After more than twenty years of rolling back corruption and bribery statutes, is it any wonder, as our guest on today's BradCast observed in his latest op-ed, that the U.S. Supreme Court is now "blind to its own corruption"?

BUT FIRST, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is announcing his 2024 Presidential run today, and corporate media outlets are focusing on his horse race with the disgraced former President. We mark the day, however, by focusing on several of the latest victims of DeSantis' Big Government weaponization against people of color and the LGBTQ+ community. That, by a guy whose 2022 re-election slogan in Florida was, laughably, "Freedom Lives Here".

DeSantis deserves credit for leading the way for other, similarly gerrymandered and GOP-controlled states which have begun to adopt many of the same, hateful, Big Government "cancel culture" statutes that, in Florida, have resulted in banned books, muzzled teachers, lost rights, vile threats against those who support freedom and travel warnings issued for those visiting the Sunshine State.

Today, the effort is playing out in terroristic threats against Target employees; an investigation of a Florida grade school teacher for showing an animated Disney film to her class; and the removal of The Hill We Climb --- a poem by Amanda Gorman which she read at Joe Biden's 2021 inauguration --- from a grade school library. That's just a sampling of some of the latest victims of DeSantis' cruel agenda during his tenure as Governor.

As California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted in response to Target's removal of items from its Pride Month collection under threats from the MAGA right, "Wake up America. This doesn’t stop here. You’re black? You’re Asian? You’re Jewish? You’re a woman? You’re next."

THEN, it's back to the seemingly never-ending, decades-long corruption of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and some similar, recently revealed corruption by Justice Neil Gorsuch and even Chief Justice John Roberts who, by and large, refuses to do anything about any of it.

There's an explanation for that, argues RANDALL D. ELIASON, George Washington University Law School professor and former chief of the fraud and public corruption section at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C.

"Over more than two decades, the Supreme Court has gutted laws aimed at fighting corruption and at limiting the ability of the powerful to enrich public officials in a position to advance their interests. As a result, today wealthy individuals and corporations may buy political access and influence with little fear of legal consequences, either for them or for the beneficiaries of their largess," Eliason argued in a New York Times op-ed over the weekend, adding: "No wonder Justice Thomas apparently thought his behavior was no big deal."

Today, Eliason tells me, "the Court itself has contributed to a legal environment over the last twenty years, where, at least as far as the Court is concerned, many of the things that are going on are not, in fact, corrupt, because they've taken this extremely narrow view of what corruption is." Essentially, he explains, cases such as Citizens United v. FEC; United States v. Sun-Diamond Growers; Skilling v. U.S.; and McDonnell v. U.S. have all greatly narrowed the definition of corruption to largely nothing less than a very specific quid pro quo bribe where a politician promises a very specific official act in exchange for payment.

That means, as some on the Court may now see it, long-term relationships where a GOP megadonor like Harlan Crow has sponsored hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed luxury travel for Thomas, or purchased his mother's house, improved it, and allowed her to live there rent-free to this day, or even paying private school tuition for Thomas' grand-nephew, is not seen as "corruption" if it wasn't in return for a specific thing. Even Thomas' wife Ginni can receive tens of thousands of dollars in payoffs by far-right activists, and it's not considered corruption.

"These long term relationships, where wealthy donors can shower a politician or a Supreme Court justice with huge gifts over years --- that's okay. At least it's not criminal, unless prosecutors can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that one particular gift was because of one particular thing they did," Eliason explains, detailing how the Court has cloistered itself into a world where all of this is somehow okay.

"The reality of corruption is usually much more subtle that that, and pervasive than that. It's a long-term 'You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' kind of arrangement. 'I'll give you these fancy trips and gifts and things over time, and then when things happen to come up that I'm interested in, you'll do the right thing for me, and we don't even have to talk about it. We don't have to have an explicit deal, it's just an understanding between us.' That's what real-world corruption is like. But for more than twenty years, the Court has issued a series of opinions that have largely put arrangements like that --- like the arrangement between Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas --- out of the reach of the law."

We've got a lot to discuss on these matters with Eliason today, including his suggestions for how Congress could fix this clearly broken and corrupt system, even as the Chief Justice suggests (inaccurately) that doing so would somehow be a violation of the Constitution's Separation of Powers doctrine. Ironically enough, if Congress finally does manage to legislate ethics reform for the Court and someone did challenge it as unconstitutional, guess who would get to be the final arbiter? "I wonder how they are going to rule?," quips Eliason...

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Is President Biden falling into a dangerous GOP trap by negotiating the debt ceiling? Our guest on today's BradCast argues that a potential disaster could and should easily be avoided entirely.

BUT FIRST, while we covered the grotesque lawsuit filed by Noelle Dunphy detailing sexual abuse by the repulsive, alleged sexual predator Rudy Giuliani on yesterday's show, I had the chance to read the full 70-page complaint [PDF] this morning. And I discovered one paragraph that I hadn't yet seen reported elsewhere and just want to make sure it gets out there.

Paragraph 124 on page 23 details how Trump and Giuliani, according to Dunphy, already had worked out plans by early 2019 to claim phony "voter fraud" and that the election was stolen, if the then-President turned out to be the loser in 2020.

"On February 7, 2019," the suit alleges, "Giuliani told Ms. Dunphy...about a plan that had been prepared for if Trump lost the 2020 election. Specifically, Giuliani told Ms. Dunphy that Trump's team would claim that there was 'voter fraud' and that Trump had actually won the election."

Just wanted to make sure that gets out there today.

NEXT UP, we cover the reported results of a number of key state and local elections held on Tuesday, with overall very good results for Democrats (again) and some embarrassment for Florida Governor and hapless GOP Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis. In an upset victory, voters in Jacksonville --- long the most populous city in the nation with a Republican Mayor --- chose Democrat Donna Deegan to take over. A Republican has served as Mayor there for all but 4 of the past 30 years. Now, it will be run by both a Dem and the city's first-ever female chief executive. That, after DeSantis endorsed her Republican opponent.

That wasn't the only embarrassment for Meatball Ron on Tuesday. In Kentucky, for some reason, he endorsed Trump's former U.N. ambassador at the last minute in the GOP primary for Governor. She came in third by more than 30 points. Trump's choice, Mitch McConnell protege and the state's first Black Attorney General, Daniel Cameron, will run against the popular incumbent Democratic Governor Andy Beshear this November. So, ol' Ron was 0 for 2 on the night, even if the candidate he endorsed in KY was a GOP megadonor that he hopes, I suspect, will want to return the favor by supporting a loser herself next year.

