It's all so stupid and ridiculous. But, as discussed on today's BradCast, the stupidity and ridiculousness knows no bound now that he's won a criminal immunity ticket from the Supreme Court. So we will all pay the price until voters change the score. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

To that end, Gubernatorial primary elections were held in New Jersey on Tuesday for this November's general election. Democratic U.S. Rep. Mikey Sherrill, a Navy pilot and former prosecutor, will face off with Trump-endorsed Republican Jack Ciatterelli, who came within just about three points of unseating the state's now termed-out Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy four years ago.

Perhaps more interesting on Tuesday were six state legislative special elections held in three different states. Democrats outpaced expectations in five of them, including one in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a native American candidate trounced her Republican challenger by a landslide 69 points! The results amounted to a 50-point over-performance by the Dem as compared to their results in the Presidential election in the same district last November. In all, Dems are now running an average of about 16.4 points ahead of their 2024 results in special elections in 2025.

Then, it's back once again to the mess here in Los Angeles, which isn't really a mess at all. Or, at least, it wasn't until tough guy Donald Trump decided to pretend that largely peaceful protests against his immigration policies required him to violate the law to federalize California National Guard troops and deploy them with the U.S. Marines to support the ICE round-ups of hard-working, non-criminal migrants in the city including, apparently, children.

In a televised address on Tuesday night, CA's Governor Gavin Newsom, who, along with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, opposed Trump's federalization and deployment of troops in the city, described the President's "authoritarian", wannabe "dictatorial" tactics. He warned that Trump is now waging war on democracy and the Constitution itself, and that Americans outside of California can expect to see much the same thing soon in their own hometowns. Will Americans heed his warning?

We're joined today by fellow L.A. resident HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, award-winning Salon columnist and longtime Digby's Hullabaloo proprietor, and another OG blogger friend known simply as 'DRIFTGLASS', co-host of his weekly Professional Left Podcast. As usual, they are here for a roundtable discussion to help us make sense of it all...as senseless and stupid as it all is.

Both share thoughts on what they see as the real point of Trump's dumb but dangerous incitement of violence here in L.A., what it is meant to distract from, and where all of this is headed. Is there any chance this doesn't lead to an invocation of the Insurrection Act by Trump, so he can really violate the law, American values, rights, and the Constitution itself?

"Donald Trump simply has no reason to obey the law anymore, of any kind, for any reason," argues Driftglass. "They feel no compunction about breaking the law because there's no one to stop them" Because he was elected, after receiving criminal immunity from SCOTUS, he believes "he can do whatever he wants. It's an ugly, terrifying fact that we warned people about for years. We begged people not to do this. We still came up short, because 77 million or so people voted for exactly this."

But, will even MAGA support the deployment of U.S. troops on American streets? Something that Republicans, including MAGA, have pretended for years to oppose? "As long as Trump is doing it, they'll be for it," asserts Digby. "The minute it's not him, they'll be against it. They retired the concept of hypocrisy a long time ago."

It is going to worse before it gets better, she warns, citing Trump's top henchman Stephen Miller who, she says, "has given interviews saying that they have plotted this out. Plan B, Plan C. They've been thinking this stuff through. This is actually part of their plan. They're testing the electrified fence here to see what they can get away with."

There is, of course, much much more from both of them today, including on a couple of stories you may have forgotten about for some reason, from just days ago. For example, last Friday, less than a week ago, Elon Musk publicly accused Trump of being named in the unreleased Epstein Files. Also, if you remember, Congressional Republicans passed a bill to slash $1.4 trillion worth of health care and food assistance from low-income Americans to help defray the cost of some $4 trillion in tax cuts mostly for the wealthy, at the cost of a $3 trillion spike to the national debt.

Remember when Republicans used to care about such things? As Digby sez: "They retired the concept of hypocrisy a long time ago"...

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Never mind all that stuff about Donald Trump's breakup with his best buddy on Friday, including Elon Musk's claim that Trump is blocking the release of the Jeffrey Epstein Files because he's featured in them. There's RIOTING AND LOOTING IN LOS ANGELES! ... according to Trump's social media feed.

As discussed on today's BradCast, however, from here in L.A., relatively minor weekend demonstrations against Trump's daily ICE quotas for arresting migrants --- now including day laborers outside of Home Depot, children and U.S. Marshals --- don't amount to much of a "riot" by L.A. standards, no matter what they may be showing you on cable TV or social media. [Audio link to full story follows below this summary.]

