear that the thrice-married, philandering and felonious former President still dominates the white Christian evangelical vote. At least the male voters who describe themselves as such.

But, according to our guest today, a white evangelical pastor himself, it doesn't have to be that way. And he is devoted to changing it. We're joined today by DOUG PAGITT, Executive Director and co-founder of Vote Common Good, a non-profit focused on "energizing and mobilizing people of faith to make the common good their voting criteria."

In a recent opinion piece for MSNBC, Pagitt detailed how his group's bus tour through battleground states this year is helping Christians to understand they don't have to vote Republican, while helping to teach Democratic candidates how to reach those voters, particularly in swing-states and counties.

So how did we get to such a place in this country, where a guy like Trump --- who has never been seen attending a regular religious service, either before, during, or after his Presidency --- would be the preferred candidate for a huge part of the religious community? Pagitt has a bunch of thoughts on all of this today.

"What's really going on is that the Democratic Party has had a pattern and reputation for not wanting religious voters," he tells me. "Kamala Harris is changing that. Joe Biden was changing that. Barack Obama worked to change that. But what Donald Trump exploited was this idea --- you hear him say, 'Democrats hate you religious people' --- somehow making out evangelicals to be both the rightful heirs of this nation as Christian Nationalists, but then also the persecuted minority. And somehow they get to hold both of these views."

Pagitt asserts that many Christians have, just by dint of birth, become Republican voters over the years. Because, as he says, "We don't know how to talk about faith in politics in the United States. We've been struggling with it since the founding of the country. We've never been good at it."

"But it doesn't have to be that way," he says. "Forty-four years ago, Jimmy Carter was an evangelical pastor from Georgia. He got 60% of the evangelical vote. In a lot of ways, the Democratic structure said to Republicans, 'You can have the religious white voters, we'll take the other voters.' That would be fine with me if we didn't keep electing someone like Donald Trump."

"The only reason we are out here, trying to get faith voters to consider voting for a Democrat for the first time in their life, is because this country cannot stand having Donald Trump have the power of the Presidency in his hand ever again."

Pagitt and his group have arguably made inroads. They are able to show deeply religious communities where they spent time in 2020 that swung radically in favor of Democrats after voting for Trump in 2016. He tells me that he believes their work can be critical in helping to do that again elsewhere, including in some of the most religious communities, where winning over a small subset of the electorate may be key to winning in marginal races for Congress and even the Presidency.

"There's an awful lot of people who have been told their whole life that Democrats are the enemy, and they're realizing they're not. But behavioral change is extremely slow," he explains today. "We know that three things always have to be in place when someone makes a behavioral change, whether that's doing a new diet or changing your voting habits."

"You have to take in some kind of new information that makes you think, 'Maybe I should do something different.' You need someone to invite you to actually behave differently based on that information. And then you need a community to participate in where people like you do that new thing. So many of these people, they don't have that. So we try to create that for them and let them know it's okay. It seems so rudimentary, but I've watched people with tears in their eyes when we say to them, 'If you choose to vote for a Democrat, first of all, it doesn't make you one. But even if it did, you're going to be okay. Your faith is still going to be alive.'"

We had a lot to talk about with Pagitt on today's show around all of this that I suspect you'll find enlightening. I know I did!...

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I think we've got a humdinger for ya on today's BradCast. At least if you, like me, are still scratching your head every day as to why --- after all these years and all we now know about the disgraced former President and cognitively declining convicted criminal, and after last week's crushing debate defeat --- about a half of the nation's voters are still supporting this guy. Yes, his supporters are even out here in theoretically "liberal" Southern California, as our callers demonstrate today! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

First, we catch up a bit on some of the weekend's news, including the little that is currently known about the second attempted assassination of Donald Trump at one of his golf courses on Sunday; the many lies Trump told about immigration, the economy and wildfires during an appearance out here in Los Angeles on Friday (when he threatened to let the state burn to the ground if California Gov. Gavin Newsom --- who he called "Newscum" --- refused to do Trump's bidding if he becomes President again); and as Trump ignored and exacerbated the number of bomb and terror threats now being made against the residents of Springfield, Ohio.

After nearly a full week of Trump (and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance) making false claims that Haitian immigrants in the town are "illegally" there --- (They aren't. Both President Biden and then President Trump granted them the right to be there under a 1952 law) --- and that they are eating the dog and cat pets of other residents, Trump continues to double-down and make things even more perilous for the folks of Springfield, both old and new.

The Ku Klux Klan and other neo-Nazis have now descended on the town. The state's Republican Governor Mike DeWine has decried the rhetoric and false claims by Trump and Vance as "disgusting". The woman who made the initial Facebook claim, highlighted by Vance, about a neighbor's cat disappearing has admitted she had no first-hand knowledge and says she regrets her post. And the city has had to shut down or lock down city hall, elementary schools, college campuses and hospital facilities over the past week, thanks to Trump supporters threatening political violence.

Despite all of that, Trump had the temerity on Sunday night to blame the "rhetoric" of Biden and Harris for a mentally unstable guy's failed attempt to shoot the former President at one of his Florida golf courses. While both Biden and Harris immediately condemned the thwarted attack, noting "there is no place for political violence in America", Trump charged that it was the President and Vice President's words that that has put HIM In danger. He went so far as to tell Fox "News" that it was "their rhetoric [that is] causing me to be shot at," in the same breath that he charged they "are destroying the country --- from both the inside and out."