In Philadelphia, moderate Democrat Cherelle Parker emerged victorious from a group of five front-runners, defeating a more progressive Dem to win the primary. The win almost ensures Parker will become the City of Brotherly Love's 100th Mayor this fall, and the very first female, after 99 dudes in a row, to hold the position in the nation's 5th most populous city.

Dems also held on to the majority in Pennsylvania's state House, after narrowly taking it over, by one seat, for the first time in a dozen years in February. On Tuesday, the Democratic candidate won a seat in the state House recently vacated by a Dem accused of sexual harassment. In PA, the House sets the agenda for the entire state legislature, where Republicans still control the Senate.

And, Republicans may have dodged a bullet on Tuesday in the Keystone State when the only judge in the nation to rule in favor of blocking certification of the 2020 Presidential race lost the GOP primary to a not-insane Republican who will run against a Dem this fall for a recently vacated seat on the state's Supreme Court. No matter what happens in the general election, Democrats will retain a majority on the court in the critical battleground state.

FINALLY, an ever-optimistic President Biden on Wednesday announced that he will cut his planned overseas trip short to return to Washington on Sunday to finish what he believes is a possible deal to prevent the GOP from forcing the federal government into defaulting on our debts for the first time in history. We'll see if he's right about that. The Treasury Department warns that, without Congress raising the debt ceiling, we'll hit the dumb statutory debt limit as early as June 1, barring Treasury from borrowing more money to pay the bills for stuff that Congress and Presidents of both parties have already committed to paying for. Economic calamity would likely ensue in the U.S. and even across the globe if that happens.

But is it even necessary to play along with far-right Republicans hell-bent on holding the nation and world economy hostage to their pretend concerns about spending and debt? A number of Constitutional law experts, including Harvard's well-respected Laurence Tribe, argue that it is not. That the 14th Amendment makes clear: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts ... shall not be questioned."

We're joined today by BRAD BLOG's longtime legal analyst, ERNEST A. CANNING, who agrees with Tribe and his argument that, in fact, there is no one who actually has the legal standing to sue the Biden Administration if he simply instructs Treasury to keep paying the nation's bills, as required by law, whether Congress raises the debt ceiling or not. Canning recently wrote an article explaining how a simple Executive Order from the President would do the trick.

But wouldn't litigating over the matter --- even the act of determining if, say, the GOP House had standing to sue --- still end up crashing the markets? Canning explains why he believes that will not happen and why Biden's concerns about invoking the 14th Amendment are unwarranted.

We also discuss Canning's recent article on how Ronald Reagan's veto of a 1987 bill to codify the FCC's Fairness Doctrine into law, led directly to the January 6 insurrection and the extreme threat that U.S. democracy now faces...

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Apologies in advance if you need to rinse off today's BradCast with a hot shower. We did our best to keep it family friendly. It wasn't always easy. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

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

• It's Election Day in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and parts of Florida for some key state, municipal and special elections. We run down several of the key races and will have noteworthy results, as available, on tomorrow's program.

• The political group calling itself "No Labels" is reportedly working to become an official political party in all 50 states in hopes of placing a Presidential candidate on the ballot in 2024. The group, founded in 2010, claims to be a non-partisan "centrist" coalition of both Democrats and Republicans, though their efforts to date seemed designed mostly to harm Democrats. See, for example, their lobbying of Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema in opposition of reforming the Senate filibuster in 2021. Also, internal documents have revealed their funders include far-right dark money billionaires such as David Kochand Peter Theil, according to Daily Beast, and Clarence Thomas benefactor Harlan Crow, according to New Republic. Now, the Secretary of State in Maine is charging the group has been scamming voters into signing a "petition" that is actually a change of party form. Just 5,000 voters need to become members in the state for the party to be allowed on the ballot. Apparently 6,000 have now signed up and the state has some questions about it.

• Really, we did our best to keep this report no more graphic than PG-13, but it has to be told because there are some very serious crimes sort of hidden in the new 70-page lawsuit [PDF] filed against Rudy Giuliani by a former employee who accuses him of some pretty horrific "sexual assault, battery, gender discrimination and harassment, fostering a hostile work environment, retaliation, breach of contract, and violations of state labor laws."

  The hostile work environment allegedly included "misogynistic, racist, and antisemitic communications, constant sexual attacks, threats when she brought up the salary she was owed, and threats when she finally found the courage to confront him with her fears and the possibility of legal action."

  But of potential criminal note in the suit filed by Noelle Dunphy against Giuliani in New York on Monday, is not only the off-the-books payments (she says he gave her just $12,000 of the $1 million he'd promised), but that the former NYC mayor, federal prosecutor and Trump attorney was, according to the lawsuit, allegedly "selling pardons for $2 million, which he and President Trump would split." (!!!)

  Moreover, Dunphy claims to have audio recordings of Giuliani, including "some in which she says he can be heard making sexual comments, demanding sex and making sexist, racist, and antisemitic remarks." Does she have any in which Rudy is discussing selling Presidential pardons and splitting the proceeds with Trump? I suspect prosecutors may want to find that out in the not-too-distant future.

• Speaking of antisemitism, on Monday, Florida Governor and desperate Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis signed yet another bill forcing his far-right ideology onto others with yet another ban on freedoms. This one bars public colleges and universities from investing in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. DeSantis has previously enacted state-imposed bans on various forms of free speech and books that his far-right Big Government state lackeys find objectionable. That has already resulted in bans on books said to cite issues of race, gender and sexuality, including math books (somehow) and social study texts. But now the Jewish Telegraphic Agency is reporting that the State is also banning educational textbooks on the Holocaust and/or forcing publishers to modify them in order to receive official State approval for use in Florida K-12 schools and public universities. “This is what modern day fascism looks like," charges human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid. "Remember, the main reason extremists would want to ban teaching about a past atrocity is to make it easier to enable that atrocity in the future."

• We do have at least one story today that isn't creepy and horrible today, ironically enough. The still-Rightwing-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court actually issued a ruling that isn't insane, overturning a lower state court's insane, seemingly Fox "News"-inspired order that hospitals must use Ivermectin horse-medicine to treat COVID-19 when a patient insists. The ruling overturns that madness comes in advance of liberals taking over the state high court majority beginning in August, following the election of a new liberal justice in the Badger State earlier this year.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with news on a devastating cyclone in Myanmar; the enormous cost of plugging abandoned oil and gas well in the Gulf of Mexico; and the Biden EPA's proposal of landmark new to curb climate warming emissions from the nation's power plants...

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There was far too much news to fit into one BradCast today. We tried to do it anyway. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among our many stories...