It was another lovely, mild, sunny day here in Southern California today, just as it was over the weekend. At least until Trump's federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brownshirts opened fire with tear gas and flash-bang grenades against largely peaceful demonstrators in a couple of small blocks downtown and a small city about 30 minutes south of downtown.

But I'm sure wall-to-wall media coverage and social media algorithms are telling folks out there a very different (and completely unhelpful) story about what is going on here.

In case they aren't, Trump is hoping to grab your attention by abusing his authority again, this time by federalizing the California National Guard against the wishes of both the state's Governor and the Mayor of Los Angeles. Moreover, late today, Trump is said to be deploying the U.S. Marines here, for some reason, in defiance of the U.S. Constitution. But the rule of law and Constitution are for suckers and Democrats, right?

We're happy to report on today's program what is actually going on today here in Los Angeles. Though it is fun to see that Trump --- after recently pardoning thousands of actually violent insurrectionists who actually launched a deadly riot against federal law enforcement officials at the U.S. Capitol a few years ago --- now thinks all of that, at least when it happens in California, is a bad thing.

Not that anything like what Trump incited among his followers on January 6, 2021 is happening here. Not even close. We have far larger demonstrations in this town about every other week just because it's a Thursday. Anyway, tough guy Trump would like you to discuss all of this, rather than his break-up with Elon and all of his other non-stop criming. So, I guess we make his dreams come true on today's program.

Among just some of our source material today...

• ICE is so desperate to meet Stephen Miller's 3,000-arrests-per-day quota, that they mistakenly arrested and detained a member of the U.S. Marshal Service recently. Instead of being shipped off to a super max prison in El Salvador, the arrestee who matched the "general description of a subject being sought by ICE", was eventually released once other law enforcement officials vouched for him.

• CA Governor Gavin Newsom charges that Trump's seemingly unlawful federalization of the California National Guard "is purposely inflammatory and will only escalate tensions". The state is now suing him to stop it. Newsom notes, correctly, that L.A. authorities have access to plenty of law enforcement officials to handle a handful of violent protesters amid the weekend's largely peaceful demonstrations. By Sunday night, in an excellent interview by NBC News' Jake Soboroff, an "unfazed" Newsom dared the Trump Administration to arrest him --- as Trump's "Border Czar" Tom Homan threatened against both him and Mayor Karen Bass --- and underscored again that Trump is little more than a bully whose tough guy act is being carried out because he is "trying to incite violence."

• Trump's unnecessary deployment of federal troops was so poorly planned, by the way, that Guard Members are being forced to sleep on the floor in an L.A. federal building basement or on the street. Photos here.

• His federalizing of the National Guard against the wishes of the Governor (and his mobilization of U.S. Marines) for this purpose is both unprecedented and likely unlawful under the Title 10 authority he has invoked. But if you think he will only do this in L.A. or California, think again. Trump's weekend declaration claims the authority to deploy federal troops --- in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act --- anywhere in the country that he feels like.

We also take a few calls today from listeners in L.A., some email from a listener in the U.K., and finish with this important message for folks both here and elsewhere: DON'T TAKE THE BAIT.

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Today on The BradCast: This week the Republican's stolen U.S Supreme Court took a huge step forward toward public transparency by live-streaming their oral arguments for the first time in history. No, it wasn't on video. It was via telephonic conference call. But one step at a time, I guess. There's something, anyway, to thank the coronavirus for. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

We're joined today by Slate's Supreme Court legal expert and justice reporter DAHLIA LITHWICK to discuss the first-ever oral arguments by phone for the Court and the first to be broadcast live to the nation. It was also the week when the nation's heart skipped a beat or two for a short time upon learning that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had been "hospitalized with an infection". Turns out the infection was thankfully not COVID-19, but a gallbladder matter which left the 87-year old Justice able to participate in the week's historic telephonic arguments from her hospital bed in Maryland.

"It reminds us," Lithwick says, "pinning all of our hopes on an octogenarian...is a pretty scary way to be doing justice. But in a really profound way, it kind of reminds us that the people who are getting shredded by this virus are that generation" and "It does make you realize how unbelievably susceptible the bulk of the Supreme Court is right now."

Beyond that, Lithwick, who hosts her own Slate podcast, AMICUS, sees this week's live broadcasted SCOTUS hearings as an encouraging step toward transparency for a Court that has been frustratingly camera shy. She also cautions, however, that the live broadcasts allowing Americans to hear how our laws are adjudicated at the nation's highest court in real time may not last after the pandemic subsides.

