On today's BradCast, it was (another) very bad day for Donald Trump, but a good day for Hillary Clinton, if anybody was able to notice, thanks to another shameful weekend by the mainstream corporate media. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Our stable genius President didn't make it any easier on himself by beginning his day with a grotesquely offensively comparison of his ongoing Constitutional impeachment inquiry to "a lynching". But it got far worse for Trump (if nowhere near as bad as an actual lynching), when his top diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, testified before impeachment investigators in the U.S. House. The veteran diplomat and foreign policy elder statesman spelled out, in no uncertain terms --- based on copious, contemporaneous notes --- that Trump had personally tied the release of nearly $400 million in military assistance for Ukraine to a quid pro quo requirement that Ukraine's President publicly commit to investigating Trump's 2020 political rival Joe Biden.

The testimony, according to House impeachment investigators, directly contradicts Trump, numerous top White House officials, and a number of Trump-appointees who offered earlier testimony. It also included a 15-page opening statement from Taylor, accurately described as "damning" by a number of Democrats.

Then, while you may or may not have heard about the news which was buried deep inside weekend papers on Saturday, the State Department --- Trump's OWN State Department --- concluded its years-long probe of emails sent to and from Hillary Clinton's private email server. The report, sent to Congress with little or no fanfare from either the media or the Trump Administration, found "no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information" by Clinton or anybody else in the Department.

The faux "scandal" that Trump, his campaign and his party disingenuously used to help propel him to office in 2016 has officially ended with a barely imperceptible whimper. That, even as top White House officials from daughter Ivanka Trump to son-in-law Jared Kushner to Steve Bannon to Stephen Miller to Executive Agency heads like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have all since been found to have carried out government business on private email servers and have even reportedly shared classified information on private texting apps.

We're joined today by longtime media analyst ERIC BOEHLERT to discuss not only the phony "BUT HER EMAILS!" scandal that Trump falsely described during his campaign as "worse than Watergate" --- and which even today results in "Lock her up!" chants at his unhinged campaign rallies --- but the corporate mainstream media's dreadful failure and stunning "whitewash" of its own role in colluding with the Trump Campaign by constantly over-hyping the baseless charges in the run up to the fateful 2016 Presidential election.

"The email story does not exist without the Beltway press," Boehlert tells me, noting their coverage of the end of State Department's probe on page 16 (NYT) and 6 (WaPo) on Saturday. "Most of the network newscasts never even reported on the story over the weekend.

"This email story ran from March 2015 to November 2016," he rails. "This story rolled for months and months. If you take one peek, in September 2015, on average, if you look at the Washington Post --- print and online --- they were publishing two Clinton email stories every day for the month of September 2015. We forget how bad it was. Pick your adjective. Mind-boggling. Numbing. Irresponsible. Reckless. And what's important [is] to not let this happen again."

But, of course, it will, especially given the lack of contrition for this failure evidenced by the story's coverage this weekend. "These are smart people," he says. "They play dumb on an epic scale." Boehlert aptly compares the media's failure in becoming "hugely investigated in this story from the get to" to their similarly reckless coverage of the Bush Administration's claim that Iraq had WMD in the run-up to our disastrous war there beginning in 2003. He also goes on to offer warnings about the Administration's schemes to use the very same playbook in 2020.

"If you're concerned that we're going to have a repeat because the press not only refuses to learn any lessons from 2016, but doesn't even admit there are any lessons to be learned --- look at Joe Biden and the Ukraine. It's happening again. Not as bad as the other, because Trump has inadvertently impeached himself by publicly confessing to colluding with a foreign power. But we saw it in the beginning of this story, a lot of headlines, "Trump and Biden both tainted by Ukraine'. No, they're not. Let's not do that," he pleads.

We discuss why this seems to happen over and over (remember how the media fell for the John Kerry "Swiftboat scandal" in the 2004 campaign?) when it comes to the media's coverage of Democrats, what the media should have done both in 2016 and today, and what Americans can do to help avoid being taken for another predictable ride in 2020.

Finally, were joined by Desi Doyen for our latest Green News Report as Trump's Energy Secretary calls it quits, Arizona looks toward a future without water, and ExxonMobil goes on trial for climate fraud. All while the GNR creeps toward our 1000th episode and we gently ask for your support of unabashedly independent, fearless and accurate news over your public airwaves via BradBlog.com/Donate.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: In latest Democratic presidential debate, the moderators didn't want to talk about climate change, but the candidates sure did; Climate protest group Extinction Rebellion shuts down parts of London; California moves to block Trump's efforts to expand fossil fuel extraction; PLUS: Another fossil fuel explosion and fire, this time near earthquake-prone San Francisco... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): Exxon goes on trial in NY climate fraud case; Despite their promises, giant energy companies burn away vast amounts of natural gas; How to power your house, with xkcd's Randall Munroe; Trump Admin proposes expanding logging in Tongass National Forest; Billionaire GOP governor received maximum farm aid from Trump's trade war; California’s deliberate blackouts were outrageous and harmful and will happen again; Owl vs. owl: should humans intervene to save a species?... PLUS: Despairing about the climate crisis? Read this... and much, MUCH more! ...