• It was difficult to notice this week, but there was yet another very good election day on Tuesday for non-Rightwingers, including more bad news for MAGA World in several local contests around the country. In Lincoln, Nebraska, incumbent Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird, supported by Democrats, defeated a well-funded opponent supported by the state's billionaire Republican U.S. Senator (and former Governor) Pete Ricketts and fellow billionaire publisher Thomas Peed. Gaylor Baird won by nearly 10 points. Apparently, ads describing Lincoln, the state capital, as a dystopian hellhole did not go over well with voters...in Lincoln.

• A MAGA election conspiracist and local elections clerk named Stephanie Scott (pictured above), was tossed out of her job in a rare recall election on Tuesday in Adams Township, Michigan in Hillsdale County, one of the state's most Republican-leaning areas. Scott is under state criminal investigation after refusing to turn over her town's computer vote tabulator in 2021, which she believed held evidence of fraud revealing Democrats had stolen the state's Presidential election in 2020. That, in a town that Trump/Pence won with 75% of the vote that year. (If the story sounds familiar, see Tina Peters, former Mesa County, Colorado Clerk, who has since been tossed out of her job and indicted on 10 counts.) This appears to be part of the multi-state MAGA conspiracy to breach voting systems, hatched at the Trump White House in December 2020, as we detailed again last week. Scott was defeated by a 2 to 1 margin on Tuesday by an independent challenger running on the slogan "Make Adams Township Boring Again".

• But, if ya can't beat 'em, suppress their vote! That seems to be the Republican plan for "winning" elections from here on out, apparently. After losing statewide ballot initiatives that would have restricted abortion rights last year, including in so-called "red" states like Kansas and Kentucky, the GOP is now hoping to game the ballot initiative process itself in several states. The most immediate and noteworthy is Ohio, where supporters of reproductive freedom hope to place an initiative on the ballot in November to establish a state Constitutional right to abortion. But Republicans, who just four months ago adopted a statute ending costly August elections, are now moving to place an amendment on the ballot in a $20 million Special Election in August that would raise the requirement for adoption of Constitutional Amendments from a simple majority vote to a required 60% for passage. (Ironically, the GOP lawmakers own Amendment, if voted on in August, would only require 50% to be adopted.) Other gerrymandered GOP states are now attempted to do the same thing, including Missouri, where Republican lawmakers there are doing something arguably even more insidious in their own attempt to fool voters into supporting their anti-democracy measure.

• And then there's Florida, where democracy goes to die. The state legislature has just passed a one of their final gifts to beleaguered Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis: a 96-page law that will, among other things, severely restrict voter registration by nonpartisan third-party organizations. As recent research finds, Black and Latino voters are more than five times more likely to be registered by third-party groups than White voters. DeSantis is expected to sign the legislation soon as one of his last official acts before declaring his 2024 candidacy. It will be the third year in a row that Sunshine State Republicans have adopted new voting restrictions.

• A D.C. jury on Thursday convicted four members of the far-right, racist militia group, Proud Boys, of seditious conspiracy, obstructing an official proceeding, conspiring to impede Congress from performing its duties, obstructing law enforcement and other federal crimes related to their participation in Donald Trump's Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The charges for conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding both carry sentences of up to 20 years in prison. Their former leader, like Donald Trump, was not even at the Capitol during the riot, but was among those found guilty. All of that good news is likely very bad news for the former President and the specific federal charges likely to soon be brought against him.

• In still more bad news for Trump today, his lawsuit against the New York Times and several of their reporters, charging an "insidious plot" to obtain his tax records resulting in Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting by the paper, was tossed out by a New York judge on Wednesday. Moreover, the judge --- finding Trump's claims "fail as a matter of constitutional law" and that the paper's newsgathering efforts were "the very core of protected First Amendment activity" --- ordered Trump to pay all of the attorneys fees, legal expenses and other associated costs for the Times and their reporters.

• ProPublica strikes again. First they revealed that GOP megadonor Harlan Crow showered U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for decades with hundreds of thousands of dollars in luxury vacations which he unlawfully failed to disclose. Then they reported that Crow had actually purchased Thomas' mother's house from him, made nearly $40,000 worth of improvements to it, and has allowed the corrupt Justices mom in it, rent-free, ever since. None of that was ever disclosed by Thomas either, in violation of the law. And now, on Wednesday, they did it again. Their latest bombshell scoop documents how Crow's company paid for years of tuition to private schools for Thomas' grandnephew who the nation's longest serving Justice says he raised "as a son" since taking legal custody at the age of 6. The tuition for the boy, now in his 30s, amounted to approximately $100,000. Congressional Republicans continue to applaud the unspeakably corrupt Thomas.

• Finally, as you haven't had enough already today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report to detail the unprecedented heat wave in Spain, as Italy's rivers dry up; the EU's passage of "the biggest climate protection law of all time"; and New York's adoption of a landmark law banning natural gas hookups in new building construction...

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On today's BradCast we catch up on where each of the major, still-unindicted criminal investigations of Donald Trump currently stand with the one person who may pay closer attention to the details of the cases than even the prosecutors working on them! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Over the weekend, longtime national security journalist MARCY WHEELER of Emptywheel wrote three articles, summarizing the latest status in each of the three ongoing criminal probes of the already-criminally-indicted-in-New-York former President, and what the final issues are that prosecutors must nail down before indictments can be brought.

Those cases include Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal investigations of Trump's January 6 related conspiracies and the documents he stole from the White House, as well as Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis' broad probe into Trump's failed attempt to strong-arm state officials into stealing the 2020 election from Joe Biden.

Among the many points discussed with Wheeler, who joins us today from Paris...

On Jan 6 and related matters:

• Why determining the legal definition of "corrupt purpose" in the D.C. federal court circuit, in regards to Trump's attempt to obstruct the Electoral College vote certification, is so important to Smith's case.
• Why pending cases against Jan. 6 insurrectionists remain key to that definition.
• Why the fake electors schemes in several states and Trump's fraudulent fundraising on his lies about election fraud is also critical to Smith's case.
• Evidence that Trump's own attorneys knew in advance that their fake electors scheme was unlawful.
• Why nailing down testimony from cooperating witnesses is so important and whether former VP Mike Pence --- who testified before Smith's federal grand jury last week about Trump's attempt to have him assassinated --- can be made into a sympathetic witness on the stand.
• Will we see a broad set of indictments against Trump regarding Jan. 6 or just one or two focused, easily provable charges?
• Is Smith investigating the multi-state conspiracy to breach voting system software in states like Georgia, Michigan, Colorado and elsewhere as part of his probe?

On the Stolen Documents:

• What's the hold-up in bringing charges on what has always seemed like the simplest of the many ongoing cases?
• Why it's helpful that Smith is overseeing both this case and the Jan 6 probe, given that several witnesses are key to each of the cases.
• What the specific criminal charges may ultimately be, and the important related decision on whether they will be brought in Florida or in D.C.