However, the week's historic hearings went well enough, she reports, even if the structure required to carry out oral argument by conference call necessarily changed the way in which cases have traditionally been argued in person, as Justices were not able to interrupt each other to press various arguments as they have always done --- and even as someone on the call forgot to mute their phone during a toilet flush heard during one of the first day's hearings.

Yes, we get to the straight poop on who may have been behind "the flush heard round the world" today, before turning to the substance of the actual cases heard before the Court. One was a fairly straightforward case on trademarks. Another was a much less simple one on whether religious groups and even private businesses have their religious rights infringed by being allowed to opt out of the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). Yes, plaintiffs in this case --- including the Little Sisters of the Poor, a small group of nuns in Pennsylvania --- argue that being allowed to opt out of having their insurance provider offer contraceptive care to their employees somehow violates their religious and "moral" freedoms (whatever "moral" freedoms may be.)

We also discuss how the Court has selectively decided which of the many previously postponed cases from March and April (cancelled until the Justices figured out how to dial a telephone) would be rescheduled for this session versus the next one, where opinions will not come out until well after the critical 2020 Presidential election.

We then move on to an important (if too brief) conversation about how rightwingers seem to misunderstand the actual meaning of their favorite words "freedom" and "liberty", as invoked by the slave-holding founders of our Constitution. That, as anti-lockdown protesters haul semi-automatic rifles into state legislatures to demand the lifting of stay-at-home restrictions, shoot people who ask them to follow the law by wearing face masks inside stores, cite "tyranny" and invoke Japanese internment camps (as a Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice recently did) and call for the "LIBERATION" of states with Democratic Governors (as the President of the United States recently did.)

In her most recent column on this point, Lithwick flagged an essay by Ibram X. Kendi at the Atlantic which speaks to the "long-standing difference between core notions of what he calls freedom to and freedom from". The latter is seemingly being pushed out of the public square in favor of the former.

We discuss what Lithwick describes as "the movement out there that says, 'I don't have to wear a mask,' 'I have a Constitutional right to carry a gun into the capitol,' those are 'freedom to' values, but they subordinate huge masses of people who actually want to be free from those very things. These are a lot of the same arguments that people make about the Second Amendment. That they want to be free to parade around a restaurant, open carrying, and they don't realize that freedom for a lot of Americans is freedom from the terror of that act."

"I think that is a really emblematic new trend, where we're seeing these religious claims that say my freedom to X somehow subordinates and dominates your freedom to, in the Little Sisters context, have access to a statutory entitlement to contraception. My freedom to X, discriminate against people that I don't want to bake a wedding cake for, somehow is more important than your freedom from discrimination based on any identifiable class," Lithwick tells me. "I think this is a tension that is permeating how the courts are looking at a lot of values."

"It probably goes without saying, but let's go ahead and say it --- that it does seem as though if you are a straight, white Christian male, you have a lot of 'freedom to'. Even now, if you are protesting in the capitol in Michigan, if you're a white guy with a gun, your freedom to XYZ is predominant. And if you are an African-American out for a jog, your freedom from being executed summarily doesn't seem to matter. So I think part of the problem with this thumb on the scale for "freedom to" claimants is that it's not distributed equally across race, class, gender, or economic well-being."

Please tune in for that conversation --- and/or read Lithwick and Xendi at the links above --- for more than I have space or time to break down here for the moment on that important discussion.

Finally today, some quick news, an update, and some listener mail. The news is about the coronavirus working its way into the White House via Donald Trump's personal valet who tested positive this week and via Mike Pence's press secretary, Katie Miller, who tested positive today. After being in close contact with Pence and members of the press, it should also be noticed that Miller is married to Trump's Senior Advisor Stephen Miller, who is in close regular contact with the President of the United States. Will we see a change in the Administration's rush to reopen the country long before health experts say it is safe to do so if COVID begins to find its way into the White House --- and, perhaps, even the Oval Office?

The update is on the decision by Arizona's Health Department to reverse its cancellation earlier this week of the work by state university scientists on COVID-19 modelling.

And the listener mail regards a local postmaster who says he's decided to retire earlier than planned after "hatred" directed at his staff "by the segment of our town who watch Fox News" who are now "yelling" at Postal Workers for wearing masks on the job. Yes, it's an insane way to end another insane week in these "United" States of America...

