On today's BradCast: You get an indictment! You get an indictment! You get an indictment! Everyone gets an indictment!!! Well, not everyone. At least not everyone who deserves an indictment. But a bunch of folks got indicted today in a bunch of separate federal cases. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

One time Democratic hero and former Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti was charged in a 36-count federal indictment in California for allegedly stealing from clients, not paying his taxes, and committing bank fraud. Former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig was charged by prosecutors in D.C. for lying to federal agents regarding his lobbying work in Ukraine, a case that came out of the Robert Mueller Special Counsel probe (where Trump Campaign chair Paul Manafort was previously found guilty of very related charges).

And, of course, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was finally arrested in the U.K. after being kicked out of the Ecuadorean embassy in London (where he's claimed asylum for the past seven years) before being found guilty by a British judge of skipping out on bail while facing extradition for charges of sexual assault in Sweden back in 2012. The Swedish charges have since been dropped, but Assange now faces both prison time in Britain and an extradition request from the U.S. where prosecutors unsealed a one-count indictment [PDF] against him today, as filed under seal in March of 2018.

For now, that charge is an allegation of "conspiracy to commit computer intrusion". Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia claim he attempted to help crack a password for a classified Defense Department computer system to assist then U.S. Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning in hacking documents. That, after Wikileaks had already released hundreds of such documents --- many containing evidence of serious U.S. crimes --- taken by Manning, back in 2010. Freedom of the press advocates, however, warn today that the charges being brought by Trump's Dept. of Justice against Assange could be expanded to include normal journalistic activities, which could threaten the Constitutional rights of many media outlets and journalists alike.

We detail today what we know --- and don't --- about the indictment; what we know --- and don't --- about what Assange and WikiLeaks have done (including the release of documents stolen from the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016); and what all of this may --- or may not --- mean for U.S. press freedoms as the case moves forward.

Also today: Some good news regarding the death penalty in New Hampshire; Some quick updates on Trump Treasury Dept. Secretary Steven Mnuchin's refusal (so far) to turn over Trump's tax returns to Congress in violation of the law; Trump Attorney General William Barr's obnoxious, hypocritical, and (so far) evidence-free claim that the Obama Administration was "spying" on the Trump Campaign in 2016; And more disturbing details on the perfidy and corruption of David Bernhardt, the longtime oil and gas industry lobbyist who was shamefully confirmed today by the U.S. Senate as Trump's new Interior Department Secretary.

Finally, Desi Doyen brings us the latest Green News Report on Trump's newly signed Executive Orders authorizing himself to, among other things, authorize new oil and gas pipelines without approval from other federal agencies, and to remove states' rights to block energy infrastructure that threatens local water supplies; the second bomb cyclone in weeks to likely bring billions in damages to a number of Midwestern states; and several troubling new studies regarding the acceleration of climate change and glacial ice melt now outpacing previous scientific predictions...

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On today's BradCast, finding light on a very dark news day, and making sense of Devin Nunes' bizarre new legal attack against a well-respected media outlet. [Audio link for today's show is posted below.]

You know the news is dark on a day when the brightest spot seems to be the first-ever photographic evidence of a black hole in a galaxy that is 53 million light-years from Earth, as constructed by an international consortium of scientists from 20 different countries employing an array of observatories around the world to construct a virtual "telescope" the size of the planet itself. The assembled image of the supermassive black hole is the first such glimpse of such an object in space (theorized by Einstein over a century ago, but directly proven today for the first time) containing the same mass as 6.5 billion suns and so dense that nothing, not even light, can escape its gravitational pull.

Sounds a lot like the Trump Administration. But we (mostly) avoid that today, even as we discuss one of its biggest supporters in Congress, California Rep. Devin Nunes, and his increasingly mysterious (and troubling) new legal gambit.

But, before we get there today, an update on last week's razor thin race for a key seat on Wisconsin's Supreme Court. With computer-reported results from last week's election showing progressive-aligned Judge Lisa Neubaeur fell less than half of a percentage point shy of defeating far-right Judge Brian Hagedorn for a seat on the state's high court being vacated by a retiring progressive-leaned Justice, Neubauer decided on Wednesday against seeking a recount which she would have had to pay for under state law. Her concession today --- despite unofficial and unconfirmed computer tallies showing a loss by just about 6,000 votes out of some 1.2 million cast statewide --- means that progressives will be unable to regain a majority on the court until 2023 at the earliest. The new 5 to 2 rightwing majority all but scotches hopes for rolling back former Republican Governor Scott Walker's anti-union measures and GOP voter suppression laws, and could handicap the state's Democrats during the inevitable redistricting fights following the 2020 census. (Have we mentioned lately that elections matter?!)

Also today, more on the incoming and "potentially historic" "bomb cyclone" developing over plains states and the upper Midwest, where blizzard warnings have now been issued in 6 states, snowfall as high as two feet is predicted in some areas, and the threat of more major flooding is plaguing several states still fighting to recover from billions of dollars in damage from the last "bomb cyclone" which erupted just weeks ago. This latest evidence of the increasingly dangerous threat of catastrophic climate change comes on the same day as Donald Trump signed two new Executive Orders intended to make it more difficult for environmental regulations at the state level to prevent the construction of new oil and gas pipelines (which serve to exacerbate man-made global warming.)

Then, we're joined by veteran media analyst and author ERIC BOEHLERT to discuss the latest bizarre lawsuit, which seems to challenge the First Amendment itself, as filed by Nunes this week.

Several weeks ago, the California Congressman and top Trump ally in Congress filed a $250 million lawsuit against Twitter, the owners of two anonymous parody accounts (@DevonCow and @DevonNunesMom), as well as Republican strategist and Nunes/Trump opponent Liz Mair for defamation. This week, the GOP Congressman filed suit against Mair again, along with the 162-year old McClatchy Company, a news consortium which publishes the Fresno Bee, the hometown paper in the Nunes' central California district. His latest complaint seeks $150 million in damages, charging defamation based on an article published by the Bee last year detailing the settlement of a lawsuit after a charity yacht cruise which reportedly included cocaine and underage prostitutes, according to court documents cited by the paper. The cruise was auctioned off by the philanthropic arm of the Alpha Omega Winery, in which Nunes is an investor.

But where his Twitter suit seemed absurd, this new suit --- like the first one, originally reported by Fox "News", of course --- suggests a darker and more nefarious effort to undermine Constitutionally-protected freedom of the press. Who is funding these efforts by Nunes and why? Might it have anything to do with Trump's repeated assertions that libel laws need to change to make it easier for public figures like himself to challenge reporting that celebrities like himself don't care for?

