It's another one of those elections-have-consequences episodes of The BradCast. Happily, most of those consequences are good ones today! [Audio link to full story follows this summary.]

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

• On Friday, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill that will re-enfranchise more than 50,000 formerly incarcerated felons in Minnesota. That very good news for voting rights and democracy follows on the recent adoption of several other critical progressive measures in the state, including protecting abortion rights and mandating 100% carbon-free electricity. The new laws were all passed and since January, after Democrats won a trifecta in the state last November, winning the Governor's mansion and taking control of both chambers of the legislature for the first time in nearly a decade.

• After flipping a stunning 12 seats in the Pennsylvania statehouse in last year's midterms, Democrats in the chamber now have a majority for the first time in more than a decade and have finally seated Joanna McClinton as the state's first African-American female House Speaker. The months-long roller coaster ride toward between last year's elections and McClinton becoming Speaker includes the unexpected death of a lawmaker and three special elections since last November, the surprise election of a different Speaker earlier this year, and the thinnest possible one-seat margin for Democrats in the House. We 'splain the full crazy story.

• In Colorado, former Mesa County Clerk and aggressively gullible election fraud conspiracist, Tina Peters, has been found guilty of obstruction, after she refused a lawful warrant to turn over an iPad containing courtroom videos a judge instructed her not to take. While she could face several months in jail on that conviction, there is likely much more trouble ahead for the disgraced Republican and last year's failed GOP Sec. of State candidate. Peters faces a separate trial later this year on seven criminal felonies and three misdemeanors related to sneaking into her county's secured voting system room in the middle of the night while still serving as County Clerk, turning off the security cameras and making illicit copies of sensitive Election Management System software with two accomplices following the 2020 Presidential election. That proprietary software was subsequently leaked to the public while she was on stage at an election denier's conference in 2021. As all of this plays out, Peters --- who has become somewhat of a hero to some equally duped knuckleheads on the Right --- is hoping to become the next Chair of the Colorado Republican Party.

• As discussed on one of our programs last week, we are now waiting to hear whether the corrupted, stolen and packed U.S. Supreme Court will allow President Biden's lawful program to forgive up to $20,000 to federal student loan borrowers making less than $125,000 in annual income. In the meantime, receiving much less news coverage is the Administration's program to refund billions to students ripped off by for-profit schools which lied about their credentials, hoaxed students into enrolling and/or who have gone out of business in recent years. The program, begun during the Obama Administration, was largely put on ice by Donald Trump's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Following a court settlement last year against DeVos, the program has now begun refunding students, many of whom owe hundreds of thousands of dollars for their scam diplomas.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our 1,300th Green News Report! Including long overdue good news for the world's oceans; good news for solar energy in France; another train derailment in Ohio, and a legal threat to Minnesota's new law mandating 100% clean electricity by 2040...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: After 20 years, world governments reach historic deal to protect marine biodiversity on the high seas; France to cover parking lots with solar panels; North Dakota may sue to stop Minnesota's new clean electricity standard; PLUS: Another Norfolk Southern train derails in Ohio... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Winter storm will stretch 1,800 miles from Plains to Northeast; Meat, dairy and rice production will bust 1.5C climate target; 'Silicon Valley of Lithium': controversial Nevada lithium mine breaks ground; Carbon dioxide emissions reached a record high in 2022; What is 'Cop City?'; Oil CEO who will head 2023 climate talks calls for change [but not phaseout of fossil fuels]; Billion-dollar power lines finally inching ahead to help US grids; What to know about the 'Red Tide' hitting Florida beaches ... PLUS: Mapping California’s ‘Zombie’ Forests ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Despite series of major storms, California's historic drought continues; Railroad industry already fighting new safety regulations in wake of Ohio trail derailment disaster; PLUS: Bizarre weather continues, as parts of U.S. see earliest spring conditions on record... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): In fake culture war, House republicans vote to ban retirement plans from considering ESG investments; Here's why Arizona says it can keep growing despite historic mega-drought; DOE rule may block 50 percent of current gas stove models; Biden admin details plans for floating offshore wind; The 15-Minute City: Where urban planning meets conspiracy theories; Unseen War: Brazilian forces driving out mining gangs from indigenous lands; The world is finally cracking down on 'greenwashing' ... PLUS: Why it's time to officially get over your EV range anxiety ... and much, MUCH more! ...

It's always darling when Republicans pretend to oppose "activist judges" who "legislate from the bench." As discussed on today's BradCast, the new Republican majority on North Carolina's Supreme Court is now showing how it's done! [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

We have been warning for some months about the Moore v. Harper case recently heard at the U.S. Supreme Court. The corrupt, stolen and packed far-right Court majority's opinion could finally establish the legitimacy a once-fringe, still-ridiculous Constitutional concept called the Independent State Legislature theory. According to the theory suddenly being pushed hard by Republicans, State Legislatures --- and only State Legislatures (not Governors, Secretaries of State, State Courts, State Constitutions nor even ballot initiatives adopted by voters) --- may create election rules and laws in each state. If a SCOTUS majority agrees with this radical, previously-obscure reading of the Constitution, decades, even centuries, of American election law could be tossed out the window. The theory even holds, according to critics, that state legislatures would simply be able to choose whichever slate of Presidential electors they like, no matter who the state's voters may have chosen.

