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Latest Featured Reports | Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Let It All Out:
'BradCast' 11/11/24
Callers ring in after Trump's disastrous re-election; Also: U.S. Senate result updates; Voting system concerns in several states; How national media failed American democracy...
Sunday 'Like it or Not' Toons
THIS WEEK: The Cancer Returns ... The Glass Ceilings ... The Consequences ... And too much more, in our latest collection of the week's best, very much-needed, toons...
Not All Bad: Abortion Rights Won Big (Almost) Everywhere: 'BradCast' 11/7/24
Guest: Alice Ollstein of Politico; Also: Wildfires in L.A.; Newsom readies CA for Trump; Biden vows 'peaceful transition'; PA U.S. Senate seat 'flipped'?; WA voters back climate law...
'Green News Report' 11/7/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
Trump re-election's worldwide implications for climate; Enviro groups vow to press forward; PLUS: Rafael hits Cuba; Wildfires in L.A....
Previous GNRs: 11/5/24 - 10/31/24 - Archives...
U.S. CHOOSES CONVICTED CRIMINAL, ADJUDICATED RAPIST: 'BradCast' 11/6/24
Harris concedes, vows peaceful transfer; Guests: Heather Digby Parton, 'Driftglass'...
ELECTION DAY 2024: Tea Leaves, Probs for Some Voters, Details on What's Next: 'BradCast' 11/5/24
Also: Some apt points for this moment in history from television's past...
'Green News Report' 11/5/24
Tornadoes, wet weather complicate Election; October one of driest in U.S. history; 'Rafael' eyes Gulf Coast; Positive climate news; PLUS: Biden builds back better ports...
'Closing Arguments' for Undecideds, Third-Party Voters: 'BradCast' 11/4/24
Also: Trump WILL try to steal it, if need be; Euro Greens call on Stein to drop out; Bernie's case for Kamala...
Sunday 'Your Choice' Toons
THIS WEEK: It's One or the Other ... And It's All Up To You... In our final Pre-Election 2024 collection of the week's most important toons...
The GOP 'Voter Fraud' Before the Storm: 'BradCast' 10/31/24
A primer on what election fraud actually is (and isn't), and how Team Trump is sowing seeds to steal the election if he loses again this year...
'Green News Report' 10/31/24
From extreme drought to deadly flooding in Spain; Worldwide toll on health from climate change is rising; PLUS: Environmentalists hold breath for U.S. election...
BARCODED BALLOTS AND BALLOT MARKING DEVICES
BMDs pose a new threat to democracy in all 50 states...
VIDEO: 'Rise of the Tea Bags'
Brad interviews American patriots...
'Democracy's Gold Standard'
Hand-marked, hand-counted ballots...
Brad's Upcoming Appearances
(All times listed as PACIFIC TIME unless noted)
Media Appearance Archives...
'Special Coverage' Archives
GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...

Criminal GOP Voter Registration Fraud Probe Expanding in VA
State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...

DOJ PROBE SOUGHT AFTER VA ARREST
Arrest of RNC/Sproul man caught destroying registration forms brings official calls for wider criminal probe from compromised VA AG Cuccinelli and U.S. AG Holder...

Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...

ALL TOGETHER: ROVE, SPROUL, KOCHS, RNC
His Super-PAC, his voter registration (fraud) firm & their 'Americans for Prosperity' are all based out of same top RNC legal office in Virginia...

LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
So much for the RNC's 'zero tolerance' policy, as discredited Republican registration fraud operative still hiring for dozens of GOP 'Get Out The Vote' campaigns...

'Fired' Sproul Group 'Cloned', Still Working for Republicans in At Least 10 States
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...

FINALLY: FOX ON GOP REG FRAUD SCANDAL
The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...

COLORADO FOLLOWS FLORIDA WITH GOP CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
Repub Sec. of State Gessler ignores expanding GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, rants about evidence-free 'Dem Voter Fraud' at Tea Party event...

CRIMINAL PROBE LAUNCHED INTO GOP VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL IN FL
FL Dept. of Law Enforcement confirms 'enough evidence to warrant full-blown investigation'; Election officials told fraudulent forms 'may become evidence in court'...