So, with all that we know about this guy, how can it be that he is still largely neck and neck with Kamala Harris in pre-election polling just 50 days out from this year's critical election?!

I thought I'd open the phones today specifically to Trump supporters (and, yes, we have them here in Southern California) to answer that question, by inviting them to let us know why they are still on board with him. They don't get a free pass. I challenge them a bit, but let them explain themselves in the bargain.

And, yup, if we can believe the very first caller, "Luther," who says he is from Arkansas, it is for at least one of the very worst reasons you can possibly imagine. You'll decide if he's for real or not. He was rather convincing. But the callers that followed didn't necessarily have much better reasons for their support of this guy.

Anyway, you'll be the judge. And I welcome your comments in response. Give it a listen. I think you'll "enjoy" today's program...

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On today's BradCast, we take up the President's charge to stand "in defense of democracy". [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• During President Biden's solemn, somber and historic prime time Oval Office address to the nation on Wednesday evening (transcript here), to explain his Sunday decision to drop out of the 2024 Presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for the top of the ticket, he focused in no small part on the need to defend democracy against wannabe "kings and dictators," while he charged that "the cause of American democracy itself" is now at stake. "We must unite to protect it," he implored. We discuss and continue to join that fight.

• Meanwhile, as the U.S. House on Wednesday voted 417 to 0 to create a special task force to probe what happened during the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified on Wednesday that, in fact, nearly two weeks since the shooting, we have no idea "whether or not it's a bullet or shrapnel" that wounded Trump's ear. In fact, to date, no medical expert or law enforcement official has ever offered an official public accounting of what actually happened to the former President that day, even as mainstream corporate media have simply taken the social media claim by Trump, an inveterate liar, that a "bullet...pierced the upper part of my right ear" as fact. Ever since, Trump has exploited the event to claim at his convention, in rally speeches and on social media, that he "took a bullet for democracy."

  As we detail today, however, all available evidence suggests that is simply a lie. The man who, himself, has become the greatest threat to American democracy in modern history is now using the near miss for stolen valor to pretend to be a defender of democracy.

  As Ernie Canning explains at The BRAD BLOG this week, whether Trump "took a bullet" or not, it was not "for democracy," as investigators have reportedly found no evidence to suggest the shooting was politically motivated. And, as TPM's Josh Marshall has been reporting for some time, evidence suggests it was more likely some sort of flying shrapnel that grazed Trump's ear, along with causing similar minor injuries to several local cops who were near the stage that day. In any event, the media's failure to even ask the Trump Campaign about these details --- as one rally goer was actually killed and two others critically wounded that day --- for apparent fear of angering the former President, is "bizarre" and "a total journalistic failure" to the American people and to history. It also, as we note, underscores tyranny expert and author Timothy Snyder's repeated warnings about giving up power to would-be autocrats by "obeying in advance." Much more on all of this on today's show.

• We've got more details today on the DNC's plan to begin a virtual roll-call vote on August 1st next week --- well in advance of their August 19 convention in Chicago --- in order to finalize the party's Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees no later than August 7th. Why are they doing this? No, it's not to ensure there are no challengers to presumptive nominee Kamala Harris. Rather, it is thanks to a story we've been covering since the beginning of the year about the failure by Republican state lawmakers to change the statutory deadline for submitting certified party nominees for the Buckeye State ballot by August 7th, as they've done for many years, as needed, when Republicans hold their national conventions late in the summer. Yes, state lawmakers, in a late special session, finally changed the statutory deadline. But the new law doesn't take effect until September 1, opening opening up Democrats to a potential legal challenge by Republicans as to whether their nominee can lawfully be on the state's ballot at all this November. Tune in for more details.

• More news "in defense of democracy" out of Ohio this week. A ballot measure for a state constitutional amendment that would create an independent redistricting committee has qualified for the November ballot! If adopted by voters, it could end the state GOP's wildly gerrymandered Congressional and state legislative maps for 2026. Otherwise, Republican Buckeye State politicians will continue to be allowed to choose their own voters, rather than vice versa, until at least 2030.

• And still more good news "in defense of democracy" from the Buckeye State today! A federal judge has struck down part of a sweeping election reform package adopted by Ohio Republicans last year that makes it a felony for disabled voters to allow caregivers, roommates, in-laws or even grandchildren to help them cast their absentee ballot by mail or drop box. The voter suppression law threatened to charge anyone but immediate family members (which apparently doesn't include grandchildren!) with felonies for helping those voters in need to cast their ballot. That, as the CDC finds that people with disabilities make up more than a quarter of the U.S. adult population.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with news on explosive wildfires in the U.S. and Canadian west; the two hottest days ever recorded on Planet Earth (this past Sunday and Monday); and a focus on the Republicans' shocking Project 2025 plans to gut federal science agencies --- such as the EPA and National Weather Service --- along with climate science and many if not most environmental protections and climate change initiatives...

