I've got to post today's BradCast quickly a) before convicted felon Donald Trump speaks at tonight's RNC and b) before more political shoes (and/or earthquakes) drop. So, here's the quick skinny. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Donald Trump critic-turned-toady J.D. Vance of Ohio, officially accepted the GOP's nomination for Vice President during his remarks at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night. His speech was long on hillbilly biography but very short (virtually bereft) of the horrifying policies that Vance actually supports. Helpfully today, we correct his oversight with actual facts and policy proposals from the ambitious Yale-educated Senator, including his push for a nationwide abortion ban with no exceptions; ending no-fault divorce; slashing Social Security and Medicare; embracing Project 2025, turning over Ukraine to Russia and much more!

• While leaving out his radical policy positions, Vance also dropped a few big lies about a number of things during Wednesday speech. When it comes to his lies about all-time record, world-leading energy production under Joe Biden, our own Desi Doyen has a few thoughts and a corrective that J.D. and his convicted conman running mate would prefer you didn't listen to.

• Self-proclaimed "Liberal Redneck" comedian Trae Crowder, who hung out with the GOP's new Veep nominee back in the days when Vance regarded Trump as "America's Hitler", also has a few insights on him today.

• What explains the complete lack of pressing by corporate media for any kind of official medical statement on the injury suffered by Donald Trump during last Saturday's assassination attempt?

• The Chief U.S. District Court Judge in Nevada tossed out a suit on Wednesday brought by the Trump Campaign, the RNC and the Nevada GOP seeking to block the counting of potentially tens of thousands of perfectly legal mail ballots in the battleground state, cast and timely post-marked by Election Day, but arriving up to four days after, as allowed by NV state law.

• With President Biden now battling COVID again, top Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have all reportedly been pressing the President, in various ways, to reconsider his insistence on staying in the race for reelection. If there is to be a change at the top of the ticket, it is believed likely to come (and would need to come) within days. Perhaps as soon as this weekend.

• In the meantime, President Biden has been continuing to present new, popular policies --- as all Democrats should be joining him in doing at this point. This week, for example, Biden is reportedly planning to issue a long-overdue proposal for SCOTUS reform to include term limits and an enforceable code of ethics for Supreme Court Justices. He will also be proposing a Constitutional amendment to counter the Court's recent corrupt ruling granting criminal immunity to Presidents. Also this week, Biden has called for a national rent control statute that would cap rent increases at 5% annually unless landlords choose to forego federal tax write-offs. These are the sort of things that Dems should be doing right now, rather than squabbling amongst themselves. (Not that anyone asked me.)

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as Toronto is crippled by extreme storms and flooding; the cost of extreme heat is quickly escalating in the U.S.; and as Marathon Oil agrees to pay a record fine for pollution under the Clean Air Act...

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Welp, we've just been through about three political weeks in this country unlike any other, at least in my lifetime, as briefly summarized at the top of today's BradCast. And, before I'm even able to get today's show posted, that summary is already out of date, with the breaking news just after airtime that President Biden has COVID again. Good lord. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Other than that, to help me "hold on for dear life" amid the political whirlwind, I brought back our friends and fellow old school bloggers HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of The Pro Left Podcast to try and help us make sense of everything that continues to unspool this week. Among those things...

• The weekend's assassination attempt of Donald Trump by a registered Republican and how all of that has (or hasn't) affected the current state of the Presidential race.
• The temporarily-undergrounded and now-reemerging battle among elected Democrats as to whether Joe Biden should or shouldn't be replaced on the Presidential ticket.
• The "sign of weakness" in naming of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as the GOP's Vice-Presidential pick and what Trump hopes to gain from selecting a former critic-turned-toady who opposes support for our democratic allies in Ukraine and seeks a nationwide abortion ban (even in cases of rape or incest) as his running mate.
• Other noteworthy observations from the Republican Party's "unity" convention, including the curious and controversial anti-corporate elite/pro-union speech delivered at the RNC by Teamsters President Sean O'Brien, why Republicans refuse to learn how to pronounce Kamala Harris' first name after more than 3 years in office, and the media's terrible job in covering the entire affair. (Especially MSNBC in this case!)