The top TWELVE 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates --- yes, TWELVE --- gathered for 3 hours --- yes THREE --- on Tuesday night at Otterbein University, in Westerville, Ohio for their 4th primary debate of the 2020 nomination cycle. We devote the hour on today's BradCast, to post-debate coverage, analysis and, of course, occasional snark. [Audio link to program is posted below.]

The candidates at the CNN and NYTimes co-sponsored forum were: MA Sen. Elizabeth Warren; VT Sen. Bernie Sanders; former Vice President Joe Biden; CA Sen. Kamala Harris; NJ Sen. Corey Booker; MN Sen. Amy Klobuchar; Former HUD Sec. Julian Castro; South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg; HI Rep. Tulsi Gabbard; CA entrepreneur and activist Tom Steyer (making his first debate appearance); Silicon Valley entrepreneur Andrew Yang; and former El Paso, TX Rep. Beto O'Rourke.

Among the many issues and questions covered and discussed on today's program, following last night's forum...

• Do we really need three hour debates?;
• Do we really need 12 candidates?;
• Do we really need Steyer to be one of them?;
• Did the moderators do any better than they have in previous debates this cycle?;
• Was there really not a single question on either our climate or voting rights crises worth asking the candidates?;
• Did Elizabeth Warren perform well in the face of direct attacks from her opponents now that she is being perceived as the front-runner?;
• Could she stand up to similar or almost certainly far worse attacks from Trump (presuming he is the GOP nominee)?;
• Is Booker right to worry about sniping and some of the direct attacks between his fellow Democratic candidates?;
• What's the reason he is not performing better in the polls?;
• Why is Harris still slipping in the polls?;
• Will Sanders' recent heart attack be a deal breaker for some voters (despite his energetic performance at Tuesday's debate)?;
• As Biden slips in the polls, is he also showing signs of cognitive decline that may concern voters?;
• What's the difference between "Medicare for All", as proposed by Sanders and Warren, and "Medicare for All Who Want It" and a "Public Option" as proposed by Biden, Buttigieg and Warren?;
• Why won't Warren admit out loud, as Sanders has, that her Medicare for All plan will raise taxes on the middle class, even as she correctly points out that overall costs for such families would go down?;
• And why do people who like their private insurance have to give it up under a "Medicare for All" plan?;
• Were attacks by Klobuchar and Buttigieg and Biden against so-called progressive "pipe dreams" effective for their candidacies or just damaging to the party?;
• Is "Accountable Capitalism" actually a thing?

All of those questions and many more are tackled with Eskow, Jacobson and even Desi Doyen and myself on today's very lively, insightful and intermittently humorous post-debate special coverage!...

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Desi and I are back on today's BradCast, after an unscheduled month-long hiatus as my otherwise very healthy 80-year old dad suffered a sudden and major stroke in mid-September before ultimately passing away a few weeks later. [That's him on the left with me in the photo. Audio for today's program is posted below.]

We share a few memories of Harvey Friedman at the top of today's show (there are many more here) and a couple of very important lessons learned both before and after his death that will almost certainly be of use to you and your family! The two booklets I mentioned on air today are Five Wishes (available via AgingWithDignity.org) and the Advance Health Care Directive (available via PrepareForYourCare.org). Both are likely to be wildly helpul to your family, should you or they find themselves in a similar situation. Please consider clicking on those links when you find some time.

Then, we're joined by the great NICOLE SANDLER of The Nicole Sandler Show who filled in for us, with absolutely no notice, over the past month (with some occasional help from Angie Coiro along the way) even as she did her own show as well nearly every damned day! Desi and I cannot thank her enough. Though we try to today.