Moore v. Harper is actually a partisan gerrymandering case out of North Carolina, where its State Supreme Court last year found the new Congressional and legislative maps drawn by the NC Republican legislature to be in violation of the state's Constitution which, they determined, prohibits partisan gerrymandering. In last November's elections, however, two Republicans won their elections for the state's high court, flipping it from a 4 to 3 Dem-leaning majority to a 5 to 2 Republican court.

After the new, rightwing majority was seated last month, they decided to rehear the Moore v. Harper case despite, as the two dissenting Democratic Justices decried, the fact that doing so would be a "radical break with 205 years of history" and that "Nothing has changed since we rendered our opinion in this case" last year.

"The only thing that has changed is the political composition of the Court," wrote Justice Anita Earls. "Now, approximately one month since this shift, the Court has taken an extraordinary action: It is allowing rehearing without justification." Earls called the decision "an affront to the jurisprudence of this State and to the citizens it has sworn an oath to serve ‘impartially,’ ‘without favoritism to anyone or to the State.’"

In addition, the new rightwing state Justices in NC also decided to rehear the challenge to the GOP legislature's Photo ID voting restrictions which the 4 to 3 Democratic majority, just two months ago, struck down, after finding it to have been adopted with a discriminatory purpose to make it harder for minorities to vote, a violation of the state Constitution.

"This is essentially a brazen power grab by the new majority," our guest today, JOSHUA A. DOUGLAS, author and election law professor at the University of Kentucky explains. "To put this power grab in context," he recently wrote at Washington Monthly, "in the past 30 years, the North Carolina Supreme Court had agreed to rehear only two cases out of the 214 requests it had received. ... The court has now doubled the number of rehearing grants in just one reckless day."

"It's unusual for any court to act this quickly and this brazenly," Douglas tells me. "This really is unprecedented for the North Carolina court, but, as far as I'm aware of, courts in general." He goes on to describe the court's behavior as "dangerous", "blatantly partisan", and "politics all the way down."

"This is why it's dangerous to have elected judges with a party label," he argues. "Everyone knows what's going on here. Everyone knows that the court was 4-3 in favor of Democrats, its 5-2 in favor of Republicans now, because Republicans won two of those seats."

"This idea of precedent, that the law builds upon, is being thrown out when we just think of judges as politicians in robes, explicitly. Even if people had thought this was going on before, I think judges themselves felt a little bit cabined by this idea that they're not just politicians in robes and political activists. But that idea is now thrown out the window."

So, what does this now mean for the version of Moore v. Harper currently at the Supreme Court, where it has already been heard? Will it be mooted out by a new decision in NC or will an opinion be issued on the Independent State Legislature theory anyway? If not, Republicans will almost certainly find another case to place the wacko ISL theory before the court. But a new case, Douglas warns, would likely result in a SCOTUS opinion issued smack dab in the middle of the 2024 election cycle, potentially unleashing complete chaos in the bargain.

NEXT UP TODAY, we heard from a lot of listeners following yesterday's call-in program in which I opened up the phone lines primarily to those who disagreed with my position that the U.S. should continue to support sovereign Ukraine's self-defense against Russia, its imperialist aggressor neighbor whose brutal, unlawful invasion began just over one year ago. Democracy v. autocracy is at stake, as I argued yesterday, despite Vladimir Putin's repeated threats to unleash nuclear weapons. We had a number of callers --- sadly, presumably from the Left --- who have been wildly misinformed and disinformed by a number of media outlets that have, for years, been pushing Kremlin propaganda (sometimes knowingly, sometimes not.)

That said, after yesterday's show, I received a ton of comments --- probably 8, 9, or 10 to 1 --- in favor of my position against the bulk of our callers. To be fair, I had invited and prioritized those who disagreed with my position, in hopes of an enlightening discussion/debate on the issues. But, so as to not give the entirely wrong impression of our overall listeners, I thought it helpful to share some of the comments in response to yesterday's show --- the majority of which were supportive of my position on Ukraine --- on air today.