All of that and too much more on today's BradCast! Enjoy!...

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On today's BradCast: Boy, if Joe Biden's "weaponization" of the Justice Department against Trump and Republicans keeps going like this, there won't be any Democrats left who haven't been convicted of a crime! Too bad old Joe didn't realize he should have just packed the courts with corrupt judges, like Donald Trump did. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

First up today --- after a kick-off by TikTok's @DanasInspired; a few thoughts on Trump's appearance at the RNC on Monday night after the weekend's failed assassination attempt and his naming of Ohio's Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate --- we start with news about today's conviction, on all counts, of New Jersey's Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez. The three-term U.S. Senator and former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was found guilty by a jury on Tuesday after a nine-week criminal trial on charges related to abusing his office to protect foreign associates from criminal investigations and to help funnel money to Egyptian officials. In exchange, prosecutors alleged, Menendez and his wife Nadine Menendez collected millions in gifts, cash and gold bars. She was charged as well, though her trial has been postponed for the time being as she undergoes cancer treatment.

Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and NJ's Democratic Governor Phil Murphy each called for Menendez to resign following the verdict. He had previously vowed to run for re-election as an independent this year, while Democratic Rep. Andy Kim has been nominated by state voters to run for his seat in November against Republican Curtis Bashaw in the Dem-leaning state.

But Menendez' corruption doesn't hold a candle to Donald Trump's, thanks in no small part to the corrupt jurists Trump appointed to lifetime positions on the federal bench while in office, many of whom are now returning the favor at an alarming rate in recent weeks. On Monday, it was U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's turn, apparently, to use her position to let Trump off the hook. In this case, dismissing his 40-count federal criminal indictment brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith in South Florida for Trump's theft of thousands of pages of highly classified national security documents upon leaving office; his repeated refusal to return them to the government; and his attempts to hide them from prosecutors and enlist Mar-a-Lago employees to help cover up and/or destroy evidence of the crimes.

In a remarkable 93-page ruling [PDF] issued on Monday, Cannon dismissed the entire federal case against Trump and his co-defendants on the basis that Smith's appointment as Special Counsel was somehow in violation of the Constitution and federal statutes. The argument made by Trump's attorneys and accepted by Cannon --- who had already been slow-walking the case for months --- was similar to those repeatedly rejected for decades by judge after judge, including appellate courts and, as our guest details today, unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court in Nixon v. U.S. But Cannon, appointed by Trump at the end of his term and seated after he lost the 2020 election, appears to know more about the law than all of those other lesser judges.

We're joined today by former lifelong Republican and attorney KEITH BARBER, who writes on the law and Constitution for Daily Kos as "KeithDB", where he detailed Cannon's ruling yesterday. He explains why both the text of the Constitution and several federal laws written to allow Attorneys General to appoint Special Counsels in cases where it is important to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, prove Cannon's ruling wrong. But, as he argues today, being right on the law doesn't actually matter. "She just wanted to dismiss the case because her buddy Trump appointed her [and] gave her that job. It's time to return the favor, and so she has," he says.

Barber published a second article yesterday listing more than half a dozen Special Counsels and Special Prosecutors appointed similarly to Smith, from Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski in the Watergate matter to Ken Starr during the Clinton Administration to Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference on Trump's behalf in the 2016 election to the recent probe of President Biden himself by Special Counsel Robert Hur.

"A lot of people have gone to jail as a result of special counsels appointed by the Attorney General" over the years, Barber tells me. "None of them got the benefit of a rogue judge saying, 'Nope, all of that is not valid.' The Republicans and the MAGAs like to talk about this notion of two-tiered justice and how unfair it's been to Trump. No court accepted the notion that Special Counsels weren't authorized by statute and weren't something Attorneys Generals could do until it came to Trump. That is what two-tiered justice looks like."