Brad Breaks PA Photo ID & GOP Registration Fraud Scandal News on Hartmann TV
Another visit on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture with new news on several developing Election Integrity stories...

CAUGHT ON TAPE: COORDINATED NATIONWIDE GOP VOTER REG SCAM
The GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal reveals insidious nationwide registration scheme to keep Obama supporters from even registering to vote...

CRIMINAL ELECTION FRAUD COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST GOP 'FRAUD' FIRM
Scandal spreads to 11 FL counties, other states; RNC, Romney try to contain damage, split from GOP operative...

RICK SCOTT GETS ROLLED IN GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) sends blistering letter to Gov. Rick Scott (R) demanding bi-partisan reg fraud probe in FL; Slams 'shocking and hypocritical' silence, lack of action...

VIDEO: Brad Breaks GOP Reg Fraud Scandal on Hartmann TV
Breaking coverage as the RNC fires their Romney-tied voter registration firm, Strategic Allied Consulting...

RNC FIRES NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION FIRM FOR FRAUD
After FL & NC GOP fire Romney-tied group, RNC does same; Dead people found reg'd as new voters; RNC paid firm over $3m over 2 months in 5 battleground states...

EXCLUSIVE: Intvw w/ FL Official Who First Discovered GOP Reg Fraud
After fraudulent registration forms from Romney-tied GOP firm found in Palm Beach, Election Supe says state's 'fraud'-obsessed top election official failed to return call...

GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD FOUND IN FL
State GOP fires Romney-tied registration firm after fraudulent forms found in Palm Beach; Firm hired 'at request of RNC' in FL, NC, VA, NV & CO...
The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...


Trump is promising political violence whether he wins or loses; Also: Navarro goes to prison; Scofflaw MI MAGA attorney arrested; SCOTUS allows TX to override federal law, Constitution; Biden's SOTU success...
By Brad Friedman on 3/19/2024 6:38pm PT  

On today's BradCast, some much needed "context" for what will absolutely be the most important election in U.S. history this November. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Donald Trump is now running on the promise of political violence --- whether he wins or loses. He made that clear (again) during this past weekend's rallies, interviews and social media postings as he continues to up his violent rhetoric with each passing day, embraces strongman tropes and celebrates his supporters' deadly attempt to overthrow the Constitution and U.S. Government on his behalf on January 6, 2021.

The real context of Trump's weekend rally in Ohio, threatening a "bloodbath for the country" if he loses this November, should be clear by now to anyone who hasn't already drunk his Kool-Aid. If it isn't, we attempt to rectify that today. And it has little to nothing to do with cars from China as his Kool-Aid drunk cultists and apologists are attempting to argue. Historians like Timothy Snyder (author of On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom) and Jason Stanley (author of How Fascism Works) are shouting from the rooftops to make that clear. So are folks like conservative attorney George Conway and progressive journalist Josh Marshall.

In other largely related news today...

  • Former Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro, a key player in the disgraced former President's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, reported to a federal corrections facility in Miami today to begin a fourth month sentence, becoming the first Trump White House official to go to prison on charges related to Trump's failed attempt to steal the 2020 election from the American people.
  • Election denying Michigan MAGA attorney Stefanie Lambert, charged on four counts related to the unlawful breach of voting systems in the state, was arrested in D.C. on Monday after a hearing in a separate case in which she is defending billionaire election denier Patrick Byrne who is being sued for defamation by Dominion Voting Systems. Her arrest by U.S. Marshals was related to her failure to show up for a hearing in her own case back in MI, even as she improperly released discovery documents from the Dominion case to the public.
  • The corrupted U.S. Supreme Court allowed a Texas law to take effect today that overturns more than a century of federal immigration authority and the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution which has long held that federal law trumps state law. The TX statute, which allows state and local police to arrest people they suspect have violated federal immigration law, is similar to Arizona's 2012 "Papers Please" law that was blocked at the time by SCOTUS. But neither Court precedent nor the Constitution appear to mean much anymore to the current, far-right supermajority on the High Court.
  • There is a movement among Congressional Republicans to prevent Joe Biden from giving a State of the Union Address to Congress next year under the premise that his speech two weeks ago was "divisive" and "hyper-partisan". (And you know how much Republicans hate that sort of thing, especially at SOTU!) At the same time, Republicans are pretending that polls suggest Biden's SOTU was not "well received". Actual numbers from viewers of the speech before and after strongly suggest the contrary.
  • Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with the EPA finally banning all uses of toxic asbestos; extreme heat in Africa; the Biden Administration's investment of billions of dollars to rebuild under-privileged communities that were broken into pieces decades ago by highway construction; and the remarkable climate change deniers in a wealthy coastal community in Massachusetts who want millions of dollars from the state, in perpetuity, to save their beaches and property values, despite the ravages of global warming and rising seas.