On the GA Conspiracy:

• What's the hold-up for D.A. Willis in bringing charges in the Georgia-related crimes?
• Why Trump is likely to try and move any GA charges to the federal level (and into Smith's lap).
• How and why a number of co-conspirators may have suddenly decided to cooperate with Willis after all in recent days.
• How there may be an additional 24(!) previously-unknown witnesses to Trump's infamous Jan 2, 2021 phone call to the GA Sec. of State attempting to strong-arm him to "find" 11,000 votes to steal the state's election from Biden.

That's just a sample, of course. Wheeler joins us for the full hour. Dig in...

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Today on The BradCast: Their positions on actual issues are wildly unpopular. Their phony culture war issues are bombing. Is it any wonder the GOP's best chance may now simply be to prevent their opponents from being able to cast a vote at all?

On today's program...

MICKEY MOUSE GOVERNOR: The Walt Disney Co. sued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis today in response to "a relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint unpopular with certain State officials." That, after the company dared oppose the official state position in favor of banning free speech in schools.

COW GOES MOO: A Donald Trump-appointed federal judge has tossed out libel lawsuits filed by doofus Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) against an Esquire journalist and its publisher for reporting that the wingnut former Congressman turned Trump social media CEO's family farm "knowingly" employed hundreds of undocumented workers. The judge found the reporting to to be "substantially, objectively true." Almost all 10 of the similarly ill-considered suits Nunes filed against perceived opponents in 2019 have now been dismissed. Only two of them, against anonymous Twitter accounts named "Devin Nunes' Mom" and "Devin Nunes' Cow" remain.

BOARD SILLY: While progressives scored big in marquee contests during the April 4 elections --- liberals won a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years, and former teacher and union member Brandon Johnson became Chicago's mayor --- far-right MAGA school board candidates running on phony culture war issues "flamed out", according to Politico, in both Illinois and Wisconsin. They didn't do much better last November, even in "red" states like Missouri and Oklahoma. But GOP operatives apparently plan to keep choking the same chicken in elections later this year and in 2024, even as voters appear to prefer funding schools and keeping kids safe at them, over banning books, stifling free speech, and cancelling LGBTQ kids.

WOULDA WON BUT FOR THOSE MEDDLING (VOTING) KIDS!: Last week, longtime GOP attorney and vote suppressor Cleta Mitchell was caught in an audio recording obtained by Undercurrents' Lauren Windsor at a GOP donor event in Nashville, discussing plans to "combat" young voters by preventing them from voting on campuses in Virginia, North Carolina and elsewhere. She even vowed that Republican lawmakers may be able to eliminate 45 days of early voting and same day voter registration if they played their cards right, and kept giving money to her insidiously named "Election Integrity Network". If Mitchell's name is familiar, it's because she was on that infamous January 2021 phone call with Donald Trump hoping to strong-arm the Georgia Sec. of State into "finding" 11,000 votes to steal the state's Presidential election from Joe Biden.

SEND IN THE CLOWNS: It's bad enough to push secret vote suppression schemes to GOP donors. It's reprehensible for top state Republican election officials to participate in such schemes. But that's exactly what happened at a so-called "Secretaries of State Conference" sponsored by the far-right Heritage Foundation and other anti-democracy groups in February. Documented, a nonprofit watchdog organization, obtained the agenda for the secret conference in which only Republican Secretaries of State were invited to participate.

It was led by longtime, notorious GOP "Voter Fraud" fraudsters and liars like Hans Von Spakovsky, J. Christian Adams, J. Kenneth Blackwell and perhaps most shamefully, current U.S. Election Assistance Commissioner Donald Palmer (appointed to the bipartisan federal agency by Trump). They all schemed with top election officials from 13 GOP-controlled states --- including the chief election officials from Indiana, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia --- in a secret, off-the-record two-day confab.

We're joined today to discuss this appalling revelation by JAMIE COREY, a Senior Researcher at Documented who, with The Guardian's Ed Pilkington, exposed the entire pathetic affair, which, as Von Spakovsky insisted in an email she obtained, was "not a public event. It is a private, confidential meeting of the secretaries." --- Well, the Republican ones anyway, the ones who are supposed to run both state and federal elections in a non-partisan way.

"According to the event invitation we obtained, this is actually the sixth year in a row that they've held this event," says Corey. "And they have privately bragged --- Hans has --- to donors that they are excited that it's just for conservative Secretaries of State. No Democrats allowed."

"Voters should be concerned when you have election officials participating in a private, confidential meeting with former Trump associates, top voter suppression proponents, and groups who have been actively pushing false claims around elections," she explains. "As the agenda pointed out, there was a cocktail reception and dinner after the first day of substantive sessions wrapped up. So what you have there is top election officials, who are going to be overseeing the 2024 Presidential Election in their respective states, wining and dining with all these problematic people."

WHAT'S GOING ON?: Finally, after a few breaking news headlines, we're joined by Desi Doyen for our latest Green News Report as the Biden EPA launches a landmark effort to curb power plant carbon pollution; as Earth hits grim new records; as President Biden opens an office of environmental justice in the White House; and as the U.S. Supreme Court does something right for a rare change. Are they okay?

SHOW NOTE!: We're off tomorrow for unavoidable reasons. As Tucker Carlson once said, see ya next week!...

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We've got lots of dupes and lots of dopes on today's BradCast. You'll have to figure out which is which. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our stories today...

• House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has introduced a 320-page proposal [PDF] of cuts to the federal budget that he suggests Republicans must have in exchange for not blowing up the nation's economy for less than a year. The cuts being demanded in order for a vote to raise the nation's borrowing limit to pay for what we've already committed to spending and avoid a first-ever U.S. government default, include taking away food stamps from more than 4 million hungry Americans, and federal health insurance from more than 2 million poor and disabled people. He's also demanding another $130 billion dollars of cuts in social programs for Americans next year alone, though he doesn't say which programs. The White House believes it would most likely include deep cuts to "education, veterans medical care, cancer research, meals on wheels, food safety and law enforcement.” McCarthy's dead-on-arrival debt limit proposal --- if he's even able to get his own party to pass it in the House --- would also increase the deficit (which Republicans pretend to care about) by nearly $200 billion in cuts to IRS enforcement. But that will keep more money in the pockets of corporations and the wealthy, so there's that.