Boehlert offers insight on what may be going on here: "The Republican Party has decided that Google, Twitter and Facebook are the new targets. And they're using the exact same playbook that they used on the traditional media for four decades, which is you work the refs, you scream and yell over these fake phony allegations of 'liberal media bias'. And it works! Facebook has bent over backwards to make sure Republicans are happy. Twitter could have easily banned Donald Trump two years ago and saved this country an enormous amount of pain, because he obviously violates the rules all the time. So it works."

But there may be even more behind all of this, as we discuss, along with his concerns about ongoing corporate media failures in the wake of Trump AG William Barr's handling of the still-secret Mueller Report and other related matters as we head into the 2020 Presidential election cycle.

Finally, we close with some listener mail regarding our ongoing discussions of how Dems should move forward as they attempt to remove both Donald Trump from office next year and the nation itself from the black hole we continue to sink into under his increasingly dark reign...

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This is the week that everything is now all happening at once, apparently. We do our best to cover as much of it as we can, and then some. How it all fits together, you'll have to tune in and find out. Among the stories covered on today's whirlwind BradCast whirlwind [audio link to show is posted below]...

• With the nation's top U.S. General for homeland defense telling a Senate committee today that there is no military emergency on the southern border, and scores of former national security officials and former GOP lawmakers declaring this week that Trump's "national emergency" declaration is unjustified and even unlawful and/or unconstitutional, the U.S. House voted on Tuesday to block Trump's "emergency" declaration that takes money allocated by Congress for other purposes in order to build his border wall. Prospects for similar passage in the Senate are currently unknown, but currently looking positive. Overriding a promised Presidential veto, however, will be much more difficult, so this is all likely to be decided by the courts and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court;

• Trump landed in Vietnam today for the start of his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, where senior Administration officials have reportedly said the President plans to stay up overnight to watch Wednesday's televised hearing in the U.S. House Oversight Committee with Michael Cohen. Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer is expected, according to reports today, to testify --- with documentation --- on criminal acts he claims to have been carried out by Trump both before and during his Presidency. He's also expected to detail Trump's history of racist behavior and lies regarding his own personal wealth, among other things. Incredibly, Trump partisan Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) issued an extraordinary threat against Cohen via Twitter just before airtime today, which experts immediately cited as a potentially unlawful attempt at criminal witness tampering and/or intimidation;

• Also in the Democratic-majority U.S. House on Tuesday, hearings on the Administration's policy of family separation at the southern border amid new reports today of thousands of children alleging sexual abuse during their detention;

• In North Carolina, disgraced 9th Congressional House District Republican candidate Mark Harris announced he will not run in a new election called for the district after the November 2018 race was tainted by absentee ballot fraud carried out by Harris' campaign. According to his Harris' own attorney, after stunning surprise testimony against him by his own son at public hearings held by the NC State Board of Elections, the candidate and evangelical minister lied about his knowledge of the scheme. Harris now claims his health is preventing him from running in the not-yet-scheduled do-over election, and is also the reason for his faulty memory about his knowledge of fraud by a campaign contractor he hired to run his absentee ballot effort in Bladen County. The Democratic candidate, Dan McCready, previously announced his intention to run again, and several Republicans have now expressed interest in vying for the nomination in what will be the GOP's second bite at the apple, after getting caught committing election fraud the first time out;

• Also in NC, a state court judge late last week nullified two state Constitutional amendments approved by voters in November after they were placed on the ballot by a super-majority of Republican lawmakers in both chambers of the legislature. That state legislature, however, is built on an unlawful racial gerrymander by those same state Republicans, as confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court last year. Therefore, the judge ruled, the illegitimately constructed chambers do not have the lawful right to place state constitutional measures on the ballot. One measure imposes photo ID voting restrictions previously found in violation of the state Constitution and another lowers a state cap on tax rates. The extraordinary ruling has already been appealed by the Republicans and legal experts are dubious as to whether it will be upheld by higher courts, but it reminds us (again) how, even when they know its unlawful and will eventually be overturned, it pays for lawmakers to gerrymander;

• In Florida recently, an 11-year old student was arrested and charged at school after refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance;

• And, in Arizona, 12-year old journalist Hilde Lysiak of Orange Street News (who, three years ago when she was 9, broke the story of a murder in her Pennsylvania neighborhood!) posted a videotaped conversation with Patagonia, AZ Town Marshall Joseph Patterson lying to her about the law regarding taping cops. Patterson had previously threatened her with arrest and/or detention in juvenile jail on the basis of still more false claims when he reportedly said he didn't "want to hear about any of that freedom of the press stuff." We share the video of hero Lysiak's second encounter with Patterson. She has reportedly been interviewing local residents about border security in the state and Patterson has reportedly been disciplined;

• Also this week, kids from the Sunrise Movement have been turning up to demand action on climate change and passage of the Green News Deal in the U.S. Senate, where Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) talked down to the children who visited her in her office asking for her vote on the GND, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)'s office had a number of protesters in the group that visited his office arrested on Monday;

• All of which leads us up to our latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen today, with details on a new Trump climate change Commission to be headed up by a climate science denier; very bad news in Antarctica; and children around the globe protesting and walking out of school to demand action on climate change...

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On today's BradCast: It looks like it'll be several more months before we actually have a member of Congress seated in the 2018 U.S. House race in North Carolina's 9th Congressional district. But, as of dramatic developments last night and again today, at least we now know that a new election is finally on the way. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

After a stunning past 24 hours, the NC State Board of Elections voted 5 to 0 on Thursday to hold a new election, following dramatic, surprise testimony on Wednesday at a public hearing over the disputed results of last year's NC-9 House election. Republican Mark Harris is said to have defeated Democrat Dan McCready by just 905 votes out of more than 275,000 cast, but evidence of absentee ballot fraud by a Contractor hired by Harris prevented the Board from certifying the results.

On Wednesday, John Harris, an assistant U.S. Attorney and son of the Republican candidate, took to the stand at this week's public hearings to turn against his father by detailing warnings he had given his dad about the Republican absentee ballot contractor, McCrae Dowless, whose record of defrauding elections was clear long before he was hired by Harris for his 2018 campaign.

Today, we break down both the backstory from 2016 through the 2018 contest, as well as the astonishing key events from the past 24 hours in which John's testimony brought his father to tears in the hearing room [see photo above], and also stunned the McCready campaign which similarly not known in advance of John Harris' plan to take the stand to testify against his father's claims of innocence. "I thought what he was doing was illegal, and I was right," said John, discussing Dowless' record. In his own teary closing statements, he testified: "I love my dad, I love my mom, O.K.? I certainly have no vendetta against them, no family scores to settle, O.K.? I think they made mistakes in this process and they certainly did things differently than I would have done."