All of that and a whole lot more on today's BradCast!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Guest: Election expert Susan Greenhalgh of Free Speech for People, with cameos by election integrity champions Jeanne Dufort and Marilyn Marks of Coalition for Good Governance...
By Brad Friedman on 4/24/2023 6:47pm PT  

On today's BradCast: Maybe now Jack Smith will start investigating the multi-state criminal plot by MAGA conspiracists to breach voting system software? Now that we know the unlawful scheme actually began in Donald Trump's Oval Office, as overseen by Trump himself, back in December of 2020? [Audio link to full show follows below.]

We have been reporting on the unlawful, criminal breaches of sensitive voting and tabulation system software by MAGA rightwingers following the 2020 election for nearly two years at this point. Most notably, we've focused most closely on the incident that occurred in the rural, right-leaning Coffee County, Georgia, where local GOP Board of Election members, County Commissioners and Republican Party officials allowed outsiders organized and funded by Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, to come in to the elections office to make illicit copies of the County's sensitive, proprietary election management software made by Dominion Voting Systems. The software in rural Coffee County also happens to be the exact same software that is used across the entire battleground state, thanks to the insistence of Republican Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger.

We first learned about the Coffee County breach last year, thanks to Marilyn Marks, founder of Coalition for Good Governance, which has a long-running federal lawsuit against the state, seeking to the ban the use of Raffensperger's 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems made by Dominion. She received a bizarre phone call --- which we previously aired on this program --- from an Atlanta-area businessman named Scott Hall, essentially confessing to the unlawful breach in Coffee County on January 7, 2021. He thought Marks was a fellow MAGA traveler. She wasn't. She is a non-partisan election integrity advocate. A real one.

Since that breach, which included the participation of folks like Doug Logan of Cyber Ninjas (the clowns who ran that phony audit of the 2020 Presidential election in Phoenix, Arizona in 2021), was revealed, thanks to Marks' ongoing civil lawsuit, Sec. Raffensperger seems to have been working very hard to cover the entire thing up and, according to our guest today, DoJ Special Counsel Jack Smith does not appear to be investigating.

Hopefully, that may have changed as of Friday, when two major media outlets ran scoops based on a new letter [PDF] sent by our guest today, SUSAN GREENHALGH of Free Speech for People, to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Special Counsel Jack Smith and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

First, CNN reported Friday morning that text messages obtained via Marks' lawsuit revealed two of the software breaching Trump operatives discussed whether to somehow use information gleaned from their unlawful actions to try and prevent the certification of Democratic U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff's January 5th, 2021 U.S. Senate runoff victory over Republican David Purdue, or whether they should "hold it for a bigger moment."

Then, later on Friday, the New York Times ran a report detailing Greenhalgh's discovery that the plot to breach voting system software in several states --- which we already knew had been organized and funded by Powell --- was actually hatched during the infamous "crazy" meeting in the Oval Office on December 18, 2020. That, based on testimony to the House January 6 Committee that Greenhalgh documented from several Trump aides who were in the room where it happened that night. Attendees at the meeting included Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn, former Overstock.com CEO (and plot funder) Patrick Byrne, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and others. It went on for hours and was presided over by Donald Trump himself.

So, maybe Smith or Garland or Wray will be interested in investigating the multi-state conspiracy plot now?!