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Today's BradCast summary may be necessarily (or mercifully, depending on how you look at it) brief. As noted here yesterday, I've got COVID again. Did a show today anyway. For good or ill. There's just too much going on and standing down yesterday only made me feel like we were falling even farther behind. Plus, big news today out of SCOTUS. So bear with my gravelly, congested voice as we catch up with a few of things on today's show. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Among those things..,.

• Tuesday's down-ballot primary elections in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina didn't offer many surprises or problems, so far, for voters or tabulation. But the Special Election for the U.S. House in Ohio's otherwise deeply red 16th Congressional District was certainly of note. The Democratic candidate, Michael Kripchak, lost the race to Republican Michael Rulli, as expected. But, continuing a pattern we've seen quite a bit of on Election Days since 2020, the Democrat wildly over-performed expectations by some 20 points! It's another good reminder to take nothing for granted this year, with the November 5th General Election Day now less than 150 days away!

• The packed and corrupted U.S. Supreme Court did (mostly) the right thing for a happy change today. In an opinion [PDF] written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the Court unanimously shut down a ridiculous case brought by legal forum-shopping anti-abortion zealots in Texas seeking a nationwide ban on the use of Mifepristone, the most popular and safest method of abortion in the U.S. The challenge, based on false claims about the drug, was rejected 9 to 0 due to a lack of standing by the crackpot doctors who brought the case (with the help of a rightwing extremist legal mill, in a lower court jurisdiction where they were guaranteed to get a favorable finding from Trump-appointed anti-abortion activist judge, Mathew Kasmaryk.) Kavanaugh's ruling, however, left the door open for future challenges by other plaintiffs to the FDA's 20-year old approval of the drug. The executive agency has repeatedly found Mifepristone --- used in about two-thirds of abortion in the U.S. last year --- to be extraordinarily safe and effective.

• Then, we're joined by AMANDA MARCOTTE, Senior Political Writer at Salon and author of Troll Nation: How the Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set On Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself. We discuss today's SCOTUS ruling and a related matter which she recently wrote about at Salon, which also highlights the corrupt anti-abortion Texas-to-SCOTUS legal activist pipeline. This case, like the Mifepristone case, is being brought, specifically, in Kasmaryk's North Texas federal court, where he is the only judge overseeing cases filed there. It involves two University of Austin professors, Daniel Bonevac and John Hatfield, who are plaintiffs in a suit challenging Nixon-era federal law that prevents them from mistreating people, women in particular, who don't behave to the professors' liking. They are claiming a violation of their Free Speech Rights in federal laws that prevent them from flunking female students who go out of state to obtain abortions or block them from firing teaching assistants who have had one or forces them to consider the hiring of employees who may be transgendered. It is all of a piece, as Marcotte explains, with the corrupt SCOTUS decision that overturned 50 years of legal precedent for the Constitutional right to abortion back in 2022, and the subsequent total abortion ban in the Lone Star State. As Marcotte identifies, this and a number of other cases, are being brought by the same far-right interests, including former Texas Solicitor General and Federalist Society activist Jonathan Mitchell and legal mill outfits packed with former (and future?) Trump staffers.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for a Brad-free edition of Green News Report! With a warning for upcoming extreme heat across much of the country; seemingly unceasing extreme rainfall in Florida; a new law adopted by the New York legislature to hold Big Oil accountable for climate damage; and hundreds of billions of dollars in health benefits now being realized thanks to President Biden's renewable energy boom...

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No matter how much Republicans repeatedly lie about "a justice system 'weaponized' by Joe Biden and the Democrats to go after Republicans", you should know by now how much of a lie that is. If you don't, I suspect Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez (NJ), Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX), both under federal indictment on corruption charges --- not to mention the President's son, Hunter Biden, on gun and tax charges --- should quickly rebut that nonsense to all but the brain-poisoned. Either way, today's BradCast has you covered. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the many stories covered on today's program...

• Primary elections were held on Tuesday in Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota and the District of Columbia. We'll have any noteworthy results or problem reports on tomorrow's show. But you can read more about the programming failure I referred to regarding ES&S touchscreen systems in Wildwood Crest, NJ (a state with a history of similar and much worse failures on their touchscreen systems) right here.

• Speaking of New Jersey, on Monday, the state's longtime Democratic --- and now very strongly indicted (again) --- U.S. Senator, Bob Menendez, filed to run for re-election as an independent while federal criminal trial on bribery and corruption charges continues. If he remains on the ballot this Fall (which allows him to use campaign cash to pay legal bills for him and his wife, who is also charged) it could complicate things somewhat for Democrats hoping to see his seat filled by Congressman Andy Kim.

• The House GOP loons held one of their ridiculous "Weaponization of Justice" hearings today, featuring testimony by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland who pushed back at their nonsense, even as they threaten him with a Contempt of Congress citation.

• Meanwhile, in Wisconsin today, three of Donald Trump's 2020 lieutenants who architected the failed Fake Electors plot in hopes of stealing the election from Joe Biden in swingstates, were indicted on forgery charges. The freshly indicted trio includes former Trump attorney Ken Chesebro, former WI state judge James Troupis, and GOP operative Michael Roman who served as Trump's Director of Election Day Operations. Both Chesebro and Roman have been charged in several other battleground states previously. This is Troupis' first walk of shame. Overall, some 52 people (so far), including Trump, are now facing criminal charges in five battleground states (Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and now Wisconsin) for their parts in the attempted scheme to steal the 2020 election. More charges may still be on the way in several of those states.