And with that, and a few other comments about the need to "transcend our partisan politics, and the exploitation of processes like this for political gain," we're happy to offer John Harris our coveted if more-rarely-than-ever-bestowed BRAD BLOG Intellectually Honest Conservative Award. We haven't given one of those out in years!

Moreover, just minutes before the testimony, emails and texts between father and son were released, detailing the warnings John had given his father Mark (a Baptist minister!) about Dowless, which undercut the Republican candidate's long-repeated, if never-believable public insistence that he'd known nothing about Dowless' penchant for forging absentee ballots.

In 2016, Harris lost the Republican primary by a very slim margin after losing an impossible number of absentee votes in Bladen County to the another candidate who had hired Dowless. In 2017 the state Board of Elections referred the election fraud case to the U.S. Attorney at Trump's Dept. of Justice. But the DoJ took no action, despite the mountain of election fraud evidence uncovered by state investigators from the 2016 GOP election fraud scheme. All before Harris hired him for his 2018 campaign and what state officials described earlier this week as a "coordinated, unlawful, substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme".

The 5 to 0 vote of three Democrats and two Republicans on the Board to hold a new election followed Mark Harris' own testimony in which he tried to distance himself from his son's damning testimony and attempted to defend his months of demands he be seated, before finally declaring today: "It's become clear to me that the public's confidence in the 9th District seat general election has been undermined to an extent that a new election is warranted."

Buckle up for the entire sordid and remarkable tale as it unfolded today and the many subsequent unanswered questions raised by this entire shameful mess.

Then, how hand-marked paper ballots were instrumental to uncovering the NC fraud scheme, how the recent report that Trump's DHS has moved resources from election oversight to immigration/border matters in advance of the 2020 race, and the disturbing story of the long-time Coast Guard official who, according to federal prosecutors on Wednesday, was a White Supremacist domestic terrorist plotting to murder "leftist" Democratic members of Congress (many of whom have been singled out by Donald Trump), along with MSNBC and CNN media figures "on a scale rarely seen in this country." That, on the very same day that Donald Trump tweeted, yet again, in all caps, that journalists are the "ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!"

Finally, Desi Doyen brings us the latest Green News Report on the Trump Administration punting on action to prevent incredibly toxic chemicals in our drinking water, another global heat record last month, and even a bit of good news out of Australia for a change....

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We start off today's BradCast with two encouraging legal rulings from the courts with our guest today, Slate legal reporter MARK JOSEPH STERN. [Audio link to complete show follows below.]

First up, the damning opinion issued on Tuesday by a U.S. District Court judge in Manhattan finding Treasury Secretary Wilbur Ross repeatedly violated the law --- and lied about his reasons for doing so --- in adding a controversial question on citizenship to the 2020 U.S. Census. Stern joins the federal judge in calling out Ross' lies about adding the question supposedly at the request of the the Dept. of Justice to help enforce the Voting Rights Act (rather than as a blatant attempt to rig the Census in hopes of boosting GOP political power during the next round of redistricting).

"By my count, Judge Furman held that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross violated the law by adding the citizenship question in at least six different ways," Stern observes. "When you add them all together, it is a sort of symphony of lawlessness that cannot be ignored by the courts."

"Ross just lied. He lied to Congress. He lied in court filings about why he added this citizenship question. It is very clear, black letter law, that when a federal agency like the Commerce Department wants to take some kind of formal action, it has to give the real and truthful grounds for its decision, it has to justify it truthfully. Ross just didn't do that here." He goes on to explain, however, that, despite the encouraging ruling yesterday, the Republicans' stolen Supreme Court will ultimately enjoy the final say on the matter. He also shares his thoughts on whether Ross should be and/or will be criminally prosecuted for lying to Congress and the courts about the issue, as made clear by the federal court ruling.

Then, Stern offers some surprisingly good news from SCOTUS today regarding a unanimous(!) opinion from the Court supporting the right of some workers to bypass costly arbitration clauses and file class action lawsuits against employers when they are ripped off by them --- though only in certain circumstances. Still, given the unanimous opinion in this case, authored by Neil Gorsuch of all Justices, we'll take it!

Next, we review Tuesday's confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for Donald Trump's Attorney General nominee William Barr. Stern warns that his troubling record alone --- "Barr takes a wildly expansive view of executive power and authority" --- might have been enough to derail his nomination in any other time, but for the fact that so many Democrats and Republicans alike are now desperate to replace Trump's wildly unqualified (and, arguably, unlawfully appointed) Acting AG Matthew Whitaker.

Barr, who served briefly as AG in 1991 during the George H.W. Bush Administration (where he successfully pushed for Presidential pardons for a number of top officials involved in the Iran-Contra scandal), promised independence from the White House and that he would allow Special Counsel Robert Mueller to complete his probe into Team Trump's alleged involvement with Russia and obstruction meant to cover it up. However, Barr equivocated on a number of points related to the probe, such as whether he'd recuse himself from overseeing it if DoJ ethics officials advised him to do so, and whether he would release Mueller's report at all to the public.

Stern shares insight and response to a number of other troubling moments from Tuesday's hearings, such as when Barr responded to a question from Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) about whether a sitting President could be indicted and when he was asked directly by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) about whether the Justice Department, under his command, would "jail reporters for doing their jobs". Barr's response on the former was questionable, at best, and downright chilling on the latter, from the man tapped to be the nation's top law enforcement official. "There's just a right and wrong answer here," Stern quips, "and he gave the wrong one."

Finally today, the State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress previously scheduled for later this month may now be cancelled amid the ongoing historic federal government shutdown, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rescinded her invitation to Trump today. And, in Syria today, four Americans --- two U.S. troops and two civilians --- were killed and three others wounded after a bombing claimed by ISIS in a crowded area. The attack in the northern city of Manbij comes on the heels of Trump's claim to have ordered the withdraw of all U.S. troops in country, based on his assertion that "we have defeated ISIS in Syria." The President's claim --- which helped lead to the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis before Christmas --- was, remarkably, repeated by Vice President Mike Pence today during an address at the State Department several hours after the news of the deadly attack on Americans and others in the war torn nation had become public...

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Among the many messes covered on today's BradCast [Audio link to full show is posted below]...