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The largest media market in the world is about to lose its only non-Rightwing commercial talk radio station. Los Angeles' KTLK 1150am will be flipped to a far Rightwing station featuring hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and other rightwing talkers. "The changes are set to take effect for the first broadcast of 2014," according to the Los Angeles Times this afternoon.

KTLK is owned by Clear Channel Communications, Inc., the nation's largest owner of radio stations. Clear Channel is now owned by Mitt Romney's Bain Capital LLC. The talkers mentioned above who will be taking over the previously-progressive station are also syndicated by Clear Channel-owned Premiere Networks, the largest radio syndicator in the nation. The BRAD BLOG has long argued that the outsized control of our public airwaves enjoyed by Clear Channel/Premiere and a handful of other conglomerates --- including their ability to leverage our public airwaves (licensed from we, the people, in exchange only for their promise to serve the public interest) to distribute their own syndicator's shows --- is a likely violation of U.S. v. Paramount, the 1948 anti-trust Supreme Court decision which found that the major movie studios could not also control the means of distribution by owning the nation's largest theater chains at the same time.

As if ending progressive talk radio in L.A. isn't bad enough, Clear Channel will now also reportedly be flipping its formerly progressive San Francisco talk station KNEW 960am (a move which they had threatened and then partially changed their mind about flipping in late 2011), over to a completely Right-leaning station as well, says the Times. That will leave San Francisco, arguably the most progressive city in the nation, without any commercial progressive talk radio outlet at all. But, as in L.A., listeners will still have many different Right-leaning talks outlets on our public airwaves to choose from, several of them owned by the same major corporation.

In Los Angeles, Clear Channel also owns KFI 640am, the number one station in the market. That station currently runs Limbaugh, along with a host of other Right-leaning local talk shows. KTLK, had once described itself as "Progressive Talk", before changing it's tag line to "L.A.'s Voice" earlier this year. They had already gutted of most of the station's progressive-leaning talk shows over the past several years. The station will now be re-dubbed "The Patriot". The Times reports that "Clear Channel is hoping to pump up [KTLK] as an outlet exclusively dedicated to right-leaning chatter"...

[UPDATE: As of 6:00pm PT, the KPOJ website has now flipped to "Fox Sports AM 620 Portland".]

This is horrible. Tonight, without warning, Clear Channel Communications-owned 620 AM KPOJ in Portland, Oregon, one of the most progressive cities in one of the nation's most progressive states, has flipped from its years-long progressive news and talk format over to Fox Sports as of 5:30pm local time.

KPOJ was the only commercial progressive talk radio station in Portland. The city will still have several other Rightwing talk radio stations, including one owned by Clear Channel, and they already have two sports stations, but the Bain Capital-owned media conglomerate is now killing yet another progressive voice from our publicly-owned airwaves.

An earlier piece today in The Oregonian had reported that the station would be flipping as of Monday. An UPDATE in the Willamette Weekly, however, reports that the station, which had long featured Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, Thom Hartmann (who had broadcast for years out of KPOJ until moving his show to Washington D.C.) and other progressive talkers, will change to its Fox Sports format as of this evening.

The BRAD BLOG can now confirm that KPOJ has flipped its programming format and website to Fox Sports as of 6:00pm PT tonight.

When one company owns "competing" talk radio stations in the same town, and gets to decide which one enjoys a stronger signal and which one receives promotional dollars (and which one doesn't), "competition" in the market place is a mirage. It's the equivalent of a Coca-Cola distributor owning the sole rights to distribute both Coke and Pepsi in the same town. Which one do you think is going to sell better there? That's precisely what talk radio is like in almost every major market in the country now. One company, usually Clear Channel, generally owns both the "Right" and "Left" talk stations. (In Portland, Clear Channel owns Rightwing talk outlet KEX as well as KPOJ.) Promoting one station would likely decrease listeners and ratings --- and, thus, ad dollars --- for the other. Thus, there is no "free market" competition in talk radio.

This is hardly the first time that Clear Channel has done the same thing, in very progressive cities, underscoring yet again that there is no real, "free market" competition in talk radio over our publicly-owned airwaves. The market place is decidedly rigged...

The great John Fugelsang (one of Twitter's best follows!) joined me in studio today on KPFK/Pacifica Radio's The BradCast.