Since Nicole filled in for us during what was clearly a very very slow news month, she gets us caught up on what we missed while we were "gone", from the Impeachment process now under way in the House in response to Trump's strong-arming of the Ukrainian President for (apparently false) dirt on Joe Biden and the 2016 election; to Trump's disturbing sudden withdraw of U.S. troops in the Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria (and the death and chaos and escaped ISIS detainees and new deal cut between our previously-allied and now-abandoned Kurds and the Russian-supported Syrians in its wake); to the corporate media still falling for Trump's B.S. on everything from his "new impeachment attorney", former Rep. Trey Gowdy (who doesn't appear to have been hired after all) to his new trade deal with China (which may not be a deal after all); to the latest in the 2020 race for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

After a month off the grid, we're wading gently back in today and this week with a little help from our friends. My thanks to so many of you for your kind words while we were gone, and our thanks to all of our listeners and affiliate stations for tolerating our unexpected and unprecedented absence! Hope you'll enjoy today's program as we gently get back into the swing of things...

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It's another busy day on the BradCast, with me, NICOLE SANDLER, holding down the fort while Brad and Desi deal with his father's catastrophic medical emergency.

If you only got your news from the mainstream, corporate media, you probably wouldn't know that almost 50,000 GM workers are on strike because they're virtually ignoring the story. Thank goodness for independent media. MIKE ELK is a long-time labor reporter who finally founded his own, reader-supported outlet, Payday Report. He's on the road covering the strike and the strikers who've had their health insurance cancelled by GM!

Also today: we're finally getting a handle on a strange and disturbing story that's been simmering for the past week or so. GREG SARGENT who writes The Plum Line blog for the Washington Post joins me to explain the story of the whistleblower who, we've now learned, took his or her concerns about a communication between the president and a foreign head of state in which Trump allegedly made a "promise" to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community. The IG deemed the complaint credible and was a matter of urgent concern, and turned it over to the Acting Director of National Intelligence to give to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, as dictated by law. The problem is, the Acting DNI refuses to do so!

And, with the news that Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have gone down to defeat in Israel's elections this week, I decided to place a cold call to Israel to chat with a random person about the outcome. It's always a crapshoot when I make these types of calls, but this one was a keeper!

Download MP3 or listen online below...

It's NICOLE SANDLER here, guest hosting another episode of the BradCast.

My first guest is JOSHUA POTASH from SOS America 2019. I learned of his efforts to get Americans to take to the streets with mass protests, as they've successfully done in Puerto Rico and Hong Kong, in a column by Will Bunch at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He wrote up his idea in a Medium post called The End of One-and-Done Protests.

Also today: a conversation with progressive broadcaster KRYSTAL BALL, co-host of Rising at Hill.TV

Download MP3 or listen online below...

It's NICOLE SANDLER, one more time, filling in for Brad and Desi on today's BradCast.

After an update on the latest news, I'm joined by Blogger TOM SULLIVAN, aka BloggersRUs, who writes for Digby's Hullabaloo blog. After publishing a post about Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC report on Donald Trump and Deutsche Bank, Tom received a letter from Donald Trump's attorney demanding a retraction and an apology. He explains what happened.

Then we turn our attention across the pond to the UK, where the new Prime Minister Boris Johnson appears to have engineered a coup of sorts. The Queen approved his plan to suspend Parliament for five weeks to allow him time to push through a "no deal" Brexit. People have taken to the streets in protest. I'll speak with American ex-patriot DENIS CAMPBELL, an author, journalist and broadcaster, who does his best to explain what's happening over there.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Historic ice melt in Greenland raises worldwide sea levels; We've all just lived through the hottest month ever recorded on Planet Earth; PLUS: CNN's 2020 Democratic Presidential debate, for the first time, covered climate change and climate action in-depth... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): We must change food production to save the world, says leaked report; Top climate scientist quits USDA, alleging political suppression; Who will pay for the huge costs of holding back rising seas?; Climate liability lawsuits are on the rise; N.J. lakes closed due to toxic algae blooms; El Paso suspect’s alleged manifesto highlights eco-fascism’s revival; U.S. has lost 24 million acres of natural land in 16 years; As Gulf Stream cools and weakens, what’s in store for Florida?; Heat headache for 2020 planners as Tokyo swelters a year before Olympic Games... PLUS: The new ruins of the melting Alps... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Special coverage of Night One of the second 2020 Democratic Presidential debate. This one was broadcast from the Fox Theater in Detroit and hosted by CNN. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Featured on the first night's debate stage were VT Sen. Bernie Sanders; MA Sen. Elizabeth Warren; South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg; MN Senator Amy Klobuchar; former MD Rep. John Delaney; OH Rep. Tim Ryan; former CO Gov. John Hickenlooper; former TX Rep. Beto O'Rourke; MT Gov. Steve Bullock (in his first Dem Debate appearance) and author/spiritual guru Marianne Williamson.