FINALLY, we're joined by Desi Doyen for our latest Green News Report, as "bizarro" weather continues across much of the nation now that we've broken the climate; and as Republicans amusingly begin to discover --- in light of the toxic chemical train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio which Fox "News" has instructed them to be furious about --- that hey, regulations actually protect the public against this sort of thing! Who knew?...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Weather whiplash across the U.S. as winter gets warmer and weirder; Rising concerns about the long-term impact of the Ohio chemical train derailment; Lack of snow in Europe deepens historic drought; PLUS: Fox News discovers that regulations protect the public... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Scientists want near moratorium on geoengineering to cool climate — for now; Extreme heat is a health crisis, experts say; US 2022 power plant emissions fell on switch from coal to gas; All fish tested from Michigan rivers contain 'forever chemicals'; How broadcast TV networks covered climate change in 2022; Despite 1996 law, EPA still hasn't tested pesticides for hormone impacts; Plastic consumption on course to nearly double by 2050 ... PLUS: As fatal fungus takes its toll, can we save frog species on the brink? ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: It's truly remarkable that the former President's Republican supporters keep lying on his behalf, despite losing elections and more in the bargain. They continue to pay an extraordinary price, even as they continue to lie and lose in the process. They'll figure this out eventually, right? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the stories covered on today's program (after a thought or two on this weekend's coast-to-coast climate chaos, including an incredibly rare blizzard warning here in Los Angeles!)...

• New polling finds Joe Biden's approval ratings have been quietly, but steadily rising over the past several months. Donald Trump's are hitting new lows among his own party faithful.

• Arizona's former Republican Attorney General, Mark Brnovich, knew there was no evidence of fraud in the 2020 Presidential election, but he kept that finding a secret while lying about it during his unsuccessful run for the 2022 GOP U.S. Senate nomination. According to documents released by Kris Mayes, Arizona's new Democratic A.G., even after the failed Cyber Ninjas "audit" of the 2020 Presidential election confirmed Biden's victory over Trump in the state, Brnovich directed "all hands" in the A.G.'s office to investigate claims of election fraud. Some 10,000 taxpayer-funded hours were spent with no evidence of a stolen election to show for it. But, while the state probe was all but completed by March of 2022, Brnovich pulled a "Bill Barr" by releasing a memo falsely claiming the office had found "serious vulnerabilities", even after his own investigators specifically refuted the assertions in the memo. He ignored them.

  The actual findings of the expensive state investigation, though completed, were never released before he was replaced by Mayes in January. Despite his hard work at lying for Trump, he lost the U.S. Senate primary anyway to Blake Masters, who lied even harder for the disgraced former President. Masters then went on to lose the general election to Democrat Mark Kelly.

  As the Washington Post's exclusive notes, Brnovich and Masters were hardly the only ones who lied about 2020 fraud in AZ before then going on to lose their elections last year. GOP Sec. of State candidate Mark Finchem lost to Democrat Adrian Fontes. Finchem, previously a state Rep, repeatedly claimed a "source" had told him that 30,000 votes were stuffed into ballot boxes before admitting privately to Brnovich's investigators "he did not have any evidence of fraud and that he did not wish to take up our time." It's one thing to lie to GOP voters. They have come to expect that by now. But its unlawful to lie to state law enforcement officials, as Finchem and other officials who also clammed up before actual investigators, clearly knew.

• AZ's GOP candidate for Governor, Kari Lake, also lied about 2020 fraud before going on to lose her 2022 race to Democrat Katie Hobbs. And Lake is still lying and losing in her challenge to last year's election. First, she lost in court in December when a state judge dismissed her demand for a new election finding "no basis justified settings aside the election results." She lost again last week at the appeals court which determined "Lake's only purported evidence...was, quite simply, sheer speculation." After her second loss, loser Lake tweeted out, along with a fundraising link: "BREAKING: I told you we would take this case all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court, and that’s exactly what we are going to do. Buckle up, America!" (Please hold your laughter until the end.)

• Despite all of the lies and losses, the Republican National Committee is now planning to increase their lies based on false 2020 election fraud claims in advance of 2024. Why not? It's worked so well until now! In the meantime, it was reported on Wednesday that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were subpoenaed to testify before the federal grand jury investigating the January 6 insurrection and related matters. And today, a federal court judge said Trump himself can now be deposed in lawsuits filed by former FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page who charge he unlawfully targeted them for retribution during the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

• And then there is long time liar and loser Steve Bannon, one of Trump's several criminal 2016 campaign managers, who later went on to be fired as a White House political advisor. Bannon was recently sentenced to four months in prison for Contempt of Congress after refusing to testify in response to a subpoena from the House January 6 Committee. Still out of prison pending appeal, Bannon's legal problems have only gotten much worse since his conviction. New York state has indicted him for money laundering, scheming to defraud, and conspiracy. And today we learned that last week his own lawyers sued him for failure to pay nearly half a million dollars in legal fees! (Okay, now you can go ahead and laugh.)

• Then there's longtime GOP political operative Jesse Benton, who has worked for Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell, Trump and many others over the years. He was pardoned by Trump after being found guilty of bribing an official for an endorsement of Ron Paul during the 2012 GOP Iowa Caucus. Last week, Benton was sentenced to 18 months in prison for an entirely separate felony related to accepting $100,000 from a Russian national who wanted a photo with Trump during the 2016 election.

• Finally today, we move on to our latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen, as Republicans continue to pretend to be concerned about the toxic chemical train derailment in Ohio several weeks ago. It's all quite pathetically amusing to watch, as Trump turned the poisoned rural town of East Palestine into a 2024 campaign stop this week and Fox "News" boneheads like Brian Kilmeade actually begin to demand regulations of the rail industry! Not unlike the regulations that the Obama Administration had put in place years ago, before the Trump Administration subsequently rolled them all back.