We discussed any number of things political --- from his smash hit Sexy Liberal Comedy tour and album with progressive radio & Current TV's Stephanie Miller and Hal Sparks; to his "minor historical footnote in a very ugly, sad Presidential campaign" after asking the question of Mitt Romney's campaign director on CNN which elicited the infamous "Etch-a-Sketch" answer; to his big announcement this morning that he'll be launching his own nightly primetime show on Current TV beginning this fall; and much more to boot.

John's a pal, and one of the smartest guys in media. Period. Good hire, Al Gore! He was kind enough to stick around with us for the hour, as we were joined by Mark McCaffrey of the National Center for Science Education to discuss this week's bombshell: The Koch Brothers-funded(!) scientist and former climate change skeptic, Professor Richard Muller, coming out to confirm his recent findings that global warming is, in fact, "real" and that "humans are almost entirely the cause."

Plus, I enjoyed a bit of a rant on the newest news from the PA GOP's crumbling polling place Photo ID restriction scam, a visit from Green News Report's Desi Doyen, and an "apology" to the National Rifle Association after having called them the "terrorist-enabling NRA" during last week's BradCast...

Download MP3 or listen online below [appx 58 mins]...

You might call it splitting the baby. Sort of.

Progressive radio will be allowed to remain on our public AM airwaves in San Francisco, though with major schedule shake-ups, the removal of its popular progressive branding and several bizarre additions to the line-up, including far Rightwing extremists such as former Fox "News" phenom Glenn Beck in the place of what had been one of Green960's most popular morning shows.

The latest move in the strange back-and-forth saga follows on radio giant Clear Channel's announcement just over two weeks ago, that Green960 --- the only AM Progressive Talk Radio station on the dial in San Francisco, one of the nation's most progressive cities --- would be banished from the popular public airwaves and sent to the radio-ghetto of the little-known and even lesser-received HD2 band. Its progressive programming --- featuring the likes of popular lefty-ish talkers such as Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, Norman Goldman and Mike Malloy --- would be replaced (with the exception of Rhodes, who is syndicated by Clear Channel's Premiere Radio) by yet another so-called "conservative" talk station, featuring extremists such as Beck and other Fox "News" regulars.

The move by the media conglomerate, now owned by leading GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Bain Capital, LLC, was to occur on January 3. The move would have left Rhodes as the only progressive voice on the entire AM dial in San Francisco, as of the first business day of the new Presidential Election year.

But a funny thing happened on the way to 2012 on Bay Area talk radio...

[UPDATE 12/21/11: Confirmation that Clear Channel will keep most of its progressive programming on the AM airwaves in San Francisco --- though with some bizarre changes --- is now detailed here...]

The only progressive AM talk radio station, Green960, in one of the nation's most progressive cities, San Francisco, may be allowed to stay on the public airwaves after all in the 2012 Presidential Election year!

Last week we detailed corporate radio giant Clear Channel's plans to remove Green960 (call letters KKGN) from the AM dial and send it to the radio ghetto otherwise known as "HD2," a band that requires a special receiver that very few people actually own. Adding insult to injury, the 960 spot on the AM dial would be replaced with Glenn Beck and other Rightwing talkers from Clear Channel's "conservative" talk station "Fox News Radio KNEW" which is currently on 910, but would move to the 960 frequency.

In the 910 slot, Clear Channel had planned to launch a new talk station, which would also include some Fox talkers, branded as "San Francisco's Talk 910 KKSF."

If plans move ahead as previously announced, the end result would be that --- except for progressive talker Randi Rhodes, who is syndicated by Clear Channel's syndication arm Premier Broadcasting and who would be allowed to keep her live Noon-3p PT slot on both the new KNEW 960, as well as the "HD2" schedule where the current Green960 line-up would be sent to --- there would be no progressive AM talk station on the air in San Francisco.

The entire shuffle was set to occur at the beginning of the 2012 Presidential Election year on January 3rd, a move that had raised at least a few eyebrows, as Clear Channel is now owned by the Mitt Romney-founded venture capital firm, Bain Capital LLC.

Well, now that entire plan, according to one industry website and several insider sources I've spoken to today, may be on hold and Green960's popular line-up of progressive talkers like Rhodes, Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, Norman Goldman, Mike Malloy (for whom I am a regular guest-host, including on tonight's show), and others may be allowed to stay on the AM air after all!...

[UPDATE 12/16/11: Clear Channel may now be re-thinking their plans to dump Green960! Details now here...]