The lively and often substantive debate was, nonetheless, frequently truncated by CNN moderators, who seemed to work hard to force confrontation between the candidates, while framing many of the evening's debate topics as if they were Republican talking points and otherwise trying to highlight the divide between the progressive and conservative wings of the party. Among the many issues raised during the two and a half hour debate on Tuesday night were healthcare (a nearly 25 minute discussion, highlighting the party's many different and often controversial approaches to achieving universal coverage, from 'Medicare-for-All' to the Public Option, and their effects on private insurance), immigration, gun safety legislation (and the corporate forces that prevent it and many of the other issues discussed), the climate crisis, issues regarding race, the economy, the cost of college and student loans, foreign policy and nuclear weapons, and --- one of many Rightwing memes that CNN seemed to be pushing throughout the evening: whether the Democratic Party has moved too far to the Left.

We're joined today for discussion on as many of the above matters as we can fit in --- as well as some thoughts on what was not covered --- by journalist, former CNN producer and healthcare reform expert JACKIE SCHECHNER and Roosevelt University political scientist and contributor at The Week, DAVID FARIS, author of the recently published book, It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics.

Each offer smart analysis and insight on the substantive policy issues raised last night, as well as both the political and media aspects of night one of the latest two night Democratic debate, some six months before voting is set to begin next February at the Iowa Caucuses...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: On his trip to Britain, Trump proves he knows zip about climate science --- again; Meeting Paris Climate Agreement targets could avert thousands of deaths in the U.S.; PLUS: Climate change now a litmus test in the 2020 Presidential election (at least for Democrats)... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): India roasts under heat wave with temperatures above 120 degrees; Judges give both sides a grilling in youth climate case against the government; Roundup's risks could go well beyond cancer; Companies expect climate change to cost them $1 trillion in 5 years; With state subsidies and a firm hand, China races ahead with electric transport; USFS: 1 billion acres at risk for catastrophic wildfires this summer; DNC rejects request to host climate change-only presidential debate; Satellites show Amazon deforestation rising under Brazil's Bolsonaro... PLUS: Massive ladybug swarm over CA shows up on radar... and much, MUCH more! ...

Before we get to the "crapshow" in D.C. today and much more related to it on today's BradCast, a few quick, important points. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First, the St. Louis Blues, incredibly enough, are going to the Stanley Cup finals for the first time in 49 years. Okay, that's not all that important to most, but I've been waiting a really long time, so forgive me my momentary joy.

Second, and much more important (and disturbing): the City of Baltimore's computer networks have been crippled and shutdown by a ransomware attack for more than two weeks now, grinding all city services to a virtual halt and likely requiring a complete rebuild of everything from backup data onto new hardware. Baltimore is reportedly the 20th U.S. municipality to be hit by such an attack so far this year.

Among Baltimore city offices struggling to continue their work is their "dead in the water" Board of Elections, where all local computers are shut down with BOE employees now working remotely out of the State Board of Elections, as well as County Boards in Baltimore and Hartford. The ongoing disaster led the city Board of Elections' Deputy Director to opine: "Thank goodness it's not an election year." Um...yeah..."thank goodness" indeed. But what if it were? And shouldn't this be a much greater concern than, well, pretty much everyone is currently admitting, as city, county and state elections now rely, from top to bottom --- from voter registration to ballot programming to vote tabulation and election results reporting --- on similarly vulnerable computer networks? Without paper poll books at each precinct and HAND-MARKED paper ballots for all, it would be impossible to run an election under such circumstances. But...."thank goodness it's not an election year" and, otherwise, why worry about such crazy "conspiracy theories" as the ones we've been warning about for more than 15 years now?

In other, yes, related news: the Donald Trump Presidency continues to swirl still deeper into the bowels of its own disastrous making while the continuing stand-off with Congress intensifies and more bad news arrives from the federal courts for this President. Today, among too many other things, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Congressional Democratic leadership to discuss the growing cries for an official impeachment inquiry and emerged to declare that "the President of the United States is engaged in a cover-up". That completely unsurprising statement was used as a predicate for Trump to storm out of a planned meeting at the White House with Democratic leaders on an infrastructure bill after just three minutes. He then held what media falsely characterized as an "impromptu" news conferences in the Rose Garden where the President discussed "the i-word" and, with a straight face --- in front a pre-printed sign inaccurately declaring "No Collusion, No Obstruction --- claimed to be "the most transparent President, probably, in the history of this country" and that he doesn't "do cover-ups".