Liars and losers gonna keep lying and losing...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: EPA takes control of toxic Ohio train derailment disaster, three weeks later; Rightwing media tries to weaponize Ohio disaster into culture war fodder; PLUS: Surprise! The oil and gas industry has failed to cut climate-warming methane emissions as promised... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Homes in flood zones are overvalued by billions, study finds; Massive coal train derails in Nebraska; Marine commission: Whale deaths not linked to wind prep work; Feds slash Gulf's first wind farm areas to make room for drilling, shipping, fishing; Bird flu kills sea lions and thousands of pelican's in Peru's protected areas; 'Climate-friendly' biofuel is not actually a biofuel, and comes with an astronomical cancer risk; Climate change is making winter weather warmer and "weirder"; Attacks surge on U.S. power grid ... PLUS: The Right has it in for 'woke' investors. The only problem? They don't exist... and much, MUCH more! ...

We didn't learn much. But we learned a little. And the evidence, as discussed on today's BradCast, suggests there is much more to come. [Audio link to full report follows this summary.]

On Monday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered the partial release of the final report by the Special Purpose Grand Jury convened by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis last year. She is probing whether or not Donald Trump and his allies unlawfully pressured Georgia officials to change the 2020 Presidential election results to declare him the winner, despite his having lost to Joe Biden by about 12,000 votes.

Today, about five pages from that report were released, including its introduction, conclusion, and one section finding that "A majority of the grand jury believes that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it."

After hearing "evidence from or involving 75 witnesses during the course" of their investigation, the 26-member panel (including three alternates) went on to recommend "the District Attorney seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling." They also determined "by a unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election."

The portions of their report released on Thursday did not include any specific names, however, out of concern by both Willis and McBurney, of "fairness" to any potential future defendants. During the hearing on whether to release the report partially, in full, or at all, back on January 24, Willis asked McBurney to temporarily withhold the report "in the interest of justice and the rights of, not the state, but others," as she explained that charging "decisions are imminent."

Based on court documents, witness statements and other information, the Special Grand Jury, which completed its work in December, was believed to be examining phone calls made by Trump and others to Georgia officials, such as the notorious one from January 2, 2021, in which Trump was famously heard threatened the state's Secretary of State and instructed him to "find" enough votes to flip the election from Biden to himself; the state's 16 fake Republican electors who falsely declared themselves "duly elected and qualified"; false allegations of fraud presented to state lawmakers by Rudy Giuliani and others; Attempts to pressure election workers into falsely confessing to fraud; and the unlawful, secret duplication of voting system software by GOP operatives in rural Coffee County, among other things.

We're joined today for insight and analysis by KEITH BARBER, attorney and legal commentator formerly known as "KeithDB" at Daily Kos, who now writes at Medium. He explains that it was actually remarks from Judge McBurney on Monday, when ordering the partial release of the Special Grand Jury report, that leads him to believe the panel's full report recommends indictment of our disgraced former President.

"The biggest hint that it likely includes Trump is in the judge's decision ordering the release. In that decision," Barber explains, "the judge expressed special concern for the due process rights of potential defendants who did nothave an opportunity to testify before the grand jury. And, as we know, a whole lot of people testified, including Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham, and many more. The one who did not have an opportunity to testify, who was never asked to, is Donald Trump."

In fact, as Washington Post observes, "At least 18 people have been notified that they are targets of the election interference investigation, according to court documents and statements from their attorneys." Giuliani has said he is one of them. The 16 fake electors were reportedly told the same. Who might the 18th be? Well, while Trump's legal team in Georgia stated that their client was never invited to testify, they refused to comment when asked if he'd been given notice by Willis that he's a target.

Another curious point we also discuss is that, despite Judge McBurney describing the full report as including "a roster of who should (or should not) be indicted, and for what, in relation to the conduct (and aftermath) of the 2020 general election in Georgia," the report's conclusion is on a page that is numbered as "9". Barber observes that a separate Special Grand Jury Report from 2012 [PDF], out of the state's DeKalb County, recommended charges for just one person. But that report was 83 pages in length. What does that mean? We discuss.

One potential explanation for the apparently short report from Fulton County, as I note, is that those that the Grand Jury recommendations for indictment may be listed in an Appendix to their report, which may come on pages numbered after the report's "conclusion" section.

We read those tea leaves and many others today, including why Willis' "imminent" charging decisions may be taking a while to become indictments. We also discuss the delightfully fascinating data point that Georgia's state Constitution bars the Governor (currently, Republican Brian Kemp) from issuing pardons. Only a state commission appointed by the Governor may do so, but only after the perpetrator in question has completed their sentence. Given that Willis may be working toward invoking the state's expansive racketeering statutes in this case --- which can add many years to state sentences when defendants are found to have participated in a conspiracy --- that could result in very long, unpardonable prison sentences for Trump, Giuliani, the fake electors (which included both GA's current Lt. Governor and the state's Republican Party chair) among others.