The only progressive AM radio talk station, Green960-KKGN, in one of the nation's most liberal cities, San Francisco, is being taken off the AM dial by radio behemoth Clear Channel Communications, Inc. --- a media conglomerate now owned by Mitt Romney's Bain Capital, LLC --- at the beginning of the 2012 Presidential election year.

Adding insult to injury for progressives in the Bay Area, the 960 slot on the dial is being replaced by Clear Channel with the likes of Glenn Beck, Fox News Radio's John Gibson and other radical Rightwing talkers, according to a press release [PDF] issued by the media giant last week, touting, in somewhat Orwellian terms, their "goal of expanding talk radio in San Francisco."

"We saw the opportunity to expand our footprint in this crucial arena as we head into an election year and a population increasingly engaged in local, state, and national events and activism," says Clear Channel's San Francisco Director of Operations Don Parker in the release.

The expansion will amount to moving Green960's current schedule of progressive talk shows off the AM band, and on to FM's HD2 radio ghetto where it will become a largely automated "robo-station," according to several radio insiders familiar with the station and Clear Channel's plans for it. The station which was formerly Green960 will have the catchy new name "FM Progressive Talk 103.7-2" at its new home, if listeners can find it.

The new Rightwing format taking its place on 960 will be known as KNEW, which is currently at 910 on the AM dial featuring a number of Fox News Radio programs. The 910 position will then be filled with a new talk format being developed by Clear Channel called "San Francisco's Talk 910 KKSF," which will also include some Fox News Radio veterans.

One bright side for progressives in San Francisco, the popular Randi Rhodes, who is syndicated nationally by Premiere (Clear Channel's syndication arm) will continue in her current live Noon to 3p PT slot on the new KNEW-960. She'll also remain in the same live slot in the progressive line up on the HD2 band, though few are likely to hear her there, as very few Americans actually own an HD radio receiver.

Rhodes tells The BRAD BLOG there could be a potential upside to the format change which will leave her progressive voice, as well as Bill Press' in the pre-dawn hours, sprinkled in among the far Rightwingers.

"I never want to see Progressive voices lose ground, but hopefully we can build on the new HD channel," Rhodes told us via email on Friday. "It does look like the beginning of the end of 'conservative format purity' has started. That's a change in the industry that I've been fighting for for a long time and I'm happy to be part of it."...

Okay, so it's Nicole Sandler, not "Micole", but it makes for a more alliterative headline, so too bad.

I'm back on deadline on the exclusive series I've been working on for a few weeks. So, for the moment, here's just a few of the more fun media appearances I've done lately, in the wake of Tuesday's recall elections in Wisconsin. Looks like I was able to help, if only momentarily, to turn the topic --- on a few Progressive airwaves anyway --- away from the idiotically premature horse race nonsense (Iowa Straw Poll anyone?), to the far more important track conditions that otherwise almost never get discussed on air at all...until it's too late...

Stephanie Miller Show (this morning, appx 17 mins total)

Includes my appearance in the first few minutes and then, after I'm gone, continuing discussion of the points raised during it by callers throughout various moments during the rest of the show. One of those moments was a caller who identified himself as Derek Woodward from Alton, PA who was clearly (and purposely) misinformed about the GOP push for disenfranchising polling place Photo ID restrictions.

"Why would you not want to ensure that only the people that can vote are eligible to vote?," asked the Woodward. The responses he received from Stephanie and Jim Ward and a caller or two were great. My work here is done!

Okay, not really. So here's just a couple of articles to support their responses on that question which arises in light of the Rightwing disinformation masters who purposely misinform gullible folks like Woodward...

• How to Cast a Ballot in Indiana if You Don't have a State-Issued Photo ID
• Students, Nuns Denied RIGHT to Vote in Indiana Today Following Supreme Court Approval of State Photo ID Restrictions
• Matthew Vadum, Master of Misinformation, Subverts the Truth With More Democratic 'Voter Fraud' Lies

Ed Schultz Show (this morning, w/ Guest Host Mike Papantonio of Ring of Fire, appx 13 mins)...

A number of noteworthy news items occurred yesterday while I was on the hot, hot, hot Midwestern road for the entirety of the day. These are several among those items...