• Ohio's Republican lawmakers have finally passed --- and its Governor has signed --- a legislative fix to the deadline issue that would have prevented President Biden from appearing on this November's Presidential ballot in the Buckeye State. It took months, and a special session called by the Governor, to get done what they easily had done in years past for Republican Presidential candidates. But, in doing so, they also included a provision to change the definition of the phrase "foreign national" to include permanent U.S. residents --- green card holders --- born in a different country. All of which, as explained on today's show, is an effort by the state GOP to undermine popular ballot initiatives, like the wildly popular one adopted by voters last year to protect reproductive rights. In any event, and since the measure signed by Gov. Mike DeWine over the weekend could be found unconstitutional, the Democratic National Committee has decided to hold a virtual, online roll call vote to officially nominate Biden in advance of the OH state deadline.

• PLOT TWIST! A Washington state law, on the books since it was a Territory in 1865 (and updated several times since), bars convicted felons from running for office. That could now be very bad news for 34-time convicted felony Donald Trump.

• Finally, Desi Doyen --- still recovering from her second bout of COVID over the past two weeks alone --- joins us for our latest Green News Report, as India swelters under deadly record temperatures; power outages, mostly related to extreme weather, have doubled in the U.S. over the past two decades; Mexico elects a climate scientists as President amid a record heat wave; and Vermont enacts a first-in-the-nation law to make Big Oil pay up for climate damages...

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Today on The BradCast: Imagine if Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was found to have been flying a Joe Biden "Dark Brandon" flag at her house. Ya think Republicans in Congress might have anything to say about it? Might take any action in response to it? [Audio link to full program follows this summary.]

Among the stories covered on today's program...

• Republicans in the Ohio state legislature are still blocking Joe Biden from this year's Presidential election ballot in the Buckeye State. Even Republican Governor Mike DeWine is now calling it "ridiculous" and "absurd" and has called a special legislative session for next week to fix the problem that GOP lawmakers have so far refused to. Think they'll finally do it?

• The corrupt rightwing majority on the packed and stolen U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, allowed a racial gerrymander in South Carolina to remain in place for the 2024 election. All of the Court's liberal Justices dissented. The 6 to 3 majority opinion was written by Justice Samuel Alito, who appeared more concerned that state lawmakers might be seen as having engaged in "offensive and demeaning" conduct, than he did about the tens of thousands of Black voters in the state whose votes have been shifted to other districts to make it easier for Republican Rep. Nancy Mace to hold on to a seat in the U.S. House. It's not a racial gerrymander, the Court's Republican majority claims, it's a partisan one. And, apparently, that's just fine. (Justice Clarence Thomas went out of his way in a concurring opinion to note that racial gerrymanders are just fine as well.) All of that, after a lower court panel of federal judges found that SC's racial gerrymander amounted to the "bleaching of African American voters."

• And, speaking of Sam Alito....Now the whole world knows, if they didn't already, that the corrupt, far-right Republican Supreme Court Justice is both a personal supporter of the Trump-incited 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and a Christian Nationalist. At least based on the two different flags he has been flying over two of his houses, according to more excellent reporting by the New York Times on Wednesday. That, as we await two different major rulings from the High Court regarding accountability for Donald Trump in relation to the insurrection. Neither Alito nor Thomas, whose wife directly participated in the insurrection, have recused themselves from either case. So, what are Democrats in the U.S. Senate going to do about any of it? So far, it doesn't look like they're prepared to do much, at least beyond issuing an occasional "outraged" press release. As discussed in some detail today, that needs to change.

• One of voting system vendor Smartmatic's several, huge, defamation lawsuits for lies told about the company "rigging" the 2020 election, is against the far-right political propaganda outlet known as Newsmax. Court documents made public this week reveal that Newsmax destroyed evidence --- text messages and emails --- that they were required to retain for the lawsuit.

• This week, Joe Biden cancelled student loan debt for another 160,000 borrowers, bringing the total number receiving some form of forgiveness up to nearly five million. His Dept. of Education has now approved about $167 billion in loan forgiveness under a number of different programs, following the corrupt SCOTUS ruling that prevented the President's initial effort to forgive up to $20,000 for some 43 million borrowers. Still, $167 billion is nothing to sneeze at. And it's money that can now go instead into the economy instead to purchase homes, cars, etc., which helps everyone. Fox "News", of course --- which had no problem when Trump gave trillions of federal dollars to millionaires, billionaires and wealthy corporations via GOP tax cuts --- seems to have a different opinion about federal government relief for those who actually need it.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as deadly, climate changed-fueled extreme weather lashes folks from Mexico to Iowa; Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis signs a "Don't Say Climate Change" law as the state broils in yet another heat wave; Oakland, California becomes the nation's first school district to move to 100% all-electric school buses; And microplastics are now found everywhere, even inside of us. You'll have a ball finding out where scientists have discovered them most recently. It's nuts!...

And with that great news, The BradCast (and Green News Report) will be standing down next week for a much-needed break over the Memorial Day holiday week. Will the disgraced former President be a convicted felon by the time we return? We'll find out! Either way, see ya on the other side! (And, of course, well before then for a few Sunday Toons at the very least!)

