Today on The BradCast we try to reach out to so many of those Republicans and Trump dead-enders that we hear from usually only after the show. That, before Tuesday primaries and runoffs in in Virginia, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia and Washington D.C., and amid the short pause before hearings in the House J6 Committee return (tomorrow), and as the number of those who believe Trump should be charged with a crime for his attempt to steal the 2020 election continues to grow.

If we are going to save American democracy from the minority autocratic rule now sought by the bulk of the Republican Party, we need to try, at least, to speak to each other again. Even to those who have been so thoroughly groomed, for so many years --- by Fox "News", by rightwing talk radio, by elected Republican officials --- to actually believe the GOP lies that have convinced those Americans to vote against their own best interests in election after election. We must reach out, somehow, to those that still buy into Donald Trump's evidence-free claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him (as he, himself, had tried to steal it) or who were duped into sending part of the quarter of a billion bucks to his "Official Election Defense Fund" even though, as we recently learned thanks to the bipartisan J6 Committee, doesn't even exist.

So, today, in hopes of at least trying to reach some of those voters, we thought we'd share the thoughts of some longtime conservative Republican voices. Among them, the very conservative former federal appeals court judge, J. Michael Luttig who, for years, had been compared to Justices Scalia and Thomas, who 33 of Luttig's former clerks would eventually clerk for. Last week, Luttig testified to the House Select Committee, warning that Donald Trump and the Republican party remain a "clear and present danger" to American democracy, not only because of the January 6th insurrection or due to Trump's attempt to, as Luttig wrote [PDF], "steal the 2020 presidential election from the American people," but because "the former President, his allies and supporters pledged that they would attempt to overthrow that 2024 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020." He is now calling on Republican leaders to step up to end their "war on democracy."

Also, we share a critical, must-listen commentary from former young Republican James Killen (pictured above) hoping to reach current young Republicans to keep them from making the same mistakes he did by letting them know how they've been lied to by the GOP about...well, pretty much everything, from top to bottom over the past 40 years.

Then, after an invitation to the many rightwingers who do listen to The BradCast --- which we know, because they so frequently contact me right after the show via Email or Twitter --- we open the phone lines to at least one long time Republican who is still buying in to the lies....apparently all of them, as we discuss. If we don't at least try to have these conversations, we will never end this new American uncivil war.

And where will it go from here if we don't? Well, a new campaign ad from the disgraced former Missouri Governor turned GOP primary candidate for U.S. Senate, Eric Greitens --- in which he wields a firearm and calls on fellow Republicans to go "RINO (Republican in Name Only) hunting" --- should give you a pretty good, and chilling, idea...

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On today's BradCast: Special coverage of Day 3 of the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee hearings investigating the Trump-incited Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the disgraced former President's multiple attempts to steal the 2020 election from the American people. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Before diving into details with our two guests today, I want to cite the must-read written statement [PDF] submitted by one of today's live witnesses, the very conservative, oft-cited and well-respected (if extremely slow-talking) former Judge J. Michael Luttig. Appointed by George H.W. Bush to the appellate court in 1991, Luttig was considered several times during his decades on the federal bench for the Supreme Court. He is often compared to Justice Antonin Scalia and virtually all of his law clerks eventually went on to clerk for Scalia or Clarence Thomas. He was one of several advisors who then Vice President Mike Pence turned to as he was being pressured hard by both Donald Trump and his corrupt attorney John Eastman to toss out legitimate electoral votes on January 6 in an effort to steal the election for Trump.

In short, Luttig is no lefty. He advised the Vice President that he had no legal or Constitutional authority to do anything but essentially read the Electoral College votes aloud during the joint session of Congressional to certify the final results of the 2020 election. Despite extraordinary pressure not to, Pence did the right thing and followed Luttig's advice.

But in Luttig's written statement to the Committee, as I note at the top of today's show, he describes the Republican Party's "war on democracy" and correctly characterizes what so many Democrats and most in the corporate media seem to have a problem saying outloud: "The former president's accountability under the law for the riot on the United States Capitol on January 6 is incidental to his responsibility and accountability for his attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election from the American People and thereby steal America's democracy from America herself."

Was that so hard? Go read his statement in full.

Among the many new items revealed during Thursday's hearing, at which Pence's top attorney Greg Jacob was also a live witness, along with a boatload of videotaped testimony and more disturbing, previously unseen footage from the day of the Insurrection...