• Perhaps most disturbingly of all, McCarthy is calling for cuts to much of the $400 billion in climate initiatives to clean the air and fight global warming over the next decade, as adopted by Democrats in last year's Inflation Reduction Act. If I was one of McCarthy's constituents in Bakersfield, California, I'd be particularly pissed off about that, given this year's "State of the Air" report from the American Lung Association, released on the same day as McCarthy's debt ceiling bill. If I lived in Bakersfield, I might wonder why my own Congressman wants to kill me? The new report finds McCarthy's home town at the very top of two of the Lung Association's lists...but not the good ones. Bakersfield is the #1 most polluted city in the nation, as ranked by both short-term and year-round particle pollution. On the other hand, it's only the third worst in the nation when it comes to ozone pollution. Why does Kevin McCarthy want to slash climate programs and further harm his own constituents?!

• Some of these folks may be both dupes and dopes. Back in 2021, bedding impresario and 2020 election liar Mike Lindell promised to reveal iron-clad evidence that China helped steal the Presidential election from the former guy. Lindell declared he had data, from a whistleblower or something, proving that they had done so, somehow, via the Internet. He offered a $5 million challenge at a three-day "cyber symposium" in South Dakota that year to anyone who could "Prove Mike Wrong" by showing that the data packets he claimed revealed evidence of Chinese interference of the election didn't actually prove as much. Well, some guy, a Trump voter named Robert Zeidman, did exactly that, according to an arbitration panel who was called in after Lindell refused to pay up. The panel found that Zeidman proved the so-called "packet captures" included little more than jibberish and had nothing to do with the 2020 election. Now Lindell has 30 days to pay up, though he says he's going to court instead. It's all quite hilarious, in truth. But it may just be an appetizer for the $1.3 billion defamation suit [PDF] still pending against him by the Dominion Voting Systems company.

• Of course, Lindell wasn't the only one to screw himself over at that "cyber symposium" in SD. That's where Colorado's former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters was speaking on stage when sensitive Dominion Voting System software from her own county was leaked to the public over the Internet. Peters was later charged by CO with 7 felonies and 3 misdemeanors related to her alleged scheme to sneak into the secure voting system room in her county with accomplices late at night, as they turned off the security cameras to make unlawful copies of the election tabulation software. Her trial on those state charges comes later this year, but last month Peters was found guilty of obstructing a law enforcement investigation related to one of her accomplices. Last week she was sentenced to 4 months of home detention and 120 hours of community service. The penalties she is likely to face for breaching the County's voting system software is likely to be much much worse if she's found guilty.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with more on Speaker McCarthy's attempt to gut landmark climate initiatives at the expense of humanity; record deadly heat in Asia; Trump-appointed judges gutting Berkley, CA's attempt to fight climate change; and a landmark approval for clean electricity transmission across several western states...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Fort Lauderdale struggles with gas shortage and other ripple effects after extreme rain disaster; Historic, record-shattering heat in Asia turns deadly; Republican appeals court judges overturn Berkeley, CA's natural gas installation ban; PLUS: House Republicans hold U.S. clean energy sector hostage to raise the nation's debt limit... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): GOP House fails to override Biden’s veto of resolution to overturn EPA water rule; As states replace lead pipes, plastic alternatives could bring new risks; Hydro: Oil-rich Norway could become Europe’s 'green battery'; Clogged transmission cost consumers $13B in 1 year; Growing insurance crisis spreads to Texas; Rapid snowmelt causing significant flooding across northern Plains... PLUS: Beyond The Poles: The far-reaching dangers of melting ice

... and much, MUCH more! ...

If you thought you might have heard the end of Clarence Thomas' year's long crime spree as a lifelong Justice on the highest court in the land, think again. More stunning breaking news of his endless corruption on today's BradCast, along with a whole bunch of other newsworthy stuff.

Among that stuff...

• An incredible 25 inches of rain --- most of it within a period of 6 hours --- fell in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and surrounding areas over the past 24 hours. Desi Doyen joins us to explain WTF is going on. (Got any guesses?)

• Democratic state Rep. Justin Pearson was reseated at the Tennessee State House on Thursday, after the Shelby County Commission in Memphis unanimously elected him to be a temporary replacement for himself after he was expelled last week by the out-of-control, racist, gerrymandered GOP majority. Both he and Rep. Justin Jones (who was reseated on Monday after also being elected unanimously to do so by Nashville's Metropolitan Council) were expelled last week after joining a protest at the state Capitol demanding gun safety measures after 3 children and 3 adults were murdered in a mass shooting at a Christian elementary school in Nashville. The white female Democratic legislator who joined the two Justins in the protest was allowed to remain in her seat. We share some of Pearson's remarks after being selected in Memphis to fill his own seat, and after his return to the House today, where Republicans were debating a bill to censor free speech for college students in the state before they tossed out the rules to end all debate and voted for passage of the pro-Big Government, anti-free speech, racist measure.

• Hey! Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has a great idea about how to prevent school shootings! Just arm them up with militarized security personnel! "You know, when you go to the bank, and you deposit money in the bank, there are armed police officers at the bank," he declared late last month when announcing his new federal bills to fund armed security guards at the nation's public and private schools. "Why on earth do we protect a stupid deposit more than our children?," he asked on Twitter. And, just days later, you'll never guess what happened at the Old National Bank in Louisville, Kentucky.

• On the upside, all of this pro-murder, pro-Big Government, anti-free speech, anti-democracy GOP idiocy is being noticed by Americans, it seems. Our guest on yesterday's BradCast, Simon Rosenberg, one of the few who turned out to be right that last year's midterms would not result in a "red wave," draws our attention today to some noteworthy new polling. After their first 100 days, the new U.S. House GOP majority has an abysmal approval rating of negative 24 points overall, and are a jaw-dropping 48 points underwater among independent voters. Rosenberg observed that while he "could write a much longer analysis" of the new survey, "it isn't necessary. These numbers are truly terrible [for Republicans], and they are in serious trouble." We'll see if he turns out to be as right about 2024 as he was about 2022.

• Speaking of jaw-dropping. Today's exclusive from ProPublica about even more previously unknown corruption of Clarence Thomas may be even more mind-blowing than their exclusive last week revealing that the corrupt U.S. Supreme Court Justice, "accepted luxury travel from [GOP megadonor Harlan] Crow virtually every year for decades, including private jet flights, international cruises on the businessman’s superyacht and regular stays at his private resort in the Adirondacks" while failing to report any of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in gift travel on his financial disclosure forms, as required by law, for all of those years.