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We're covering 2024 election news in at least four different states on today's BradCast --- track conditions, not horse race --- and only one of those stories is particularly good news as GOP dirty tricks and voter suppression seem to be getting an early start this year. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our main stories today...

• Voters in Maryland, Nebraska and West Virginia headed to primary polls on Tuesday, with critical U.S. Senate and other races on the ballot. Noteworthy results and/or problem reports on tomorrow's program.

• We first began reporting on this story early last month, when it seemed utterly ridiculous to even contemplate. It still does, frankly. Nonetheless, Ohio's wildly dysfunctional, partisan-gerrymandered Republican state legislature missed last week's deadline for a legislative fix to allow Joe Biden on the Buckeye State ballot this year. Ohio has a state law that requires Presidential candidates be officially certified by their party 90 days before the general election to be included on the state ballot. But the Dems' convention this year is just 74 days before the election. In past years --- for example, for Donald Trump in 2020 --- lawmakers simply changed the deadline to cure the problem as needed when conventions are held later in the Summer. This year, however, petulant state Republicans are demanding a pound of flesh from Democrats to make any such changes. And now, with last week's deadline past, its going to be even more difficult to do so. Tune in for the full --- and still ridiculous --- skinny.

• Speaking of ridiculous, a rightwing activist in the state of Washington placed two Democratic candidates for Governor named Bob Ferguson on the ballot last Friday, just hours before the state's August 6th primary deadline. The state's longtime Democratic Attorney General, and front-runner to win the Governorship this year, is also named Bob Ferguson. And so the GOP's dirty tricks chaos for 2024 officially begins.

• If they can't keep Democratic candidates off the ballot for no good reason, or add several candidates with the same name to the ballot to wreak confusion, Republicans still remember how to do it with good old fashioned voter suppression laws, like the newest one signed last week by Georgia's Republican Governor Brian Kemp.

• Meanwhile, Democrats are still in court fighting back Republican voter suppression from years ago. On Monday, the newly liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard oral argument to reverse a ridiculous ruling by the high court's previous rightwing majority that bans the use of secure absentee ballot drop-boxes. That, even as they've been used for years without incident or fraud in the Badger State (or anywhere else, for that matter.) The hearing was encouraging, as even the defendants --- the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission --- agree there is nothing in state law that actually bans their use. "The Commission fully agrees that drop boxes are permitted under Wisconsin statutes," said the Asst. AG representing them at the hearing. But it sure was amusing to hear Republicans argue in favor of stare decisis (respect for legal precedent and settled law) to keep the 2022 ruling in place from the rightwing partisan court just two years ago. Especially when one of the court's liberal justices at the hearing cited none other than U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito's majority opinion in Dobbs that overturned 50 years of Roe v. Wade legal precedent. Using Alito's precise language from the SCOTUS ruling, the WI Justice asked what Republican plaintiffs thought the court should do if they found the previous ruling to be "egregiously wrong".

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as wildfire season explodes in Canada; the world records a record-breaking rise in CO2 levels; and Michigan moves to sue Big Oil for ever-worsening climate damages...

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You may be happy to know we don't begin today's BradCast with news about the disgraced former President. But you may be less happy about what we do lead with, especially if you own a home or a car or live on Planet Earth. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our many stories today...

• Recently, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell confirmed that, thanks in no small part to our quickly worsening climate, insurance rates for cars and homes continue to skyrocket. Yes, manmade climate change is a key factor in slowing the decrease of inflation (which, of course, is just one reason Republicans would rather do nothing about it). As the frequency and intensity of weather-related disasters quickens (just ask the folks in New Orleans who were swamped with some 8 inches of rain in a matter of hours last week), the cost of insurance is spiking, becoming unaffordable for many and even unattainable in a number of coastal states. You may soon discover that your home is worth a lot less than you think, thanks to the climate crisis. We step through some of those grim details today, the trillions of dollars it is ALREADY costing Americans, and the even grimmer news about what is still to come unless and until we can end the burning of fossil fuels that is only beginning to wreak so much havoc across the entire globe.

• We started reporting on this story last week, when it didn't seem like it could really be a story. Well, it's beginning, at least, to look more like it really could be a real story. Ohio's Republican Attorney General has now joined the state's Republican Sec. of State to say they will not allow Joe Biden on the state's ballot this November unless the Democratic Party certifies his candidacy before the state's statutory deadline of August 7. The Democratic National Convention, which is set to officially nominate the President, doesn't happen until August 19. When a similar situation occurred in 2020 --- which might have kept Donald Trump off the ballot --- the GOP state legislature simply changed the statutory deadline for that year. But now, because it's only Democrats whose convention isn't scheduled to take place until after OH's 90-day deadline before the November 5th election, Buckeye State Republicans seem to be suggesting they may actually not put Biden on the ballot...as impossible as that seems to believe. Let the lawsuits begin...

• The Nevada Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a lower court ruling that had blocked a broad, Constitutional "Reproductive Freedom" measure to protect prenatal care, abortion, vasectomies and infertility care from appearing on this November's ballot in the critical battle ground state. Supporters of the measure are celebrating today, but are also said to be gathering signatures for a second measure that will focus only on abortion rights for this year's ballot.