• All of Trump's top White House and Campaign attorneys knew the scheme to have Pence invalidate the election was unlawful and/or unconstitutional, describing it as "nuts", "crazy" and worse.
• Trump knew as well, because they told him as much. Repeatedly.
• Even John Eastman, credited with devising the scheme, is known to have conceded its illegality on several different occasions.
• Eastman said he would have seen Al Gore or Kamala Harris using the same scheme to nullify an election as unlawful, but wanted Pence to do it anyway.
• Eastman invoked the Fifth Amendment 100 times during his video-taped, subpoenaed testimony with the Committee.
• After his scheme failed miserably, Eastman sought a pardon from Trump. (He didn't get one.)
• Jan. 6 insurrectionists came within 40 feet of Pence after he had been removed from the House chamber.
• One of the Proud Boys cooperating with the Feds has testified that the white nationalist extremist group would have killed Mike Pence or anyone they got their hands on, including Nancy Pelosi, if given a chance.

We've got a lot to cover once again today and are joined by George Washington University law professor, WaPo contributor and blogger RANDALL D. ELIASON, a former Asst. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, where he served as Chief of the Public Corruption/Government Fraud section. And, as always during our J6 coverage, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo. Both offer important insight on today's hearing and the ones that preceded it, as the damning case against Donald Trump continues to come smartly together.

Among the issues discussed, the "outlandishly blatant partisan hackery" of Eastman, as Parton correctly characterizes it and the criminal liability Trump (and Eastman) now face, as Eliason details. In particular, given his background in criminal fraud as a federal prosecutor, Eliason notes that the scheme detailed in Monday's hearing regarding a fake "Official Election Defense Fund" that Trump used to raise $250 million from his duped supporters is classic criminal wire fraud that should spawn an entirely separate criminal investigation from the one now underway at DoJ. He also speaks to the bogus notion that Trump can't be charged because he truly believed that the election was fraudulent and that the Vice President had the authority to overthrow the election. Both of those points have been decimated by the Committee over the past two hearings.

We also hash out the "controversy" over whether the Committee should issue a formal criminal referral to the DoJ at the end of their proceedings; the absurd, and rather pathetic, whining defenses offered by both Trump and Fox "News" in response to the gripping revelations emerging from these hearings; and much more.

And, as if all of that is not enough, we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report as the nation (and globe) swelters; Texas thanking its lucky stars right now for renewable energy; the U.N. begging the world to knock it off already with fossil fuels; and a potentially game-changing way to produce emissions-free concrete comes to light...

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When we've got to turn to our Green News Report on any given BradCast for some good news, it's probably a fairly grim BradCast, as is the case today. Still, it includes a lot of stuff that you need to know about. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

First up, a very conservative, well-respected and longtime federal appellate court judge has issued a stark warning about what he describes as "The Republican blueprint to steal the 2024 election." Again, this is from a very conservative Republican-appointed federal judge who then VP Mike Pence turned to for advice before January 6th, 2021 to learn if it would be legal for him to unilaterally reject the 2020 Electoral College results as Team Trump advocated for under a rag-tag opportunistic combination of several arcane and century-old laws and untested Constitutional theories.

In his must-understand opinion piece at CNN, Judge J. Michael Luttig explains why Republicans are now "obsessed about making the 2024 race a referendum on the 'stolen' election of 2020, which even they know was not stolen." But, as Luttig warns, their "objective is not somehow to rescind the 2020 election, as they would have us believe. That's constitutionally impossible. Trump's and the Republicans' far more ambitious objective is to execute successfully in 2024 the very same plan they failed in executing in 2020 and to overturn the 2024 election if Trump or his anointed successor loses again in the next quadrennial contest."

"The last presidential election," he warns, "was a dry run for the next." He goes on to explain what the "independent state legislature" doctrine is and why you should become very aware of its meaning, sooner, rather than later, before its adopted as a legitimate thing by the GOP's stolen and packed U.S. Supreme Court (which Luttig was twice considered for, by the way, by George W. Bush.)

"Forewarned is to be forearmed," Luttig correctly argues. We try to help with both today.

Next, in a similar vein, we discuss what Russia --- now regrouping its forces in the south and east of Ukraine --- may be planning next. If you've heard of a place called "Transnistria" in recent days, and wondered where and what the hell it is, we help explain where that is and why it (may) matter to what happens next in Putin's horrific ongoing attack on its sovereign neighbor.

And, toward that end, at the White House today, President Biden offered remarks to explain his request for $33 billion from Congress to help further arm Ukraine to defend itself against Russia's onslaught and provide much-needed humanitarian aid at the same time. We share his remarks on that, and discuss why the aid is so vitally important right now, as peace talks appear all but stalled out and as Russian media and military are beginning to frame the conflict as an existential "holy war."

Finally, Desi Doyen leads our latest Green News Report, with more on Russia's (ill-considered) gambit to use fossil fuels as a weapon of blackmail against NATO nations; 'unprecedented' water restrictions in Southern California; record-breaking heat in South Asia; and, mercifully, some very good news on Ford's not-a-moment-too-soon unveiling of their new, all-electric, F-150 pickup truck...

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