If Cannon's ruling on Monday is correct, Barber asserts, then as part of the Mueller probe, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen's three-year prison sentence would have been unconstitutional and Trump associate and convicted pedophile George Nader would need to be freed immediately from his ten-year prison sentence, among other cases convictions that would need to immediately be revisited.

Will this ruling hold up to appellate scrutiny by the conservative 11th Circuit Court of Appeal, much less Trump's corrupted, packed, stolen and activist U.S. Supreme Court majority? We discuss that and much more.

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the misery and power outages continue in Houston, Texas following Hurricane Beryl, thanks in no small part to state Republicans refusal to harden infrastructure for a climate changed world, and as Trump appoints flip-flopping climate science denier J.D. Vance as his Vice-Presidential running mate...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Texas' electric grid infrastructure buckles under multiple extreme weather disasters; Damages from Hurricane Beryl now estimated at nearly $3 billion; PLUS: Republican Vice-Presidential nominee, Sen. J.D. Vance, was for climate action before he was against it... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Soaring insurance prices lead some Floridians to 'go bare'; How to power your home through an outage without a gas generator; Marathon Oil agrees to record penalty for oil and gas pollution; Vermont floods raise concerns about future of state’s hundreds of aging dams; What Project 2025 would mean for the fight against climate change;
... PLUS: Meet the Californians in the first class of the American Climate Corps... PLUS:

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

Well, it's been several slow news days since we last spoke on The BradCast. Sigh... [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

On Saturday, a 20-year old registered Republican tried to kill Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania with the type of long-range, high-capacity, semi-automatic rifle that Republicans have spent years fighting to ensure are easily available to almost anyone in the country who wants one. Their only use is for mass shootings. Now we've had one at a Republican political rally. Thankfully, the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, barely missed the former President. Though he did kill one rally goer and critically injured two others.

Democrats, from President Biden on down, have since been calling for a cooling of political rhetoric, the type of which led to the assassination attempt on Nancy Pelosi's husband, the attempted kidnapping and murder of Michigan's Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, among too many other such recent incidents.

Republicans, on the other hand, from the new Republican Vice Presidential nominee and Trump critic turned toady, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance on down, have opportunistically used the tragic shooting to blame Democrats somehow for the attempt on Trump's life. Some have gone so far as to blame Biden himself in one for somehow personally attempting to murder Trump. Republicans have also attempted to use the incident as a way to chill factual, peaceful political speech that is appropriately and accurately critical of their standard bearer and the party's efforts to undermine America's Constitutional democracy in favor of autocracy and fascism.

No actual motive has emerged for the shooter who was killed by the Secret Service and has so far been identified as a gun enthusiast and "definitely" a "conservative" by one of his former classmates.

We discuss much more on that story today which should have been our lead and only story today. Sadly, it wasn't.

Down in federal court in Florida, the corrupt Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon imagined up a reason to dismiss the entirety of Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal indictment of Trump and two co-conspirators on 40 criminal counts related to his theft of thousands of pages of classified documents when leaving the White House and his refusal to return them, in violation of the Espionage Act and other federal statutes. Cannon's reasons [PDF] for dismissing the case --- questioning the constitutionality of the Special Counsel's appointment --- has been rejected by court after court for years in many other cases where a Special Counsel was appointed (including the Robert Mueller probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election and more recently in the case against Hunter Biden) But, following recent instructions in a solo opinion issued by corrupt Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (signed by no other Justices) in an unrelated case, Cannon dismissed the entire stolen documents case. The Dept. of Justice has said they will appeal. Hopefully, when they do, they will also finally move to have Cannon removed once and for all from this case.

Finally, we open up the phone lines again today to listeners who have many thoughts on all of the above...