Greenhalgh explains that cybersecurity experts are concerned that the stolen software "can be used in disinformation campaigns, which we are already seeing happen. It could be used to fabricate evidence." She notes that "in 2020 when all those [Trump] lawsuits failed, it was because there wasn't any real or credible evidence. But software is mutable. You can play around with it. Could this be used to try and fabricate some false evidence to say, 'Look, this is what we found on some voting machines and look they stole the election?'"

"Most ominously," she warns, the software could be used to "to develop and tailor malware that could be deployed to actually start stealing votes, in the very way that we had people arguing was done in the 2020 election --- but now it's coming from the very same people that actually made those outrageous and baseless claims. Now [they] have the ammunition and basically the keys to the vault that could enable them to do much more nefarious things like actually hack an election."

So, why hasn't this been investigated by the Feds before now, as a response sent by the FBI to Greenhalgh in January [PDF] indicates, claiming the Bureau can only investigate after "a formal request for assistance" by "local authorities"? Why does GA Sec. of State Raffensperger, wrongly viewed as a hero for not stealing the 2020 election for Trump, seem to be working so very hard to cover up what happened in Coffee County? Why have corporate media been so reticent to dig into the story? Why have Greenhalgh and Marks had to do the bulk of the heavy lifting to even get us to this point? Why haven't members of Congress jumped in to demand a proper probe at the federal level? And will a proper federal probe finally happen now that the matter has found its way smack dab into Smith's purview by landing, via the New York Times, in Trump's Oval Office? (All thanks, of course, to the indefatigable work of Susan, Marilyn and their nonprofit organizations!)

"There's a lot more to this story to report," Greenhalgh insists. "As you know, it's still just the tip of the iceberg and there's a lot more information underneath that can still be reported. Greenhalgh's February follow-up letter to the FBI's response [PDF], for example, notes that, contrary to the assertion from R. Joseph Rothrock, Chief of the FBI's Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section, the Georgia State Elections Board says that it has, in fact, "requested assistance from the FBI." That, according to a public statement from its Chair in September of 2022

Tune in for answers to all of the above questions and many others on today's BradCast, which also includes some cameo call-ins from both Marks (who suggests listeners contact their U.S. Senators to ask them to demand a DoJ probe) and GA election integrity advocate Jeanne Dufort!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Special Coverage with Heather Digby Parton of Salon, David Faris of Roosevelt University...
By Brad Friedman on 7/12/2022 6:43pm PT  

It was Day 7 of public hearings for the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee probe of Donald Trump's January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and his multiple failed attempts to steal the 2020 Presidential Election. We've got full Special Coverage once again on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

If you've been turning away over the past week or so, we've got a quick recap of "our story so far" at the top of today's show, summing up the key elements of the six previous public hearings by the Committee. In short, to sum up that summary, Donald Trump knew everything and was personally involved in everything. He knew there was no fraud of note in the 2020 election, as all of his top advisers and legal experts told him as much, but he continued to lie about it anyway. He knew that his efforts to reverse election results to steal the election from Joe Biden in various swing-states and at the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021 were unlawful and/or Constitutional. Again, we've been shown that all his top advisers told him as much. He relentlessly pushed for it anyway. And he knew that calling his supporters to D.C. on January 6 and directing them to march on the Capitol would result in violence led by armed extremist groups. He was advised against it, but he did it anyway.

Today's hearing picked up on Trump's "call to arms" to his supporters. It came in the middle of the night in his now-infamous "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!" tweet, issued just hours after an insane, "unhinged", hours-long December 18, 2020 White House meeting with his personal crackpot attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, his felonious former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne (for some reason) and a bunch of White House attorneys. The latter angrily tried to derail the MAGA coup plotters plans to have the President issue an Executive Order to seize the nation's voting machines and install Powell as a Special Counsel to investigate fraud and issue arrests. Even Trump loyalist and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone --- who finally testified to the Committee last Friday --- said he "vehemently opposed" the "terrible idea." That, after repeatedly asking for any evidence of fraud and being shown none at all.