Also today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on back-to-back disasters in New Zealand; more bad news for Antarctica's melting glaciers; and the bizarre flip of a switch that seems to have happened on Fox 'News' and (naturally) among Republicans regarding the horrific toxic chemical train derailment and explosion that happened about two weeks ago in East Palestine, Ohio.

Suddenly, they care about the health of nearby residents? The lack of regulations for the rail industry? (Which Trump rolled back after new rail safety rules were enacted by Obama, by the way.) They suddenly give a damn about the EPA not acting aggressively enough? Really? Well, not really, as we discuss before finishing off today with a few wise words on all of this from Trae Crowder, the Tennessee-born political comedian known as "the liberal redneck"...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Back-to-back extreme weather disasters trigger national state of emergency in New Zealand; New studies find global warming is melting Antarctica's ice; PLUS: Growing concerns about safety for residents in aftermath of Ohio chemical train derailment...Even on Fox 'News'?!... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): World Bank president, dogged by climate questions, steps down early; truck carrying hazardous nitric acid overturned on an Arizona highway, prompting evacuations of the area; Twice as much land in developing nations will be swamped by rising seas than previously projected, new research shows; Major US railroad merger could bring more tar sands to south-east Texas; Greens and tribes say proposed venting and flaring rule falls short; Tesla opens its EV charging network to the masses ... PLUS: Mono Lake tribe asserts water rights, urges halt of water diversions to Los Angeles... and much, MUCH more! ...

In the first 43 days of 2023, there were 67 mass shootings. This is America. What, if anything, are we ever gonna do about it? Welcome to today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the many stories covered today...

• Three students were killed, five were in critical condition at Michigan State University's East Lansing campus as we went to air today, following yet another mass shooting massacre on Monday night. "Run, Hide, Fight" was the message texted to students by MSU at 8:31pm, as gun fire broke out. That might as well be the national anthem for a generation of students who grew up in the wake of the demise of the federal Assault Weapons Ban. It was allowed to expire in 2004 by George W. Bush and every terrorist-supporting Congressional Republican who, since then, has refused to renew it. They have chosen to place support for their donors in the deadly gun industry over the lives of tens of thousands of Americans killed by guns each and every year since. Horrifically, some of the students victimized by Monday's shooting at MSU had also lived through another mass shooting at their high school back in 2021.

• The author of the now-sunsetted 1994 federal Assault Weapons Ban, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), announced today that she will not be seeking reelection next year. The news was not a surprise. Three Democratic House members --- Katie Porter, Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee --- have already announced or made clear their intentions to run for the 89-year old Senator's seat next year. Feinstein's political career was formed, in no small part, out of gun violence after she personally attempted to save the life of Harvey Milk after the assassination of the San Francisco City Supervisor and then-Mayor George Moscone. She was elected to replace Moscone as Mayor and eventually became California's first female Senator. Today we share just one of the petty, ironic, patronizing attacks against her on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1993 --- by a later-discredited Republican Senator --- during her successful campaign to pass the landmark gun safety legislation.

• Former South Carolina Governor and Donald Trump's U.N. Ambassador Nikky Haley released a video on Tuesday declaring her intention to run for the 2024 Republican Presidential nomination. In it, she claims, "I don't put up with bullies". But her history as a 2016 Trump critic --- of his lying, support for the KKK and more --- before then choosing to become his U.N. Ambassador and sing his praises for years thereafter, suggests otherwise. That said, Trump, for reasons we explain today, is delighted to have her in the race.

• A lot of horrible stuff came out of Donald Trump's endless lies about voter fraud and his evidence-free claims that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen from him when, in fact, he was actually trying to steal the election from Joe Biden and the American people. There was his deadly 1/6/21 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, followed by a host of newly restrictive voting laws adopted by Republican-controlled states, using his false claims of fraud as cover for new means of voter suppression. But, in a (very) few cases, some GOPers have figured out that the computer voting systems and tabulators their party has supported for years, actually make it more difficult, if not impossible, for Americans to oversee the results of their own elections. Last month, a court in rural Cleburne County, Arkansas mandated a change from computer tabulated elections to hand-marked and hand-counted paper ballots. The group who pushed the measure hopes to do the same in the state's 74 other counties. At the same time, the County Clerk in Nye County, Nevada --- which moved last year to a hand-count protocol as a parallel tally to its computer tabulation --- says that the hand-counts by some 200 volunteers in the rural county were ultimately more accurate than the computer tallies. (Just as we've been trying to tell ya for about 20 years now.)