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Republicans and corporate media appeared to be shocked on Tuesday night. But it looks like we had it right all along on BradCast regarding this year's midterm elections. And, once again, the corporate media didn't. But, good news for them! As usual, they'll pay no price for being wrong, no matter how many times they ill-serve the nation with their failures. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

There was no "red" wave. Conventional wisdom, as we've been advising since early Spring, was to be ignored before this year's midterms in these decidedly UNconventional times. If we could see that data --- sometimes via polling from some of the very same media outlets --- why couldn't the corporate media? Maybe its group think. Maybe its because whatever Republicans tell them they believe to be the truth, or simply report it as such.

In any event, while there was no "red" wave, it is still quite possible that Republicans win majorities in both the U.S. House and the Senate --- if just barely in each case. And while Dems, as we go to air today, have an apparent edge to hold on to their Senate majority, it'll almost certainly require another win in another U.S. Senate runoff in Georgia next month to nail it down. There even remains a long-shot chance that Dems can keep a majority in the House as well, and that, as we explained yesterday, it all may come down to the effect of unusually large downpours on Tuesday's Election Day in both Northern and Southern California.

Either way, for the moment, American democracy, while still on life support, has lived to see another day. For now. In similarly encouraging news, our previous President may even finally face some accountability from his own infuriated party. They were deprived of what should have been a huge and easy win on Tuesday, but for the rightwing loons that Donald Trump helped push into the Party and onto ballots across the nation. Many of them, if not all, lost bigly.

On today's program, we discuss all of the above and, based on what we know as of airtime, run through a ton of critical victories and losses --- including both inspiring surprise wins and several disappointments --- in dozens of states, at both the state and federal level.

As of yesterday's election, anyway, American voters (including many young ones, thankfully!) appear to have held the line for democracy. It is not dead yet. For that, I hope you'll take a minute or two to breathe a small sigh of relief. But not too many minutes. The good fight ain't over yet. Not by a long shot...

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As noted on today's BradCast, we generally cover the track conditions of our elections more than the actual horse races. We do so again today. But, as it turns out, Dems have put up some pretty good horses this year. We cover a couple of them today as well. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

First, track conditions...

The corrupt, stolen and packed rightwing U.S. Supreme Court majority on Tuesday overturned an appeals court ruling which had found that both the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Pennsylvania law mandates that legitimately voted ballots may not be invalidated due to minor errors that are "immaterial" to determining voter qualification. In this case, the question was about absentee ballots where voters had forgotten to fill in the date on the ballot's outer envelope. The activists on SCOTUS, however, held today that such ballots may not be counted this November, despite the Civil Rights Act provision that previously ended the Jim Crow era's use of immaterial errors to invalidate perfectly legitimate votes.

Also, FBI officials say they have identified no credible threats to U.S. election systems this year, despite efforts by some foreign adversaries, including Russia, to sow doubt about fraud. But do these officials understand the actual threats now posed to our non-transparent, easily manipulated and error-prone computerized voting and tabulation systems? Do they appreciate the increased threat level thanks to recent breaches of election management systems by MAGA conspiracy theorists in several states following the former President's false claims of fraud?

While the Trump-appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray seems to falsely suggest there are similar domestic threats of violence from "both sides" following the 2020 election and the SCOTUS ruling on Roe v. Wade, the federal Elections Threat Task Force, launched last year by the Dept. of Justice, seems to finally be taking at least some action in response to the thousands of violent threats made by rightwingers against election officials and poll workers following the last Presidential election.

Next, horse races...

During a U.S. Senate debate in Ohio on Monday night, Democratic candidate Rep. Tim Ryan called out his Republican opponent, author J.D. Vance, for running a fake non-profit charity to support opioid addicts; defending January 6 insurrectionists; and for giving up his "dignity" to Trump who said about Vance at a recent rally in Youngstown: "All you do is kiss my ass to get my support," before Vance went on to pose for pictures with the disgraced former President. "Ohio needs an ass-kicker, not an ass-kisser," said Ryan in response.