• After two of seven previously-seated jurors were dismissed on Thursday morning in Donald Trump's criminal trial in New York, seven more were seated before the day was done. Barring any other dismissals, that fills out the 12 jurors that will be needed to begin the case proper, once six alternate jurors are chosen. The judge admonished the press for reporting enough details about jurors that one who asked to be removed this morning said that friends had been able to identify her from media reports. Also, after prosecutors earlier this week sought sanctions against Trump for three violations of his gag order, they cited another seven incidents since then. That issue will be heard next week. Opening Statements in the trial could begin as early as Monday if the case continues to move briskly forward.

• Very exciting news is underway in the South this week, specifically in Tennessee, where workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga are now voting to unionize and join the United Auto Workers. Workers at the plant seem confident that the election will be successful. But that's just the first of 13 non-union automakers who are being targeted for unionization by the UAW since labor unions huge victories last year in strikes against GM, Ford and Stellantis (which now owns Jeep and Chrysler). Another election is likely to happen soon at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama, with 36 non-union plants targeted in all. If workers are successful in unionizing at both VW and Mercedes in the two southern states, according to one labor historian, it "would be nothing less than an earthquake" for the labor movement and its "biggest breakthrough in private-sector organizing in decades." It apparently has anti-labor Republicans worried. In a joint statement described by one expert as "unprecedented and shocking", six southern state governors, all Republican --- from Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas --- issued a joint statement on the day before voting began at VW, charging that "unionization would put our states' jobs in jeopardy." Kentucky's Democratic Governor, Andy Beshear, by contrast, announced last week that he was "proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder" with the UAW.

• Finally, in case we didn't frighten you enough with our opening coverage of the catastrophic, climate change-fueled weather driving insurance rates through the roof, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with much more to frighten you about. But she also has good news for workers as well, and bad news for the fossil fuel industry tools at Fox "News"...

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Desperate times, desperate measures and all that that entails on today's BradCast. Plus, we've got several pieces of long-overdue and wildly under-reported very good news as well. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

• Yes, Donald Trump's newly hand-picked RNC Chair Michael Whatley really did argue this week that America's enemies include Ukraine and charged that the President's "feckless leadership" encourages them to "meddle with our elections here." He also mentioned China and Iran as U.S. adversaries, but failed to say a word about Russia.

• Gun safety advocates --- which is to say, the vast majority of Americans --- have been hoping for years to see the so-called "gun show loophole" to avoid background checks closed. Today, after a lengthy rule-making process by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) following passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022, President Biden and the Dept. of Justice announced they are finally doing it. "This is going to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and felons," said Biden in a statement today. His Attorney General, Merrick Garland, who signed off on the rule on Thursday, told reporters: "Under this regulation, it will not matter if guns are sold on the Internet, at a gun show or in a brick and mortar store. If you sell guns [you] must conduct background checks."

• Last week it was Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, and now Alabama's is warning Democrats that he may not allow Joe Biden on the state's ballot this November because the Democratic National Convention falls several days after state ballot deadlines. Both Secretaries of State had previously opposed Trump's removal from the ballot in Colorado due to the state Supreme Court's finding that he violated the U.S. Constitution's "Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause". And both OH and AL allowed Donald Trump on their state's ballots in 2020 despite the Republican National Convention being convened after each state's statutory deadlines that year. Are Republicans really that desperate?

• In 2022, Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis was disqualified from criminally investigating Georgia's Lt. Governor Burt Jones, who aided Trump's attempt to steal the Peach State's 2020 election as a "fake elector". Willis was blocked because she had hosted a fund-raiser for a political rival of Jones. Now, two years later, a former Republican D.A. in the state, Pete Skandalakis, who was tasked with naming an alternate prosecutor to probe Jones --- and sued for taking so long to do it --- has finally named a replacement. Himself.

• The rightwing propagandists at Fox "News" are definitely getting desperate following the all-Republican Arizona Supreme Court's ruling this week that reinstates an 1864 territorial law mandating a near-total ban on abortion in the state. On Tuesday, the day the ruling was handed down, not one of the rightwing propaganda outlet's evening prime-time stars even discussed it on their shows. That day, the topic was discussed for just 12 minutes across three different Fox programs earlier in the day, as compared to more than two-hours each of coverage on both CNN and MSNBC that same day and night. The next day, on Wednesday, Sean Hannity decided the 160-year old law should now be overturned and blamed the AZ Court's wildly unpopular decision --- and the predicament it offers to both women in the state and Republican candidates around the country --- on Arizona's Democratic Governor and Attorney General (who opposed the ruling.)