• Also, some important news was broken by the Washington Post over the weekend. But it was largely buried by the media's over-inflated panic about "balloons". As it turns out, Donald Trump's campaign paid some $600,000 to a research group in late 2020 for a study on that year's election results. Specifically, the firm was tasked to ferret out any possible evidence of fraud in six key swing-states that might have swung the election from Trump to Biden. As one of those familiar with the study explained to WaPo: "They looked at everything: change of addresses, illegal immigrants, ballot harvesting, people voting twice, machines being tampered with, ballots that were sent to vacant addresses that were returned and voted. Literally anything you could think of. Voter turnout anomalies, date of birth anomalies, whether dead people voted. If there was anything under the sun that could be thought of, they looked at it." But the results of the study were never released. Why? Because the well-paid researchers were unable to find any evidence that the election was stolen, fraudulent or even in error in anyway. The results were given to Trump, however, in December of 2020. Nonetheless, days later, on January 6, 2021, he continued his lies anyway, leading directly to the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, for which he has yet to be held to account in any way.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with the wildly under-reported news of the chemical train derailment, fire and controlled release of toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio last week; After ExxonMobil declared record profits last year, they have signaled their intent this year to do away with their algae biofuel research scam they've been green-washing their company with for years now; And some seemingly good news for EVs following Sunday's Super Bowl...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Ohio residents sue over fiery chemical train derailment after governor's decision to release toxic chemicals; Exxon drops its algae biofuel charade; PLUS: Electric vehicles dominate Super Bowl ads, signaling potential culture shift... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): As climate change disrupts ecosystems, a new outbreak of bird flu spreads to mammals; Deep sea mining noise poses harm to blue whales, scientists warn; Coal ash waste along shores of Great Lakes threatens water quality; US's first solar panels over canals pilot will deploy iron flow batteries; Ford to build EV battery plant in Michigan, use Chinese tech; Orphan well cleanup in Pennsylvania underscores enormity of task ... PLUS: Farewell radiators? Testing out electric infrared wallpaper ... and much, MUCH more! ...

We're old enough at The BradCast to remember when Republicans used to at least pretend to believe in things like "personal freedoms." But, now that Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis is preparing a run for President in 2024, things are getting mighty early 20th-century German-y these days down in the Sunshine State. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

The recently re-elected Governor is on a roll. Most notably, over the past year or so, he has adopted a "Don't Say Gay" law, threatening school teachers with dismissal for referencing LGBTQ issues in public schools, and, more recently, his "Stop W.O.K.E. Act" to prevent discussion of race issues and other things that the all-mighty State decides may make the parents of a white, straight child uncomfortable. Also known (ironically enough) as the "Individual Freedom Act," a federal judge recently cited George Orwell's 1984 in describing the law as "positively dystopian" as it has resulted in the state-ordered banning of library books.

But DeSantis isn't cowed by courts of law or even public opprobrium. Last Friday, his State Department of Business and Professional Regulation (apparently, Republicans now love state regulations too?) filed a 27-page complaint against The Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation, seeking to revoke their liquor license. Why? Well, last December, for the eighth year in a row, they featured a performance of the popular Drag Queen Christmas national tour and "violated Florida statutes" by allowing parents to bring their children, according to the state's complaint. (So much for "parental choice," which GOPers also used to pretend to believe in.)

Perhaps all of that wouldn't be so bad, if Floridians knew they could hold elected officials accountable at the ballot box. Sadly --- and predictably --- the Governor and his henchmen in the state legislator in Tallahassee are working to make that more difficult as well. Last year, DeSantis signed Senate Bill 524. In addition to giving him a personal special "elections crimes" police force (which he immediately abused by ordering the round-up of former felons at gunpoint and on camera for "voter fraud" even though most had been told by the state they were allowed to vote in 2020), the measure also mimics a law recently adopted by Texas that resulted in a huge percentage of vote-by-mail ballots being rejected in 2022.

The new provision mandates that vote-by-mail voters include a drivers license or social security number on their absentee envelope when casting their vote. However, there's no easy way for voters to know which one of those two numbers will match the number on their registration record and ballots will be rejected without a perfect match. The Texas version of the same law --- being pushed as "model legislation" by the far-right Heritage Foundation in several GOP-controlled states --- resulted in preliminary ballot rejection rates as high as 38% in several counties during last year's primaries.

Now, the bipartisan Florida Supervisors of Elections Association, comprised of elected county elections chiefs, are pushing back against the new law. They argue unanimously in a new report [PDF] that it will result in disenfranchised voters, as well as increased costs to counties and security issues for elections.

We're joined today by ION SANCHO, Florida's legendary, former Leon County Supervisor of Elections who served in the elected position for nearly 30 years before resigning in 2016. He explains the many concerns about the new measure and why it is that election officials around the state are so unanimously troubled by it.

"Even though a majority of the Supervisors of Elections are Republicans, they cannot stomach what they see the Florida legislature doing, because it's real simple --- it's not fair," Sancho tells me. "Every Supervisor of Elections in the state can see that this is simply a partisan attack on voters that the Governor is trying to suppress. That offends them."

The new law, he fears, will be "a logistical nightmare" for election officials. "This whole process --- that we carefully spent a decade building to ensure that legal voters could cast and have that ballot counted --- is under direct threat, and by individuals who haven't a clue about how Florida elections work. Because these recommendations came from Heritage Action, the political arm for the Heritage Foundation."