In Wisconsin's U.S.. Senate race, Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes was similarly ass-kicking in his debate against incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. Barnes called out the Badger State GOPer for supporting the January 6 insurrection while claiming to support police, despite the serious injuries to more than 140 law enforcement officials that day. Barnes also made clear he would vote to codify the rights of Roe v. Wade into federal law, and made a very impressive showing against Johnson.

Both races are currently neck and neck, and are among at least five Senate races this year (along with Pennsylvania, North Carolina and even Florida) where Dems have real shots at flipping currently GOP-held seats from "red" to "blue". That, by way of contrast with Republicans who are looking at just two states (Nevada and Georgia), where they stand any real chance, generally speaking, of flipping a Senate seat from "blue" to "red" this year --- at least if you have any confidence in this year's pre-election polling.

Finally...

Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, underscoring, yet again, the stakes of this year's critical midterms following the devastation of Hurricane Ian in Florida; consequences of our worsening climate crisis around the world; and the Governor of California's new effort to hold Big Oil accountable for price gouging...

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What's the difference between a white supremacist mass murderer in Buffalo, NY and a GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate? Well, in terms of their racist rhetoric not a heck of a lot, it seems. That and many more reasons to both pay close attention and be skeptical of "conventional wisdom" regarding this November's critical midterm elections on today's BradCast, as American Democracy v. Violent Strongman Authoritarianism is most definitely on the ballot in every state this year. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the stories underscoring all of that on today's program...

• A number of the attorneys who helped Donald Trump try to steal the 2020 election have had their law licenses suspended or are facing permanent disbarment. One attorney who has yet to be held accountable in any way, however, is Sen. Ted Cruz, who volunteered to represent Trump in two different bogus election challenges before the U.S. Supreme Court; knowingly spread false claims of fraud; and then voted against certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory even after Trump's deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. A bipartisan group is now hoping to change that. This week, they filed a complaint with the State Bar of Texas, seeking an investigation into possible disbarment for the sleazy Texas Senator/still-licensed attorney.

• Speaking of sleazy still-licensed Texas attorneys, the state's chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Ken Paxton now says he has been sued by the Texas State Bar for misconduct. Paxton has already been charged with several securities fraud felonies; is being investigated by the FBI for abuse of power and bribery after a federal criminal complaint by eight of his top former deputies; and brought a laughable case to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to toss the 2020 election results in four states that were not Texas. It is for his help in trying to steal the election for Trump at SCOTUS that has resulted in the state Bar's lawsuit against him. Paxton is running for re-election anyway. On Tuesday he's in a runoff election with the state's Land Commissioner George P. Bush (the very Trumpy son of Jeb and nephew of the guy who made "one of the biggest Freudian slips of all time" at Southern Methodist University yesterday.) No sooner did Paxton get sued by the state bar then he turned around and opened an investigation into the Texas Bar Foundation for "facilitating mass influx of illegal aliens" --- ya know, the stuff that racist "great replacement" conspiracy theories are made of.

• And speaking of the racist "great replacement" conspiracy theory, as repeatedly cited by the white supremacist domestic terrorist who murdered 10 and wounded 3 others in a Buffalo supermarket in a predominantly black neighborhood last weekend, a whole bunch of Republicans running for the U.S. Senate this year have been using nearly identical rhetoric to that racist murderer for a very long time. The once-fringe, now mainstream rightwing theory claims that Democrats are hoping to replace white American voters with immigrants, Jews and people of color to control the electorate with one-party rule. Or something. And, in the wake of Trump's embrace of white nationalism as President, AP highlighted a bevvy of mainstream GOP Senate candidates this year --- either running for reelection or for the party's nomination --- whose rhetoric on immigration directly echoes the same baseless, racist fear-mongering. Their list includes Blake Masters in Arizona; A.G. Eric Schmitt and disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens in Missouri; GOP Senate nominee J.D. Vance in Ohio; and two-term U.S. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. The full list of elected and hopeful GOP officials who also espouse rhetoric shared by rightwing domestic terrorists is obviously much, much longer.