• Trump can't seem to find anyone who wants to be his new Chief of Staff. So, his son-in-law Jared Kushner now appears to be in the running;

• Trump finally responded (on Fox "News", naturally) to Wednesday's news that his former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen received a three year prison sentence after cooperating with federal investigators and pleading guilty to a number of felonies. The charges include an illegal 2016 hush-money payout scheme to women said to have had sexual affairs with Trump, which Cohen and the prosecutors describe as having been "directed" by Trump in violation of campaign finance laws. Trump now says it wasn't unlawful, but if it was, it was only a civil, not criminal violation --- and that he didn't do it in any case, but if he did, it was all Cohen's fault --- and that Cohen only pleaded guilty to it as a favor to federal prosecutors in order to "embarrass" Trump. Or something. Got it?;

• Meanwhile, a federal government shutdown next week before Christmas is looking increasingly likely. After Trump's televised Oval Office tantrum with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer earlier this week over funding for his Border Wall, it's become apparent that Republicans in Congress currently have no plan to avoid a shutdown next week after Trump declared during the meeting that he would happily take the blame for such a shutdown. Even in the House, where Republicans still hold a large majority until January, they seem unable to pass a version of a spending bill that includes funding for the wall that Trump repeatedly promised Mexico would pay for;

• In Kentucky, taking a page from Trump, Tea Party Republican Governor Matt Bevin released a bizarre video on Twitter Wednesday night, attacking the Louisville Courier-Journal for their new partnership with independent, non-profit investigative reporting outlet ProPublica. Bevin charges ProPublica is a "far-left" organization secretly funded by "George 'I Hate America' Soros" and, therefore, everyone should "disregard" the reporting from the Courier-Journal. ProPublica responded to the charges, and suggests a recent damning exposé by the paper finding Bevin hired an old friend for a top IT job in the state and gave him a $215,000 raise after less than a year, is just one of the reasons Bevin may be hoping Kentuckians stop reading the paper;

• In North Carolina, the mess created by the GOP absentee ballot election fraud scandal in the state's 9th Congressional District continues. Republican lawmakers, on Wednesday, passed legislation that would allow the State Board of Elections to call not just a new general election for the U.S. House in NC9, but for a new primary as well, following evidence of absentee fraud in both elections this year by a GOP contractor hired by Mark Harris, the Republican candidate. Harris is said to have defeated incumbent Congressman Robert Pittenger by just over 800 votes in the May GOP primary and his Democratic opponent Dan McCready by just over 900 votes in the November midterm. State Republicans seem to now be conceding that both races were tainted with fraud by their candidate and will now require a do-over;

• In Michigan, GOP lawmakers are scrambling to pass a measure in the lame duck session that would make it much harder for voters to place statewide initiatives on the ballot. That's just one of several ongoing efforts by Republicans in the state to strip power from voters and the Executive Branch before Democrats can be sworn in as Governor, Attorney General and Secretary of State next month.

• And finally, in The Arctic....well, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report to detail that frightening and worsening mess, along with several others...

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On today's BradCast: A preview of the unimaginably worse dysfunction that awaits us all after Democrats take over the U.S. House majority in January and Donald Trump becomes even worse and more dishonest at his job? [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up today, some quick news headlines, including Time Magazine's announcement that several journalists, killed or imprisoned, are "Person of the Year" for 2018, and a life sentence plus 419 years recommended by the jury for the neo-Nazi who murdered activist Heather Heyer by plowing a car into counter-protesters during the August 2017 "United the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Also, the Washington Post Fact Checkers have been forced to create a new category to describe Donald Trump's dozens of endlessly repeated lies, such as his claims that Mexico would pay for his border wall (he's demanding U.S. tax-payers do so instead) and that his tax cuts were the largest in U.S. history (they weren't. They were the 8th largest.) The new category will be called "Bottomless Pinocchio" and will apply to lies that repeated more than 20 times after they've long been debunked by the fact-checkers as a falsehood. To date, Trump is the only politician to merit such a rating. At least 14 of his most frequently repeated lies have already earned the dubious new distinction.

Then, Trump's bizarre on-camera pageant in the Oval Office today with presumptive, soon-to-be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer. During a media avail before what was to be a meeting regarding the impending federal budget deadline, the three bickered about Trump's threat to shut down the U.S. Government if a budget deal fails to include billions for his southern border wall. "If we don't get what we want," Trump threatened the Democrats during the lengthy and bizarre televised negotiation, "I will shut down the government."

Pelosi and Schumer tried to convince the President to accept one of two bi-partisan deals they say could be immediately passed by both the House and Senate. But Trump, the great deal-maker, failed to budge --- so far. Trump's threat to shutdown the U.S. Government despite the costs to Americans and the economy, comes even while Republicans still control both chambers of Congress. Things are likely to get much uglier once Dems take over the House with their (at least) 40-seat majority on January 3.

Speaking of which, we've got a few more new details today on the GOP election fraud scandal in North Carolina's still-uncertified 9th Congressional District race. Republican Mark Harris is said to have won the election in November by just 905 votes over Democrat Dan McCready. But evidence of absentee ballot fraud by a GOP contractor hired by Harris (in both the general election and Republican primary) has delayed certification of the race by the State Board of Elections. They will decide whether to order a new election or declare one of the two candidates the winner. The Board had planned to review evidence from the ongoing investigation by December 21, but has now told a state court they they may need more time, given that the Harris Campaign has been slow in responding to documents subpoenaed by the Board.

Also, new evidence this week reveals that election workers in Bladen County (one of two NC counties at the center of the probe), illegally tabulated early vote results and leaked them to non-election officials (the Harris campaign?) several days prior to the close of polls on November 6th.

Meanwhile, election officials in Florida have now revealed that more than 6,600 vote-by-mail absentee ballots sent and post-marked by Election Day went uncounted in the Sunshine State's midterm election. Those numbers don't yet include ballots from Palm Beach County, a Democratic stronghold. The untabulated ballots might have effected a number of close races in FL, including those tallied in statewide "recounts" for U.S. Senate, Governor and Agricultural Commissioner. While state law allows ballots post-marked by Election Day from overseas military votes to be included in the tally if they are received up to ten days after the election, all other "late" ballots are ignored.

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with news from COP24, the U.N. climate conference in Poland, where the U.S. has joined Russia and Saudi Arabia in an "Axis of Oil" and is, literally, being laughed at for pushing coal while youth protesters demand fossil fuels be kept in the ground. Back home, the Trump Administration is now planning to reclassify high-level nuclear waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state (and other facilities) in order to avoid billions of dollars in clean-up at the nation's most polluted former nuclear weapons site...