That bonkers meeting, and its fallout --- resulting in the tweet that "electrified and galvanized" his supporters immediately thereafter --- was detailed in the first part of today's hearing, with mountains of evidence and video-taped testimony. The second part covered what happened next, as the extremist groups which supported Trump, including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers (the leaders of which have already been indicted for seditious conspiracy), descended on D.C., planning for the violence --- and much worse --- that eventually occurred.

The Committee shared video of Trump's media supporters, immediately after his "will be wild!" tweet, calling on their own followers to join them in D.C., including rightwing conspiracy radio host Alex Jones and others. One called for "storming right into the Capitol," noting "the rules of engagement: If you have enough people, you can push down any fence or wall." Another vowed "There are gonna be a million, geeked-up armed Americans" coming to occupy D.C. in response to Trump's call.

All of that, weeks before Trump eventually directed them to march to the Capitol on Jan. 6 in what, the Committee showed through several draft tweets and speeches, was absolutely not a spontaneous ad-lib made by Trump during his remarks on the Ellipse. The armed march on the Capitol was the plan all along.

On the night before the attack, according to White House call logs obtained and revealed by the Committee today, Trump's disgraced former aide Steve Bannon took to his "War Room" podcast just after a conversation with the then President to declare: "All hell is going to break lose tomorrow. It's all converging and now we're on the point of attack. It's not gonna happen how you think it's going to happen. It's gonna be quite extraordinarily different and all I can say is strap in."

One witness at the end of today's hearing were Jason Van Tatenhove, an independent journalist turned self-described Oath Keepers propagandist, who says he left the group 5 years ago after seeing them become more and more racist and violent. The other was Stephen Ayers, a January 6 rioter and Trump believer. He was not tied to any of the extremist groups. He was just a guy, "a family man" who answered Trump's call to come to D.C. and "fight like hell" to "save the country" as he believed Trump needed him to do. He was arrested and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct at the Capitol and now regrets every part of it, believes it was all a con, but has since lost his job and much more after having fallen for Trump's Big --- violent, deadly --- Lie.

Today's hearing came to a close with another Liz Cheney cliff-hanger. This time she revealed that Trump had attempted to contact one of the Committee's witnesses following their last hearing. "We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously," vowed the Committee's Republican Vice Chair, adding that the Justice Department had been notified about the apparent witness tampering by the disgraced former President.

Joining us to make sense of all of this today are, once again, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullaballoo, joined this time by DAVID FARIS, Associate Professor of Political Science at Roosevelt University and a contributor to both Newsweek and The Week.

"They've been setting up the various strands," Parton explains, describing today's hearing focused on Trump's directives to his violent supporters, as she cited Andrew Weissman's recent "'hub and spoke' conspiracy" op-ed at NYTimes. "There were a number of different spokes going out from the Oval Office, which included the 'voter fraud,' the fake electors, the DOJ, Mike Pence. This was one of the spokes, and it's a huge one, because it is the spoke that leads from the White House and the Oval Office to the insurrection on January 6th. That part of the whole coup plot, the conspiracy to keep Trump in office come what may, that was a huge one."

"Big picture, I think these hearings have a number of different purposes. One is to provide concrete evidence of a systematic and sustained effort to extra-constitutionally overturn the results of the 2020 election," Faris observes. "Stealing the election. That's a coup. We've learned a lot more during these hearings about the mechanics of the coup. The bottom line is that the people who were putting these plans into motion knew perfectly well that they were illegal."

He also notes that he believes these hearings are likely to spur the DoJ into action. "There are a lot of little Trump lieutenants running for office who are planning to do things like manipulate the vote in 2024, or use extra-constitutional procedures to install a Republican candidate for President into office," Faris tells us. "There are a lot of people who are contemplating committing crimes in another conspiracy against the United States, and if you do not show them there are consequences to the people who did it the first time, I don't see how those people can draw any other conclusion then that they'll get away with it. I wish that we were not in this position where we have to talk about indicting a former President. It's not great. But I don't think he can be allowed to skate without really jeopardizing our democracy."