• After the most expensive state Supreme Court race in U.S. history last year, resulting in liberals retaking a majority on Wisconsin's high court for the first time in 15 years, the longest serving member of its now-liberal majority, 73-year old Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, announced she will not run for another 10-year term next year as previously planned. Thursday's decision by the popular, longtime jurist offers a chance for rightwingers to retake control of the Court in the state's 2025 Spring election. They will have to defend seats on the Court in both 2026 and 2027 thereafter. So, if they don't win next year, they won't get another chance at winning back a majority until 2028. The stakes could hardly be higher.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with more wildly under-reported good news on the Biden EPA's new rules to end deadly airborne pollution from chemical plants pollution and cancer-causing PFAS "forever chemicals" in our drinking water. It's about damn time. She's got still more good --- and not so good --- news in today's report as well...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: March 2024 was the hottest March ever recorded, continuing a 10-month record hot streak; European court rules Switzerland's climate inaction violates human rights; Norfolk Southern settles East Palestine lawsuits for $600 million; PLUS: EPA cracks down on airborne pollution from chemical plants and toxic 'forever chemicals' in drinking water... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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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): World Bank must take 'quantum leap' to tackle climate crisis, UN expert says; Russia and Kazakhstan evacuate tens of thousands amid worst floods in decades; FirstEnergy gave secret $1 to Ohio Lt. Governor campaign in scandal; Protesters slam gas group’s use of customers’ money to thwart climate efforts; US agrees with Native American tribe that Line 5 Pipeline is trespassing; How the essential, dirty steel industry is going green; Here’s how EVs could get 200 miles per gallon... PLUS: Big Oil could face homicide charges... and much, MUCH more! ...

The warnings came from safety experts, insurance companies and environmentalists. Years ago. So, of course, they were all ignored by both the then Republican Governor and big business, including Big Oil, who all got their way over safety concerns and the public interest, as discussed on today's BradCast. [Audio link posted below this summary.]

But first up, some other news of note...

• Ohio's Republican Secretary of State informed Democrats on Friday that they must change the date of their party's national convention this summer or Joe Biden will not qualify to be on the state's 2024 ballot under state law. Or, of course, the state's GOP legislature could simply change the law, as they did in 2020 when the Republican National Convention was scheduled too late for Donald Trump to qualify for that year's ballot. But the state legislature will have to do so by May 9. Mark your calendars.

• On Monday in Wisconsin, President Biden unveiled yet another plan, this a very big one, to relieve hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt, this time for 30 million Americans after the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court, last year, blocked his original plan to do so for 40 million borrowers.

• Also on Monday, Donald Trump released a rambling video on his social media cite purporting to be his new position on abortion rights. He takes credit for his SCOTUS majority overturning Roe v. Wade, but says nothing about whether he would sign a national abortion ban; have his FDA block the use of abortion medication; or allow his DoJ to block abortions entirely if he is re-elected this November. So, how did pretty much every single corporate mainstream media outlet headline the "news"? By falsely claiming that "Trump Says Abortion Law Should be Left to the States". But, of course, he didn't. And you wonder how it can be that so many Americans are so misinformed about the threat to the nation and world posed by Donald Trump? There's your answer.

Then, we're joined by investigative journalist HELEN SANTORO of The Lever, who has been digging deep into the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster ever since its deadly collapse two weeks ago, after being struck by a massive, 980-foot mega-container-ship in the Port of Baltimore.

We discuss two of her recent articles on the tragedy today, both of which underscore how corporate greed and industry lobbyists have been allowed to run roughshod over common sense, public safety, and corporate responsibility.

The first story, filed shortly after the tragedy which killed six bridge workers and has shut down all traffic in or out of one of the East Coast's largest shipping ports ever since, focuses on Maryland's Republican former Governor --- now U.S. Senate Candidate --- Larry Hogan, who ignored multiple, repeated warnings, year after year, in his continuing efforts to bring ever larger vessels into the Port. In doing so, he discounted safety warnings from an insurance giant and an international transit group, while accepting millions in federal funding from the Trump Administration to expand the port and push for still-larger cargo ships. Environmental groups also sounded the alarm about Hogan's efforts, as did a top state engineer as long ago as 1980, when he warned that the Key Bridge could not withstand such a crash, even by smaller vessels, without falling down.

"It seems very clear that [Hogan] really prioritized private interests again and again, wanting Maryland to be this point of business," Santoro explains. "And, it seems like, with prioritizing these private interests, the safety of the bridge was clearly not considered."

The second of Santoro's investigative articles that we discuss today focuses on the 173-year old federal Limitation of Liability Act which caps the amount that shipping companies may be held liable for in such disasters. It earned the nickname "The Titanic Law" back in 1912, when White Star Line, the British-owner of the doomed ship, invoked the Act to pay no more than $430 for each of the more than 1,500 passengers who were lost in that fatal tragedy.

The Act has seen some small reforms over the years, but most attempts in recent years to finally modernize the 1851 law have been stymied by Congressional Republicans at the behest of lobbyists from Big Oil and other industries in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster and the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling that same year.

"It was pretty crazy going back and seeing that people have been complaining about this law since the Titanic crashed in 1912," Santoro tells me. "And yet the reforms have been, I would argue, pretty minimal, in terms of upping the amount that a company has to pay."

"Big Oil has really latched on to the Limitation of Liability Act to get themselves out of paying a lot of money for the Deepwater Horizon fiasco and other issues," she says. "There's a lot of industry funding and interest that is big on keeping damage control and the amount they're paying out for damages as low as possible."

Will Maryland's popular former Governor Hogan face accountability in his Senate race to fill the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin this fall for dismissing years of warnings about the very tragedy that has now befallen his state (and the national economy along with it)? Will Congress finally update the antiquated Titanic Law when they return this week, so that major corporations --- which, unlike in the 1850s, are well insured to cover the costs of such disasters --- can be held to real account for the damage they cause in the name of greater and greater profit? Those are just some of the many questions we discuss with Santoro on today's program...