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On today's BradCast, we fly through a mountain of incoming stories (with the help of a great guest!) as the news gods seem to be unleashing a tidal wave in advance of the Thanksgiving Day holiday. [Audio link posted below. Buckle up before clicking.]

Among the ridiculous number of stories covered today...

• Five are dead after three shootings in three different states over the past 24 hours;
• Despite warning of an "invasion" on the U.S. southern border by a migrant caravan from Central America prior to the midterm elections, now that the elections are done, the Trump Administration is reportedly withdrawing more than 5,000 military troops they had deployed to the border just weeks ago;
• The President's daughter and senior adviser Ivanka Trump reportedly sent hundreds of government related emails via a private email server over the course of 2017 in the months following her father's election in which he repeatedly called for his opponent, Hillary Clinton, to be "locked up" for doing the same thing. Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner, also a senior adviser to Trump, reportedly used the same private server for government-related communications.

On the election results front...

• Republican Rep. Will Hurd has reportedly squeaked out a victory over Democratic challenger Gina Ortiz Jones in Texas' 23rd Congressional District. The contest was among a handful of still-undecided races;
• At the same time, Democrat Ben McAdams appears to have pulled back into the lead over GOP Rep. Mia Love in Utah's 4th Congressional District, where it now appears McAdams will be the victor by fewer than 700 votes out of some 270,000 tallied, flipping yet another U.S. House seat from "red" to "blue". The final margin is reportedly 0.258%, just above the 0.25% that would have allowed Love to request a recount in the otherwise ruby "red" state.
• When the few remaining undecided U.S. House seats are called, Democrats appear on track to have picked up an extraordinary 39 seats in their "blue wave".
• One of the three still-undecided House races is in Georgia, where this year's Libertarian candidate for Sec. of State has now endorsed Democratic candidate John Barrow in the upcoming December 4th runoff against Republican Brad Raffensperger to replace GA's vote suppressing Sec. of State, now Governor-elect Brian Kemp;
• In Wisconsin, Democrats won every single statewide race on November 6th, including Governor (unseating Scott Walker) and U.S. Senate. They also outvoted Republicans in State Assembly races by 8 percentage points, 54 to 46 percent. Nonetheless, thanks to the GOP's extreme partisan gerrymandering in the Badger State, Republicans will hold 63 seats to the Democrats' 36 in the new Assembly;

The great (and newly wed!) MARK JOSEPH STERN, legal journalist at Slate, joins us to discuss how voters pushed back against gerrymandering this year by approving ballot initiatives --- and other measures --- in several states on November 6th, in an attempt to restore fair(er) elections in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court opting to not strike down partisan gerrymanders as unconstitutional in states such as Wisconsin and North Carolina earlier this year. Among the many other issues we fly through with Stern today, on which he offers his as-always cogent legal insight...

• Ivanka and Hillary's email issues (Stern hopes a Democratic House investigation will result in real reform to the "arguably improper" if not unlawful use of private email by officials like Trump and Clinton, though not in the opportunistic political fashion that GOPers previously dealt with the issue);
• Trump's appointment of GOP operative Matthew Whitaker as Acting Attorney General (which Stern describes as blatantly "illegal" and, he believes, very likely to be struck down by the Courts). He also describes the DoJ's legal defense of the maneuver as "laughable";
• A federal court on Monday night blocked the Trump Administration's new regulation denying asylum claims by immigrants who fail to present themselves at a port of entry (Stern explains the judge found the Administration's new rule to be in strict violation of federal laws, and predicts that even Chief Justice John Roberts, based on similar rulings he made against the Obama Administration, will be forced to agree when the case reaches SCOTUS);
• The decision by a Trump-appointed federal judge to order the White House to restore press credentials to CNN's Jim Acosta (Stern is impressed with the Trump judge's anti-Trump ruling, I remain a bit more skeptical);
• And how (and why) Trump's controversial new Justice Brett Kavanaugh has, so far, laid low by not yet fuly tossing in with the Court's nihilist right-wing caucus.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report as the catastrophic wildfires continue to burn in California, Trump shows up to make things worse, and a coming turn in the weather signals both good news and bad for firefighters and recovery workers amid the record disaster...

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It was another very busy day on today's BradCast, as news breaks out of Georgia and California --- and seemingly everywhere else --- though we finally found at least a moment to take some stock of the midterm elections and what they portend, nearly two weeks after Election Day. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Before we get to elections and politics, however, there are horrifying new numbers today out of the ongoing, climate change-fueled wildfires in California. Officials now say that more 60 are known to have been killed, but on Thursday evening they also raised the number of those still unaccounted for amid the record Camp Fire in Northern California to a staggering and gut-wrenching 631. [Update: Just before posting this here, officials in Northern California increased the death toll, announcing 71 dead with more than an unfathomable 1,000 now said to be unaccounted for!]

Then, a Trump-appointed federal judge orders the White House to immediately restore press credentials to CNN White House Correspondent Jim Acosta.

Next, another midterm election victory is called by AP and others for Democrats in what had long been solidly Republican Orange County in California. Katie Porter, an unapologetically progressive Elizabeth Warren protégé, is now said to have defeated incumbent Republican Rep. Mimi Walters in the heart of what was once known as "Reagan Country", in the state's 45th Congressional district. Walters had easily won reelection by a huge 17% margin just two years ago, but now becomes the third of Orange County's four U.S. House members to see their seat flipped to a Democrat. The fourth seat, in CA's 39th Congressional district, is very likely to be called for Democrat Gil Cisneros over Young Kim any day now.

As of air time, Dems have reportedly picked up a net gain of 36 seats for their new House majority, though that number may still climb to 38 or even 39 seats as votes are tallied in the last of the undecided House races.

Meanwhile, in Florida today, statewide "hand counts" --- or what suffices for them in the Sunshine State --- continued on a ridiculously abbreviated schedule through Sunday in the state's U.S. Senate race between incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and GOP Gov. Rick Scott, who is said to lead by 0.41%, or just over 12,000 votes out more than 8 million cast.

The partial "hand count" in the Senate race moves forward after full "machine recounts" in three of the state's largest and most Democratic-leaning counties were rejected by Scott's Sec. of State. In Palm Beach, the County's old computer scanners could not physically tally fast enough to meet the Thursday 3pm deadline at the end of just five days. In Hillsborough County, the second machine count differed from the original count by more than 800 ballots, so the first count will be used (whether it's right or wrong, nobody knows.) And in Broward County, state officials rejected their new count because it was uploaded to the Sec. of State's office two minutes after the 3pm deadline. Seriously.