  And now today, we learn that Crow directly paid Thomas actual cash money to purchase the Justice's mother's home and several other lots on the same street that were owned by Clarence. His 94-year old mother is still alive, and still appears to live in the house (rent-free?)that Crow purchased before investing some $36,000 in renovations! Because that's just what billionaire real estate tycoons and GOP megadonors do for their closest personal friends who happen to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

  All of that, of course, meshes precisely with Clarence's corruption that we reported on way back in 2011, detailing his unlawful failure to list his wife's $120,000 annual salary from the rightwing Heritage Foundation on his annual financial disclosure forms for some 20 years, and the sweet $500,000 in dark money that his wife Ginni's then-new, non-profit political advocacy group received from Crow back in 2009, just after the infamous Citizens United case was heard by her husband at SCOTUS, and just before Clarence and the other Republican Justices released their opinion in 2010, allowing unlimited dark money to political advocacy groups, like Ginni's, to remain undisclosed.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with news on a massive toxic plastics fire still burning out of control in Indiana; Western water war crunch time on the Colorado River; and the Biden EPA's new plans for turbocharging the EV revolution...

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On today's BradCast: The good news just seems to keep on coming. We'll take it while it lasts! Tuesday brought huge election victories for democracy and progressives in Chicago and Wisconsin! [Audio liNk to full show follows this summary.]

In Chicago, Democratic progressive teacher and union member Brandon Johnson defeated conservative, self-proclaimed "tough on crime" Democrat Paul Vallas to become the new Windy City Mayor in a stunning victory.

But the biggest election of the night, and perhaps of 2023, was the Wisconsin state Supreme Court victory of liberal Milwaukee Judge Janet Protasiewicz over far-right former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly, a Republican activist supported by anti-choice groups who advised his party in their failed attempt to overturn the state's 2020 election. Her victory creates a progressive majority on the high court for the first time in 15 years.

In a closely divided state where elections are traditionally very close, often within 1 or 2 points, Protasiewicz reportedly blew Kelly away by a whopping 11 points as of this afternoon's tally. It was Kelly's second defeat in running for the Supreme Court in as many years.

And it comes not a moment too soon. The Badger State's new, 4 to 3 progressive high court majority will likely face a host of critical issues for both the state and nation in the years ahead, including an 1849 abortion ban which Republicans are hoping to enforce; wildly gerrymandered state and Congressional district maps in one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation; voting rights issues; and hopes by Republicans of trying to steal the 2024 Presidential election.

We're delighted to be joined once again today to discuss all of this good news by Wisconsin's favorite son and progressive journalist, JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation, and co-author, with Bernie Sanders, of the new book, It's Okay to be Angry About Capitalism.

Nichols says Tuesday's mayoral race in Chicago was "one of the most significant election results in the country for urban politics in quite awhile." He describes the previously little-known Johnson as having built a "multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-generational rainbow coalition" that propelled him to victory. "He beat the guy that everybody bet was going to be the next mayor of Chicago. Brandon Johnson will take office as a progressive who ran on taxing the rich, reforming the police, and investing money in public education, public health, and public services. A pretty remarkable win."

But the bulk of our time is spent discussing the extraordinary, long-awaited Supreme Court victory in Wisconsin, which, with some $45 million spent on both candidates, clocks in as the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history.

"It was a bitter race. It was an intense race," Nichols tells me in trying to explain Kelly's incredible election night remarks in which he attempted to eviscerate his opponent in one of the most incredible sore-loser "concession" speeches in modern memory. Kelly described the contest as "the most deeply deceitful, dishonorable, despicable campaigns I have ever seen run for the courts," going on to attack Protasiewicz as "a serial liar" who has "demeaned the judiciary."

"It's going to go down in history," Nichols says referring to Kelly's election night outburst. "I've seen bitter concessions. I've seen angry concessions. I have seen refusals to concede. I have never, up until now, seen a concession that literally made people cringe."

We've got a lot to discuss about the new majority on the state's high court; what it means for Wisconsin moving forward; whether Republicans, with a narrow state Senate Special Election victory last night will attempt to impeach Protasiewicz with their newly won, gerrymandered super-majority in the upper chamber; and why Nichols, as he reports at The Nation today, believes this was "the most important election of 2023...for any American who cares about democracy, fair elections, voting rights, and much more."

Despite the good news, however, Nichols reminds us that WI is still a closely divided state, capable of wild swings. "The bottom line is this: Don't take your eyes away from Wisconsin," he advises. "It is a battleground state. This is the state of Robert M. LaFollette, the greatest progressive ever to serve in the U.S. Senate, and of Joe McCarthy, the most reactionary person, I would argue, to serve in the U.S. Senate. Those realities still exist. And this Supreme Court race is a very encouraging result as part of a very encouraging pattern in Wisconsin. But when you take your eyes off the prize, when you aren't paying attention, patterns can shift back."

Finally today, with all of the encouraging news of late, a few reminders that all of this good news at the national level, where Republican policies are wildly unpopular, also means that Rightwingers are embracing violent responses and GOP-controlled states are upping their desperation in hopes of holding on to control by hook and by crook. In many such states, it's not creeping authoritarianism in play, it's actual authoritarianism.

In Tennessee, for example, state Republicans are hoping to expel three Democratic state House members who dared support peaceful protesters calling for gun safety measures following last week's school shooting in Nashville. In Texas, GOP state lawmakers have quietly introduced a bill to allow the Sec. of State to overturn election results in the state's most populous and Democratic-leaning County; and in Florida, authoritarian Gov. Ron DeSantis is deploying Big Government weaponization against those, like the Walt Disney Company, who disagree with his anti-freedom, anti-LGBTQ policies...

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Today on The BradCast: Nobody knows what we'll learn when the indictment against Donald Trump is unsealed, hopefully on Tuesday, when he will reportedly surrender to arrest and arraignment in downtown Manhattan. But that hasn't kept Fox "News" and the rest of the Republican Party (including even folks like Jeb Bush, whose own political career was destroyed, in no small part, by Trump) from lying about all of it. It's what they do. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We'll find out soon enough what the charges are, as brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg against the disgraced former President. But among the lies that Fox and friends are having trouble keeping straight: Is the indictment a "political prosecution" mean to harm Trump's chances of re-election in 2024? If so, why do they all keep claiming that the indictment is gonna help him win in 2024?

For the record, new polling since the indictment was confirmed last week show a huge bump for Trump in the Republican Primary contest against Ron DeSantis and others. On the other hand, new polling since last Thursday also reveals that a majority of Americans, in every single demographic, approve of Trump being indicted. We'll see if that holds after we finally learn what's in the New York charges.

But, as we now know, in no uncertain terms as of Judge Eric Davis' Friday blistering ruling against Fox in Dominion's $1.6 billion defamation suit, lying in order to dupe viewers is no accident. It is actually the Fox business model. They are not a news outlet and never have been. They are Republican activists and propagandists. Period. And the evidence in the case now makes all of that "CRYSTAL clear," as the court noted.