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From top to bottom, the Federal Judiciary, as evidenced several times this week alone and discussed in detail on today's BradCast, seems to be coming undone. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

But, first up today, a quick review of Tuesday's Primary and Special Election results in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Ohio and California. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have already won enough delegates to clinch their respective party's nomination, but there are still a several interesting data points of notes to be gleaned from Tuesday's results.

Among them, Trump is consistently losing a far larger share of Republican votes than Biden is losing on the Democratic side. On Tuesday, for example, Biden's reported margin of victory in the states where he was on the ballot was anywhere from 74 to 88 points, while Trump's margin never cracked even 70 points, ranging from 59 to 67. In short, Biden seems to be far more popular among Democratic primary voters than Trump is among Republicans.

We've got other noteworthy tales of the tape today, along with Senate Primary results out of Ohio, where both Democrats and Donald Trump appear to be very happy that Trump-backed Bernie Moreno will be the GOP's nominee running against three-term progressive Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown in November. And, in California, Democrats are no doubt happy to see that nobody won more than 50% of the vote in the Special Election to fill the seat left vacant by ousted Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday. That means his seat in the closely divided U.S. House, which will almost certainly go to a Republican eventually, will remain empty until at least the Special Election runoff in May.

Also of note today, what the Washington Post is describing as the Biden Administration's "biggest climate move yet". Desi Doyen joins us to explain the EPA's new final rule that is set to increase the speed of the nation's transition to cleaner Electric and Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles; how rightwing media are already lying about the EPA's new rule; and how Republican states and the fossil fuel industry will soon be seeking out friendly judges in the federal judiciary to try and undermine the new rule and its billions of dollars in life-saving new vehicle emissions standards for the American people and the planet.

Then, speaking of friendly rightwing judges, two cases that came before the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court this week --- when, in fact, neither of them should have --- serve to highlight our increasingly brittle judicial system and how it is being gamed by the far-right.

We're joined today by Slate's great legal journalist, MARK JOSEPH STERN to discuss both cases and what they might tell us about a court system, and perhaps a U.S. Supreme Court, nearing a breaking point.

We originally invited Stern for today's show to discuss Monday's absurd case brought by Republican-run states falsely claiming the Biden Administration is somehow violating First Amendment free speech rights by forcing social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to take down posts they don't like regarding COVID, election fraud and more. Of course, the government is not doing that at all. Stern describes the case at Slate --- Murthy v. Missouri (originally Missouri v. Biden) --- as "brain-meltingly dumb", "asinine", and "what happens when a lawless judge and a terrible appeals court embrace the dopiest First Amendment claim you’ve ever heard out of pure spite toward a Democratic president."

The case should never have even made it out of the lowest District Court, but for a Trump-appointed judge who "completely butchered the record and, I think, willfully misrepresented a huge amount of communications between federal officials and social media companies," Stern tells me. "He would pluck individual little clauses from those emails, rearrange them to make it sound like coercion, and then use that to develop what is frankly a conspiracy theory that the federal government strong-armed these companies into silencing their users and censoring speech. It's just not true." (See this article for just some of the gobsmacking examples of ways in which U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty "butchered the record" by falsely representing the evidence record in his ruling.)

Making matters worse, the nation's most extreme appellate court, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, further butchered the record to accomplish what corrupt Supreme Court Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch laughably described when the case came up to SCOTUS as "extensive findings of fact" that "showed the existence of ‘a coordinated campaign’ of unprecedented ‘magnitude orchestrated by federal officials that jeopardized a fundamental aspect of American life.'"

Monday's Oral Argument at SCOTUS, however, pulled the rug out from under pretty much all of that, as the phony allegations met skepticism from even the bulk of the Court's rightwingers. But before we could get to that case today, as previously planned, we had to get through the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals' other recent clown show (which the rightwingers on SCOTUS were happy to play along with last night): their attempt to allow Texas' new law that overturns a century of legal precedent and the U.S. Constitution itself to grant powers to state and local police that override federal immigration law, allowing them to arrest and deport suspected undocumented immigrants.

Stern unpacks the bizarre twists and turns the case has seen over the past 24 hours, and charges that the procedural nonsense from the 5th Circuit and subsequent acquiescence by SCOTUS simply "boggles the mind."

So, what might we learn from all of this --- and all that has come before it --- regarding corrupt Trump-appointed judges, a corrupt 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, a corrupt and increasingly volatile SCOTUS, and the rightwing judge shopping that exploits all of it? We discuss all of that and more with Stern who details "a kind of terrifying intramural war within the judiciary," as some of the courts are pushing back against an attempt by the U.S. Judicial Conference (headed up by Chief Justice Roberts) to rein in judge shopping, and, ultimately, how restoring confidence in the High Court itself may "all come down to what Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett want to do with the courts and want their legacy to be."

"Until they take a harder line here, it's going to remain just as broken as it looks," Stern asserts. "It's going to be even worse behind the scenes, based on what I'm hearing about how these judges' relationships are breaking down over this stuff --- and we're going to have different factions within the judiciary that are fighting for power, not unlike the Kremlin at the height of Soviet-era madness"...

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