As a source in Palm Beach told me earlier today about the impossible timelines instituted by state Republicans: "These deadlines they codified into law set up big counties to fail. How a county like ours (population 1.3 million) has the same deadline as a county like Liberty County (population 8400) is beyond me. Five days isn't enough, a week isn't enough, two weeks isn't enough. This is done by design. Why? The biggest counties are blue counties and they don't want those votes counted. It's not complicated."

And, in Georgia, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams announced that her Republican opponent Brian Kemp would be the winner of their very close and contested election, thanks in no small part to the extraordinary voter suppression he has implemented over the past eight years during his tenure as Secretary of State.

"Let's be clear: This is not a speech of concession because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper," Abrams said in a speech to supporters, while denouncing Kemp's outrageous record as the state's chief election official. "As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that."

At the same time, she also announced she is forming a new organization --- Fair Fight Georgia --- that will sue Kemp and the state for "gross mismanagement" of the election as she declared "the law currently allows no further viable remedy" to overcome what many now see as a stolen election in the Peach State.

Finally, we're joined by the great HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, to try and help us make sense of these past two tumultuous weeks since the midterms. We discuss the Dems' extraordinary (and under-appreciated) "Blue Wave", how it has clearly served to throw Trump into a dark emotional spiral while exposing him yet again as a con-man, even to many of his supporters, and how some Democrats appear to be taking the rightwing Fox "News" bait in hoping to block Nancy Pelosi's likely return as House Speaker and leader of the Congressional Democratic caucus in January...

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On today's BradCast: The electoral dysfunction --- and the fight to count every vote anyway --- continues today in Florida and Georgia, along with some new good news for Democrats elsewhere. At the same time, of course, the dysfunction of Donald Trump's White House never ends. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

After a quick update today on several thousand newly tabulated votes in Georgia (most of which were for Democrat Stacey Abrams in her uphill battle for Governor against Republican vote suppressor Brian Kemp), we start today with news that another U.S. House seat has flipped from "red" to "blue" in California. As the counting continues in the Golden State, the AP and others declared first-time Democratic candidate Josh Harder the winner over four-term Republican U.S. Rep Jeff Denham in the previously GOP-leaning Central Valley.

That brings Dems to a 33-seat pickup, so far, in U.S. House contests this year. A number of other races in previously very Republican areas of California, such as Orange County, have already been declared as flipped to Democrats, with several others still undecided but trending towards Democrats. Those remaining undecided House races and a few in other states could ultimately result in a massive "Blue Wave" as large as 39 new seats in Congress, by my count, as votes from the November 6th midterms continue to be tallied.

In Florida, however, as the state's 67 counties scramble to complete an unprecedented three statewide computer "recounts" in the U.S. Senate, Governor and Agriculture Commissioner races (not to mention several other state legislative and local races) by this Thursday at 3pm, dozens of lawsuits are being filed in state and federal courts.

We cover some of the most notable today, including incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson's suit to extend the arbitrary "recount" deadline set for Thursday. At least one county, Democratic-leaning Palm Beach, has already said that it will be physically impossible to complete all of the machine rescans there in time, thanks to their aging computer tabulation system which can only scan one single race on 300 ballots at a time. Making matters still worse in the state's third most-populous county, those scanners reportedly overheated this week, leading to mismatched tabulations for the first batch of 174,000 ballots scanned (of some 700,000 total). That means that batch will need to be re-rescanned.

And all of that before a similarly absurd statutory Sunday deadline to complete any subsequent so-called "manual recounts" in races such as Nelson's U.S. Senate contest against Republican Gov. Rick Scott, where the margin is less than 0.25 percent. (It's currently reported to be just 0.13%, or 12,562 votes out of more than 8 million cast.)

Nelson has asked a federal court to extend the deadlines in all 67 Florida counties and, in separate filings, seeks to force a review of tens of thousands of absentee vote-by-mail ballots rejected across the state due to claims of signature mismatches and other unspecified "voter-caused error". Scott's hand-picked Sec. of State Ken Detzner is opposing those suits, and Scott has filed several of his own to try and halt the ongoing tabulation.

But not all Republicans oppose extending the deadlines and counting of all ballots, as we also note today, even as most of them, including the President of the United States, are calling for "recounts" to end and incomplete tallies reported from last weekend --- just days after the Tuesday midterms --- to be certified instead. (Friendly reminder here that Republicans held up a statewide hand-count in the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Minnesota for eight months in order to keep Al Franken from being seated in the Senate until July of 2009!)

Then, we're joined by BradBlog.com legal analyst ERNEST A. CANNING for the latest on the lawsuit filed by CNN this week (and supported by Fox "News" of all outlets!) against the White House for their removal of press credentials for White House Correspondent Jim Acosta. Not only is the White House in violation of the Constitution's First and Fifth Amendments, the complaint alleges, but the White House and Secret Service also reportedly blocked Acosta from a planned interview with French President Emmanuel Macron last weekend at an event marking the centennial of the WWI Armistice. That, even though the interview was approved by France...and Trump failed to even show up at the event!...

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On Tuesday, CNN, along with its Chief White House Correspondent, Jim Acosta, filed a federal complaint alleging President Donald J. Trump and high level White House personnel, including Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the U.S. Secret Service, violated their First Amendment free press rights to access White House press facilities.

They also allege the Trump administration violated their Fifth Amendment rights to due process when, without notice or a compelling reason for doing so, the White House rescinded Acosta's press credentials and seized his "hard pass" following a contentious November 7 Presidential press conference.

The complaint goes on to charge that the news organization's First Amendment rights were violated a second time on November 9, when Acosta traveled to France to cover the President's visit and to interview French President Emmanuel Macron during the centenary events commemorating the end of World War I. "The Secret Service refused to allow Acosta to attend an allegedly 'open' press event whose attendees included journalists from around the world," according to the CNN complaint. They did so even though "the French government issued credentials to Acosta." (Ironically, as they also note, Trump did not attend the event "due to inclement weather.")

Citing both facts and case law, the CNN complaint sets forth the argument that the President's actions against both Acosta and the news outlet amounted to an unlawful "attempt to censor the press and exclude reporters from the White House who challenge or dispute the President's point of view". However, that compelling argument, which is now supported by the White House Correspondents' Association, the ACLU and even by Fox "News", may not carry the day at the District Court level given that the case has been assigned to Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee...