• And speaking of domestic terrorists, the U.S. House passed the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act (again) on Wednesday. All Democrats voted for it. Every Republican, except for retiring Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, voted against it. Democrats vow to bring it up in the Senate next week. It may be a heavy lift over the undemocratic 60-vote filibuster threshold in the upper chamber. Too bad it wasn't called the Domestic Terrorism by Non-White People Prevention Act. It might have easily passed in both chambers, as most legislation related to terrorism that doesn't target white supremacists tends to.

• And, speaking of extremism, on Thursday, the Oklahoma legislature passed a new law that, if signed by the Governor, would ban nearly all abortions starting at fertilization, which would make it the nation's strictest abortion law. It would also, in turn, make certain forms of birth control --- like IUDs, The Bill, Plan B, which don't necessarily prevent fertilization, but prevent implantation of a fertilized egg --- a form of "abortion" or, in Oklahoma, a homicide. More Republican-controlled states are likely to follow suit, despite the vast majority of Americans who support abortion rights. Please keep all of this in mind in November.

• And, speaking of this November, polling last month from the Harvard Youth Poll suggests --- contrary to "conventional wisdom" --- that young voters are very eager to vote this year. The number who say they are "definitely" voting in the 2022 election is almost identical to the number who said same before the 2018 "blue wave" election. That could be good news for Democrats. Again, please ignore "conventional wisdom" in these decidedly unconventional times.

• And, speaking of young people, even in deep "red" Wyoming, they don't dig attacks on LGBTQ+ people --- yes, even trans people --- as the state's U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis found out the embarrassing way during a commencement address she gave over the weekend at the University of Wyoming. It took a while, but now she "apologizes" if she offended anyone with her remarks that were broadly booed during the speech at the school once attended by Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was brutally beaten and left to die on a fence nearly 25 years ago. He became one of the namesakes of the landmark Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

• And, speaking of civil rights for all --- and of keeping Big Government and the GOP's stolen and packed Supreme Court out of our bedrooms and doctor's offices --- support for abortion rights has reached a record high in a new NBC News poll following the leak of SCOTUS' draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade and its 50 years of protection for reproductive rights. The poll also finds support for same-sex marriage (perhaps next on the chopping block after Roe's Constitutionally established right to privacy is killed) at an all time high, while approval for the High Court is at an all time, 30-year low in this particular poll.

• Finally, speaking of nothing but disturbing news....Desi Doyen joins us for too much of it in our latest Green News Report...

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On today's BradCast: With midterm primaries in Ohio and Indiana yesterday kicking off a month of about a dozen such primaries across the country, and more to come in subsequent months, America is voting again. So, naturally, America's voting systems are failing voters again. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

In Ohio, in at least three different counties (Lucas, Cuyahoga and Williams) reports of misprogrammed systems prevented voters from casting their votes or forced them to return later in the day to do so. Electronic pollbooks used as part of computer touchscreen Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) appear to be the culprit this time. Again. In this case, at least in Lucas (Toledo) and Cuyahoga (Cleveland) it appears the e-pollbook vendor misprogrammed them to print out barcodes on ballot cards that subsequently brought up the ballot for the wrong party when voters put those ballot cards into the BMDs to try and cast their votes. Republicans received Democratic ballots and vice versa.

The widespread failure was reportedly corrected eventually, by about 2pm. In some cases, poll workers were able to manually punch in codes to bring up the correct party ballots and precincts onto the BMD systems for voters. In other cases, voters were given printed ballots that they could fill in by hand (begging the question as to why all voters weren't simply given reliable, verifiable hand-marked paper ballots to use in the first place to avoid these ongoing electoral nightmares!) Either way, problems like these do little to foster confidence in our electoral system, particularly on BMD systems which are already 100% unverifiable after elections, making it impossible to know if votes cast via such systems actually reflect the intent of any voter.