Of course, the Republican Party and Fox "News" also like to pretend that the Department of Justice declined to prosecute the charges they believe Bragg will be unveiling this week. They claim the DoJ examined, but decided against bringing charges related to Trump's hush-money payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election, and about the payments he made while serving in the White House to keep it all quiet.

But DoJ didn't decline to prosecute. In fact, Trump's own DoJ prosecuted Trump's own attorney Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years for his part in the conspiracy. At the time of Cohen's sentencing, both he and Trump's own DoJ admitted the scheme was "directed by" and "for the benefit of" Trump himself. That, before Trump's own Attorney General Bill Barr ordered the probe be shut down, according to Geoffrey Berman, Trump's own U.S. Attorney in New York. DoJ didn't "decline to prosecute," as Jeb and Fox and the rest of the Republicans have been lying.

Of course, given who Jeb's brother and father were, its little wonder he has joined the parade of Republican who now oppose criminal accountability for former Presidents of the United States.

Anyway, much more to discuss on today's show regarding the importance of accountability for criminal U.S. Presidents. And lots of good callers ringing in today in response. Tune in for the full program tonight before the "fun" really begins as of Tuesday in New York City. Buckle up...

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On the other hand, Donald Trump's statement at his own social media website says he's been "INDICATED". But why quibble? The news caught us mid-BradCast today. We did our best to make sense of it all on the fly. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

First up, we were covering the newly unredacted evidence from Dominion Voting System's $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the wildly corrupt Fox "News" outfit, regarding the Republican propaganda outlet's knowing lies and evidence-free claims that the voting machine company somehow helped to steal the 2020 Presidential election from Donald Trump. Dominion didn't, and Fox knew as much, according to their own "Brain Room", which they ignored. (Yes, they have a "Brain Room", apparently, at Fox. So, that must be where they keep them?) As bad for Fox as the previously released evidence was, this is the stuff they had redacted from that, for some reason, until a judge ordered it released on Wednesday. So, imagine how bad this stuff is? You don't have to. We discuss it on today's show before today's big breaking news.

Then, we were covering the hilarious case of Disney out-foxing (no pun intended) Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and his attempt to weaponize the state government against them. That, because Disney dared speak out against his "Don't Say Gay" law which was written to allow the government to ban discussion of sexual orientation and general identity in ALL public school grades. (Not just K through 3.) So, how did Disney out-fox, DeSantis? It's pretty hilarious. So, tune in to find out.

Next, we were going to cover a whole bunch of important labor union news from this past week...BUT...news then broke of Trump's indictment by a criminal grand jury in New York.

Thus, we moved our latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen from the end of the show to the middle, to buy some time to figure out the breaking news hubbub. Sadly, there's some pretty important news in today's GNR, including the fact that electricity generated renewables outpaced coal last year for the first time in the U.S. That big news will all almost certain be forgotten because...well...

TRUMP WAS INDICTED today. Reportedly, the charges are in relation to his secret hush-money payoff of porn star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election, in hopes of improving his chance of winning. But we don't know, because the indictment by a New York grand jury is still sealed until next week.

The charges, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whatever they are, represent the first indictment of a U.S. President in history. Trump will reportedly surrender next week in NYC, according to his attorney Joe Tacopina. He will then be finger-printed, booked and perhaps hand-cuffed before his arraignment. We'll see if that all happens.

We share several related thoughts on all of this on today's program, on the fly, as based on the historic news as it broke in real time this afternoon...

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Ya know, if their ideas were popular, Republicans wouldn't have to work so hard to undermine democracy, would they? An example or three of that on today's BradCast.

Among today's many stories...

• Cowardly Mike Pence's attempt to avoid testifying about Donald Trump's January 6th insurrection to Special Counsel Jack Smith's grand jury is denied by a federal judge.

• Yet another white Republican in Florida is charged with election fraud. Yet again, he was not arrested at gunpoint on camera and hauled to jail like the people of color who Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered rounded up before last year's election, even though they had no idea they had voted unlawfully. The white Republican voter turned himself in to authorities at his own convenience.

• Our corrupt, stolen and packed rightwing U.S. Supreme Court majority has declined to review a ruling by the state Supreme Court in Kansas which found that intentionally discriminating against minority voters was just fine, after state Republicans gerrymandered Kansas City by cutting it into two different Congressional districts in order to dilute the power of black voters.

• In Arkansas, voters have repeatedly made clear through recent rejections of GOP ballot initiatives, that they really really oppose making it more difficult for citizens to put stuff on statewide ballot initiatives and see it adopted by voters. So now, Republicans in the state legislature, giving the finger to voters, have simply passed a new law to make it virtually impossible for Democrats to place measures on the statewide ballot. AR's new democracy-hating Republican Governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, happily signed the measure which, on its face, seems to blatantly violate the state's own Constitution. The League of Women Voters of Arkansas and other fans of democracy are now suing to block what the League's President accurately describes as "an attack on direct democracy."

• The 28-year old shooter in Monday's mass shooting --- the 130th of the year so far --- reportedly purchased SEVEN weapons from five local guns shops in Nashville, Tennessee before using at least two of them to kill three 9-year olds and three adults at a private Christian elementary school. All of that while the assailant was said to have been under a doctor's care for an emotional disorder, according to the Nashville police chief. Seven guns, at least two of them semi-automatic assault weapons, and none of it triggered any red flags to authorities. Nonetheless, Republicans in Congress today, according to media reports, still lack the courage to support any new gun safety laws that might make such massacres less likely or more difficult. They are, as Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) correctly noted today, "cowards". AND PLEASE NOTE: This is not a problem with "Congress" or "lawmakers in D.C." The problem is Republicans. Period. They do not want to make it more difficult to murder people, while Democrats do. It's as simple as that. If media outlets are unable to call out Republicans, specifically, for fear of sounding "partisan", they are doing a grave disservice to their readers, viewers, listeners and country.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with news on the weekend's massive tornado(s) in Mississippi; more flooding in California's unending storms; ongoing deadly drought in Somalia; U.N. warning of water wars; and a new global record for clean, renewable energy production...

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Today on The BradCast: Is being a terrible human being now a requirement for all elected (and unelected) Republican lawmakers? It's sure starting to look like it these days. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Among the stories covered today making that point and related others...

• Donald Trump's "Indictment Week" in New York gets pushed back (at least) another week, though The Joker may or may not have something to say about it this weekend at the Manhattan Courthouse.