The Trump dumpster fire continues at the White House today, with CNN filing a lawsuit to restore White House press credentials for White House correspondent Jim Acosta, fresh rumors of top Administration officials about to be axed, and a "stunning" public call from the First Lady to fire National Security Advisor John Bolton's top deputy. But it's still the ongoing dumpster fires in Georgia and Florida that we focus in on once again on today's BradCast, as Democrats and voting rights advocates fight to ensure all legitimately cast ballots are tallied and the results are accurately recorded and reported. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

With the news out of Arizona late last night night that the U.S. Senate seat of retiring Republican Jeff Flake has most likely been won by Democrat Kyrsten Sinema over Republican Martha McSally, many have lauded the GOP Congresswoman's gracious concession video Monday night, even as Trump and the RNC were reportedly pressuring her to advance phony claims of fraud and miscounts in the race. To her credit, she did not take the bait. But that's likely only because she still hopes to be appointed by the Governor to the state's other U.S. Senate seat in the coming months.

Meanwhile, in Florida, an unprecedented three statewide "recounts" are now underway (as we discussed in detail on yesterday's BradCast), with Republicans holding diminishing leads in both the U.S. Senate and Governor's race. Those so-called "recounts" must be completed by Thursday November 15th. But, as our guest yesterday, Ion Sancho (who oversaw the state's 2000 Presidential "recount") explained, it will be physically impossible for paper ballot tabulation computers in Palm Beach County to finish the job before the state's absurdly short and largely arbitrary deadline this week.

Today, a state judge in Leon County, FL extended that deadline for Palm Beach --- one of the state's most populous and Democratic-leaning counties --- until November 20th. (Note: I incorrectly called it the most populous on today's show. I mispoke. It's the third most populous in the state.) Will similar court orders for other counties, such as Broward, be far behind? If not, the incomplete results tabulated by last Saturday, November 10th, just days after the Tuesday midterm elections, will be used in the final results, according to state law.

Will Republicans file a federal challenge to today's state court order? GOPers have been repeating their Florida 2000 playbook which successfully robbed voters of a legitimate count (and, likely, Democrats of a Presidential victory) that year. Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Donald Trump have been offering up evidence-free charges of "fraud" in the vote count and ginning up protests outside tabulation centers. So, a similar federal legal challenge may not be far behind if the numbers keep narrowing against Republican Gov. Rick Scott in his Senate race against incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, and against Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis in his gubernatorial contest against Democratic Mayor Andrew Gillum.

At the same time, in Georgia, the federal courts continue to find in favor of voting rights advocates. On Monday night, a federal judge ordered the state to hold off on certification of election results and to review the voter registrations of those forced to vote by provisional ballot. The judge in the case brought by Common Cause Georgia said the state must create a website or telephone hotline for provisional voters to learn whether their votes had been counted or rejected --- with detailed reasons for the rejection and an opportunity to cure whatever is said to be have been the cause of it --- before Friday.

In a separate case today, brought by the Coalition for Good Governance and the National Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights, a different federal judge granted an emergency ruling to stop the unlawful rejection of Vote-by-Mail absentee ballots in Gwinnett County, GA based only on missing information such as a voters birth date. The judge found the state's process to be in violation of the federal Civil Rights Act.

We're joined today by Common Cause GA Executive Director SARA HENDERSON to try and make sense of the continuing dumpster fires in the state set ablaze by Republican vote suppressor Brian Kemp who resigned his position as Secretary of State last week after declaring victory in his race for Governor against Democrat Stacey Abrams --- even as the fight continues to tally thousands of uncounted or rejected absentee and provisional ballots. Kemp is reportedly leading the race with 50.24% of the vote, less than one-quarter of one percent above the 50% mark that would trigger a December runoff between him and Abrams.

Henderson explains that, thanks to the disastrous way Kemp has run the election, as well as how the state's electoral system has been allowed to whither over the past several decades, it's virtually impossible to know how many uncounted or incorrectly tabulated ballots remain across the state. "This whole circus that we're witnessing is just a product of years and years of defunding elections," she tells me.

Finally, we're joined by Desi Doyen with our latest Green News Report on the horrific and record-breaking wildfires in California, and the latest federal court rejection of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline...

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On today's BradCast, I’m in for Brad and Desi today – Angie Coiro, of In Deep with Angie Coiro.

My guests are AMBER McKINNEY, from Law360, discussing the DACA ruling from the 9th circuit and Trump’s latest royal edicts on immigration; and D.D. GUTTENPLAN, editor-at-large at The Nation, and author of the new book The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority.

Of course, we have to start off with a lovely story: the Wall Street Journal reports that Donald Trump's been caught red-handed, connected directly to the hush money sent to former mistresses.

Then it's onto the two ongoing big stories: horrific fires in Northern and Southern California, and the elections grinding on in Florida, Arizona, and Georgia. Both the NAACP and a passel of retired generals have weighed in against GOP interference.

A review of the numerous headlines on Trump's efforts to alter immigration policy by presidential proclamation, and his loss in the 9th Circuit court on his efforts to undercut DACA.

A sprinkling of good news (Ruth Bader Ginsberg already back and work! Thousands in the street protecting Mueller!), then D.D. Guttenplan with his new book on revolutionaries rejuvenating our republic.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

We're getting tired of being right about this stuff. The political apocalypse we predicted for the day(s) after the 2018 midterm --- from problems counting ballots to Trump's "burn it all down" response to the results --- appears to be playing out in a number of ways today. We have several big news items today regarding reported results in Florida, Arizona and Georgia on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show posted below.]

But first today, we needed to hit several disturbing breaking news headlines...

• 12 people were killed in a mass shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, CA, a wealthy suburb just outside of Los Angeles in Ventura County, during it's popular country music college night. The shooter, who took his own life, was reportedly a 28-year old white male Marine combat veteran thought to be suffering from PTSD. Victims are said to include the bar's security guard, an armed Sheriff's deputy, and a survivor of the October 2017 massacre in Las Vegas that killed 58 and left more than 800 wounded;

• 85-year old U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was reportedly hospitalized on Thursday, after fracturing three ribs in a fall in her office;

• A three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the Trump Administration's attempt to kill President Obama's 2012 DACA program was likely done so in violation of the law. For now, the protection from deportation for hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought here as children will stay in place, though the Administration has filed for a quick ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court;

• The White House has barred CNN's Jim Acosta from the White House, after the President's bonkers post-election press conference on Wednesday. The White House lied about their reasons for doing so, despite video of the presser revealing their blatant lie;

• And Trump's firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions on the day after the midterms is quickly leading to a full-on Constitutional Crisis, as he has named Matthew Whitaker, a former political operative and opponent of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation, as Acting AG responsible for overseeing that probe. Normally, the Deputy AG --- Rod Rosenstein, who had been overseeing it following Sessions' recusal --- would fill that role. It's feared Whitaker, a Trump loyalist, is likely to move to scuttle the Mueller investigation at any moment.