Sancho is hopeful that some of the Republicans in Tallahassee will listen to the elections officials. "Because where this will blow up, the first election under these new rules," will be the state's March 2024 Presidential Preference Primary, "where you've got to two apex Republicans, possibly, on the ballot. And you don't want that election to melt down. These rules could destroy the Presidential primary in Florida. And wouldn't that put some egg on DeSantis' face."

So well respected by his peers that he was selected by them to oversee the ultimately-aborted 2000 Presidential recount in the state, Sancho charges that "Governor DeSantis has really declared war on any human being that has a different political ideology than himself. It's shocking."

Nonetheless, DeSantis, after winning in 2018 by less than half a percentage point, was re-elected to a second term by a landslide last November, even as Republicans elsewhere in the nation had a very difficult election. Why did he do so well last year? Sancho offers his thoughts on that as well today. And, yes, it has to do with the "tremendous impact" of the Governor's new special election crimes police force and a resulting "complete collapse of African-American voting" last year in the state. But that, Sancho seems confident, is likely to turn around in 2024...at least if their votes are allowed to be tallied.

Please tune in for another very clarifying and compelling conversation/warning with the great Ion Sancho today!

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with news on a disturbing chemical train derailment in Ohio; catastrophic heat and wildfires in Chile; EU's successful move away from Russian fossil fuels; and some good news about this year's global investments in clean energy sources versus those in dirty, deadly fossil fuels...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Ohio chemical train derailment forces evacuations; Chile battles catastrophic wildfires amid record-breaking heat wave; EU has replaced Russian fossil fuels; PLUS: For the first time ever, global investment in clean energy equals fossil fuel investment... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): U.N. Secretary-General’s searing message for the fossil fuel industry; BP scales back climate targets as profits hit record; Neo-Nazis plotted to attack power grid, feds say; Feds warn Rio Grande settlement could trigger disaster; Colorado River crisis is so bad, lakes Mead and Powell are unlikely to refill in our lifetimes; Texas carbon capture project is 'Band-Aid' to greenwash $10 billion LNG plant, locals say; Coal ash dumps along shores of Great Lakes threaten water supplies... PLUS: Essential insects in East Asia have declined massively, study finds... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: Naturally. Now they're coming for citizen ballot initiatives too. They really do hate democracy, don't they?

But, first up today... As we await several criminal indictments hopefully headed the way of our failed, twice-impeached former President, an order released by a federal Judge in Florida last night was particularly satisfying.

It came in response to a motion for sanctions by Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and more than a dozen other defendants in a failed lawsuit filed by Donald Trump and his latest foolish attorney/sucker, Alina Habba, last year. In fact, the first version of Trump's suit was so deficient and devoid of facts or even actual charges, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks was kind enough to allow them to refile it before dismissing the second, longer, but no better version with prejudice.

On Thursday night, Judge Middlebrooks, in a blistering (and I mean blistering) 46-page order [PDF], explained why he was granting the defendants' request for sanctions. He began thusly: "This case should never have been brought. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim. ... Thirty-one individuals and entities were needlessly harmed in order to dishonestly advance a political narrative. A continuing pattern of misuse of the courts by Mr. Trump and his lawyers undermines the rule of law, portrays judges as partisans, and diverts resources from those who have suffered actual legal harm."

And that's just the first two paragraphs! It gets even more brutally scathing from there, before concluding with an order for Trump and Habba to pay nearly $1 million to the defendants for the "completely frivolous bad faith" suit brought for "an improper purpose" amounting to "abusive litigation tactics." Perhaps most fun: the single biggest award of fees for a single defendant went to Clinton, who Trump must now pay almost $172,000!

Then, in more serious news today... Progressive citizen ballot initiatives did exceptionally well in 2022, on everything from abortion rights to the legalization of marijuana to the expansion of health care. Yes, even in so-called "red" states. As it turns out, progressive ideas seem to be wildly popular among voters of all stripes! And there is likely much more to come in 2023 and 2024, on abortion rights, minimum wage, gun safety, independent redistricting commissions and much more.

Therefore, in a number of states where Republicans have locked themselves into power with gerrymandered legislatures, they are moving toward making such statewide exercises in "direct democracy" more difficult to get onto the ballot in the first place, and hoping to make them harder to adopt by raising the threshold for passage, for example, from 50% to 60% where they can get away with it.

We're joined today by CHRIS MELODY FIELDS FIGUEREDO, Executive Director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center to discuss both progressive successes on statewide ballot measures around the country in 2022 and what the GOP is now doing to try and prevent those successes from happening again.

"That was a huge moment last year in a trend that I know is going to continue as we look at 2023 and '24, where we really see, in many states, that our elected officials are out of touch with the people," Figueredo tells me. "And in most states where they tried to limit the ability of the people to bring forth issues to their community through the ballot measure process, in most cases those were rejected in the states. So there's a lot of opportunity ahead of us."