Luckily, confidence in our voting systems hasn't been a big concern in the U.S. of late, right?

As to actual reported results of voting on Tuesday, we cover, among other things, the Democratic U.S. House race watched closed by some on the progressive left between Rep. Shontel Brown and Bernie Sanders-ally Nina Turner in the state's 11th Congressional District (which happens to touch both Lucas and Cuyahoga Counties, where voting systems failed). The contest was a re-run of last Summer's special election to fill the House seat vacated by Rep. Marcia Fudge after she was tapped to serve as Joe Biden's HUD Secretary. Turner lost once again on Tuesday, reportedly by a much wider margin this time, before suggesting in her fiery concession speech that she may be planning an independent run for President in 2024.

All of the U.S. House races in Ohio were run on a new map found by the state Supreme Court to violate the state's constitution, requiring districts that reflect the state's partisan balance after a 2018 ballot iniative for fairer maps won 70% of the vote. Ohio's Presidential contest in 2020 was about 53 to 45% in Trump's favor. Nonetheless, the new maps created by the GOP-majority Redistricting Commission in the Buckeye State will likely result in a 13 to 2 --- or maybe 12 to 3 --- advantage in favor of Republicans in Ohio's U.S. House delegation, as redistricting expert Dave Daley told me via email today. The unconstitutional map is being used in 2022 as the court challenge continues. Perhaps they'll get fair U.S. House maps by 2024. Or not.

On the Republican side of Tuesday's primaries, all of Trump's endorsed candidates --- no matter how crazy, no matter how many times they've been accused of domestic violence or sexual harassment --- won yesterday in both Ohio and Indiana. In Ohio, that even included author and former never-Trumper J.D. Vance in his bid for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination. Vance, back in 2016, said he couldn't "stomach Trump" and found him "noxious". But he changed his tune when he decided to run for the open Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Rob Portman. Now, Vance says, Trump's "a great President, certainly the best President of my lifetime." That was enough, apparently, to win Trump's endorsement, which appears to have catapulted Vance from third place, just a few weeks ago, to a reported win on Tuesday night. He'll be running in November against Democratic nominee Rep. Tim Ryan.

While all of this is great for Trump's considerable ego, it remains to be seen whether having a bunch of far-right, radical loons and alleged abusers who insist the election was stolen from Trump in 2020 (despite any evidence to support the claim) will be good or bad for the GOP this November. It should be a big year for them, but there are still a whole lot of X Factors that could affect so-called Conventional Wisdom on this.

Next, the voters challenging the eligibility of North Carolina insurrectionist Rep. Madison Cawthorn to run for reelection had their day in federal appeals court on Tuesday, after a Trump-appointed lower court judge tossed their Constitutional challenge to Cawthorn's eligibility under the "Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause" of the 14th Amendment. The Q&A between Cawthorn's defense attorney and one of the judge's on the appeals panel was...um...kinda mind-blowing.

As Constitutional law expert John Bonifaz of Free Speech for People, the group representing the voter challengers, summarized on Twitter yesterday: "'Let's say you want to run for office at 12 years old, or something like that,' Judge James Wynn said. 'The state can't do anything? You've got to wait until Congress says they can't run?' Cawthorn's counsel: Yes, the state has no role + must allow that 12 year old on the ballot." Even that snippet doesn't do this hearing justice. We break the whole thing down for ya today.

Then, as we try to get caught up on a bunch of stuff that's been buried by larger stories (in Ukraine, at the Supreme Court) this week, a new memoir by Trump's last Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, claims that Trump wondered why the military couldn't just shoot Black Lives Matter protesters in the street.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as unprecedented heat in South Asia is now "testing the limits of human survivability" and much more, including even some good news on Denmark going all-electric...

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