Meanwhile, the fight to count votes continues to grow predictably uglier in several states following Tuesday's contentious midterms. Democrats are now said to have picked up at least 31 seats in the U.S. House, taking back control of the chamber from Republicans, with analysts forecasting that they could end up winning as many as 38 new seats, as votes continue to be tabulated and canvassed across the country. But there are growing concerns about computer-tabulated results in U.S. Senate and Governors races in at least three different states tonight...

• In Florida, a "recount" now appears inevitable in the U.S. Senate race between incumbent U.S. Senator Bill Nelson and his Republican challenger Gov. Rick Scott, with the margin between the two at less than 0.22% as of airtime. That would trigger an automatic statewide hand count in the Sunshine State. But there remain many questions about uncounted provisional and absentee ballots, as well as tens of thousands of suspicious undervotes in the Senate race reported by the paper ballot computer tabulators in Broward County. Some 25,000 voters, according to the computers, voted for down-ticket races like Agricultural Commission, but failed to vote in the top-of-the-ticket U.S. Senate race?

  In the state's gubernatorial election, Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis' lead over Democratic Mayor Andrew Gillum, has now fallen to 0.47 percent. If it stays below 0.5 percent, it would trigger an automatic machine "recount" statewide. (The margin must be below .25 percent for a hand count in Florida.)

• In Arizona, there are nearly three-quarters of a million completely uncounted ballots across the state, leaving the results of the highly-contested and very close U.S. Senate race between Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in doubt. Arizona sources tell me that this many still-uncounted early and absentee ballots is now unusual for the state. But with all eyes on whether Democrats can flip the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Jeff Flake blue, a lot more people are now noticing. Sinema currently leads McSally by about one-half of a percentage point, according to the latest computer-tabulated numbers.

• And in Georgia, attorneys for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams held a news conference today, in which they offered a blistering response to Sec. of State Brian Kemp's declaration of victory in the Governor's race, and his belated resignation as SoS along with it. Team Abrams charges there are thousands of wrongly rejected and still-uncounted ballots in the state, though --- thanks to Kemp's horrific administration of the election --- they are unable to know how many there actually are and how many voters were unlawfully prevented from voting at all. They forcefully repeated Abrams' Election Night vow to fight to assure that every vote is counted, even if legal action is required to ensure it.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with both good news and bad for the environment from Tuesday's midterm elections.

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On today's BradCast: Like clockwork the righwing conspiracy theories regarding pipe bombs begin, as do the voting system failures around the country, less than two weeks before this year's crucial midterm election. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up today, a few quick updates on the mail bombs sent to several of the many vilified political critics of Donald Trump. In addition to explosive devices sent this week to former President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, John Brennan, Rep. Maxine Waters, George Soros and CNN, additional similar packages were reported today to have been delivered to former Vice President Joe Biden and actor Robert DeNiro. Where Trump and the White House called for unity and an end to divisive rhetoric on Wednesday, for about 5 minutes, both Trump and WH Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders quickly renewed their vitriolic attacks on the media shortly thereafter and again on Thursday.

Also on Thursday, as investigators reportedly focus on Florida as a possible source for the packages, the rightwing quickly cranked up conspiracy theories about the explosive devices being "fake bombs" meant to discredit the President in advance of the November 6 midterms.

Meanwhile, voting is already underway for those elections, as are the lawsuits aiming to prevent voter suppression and election fraud. A federal judge on Wednesday determined that Georgia may not discard absentee ballots on the basis of "signature mismatch" as determined by partisan officials with no training in hand-writing analysis. The state's legal defense for that statute was rather amazing, as we discuss. Happily, it was thoroughly dismissed by the U.S. District Court judge.

Also, the NAACP has filed official complaints with the state regarding reports of votes flipping in at least four counties on the state's 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems. Votes are reportedly hopping repeatedly from Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to her opponent, Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who oversees and has long defended the states easily-hacked and oft-failed Diebold touchscreen systems. We explain, however, why the reported flips are not likely to be hacks, but why that also doesn't really matter.

Similar, completely predictable voting system and ballot programming failures are beginning to rear their ugly head in other states as well with early, in-person voting now underway in some 30 states. The name of the Democratic candidate for Secretary of State in Arkansas was discovered left off of the touchscreen ballots in one Arkansas county, leading to lost votes and poll closures. And in DuPage County, Illinois, a fiasco erupted this week surrounding the appearance on the ballot (or lack thereof) for a Democratic candidate for the state House of Representatives, resulting in election officials scrambling to distribute paper ballots to early voting locations where, normally, only touchscreen systems are available to voters.

We're joined today by longtime DuPage County election integrity champion and government watchdog JEAN KACZMAREK, who is now the Democratic candidate for County Clerk in DuPage. She joins us to explain what is only the latest mess in a years-long stream of computer voting and tabulation system boondoggles by the Election Commission in the heavily Republican-leaning suburban county west of Chicago, where she has now been endorsed by the local Daily Herald.

Kaczmarek also details the County's astonishing refusal to provide her with serial numbers for the replacement paper-ballot scanners scavenged from unknown sources and recently supplied to the County by its private voting system contractor to replace more than 100 of the machines (originally purchased from Diebold in 2001) after they were damaged by an astounding failure during this year's March primary. The County has told the County Clerk candidate that their refusal to provide her with the serial numbers --- so she may try and determine where the machines were previously used --- is due to a bizarre "security risk" claim.

"I'm concerned mostly because of the lack of a chain of custody. At least the old machines that are in DuPage County have been stored here, and have been maintained here. Yes, I do have issues with those machines, but we do have that," Kaczmarek tells me. "But these other machines, we have no idea where they've been, who has maintained them, how much mileage they have. And I'm concerned there might be problems on these machines, perhaps a virus."

Her concerns are not without warrant, and are similar to such replacement schemes by mystery machines in other states, such as Wisconsin and elsewhere. Earlier this year, for example, at the DefCon hacking conference in Las Vegas, attendees discovered Chinese pop tunes and other software on voting systems recently discarded by elections officials around the country. "Here we are again," she says. "We have no transparency and accountability, and we're told to trust the results."

Finally today, we're joined by Desi Doyen for our latest Green News Report, with a bunch of pretty major environment news regarding a massive hurricane striking U.S. territories in the Pacific, a record year for tropical cyclones, New York state's new lawsuit against ExxonMobil charging the company defrauded investors regarding climate change, and a landmark new carbon tax announced this week by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau...

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