• Former news anchor, Trumpist election denier and GOP grifter Kari Lake in Arizona is still busy hoaxing what's left of her supporters into believing she won last year's Gubernatorial election against Democrat Katie Hobbs. (No, Hobbs is not a "twice-convicted racist", no matter how many times Lake repeats that sleazy, false claim.) On Wednesday, Lake saw her 2022 election fraud claims rejected [PDF] by yet another court. This time, it was Arizona's Supreme Court. While rejecting most of her claims yet again, they did kick one of her seven claims back to a lower court for re-examination. That claim has to do with the signature verification process for ballots cast during early voting. Both the lower trial court and Maricopa County Court of Appeals misinterpreted the claim, according to the Supremes. We explain the claim in question, why it needs to be reheard, and why it will almost certainly not result in the 2022 election results being overturned.

  None of that stopped Lake from misrepresenting yesterday's ruling at the high court to her supporters on social media, to whom she tweeted: "HUGE: AZ Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Kari Lake." She didn't bother to share a link to either a news story or the Court's actual order with that tweet.

  But that may be a step up from when she lost every single claim, for a second time, at the Appeals court in Maricopa last month and declared: "BREAKING: I told you we would take this case all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court...Buckle up, America!"

• Speaking of obnoxious Republican liars, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who reportedly did win his election last year, was furious at critics of his "Don't Say Gay" law enacted earlier in the year. Opponents of the measure, such as legal journalist Mark Joseph Stern pointed out at the time that the language of the bill allowed for a ban on "Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity" in all public school grades, not just kindergarten through third grade, as DeSantis falsely claimed at the time.

  When critics pointed out that DeSantis was wrong, he sanctimoniously charged they were being dishonest about what the bill actually said, claiming it only applied to grades K through 3. "It's why people don't trust people like you," he chastised journalists at the time, "because you peddle false narratives!"

  Well, funny thing about that. As AP reported Wednesday, the DeSantis Administration is now "moving to forbid classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in all grades." They hope to expand the ban to grades 4 to 12 based on the original legislation in the state where the Governor and GOP Presidential hopefully unironically claims "Freedom Lives Here". DeSantis appointees heading up the state Board of Education and state Education Department will be voting to make the change next month. No legislative changes will be needed to be made to the existing law. Imagine that.

• Coincidentally, the Republican state lawmaker who authored FL's "Don't Say Gay" law, pleaded guilty this week to numerous federal felonies, including wire fraud, money laundering and making false statements, after fraudulently obtaining more than $150,000 in federal COVID relief funding for two businesses of his that were defunct during the COVID pandemic. The (now former) lawmaker, Joseph Harding, now faces years in prison. He will be sentenced in July.

• The Sunshine State is hardly the only one where elected Republicans are punishing state residents with hateful and cruel legislation. Nebraska's state legislature advanced a bill today that would ban gender-affirming care for minors. The anti-LGBTQ measure has been strenuously opposed by progressive state Senators, including one, Senator Megan Hunt, who has a transgender teenage son. We share some of her remarks today. Opponents vow to filibuster every single other bill on the state Legislature's calendar, effectively shutting it down for the rest of the session, in order to block the bill. It must survive two more debates before passage and signature by Republican Gov. Jim Pillen who vowed to sign it if it reaches his desk.

• Finally, after a bit of musical-ish listener email today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with bad news for the world's oceans; bad news for the West Coast salmon population; bad news for fresh water drinkers; but some good news for newly protected public lands and waters in several national monuments designated this week by President Biden...

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I have no idea what this week is going to bring. As noted on today's BradCast, nobody, save for (maybe) the Manhattan District Attorney does. And I suspect even he is largely flying blind about what happens once (and if) Trump is ultimately indicted in New York State. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Before we get to discussion about that --- and callers on the same topic --- today is the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As we said at the time, and have been saying for the 20 years since, we were lied into war under false premises by the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney regime. In the bargain, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed and about 5,000 Americans. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. More disturbingly, no one was ever held accountable for that pointless war and the lies that were told to get us there.

Back in 2003, 66% of Americans supported the invasion, in no small part because opposition voices in the U.S. were largely shut out of the mainstream media conversation. Now, 61% of Americans, according to new polling, think that war was a mistake.

And, because there was never any accountability for the war criminals, guys like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are considered to be front-runners to become the next Republican nominee for President of the United States. That, despite the fact that, as Washington Post detailed over the weekend, DeSantis played a key role in torturing detainees with forced-feeding at Guantanamo Bay while he served as a 27-year old Navy lawyer there.

Meanwhile, now playing the part of imperialistic invader and war criminal is Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin, who the International Criminal Court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for, accusing him of abductions of thousands of Ukrainian children since his unlawful invasion just over one year ago.

If you're wondering just how terrible Putin actually is, please do yourself a favor soon and watch last week's Academy Award winning Best Documentary, Navalny (currently available via HBO Max and Amazon Prime). As discussed today, it is jaw-dropping. For a whole bunch of reasons. And, don't worry, it's also uplifting and hilarious at times...even as we see, live and as it happens, the attempted assassination of Russia's incredibly likable opposition leader, Alexei Novalny, and the remarkable moment when he actually tricks one of his own would be assassins into confessing to his attempted murder. All caught live on camera!

Then, we get to the story that I have a feeling we'll be covering for some time on this program: the first criminal indictment of a U.S. President in our nation's history. It may finally happen this week in New York (emphasis on "may"), thanks to Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg. He is believed likely to bring charges against Donald Trump related to the hush-money payments the disgraced former President made to porn star Stormy Daniels to cover up a sexual affair. That payoff, carried out at his direction by his then-attorney Michael Cohen, helped Trump win the 2016 Presidential election. Cohen went to jail for it. Trump never did. At least not yet.

Trump is almost certainly not going to be "BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY", as he claimed in a panicked, weekend, ALL-CAPS statement on his social media site. Tuesday is seen as the earliest time he could possibly be indicted by a Grand Jury in New York. But, even if so, he will not be "ARRESTED" by New York law enforcement officials in Florida, where he now lives.

If Trump finally is indicted on criminal state charges, whether it's this week or next, will he actually go back to New York to turn himself in? Seems unlikely. But, if not, then what? Would NY ask Ron DeSantis' Florida law enforcement to arrest and extradite Fugitive Trump from Mar-a-Lago? Also seems unlikely, even with DeSantis believed almost certain to run for the GOP's 2024 Presidential nomination against Trump. Will Trump's supporters actually "PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!" as the cowardly ex-President is begging them?

And why are House Republicans, led by House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan --- who pretends to support law and order --- now actually weaponizing the federal government to try and undermine Bragg's case?

In fact, nobody knows what is coming next. There is no playbook for what is about to happen --- whether it happens this week, or next, or even in a different state, like Georgia. But it does seem to be a good day to open our phones to listeners on the topic, to talk about it all and get their best guess about what where things go from here.

Tune in for all of that and much more on today's program!...

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