But, she cautions, "We are seeing a direct backlash to what is happening across the country, of progressive issues winning when they're put before the voters. We're not seeing those changes, which the people say are urgent and important, through our representatives in government, whether it's at city council, whether it's at the state legislative level, and even in the federal government."

We've got a lot to discuss on all of this, including where the direct democracy ballot initiative process has seemingly been captured by corporate interests (in states like California) and about the dozens of states which still don't even allow citizens to place measures on the statewide ballot at all.

I'm also curious how much of the new blowback against such initiatives Figueredo attributes to the number of them in recent years that have instituted independent redistricting commissions in hopes of breaking gerrymandered strangleholds that the GOP still has on many state legislatures. "You have to connect the dots," Figueredo responds. "I think this is ultimately the question that is before us right now in our democracy. Is it of, for and by the people? And who ultimately has the power to make decisions for all of us? That's what's at stake right now."

"It's ultimately this question about power. You can connect the dots. And if we are looking at the ballot initiative process, or the initiatives in general, as a tool for power in our democracy, then yes, if you are an elected official who does not agree with people who may be your constituents and it doesn't fit your agenda, then your next step would be to undermine or weaken the will of the people."

There is much more in our conversation today, including what the U.S. Supreme Court may soon do to gut all such statewide initiatives regarding elections in their upcoming Moore v. Harper decision. Please tune in!...

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Is there any amount of blatant corruption that would result in Ohio voters finally turning against Republicans? As we discuss in detail on today's BradCast, state GOP lawmakers seem to really be testing that question at this point. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

But, first up, speaking of testing voters, the Treasury Department made it official today. The U.S. Government has now hit its current, statutory borrowing limit. We are now officially using "extraordinary measures" to continue paying our bills to avoid defaulting on our debts. But that can only go on for so long. At this point, according to Treasury's best guess, the U.S. will see its first-ever default "before early June" unless House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his Republicans in Congress cast a simple vote to raise the amount we are allowed to borrow so that we can pay for all the stuff that Congress and Presidents of both parties long ago agreed to pay for.

It's not hard. It's been done about 80 times since the 1960s, mostly without a problem. But now, with a Democrat in the White House and radicalized Republicans in control of the U.S. House, GOP hard-liners seem determined to play a dangerous game that could result in a national or even world-wide recession or depression. They are pretending to care about the national debt, after years of voting to increase spending while reducing revenue with huge tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. Their performative actions now --- as they hold the nation hostage, demanding cuts to Social Security and Medicare --- will only make the national debt worse. Will voters remember, the next time they go to the voting booth, the damage the GOP seems hell-bent on causing?

We can only hope there will be some not totally insane, "moderate" Republicans left in Congress to join with Democrats to end this madness before its too late, because nobody knows how bad the damage will soon be if they don't. They are likely to run this up to the wire. Again. So, buckle up.

Meanwhile, there's Republican-controlled Ohio, with its totally not insane, supposedly "moderate" Republican Governor, Mike DeWine. He just signed legislation, passed by the GOP state legislature, redefining natural gas --- one of the worst causes of global warming --- as "green energy" under state law. Not insane or corrupt at all, right?

As it turns out, DeWine and state Republicans, once again, seem to be participants in another dark money corruption scandal courtesy of the fossil fuel industry. That, as the state's Republican former House Speaker, Larry Householder, begins his $60 million federal bribery trial next week. That, after Householder, former Ohio Republican Party chair Matt Borges, three others and a dark money political group controlled by Householder participated in "an elaborate scheme, secretly funded by FirstEnergy, to secure Householder's power, elect his allies, pass legislation containing a $1 billion bailout for two aging nuclear power plants, and then vex a ballot effort to overturn the bill with a dirty tricks campaign," according to prosecutors.

Householder shepherded the 2019 passage of the bill to bailout the nuke plants (and a coal-fired power plant) owned by FirstEnergy, a huge energy and fossil fuel conglomerate based in Akron. The bailout was to have been paid for with an additional fee on the utility bills of Buckeye State rate payers, according to the legislation that was signed be DeWine just hours after passage.

And now, it seems, DeWine has done it again. This time on behalf of the natural gas industry. But, why not? Last November, Ohio voters said they didn't mind all the corruption. DeWine easily won a second term in office and state GOP lawmakers increased their super-majorities in both chambers of the legislature.

But, just in case the voters get wise, DeWine recently signed a major overhaul of state election laws, implementing a series of new restrictions on voters. One of those restrictions, however, will make it more difficult for active-duty military members overseas to cast their votes without being disenfranchised. Oops. Military families are said to be furious. But do Republicans actually care about that either? Why would they?

Finally, Desi Doyen joins for our latest Green News Report with more details on DeWine's friendly payback to the natural gas industry; the European Union's new plan to try and compete with renewable energy incentives in the U.S. adopted last year by Democrats; and Germany's recent crack down on anti-coal protesters...

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