Greene Indicted on Obscenity Charges

South Carolina's mystery Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate (the one whose election "victory" is only explicable through malfeasance or malfunction of the 100% unverifiable ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting systems) was indicted on obsenity charges yesterday. One of the charges was an "extremely rare" felony count. The state Democratic Party chairwoman, Carol Fowler --- the one who presided over the 5-hour Executive Board protest hearing by Greene's primary opponent Judge Vic Rawl who argued that voting machine failure was the only explanation for the unknown, jobless, money-less, campaign-less Greene having "won" --- has asked him, again, to voluntarily step down from the nomination. When asked if he'd be willing to accept the nomination if Greene steps down, Rawl has told The BRAD BLOG previously that he'd cross that bridge when/if he came to it.

Appelate Court Backs Congressional Defunding of ACORN

A 3-judge panel (two Rs, 1 D) on the 2nd District Court of Appeals has unanimously reversed [PDF] the ruling of a federal district court judge last March concerning the Congressional defunding of ACORN in light of deceptively-edited video tapes published by Rightwing propagandists Andrew Breitbart and James O'Keefe. The appellate court determined that Congress can target a specific group for punishment, despite what the district court judge had identified as an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder in light of the government having "offered no...unique reason to treat ACORN differently from other contractors accused of serious misconduct." U.S. District Court Judge Nina Gershon had previously granted injunctive relief to the four-decade old community organization after finding they were barred "from federal funding without either a judicial trial or an administrative process applicable to all government contractors." The 3-judge appellate panel disagreed. ACORN's legal representation has called the decision "deeply flawed," says they are planning to ask the full court for reconsideration, and added "We cannot let Congress act like judge, jury and executioner without any hearings at all."

O'Keefe Accidentally Admits to Being Immoral

And speaking of ACORN, the Rightwing dirty trickster and federal criminal James O'Keefe who hacked together secretly-taped videos in order to phony up the idea that the anit-poverty, pro-democracy community group was committing some sort of crimes, has, according to Think Progress, admitted during a recent speech that what he does is "the nadir of morality." ("Nadir" means "lowest point", versus "zenith" which means "highest".) No worries though. O'Keefe's employer, the discredited, pathological liar Andrew Breitbart, has plans to deceptively re-edit the video of O'Keefe in order to "fix" that little Freudian slip.

Stephanie Comes Out!

Finally, the most fun news of the day comes from progressive radio talker and friend of The BRAD BLOG, Stephanie Miller. During a moving program yesterday, Miller announced to listeners that she was gay, noting that it's been an "open secret" among close friends and family for years, but that a "perfect storm" of events (the recent federal court ruling that CA's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and the fight to repeal the federal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in the military, etc.) led her to the belief that it was the right moment to come out to her listeners and the public. The BRAD BLOG sends our props and kudos to Stephanie for her courageous decision. The audio of her "coming out" segment, follows below...

Had planned to run this on what I thought would be a "slow" Labor Day weekend. Oh, well.

Goofin' with talk radio pals Jim Ward (of The Stephanie Miller Show) and Randi Rhodes (of The Randi Rhodes Show) last week at the DNC...

10 minutes on this morning's Stephanie Miller Show. Discussing why things like actually counting the ballots in New Hampshire would have been a great idea. And on the lunacy and self-destructiveness of progressives (like this uninformed front-pager over at dKos, and his even lesser-informed followers, such as Markos himself) buying into the conspiracy theory that the dozens of verified, independent, multiple-sourced pre-election polls were wrong, but the unverified and uncounted election results, as announced, are somehow magically known to be accurate.

The results might well be right. But unlike the transparent and verifiable polls, no human being has actually bothered to count or even examine 80% of the ballots in NH. So whose the irresponsible crackpot here? Some of these folks are digging their own November grave.

We stay up all night without sleeping and go on Steph's show, you decide...

Me, on the Stephanie Miller Show this morning, with Guest Host Bree Walker, talking about the Iowa Caucuses, and various concerns thereof.

(Appx. 15 mins) Download MP3, or listen online here...

{Broken audio link now fixed. Sorry about that. --- BF}

After co-anchoring last night's 9-hour Velvet Revolution Election Strike Force radio marathon spectacular until the wee hours, we were still more than happy to wake up and speak to both Stephanie Miller and then Thom Hartmann this morning...

-- Brad on Stephanie Miller Show, 11/8/06 [MP3, 9 minutes]

-- Brad on Thom Hartmann Program, 11/8/06 [MP3, 8 minutes]

UPDATE 4:57pm PT: And here's another from this afternoon with Chris Duel on KTSA News-Talk 550 AM...

-- Brad on Chris Duel Show, 11/8/06 [MP3, 11 minutes]