Lots more on today's show, of course, from the hearing itself and via smart analysis from Parton and Faris as, yes, the walls continue to close in on Donald J. Trump...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Also: The Prospect's Harold Meyerson on how Biden and Dems can build back 'Build Back Better' before mid-terms; And: Shell's billion dollar Canadian 'carbon capture' facility EMITS more than it captures!...
By Brad Friedman on 1/21/2022 6:50pm PT  

Trump's never-issued draft Executive Order to seize the nation's voting machines in December of 2020 has now been released, and it contains a surprise or two that may sound familiar to BradCast listeners! Also today, some thoughts from our guest on how President Biden and Democrats may still be able to salvage the critical Build Back Better agenda recently blocked by Lord Manchin and Lady Sinema. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

First up, the National Archives is believed to have turned over most of the hundreds --- and perhaps thousands --- of documents subpoenaed by the House Select Committee investigating Trump's attempt to steal the 2020 election with his attack on the U.S. Capitol and other actions. The documents from the Trump White House were handed over to the Committee this week following the crushing, 8 to 1 defeat [PDF] issued to the disgraced former President by his own stolen and packed U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday.

One of the many documents we've been looking forward to seeing was said to be a never-issued draft Executive Order on "Election Integrity", supposedly directing the Dept. of Defense to seize the nation's computerized voting and tabulation systems on the baseless premise that they had all been hacked or manipulated in some fashion, and to establish a Special Counsel to investigate and prosecute the criminals responsible.

That draft EO was obtained and published today by Politico's Betsy Woodruff Swan. The 3-page order [PDF], dated December 16, 2020, directs the Secretary of Defense, "effective immediately", to "seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for retention under" the federal law related to the preservation of election materials.

Happily, the Order was never actually issued. But, as we detail today, it's still stunning on several levels. For one, it quotes at some length from a 2020 ruling [PDF] by U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg in the long-standing federal lawsuit challenging Georgia's use of new, unverifiable computerized Ballot Marking Device (BMD) voting systems made by Dominion. That lawsuit was filed years ago by the non-profit Coalition for Good Governance.

If that all sounds familiar, it may be because we have covered that specific case on this program for many years now, as filed by the Coalition headed up by founder and longtime election security champion Marilyn Marks. She has joined us countless times on this program to discuss it, including after the complaint saw its biggest victory when Totenberg banned the state's 20-year old touchscreen voting systems made by Diebold, after she ruled them to be unverifiable, unsecure and, therefore, unconstitutional. Shamefully, Georgia's Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger subsequently replaced them with Dominion's equally unverifiable and vulnerable touchscreen systems, despite many warnings from voting system and cybersecurity experts. Totenberg's 2020 ruling, quoted in the draft Trump EO, allowed those new systems to be used for the first time that year anyway, despite the vulnerabilities, while issuing clear notice that she may well end up banning their use as well in the future.

The unidentified Trumpers who wrote the draft Executive Order titled "PRESIDENTIAL FINDINGS TO PRESERVE COLLECT AND ANALYZE NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION REGARDING THE 2020 GENERAL ELECTION", peppered the draft with lies about evidence of "probable cause" that Dominion's systems --- (as well as those made by about 8 other companies, several of which don't even deploy voting systems in the U.S., much less in the states Trump was challenging) --- were manipulated by "a massive cyber-attack by foreign interests". The Trumpers used the 2020 federal court ruling out of Georgia to further their evidence-free claims and even lied to say that "Every defect and hazard of which Judge Totenberg warned happened in Georgia."

If so, there is absolutely zero evidence to that end, according to one of the Coalition's experts on the case, Dr. Philip Stark of UC-Berkeley. He told me today via email that while "the vulnerabilities undeniably exist" in those Dominion voting systems, "there is (so far) no evidence that they were exploited in 2020 --- contrary to the claims in the draft EO."

In addition to misidentifying voting system vendors (and some of their actual correct names), the Order would have also directed the Sec. of Defense to compile an assessment of the matter in 60 days which, as Woodruff Swan observes, "could have been a gambit to keep Trump in power until at least mid-February of 2021."

The unissued Order is dated just two days before a much-reported, lengthy, reportedly "bonkers" meeting in the Oval Office with Trump, his disgraced former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne (for some reason), and loony conspiracist attorney Sidney Powell, who reportedly hoped to be named as a Special Counsel to oversee this emergency "national security" matter after the systems were seized. The final directive in the draft EO calls for the appointment of "a Special Counsel to oversee this operation and institute all criminal and civil proceedings [and to be] provided all resources necessary to carry out her duties." [Emphasis added.]

All of this underscores at least two important things. 1) Just how close this country under Trump came to an actual military coup ordered by the President of the United States to undermine and steal a Presidential election. And 2) The warnings that we have issued for nearly two decades now about how computerized voting systems that are so opaque and impossible for the public to actually oversee when they create and/or tally votes in secret, that --- even when they work as designed --- still allow for disingenuous cretins and liars like Team Trump to claim that they did not. That, in and of itself, as we have long warned, poses a grave threat to democracy and, clearly, national security. This matter should finally make that point crystal clear.

Before that story broke this afternoon, we had planned for our lede story today to be about how (and if) Joe Biden and Democrats can retrench and get their transformative Build Back Better agenda back on course, after both it and critical voting rights and election protection legislation were all blocked by Senate Republicans and Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

We're joined today by HAROLD MEYERSON, longtime progressive columnist and editor at The American Prospect to discuss just that. He wrote about it earlier this week, before his suggestion for breaking up the Build Back Better act into small chunks (and hold votes to put everyone on record for the stuff that was being blocked) was echoed by President Biden during his press conference two days later.

As usual, it is an insightful and very lively conversation on all of that and more with the delightful Meyerson today.

Finally, we close with a story out of Canada on the billion dollar "carbon capture" facility built by Shell as a demonstration for how their new technology could remove dangerous emissions from the air and allow for the continued use of fossil fuels in a climate changed world. As it turns out, according to a new report this week, the facility actually emits more greenhouse gasses than it captures. Go figure!...

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Trump grifters turn on each other from 'Stop the Steal' world to Congress, as legal probs and death threats mount and laughter ensues...
By Brad Friedman on 12/2/2021 6:08pm PT  

The insanity detailed on today's BradCast is simply too insane to adequately summarize here. You may just have to tune in for this one. (Bring plenty of popcorn.) Suffice to say, the story about the self-replicating African robot frogs is probably the least bizarre or disturbing story we cover. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Here's a quick collection of just some of the news stories from which today's program derives...or devolves, depending on how you wish to look at it...

  • Possibly insane "Stop the Steal" attorney L. Lin Wood declares "Stop the Steal" is a Deep State scam; releases phone calls with QAnon loon and confessed felon Michael Flynn (now caught on tape declaring QAnon to be a CIA scam) and with fake 2020 'audit' funder and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who believes failed "Kraken" lawsuit attorney Sidney Powell may have stolen as much as $70 million from the MAGA Mob for her phony, fraudulent 2020 lawsuits. Also, says Byrne, she's in love with him, gets drunk, and has tried to "bed" him in front of others.
  • The Dept. of Justice has also taken notice of Powell and has now, reportedly, convened a criminal grand jury to subpoena her "Defending the Republic" grift.
  • Wood and a bunch of other Trump lawyers are facing huge court sanctions for their phony 2020 fraud lawsuits are now trying to claim that Powell added their names to some of her "Kraken" lawsuits without their knowledge. (Don't believe them.)
  • Meanwhile, in Congress, things in Wingnut World are no less insane. The far-right House backbenchers are also turning on each other. Leading the charge over the cliff: CO's Lauren Boebert and GA's Marjorie Taylor Greene against fellow Republican and pro/anti-vaxxer Nancy Mace of SC as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is a deer in the headlights while hoping to become House Speaker someday. But it's Democrats like MN's Ilhan Omar who, for the moment, is paying the biggest --- and most frightening --- price...

Told you it was insane. But it's worse than it sounds. Tune in for all of that (and more), and our not-insane-at-all latest Green News Report with some surprisingly good news and very bad music...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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