Hours later, his ongoing efforts to cover-up his financial records was dealt a second blow this week by a second federal judge who flatly rejected the Trump family's attempt to block Deutsche Bank and Capital One from turning over Trump financial records in response to a lawful Congressional subpoena. Earlier this week a different federal judge found similarly against Trump's attempt to cover up his financial records held by private accounting firm Mazars USA, which are also the subject of a separate lawful Congressional subpoena. And, all of that is related, as we explain, to the cover-up payments to Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen who was "directed" by Trump to give hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels just prior to the 2016 election to cover-up their alleged affair.

Of course, as Trump's administration continues to cover-up their own growing private email server scandals (remember that li'l problem they had with Hillary Clinton about that?), the man who has helped carry off Trump's greatest cover-up to date (at least that we know of, so far) is his new Attorney General, cover-up artist and personal fixer William Barr. Our guest today, author and media critic ERIC BOEHLERT argues Barr has not been appropriately held to account by the corporate media, even after being found in contempt by the House Judiciary Committee for failing to answer a lawful Congressional subpoena to hand over the full Mueller Report and its underlying evidence. Boehlert explains as he wrote this week, where and why he sees the corporate media dropping the ball.

"New York Times, Washington Post --- they haven't called for his resignation," Boehlert tells me. "It is inconceivable what Bill Barr could possibly do which would trigger major newspapers in this country to call for his resignation. People say, 'Well, who cares? He's not going to resign.' That's true, but, it sends this message that we are in a crisis. We are in a possibly defining crisis in American history. But these major news organizations don't want to go there. They don't want to raise the temperature."

The crisis he refers to, of course, has "been a problem since Inauguration Day 2017, [but] no one will break the glass on the alarm."

We also discuss whether Congressional Democrats are falling short as well, as the internecine debate among Democrats in the House over whether to begin a formal impeach inquiry continues to grow and intensify. Among the many points discussed in that conversation: whether the conventional wisdom that Senate Republicans would never vote to convict and remove Trump from office is actually true...

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On today's BradCast, as the nation awaits Trump Attorney General William Barr's release of some redacted version or another of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Thursday morning, Barr was busy announcing new immigration policies to add to the Administration's ongoing success in creating havoc and a humanitarian crisis on our southern border. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

But first today, a few other news items of note and another reminder of how neither the media nor the Democrats in Congress are prepared to adequately respond to the "creeping authoritarianism", as media analyst Eric Boehlert too-generously describes it, that has turned outrageous, impeachable actions by a sitting President into little more than another "wacky Trump story of the day" over the past two years of his chaotic and criminal Presidency.

On Tuesday night, the war-mongering Trump vetoed a bicameral, bipartisan War Powers Resolution adopted by Congress --- for the first time since the 1973 War Powers Act largely delegated Congress' Constitutional war-making power to the White House --- demanding an end to U.S. military aid for Saudi Arabia's war against Yemen, where thousands of civilians have been killed and millions are facing famine. That, despite the murder last year of Washington Post's Saudi journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi at the alleged command of Saudi crown prince and Trump ally Mohammad bin Salman.

Meanwhile, as federal prosecutors seek up to 10 months in prison for actress Felicity Huffman in the college admissions scandal after her recent guilty plea (please note my "Full Disclosure" during the program regarding my personal history with Huffman and her husband William H. Macy), the actions taken by Trump last week alone, as highlighted by Boehlert, are a veritable litany of impeachable offenses.

Nonetheless, while the actress may face jail time for a foolish and illegal offense on behalf of her daughter, our lawless President runs free --- and few, if any, in the media or Congress appear capable of taking on his Constitution-endangering lawlessness with the gravity warranted. Even several of the outspoken progressive freshman Democrats in the House, while supporting calls for impeachment in general, appear to be pulling punches in deference to fearful party leadership. As I argue today (yet again), there is more than enough --- even without whatever findings may come from Mueller --- to, as columnist Dan Savage has long argued, "ITMFA".

Next, we're joined by immigration attorney SARAH PIERCE, Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute to discuss Barr's newly-announced immigration policy changes revealed Tuesday evening. The new measures would bar asylum seekers who have already demonstrated a "credible fear" of return to their home countries to immigration officials from being allowed to seek bond for release until their asylum case can be heard. The process would, she explains, keep such individual in detention for months and even years, despite an already-existing lack of space in ICE detention facilities which has led to their current so-called "catch and release" policies.

The new measures, Pierce explains, would not apply to families seeking asylum or children traveling alone (even as thousands of asylum seeking children remain separated from their parents in the wake of Trump's previous AG Jeff Sessions' so-called "zero tolerance" policies.)

Pierce details what Barr's new policy measures will and won't do; why Barr has the authority to enact them; how they differ from Executive Actions undertaken by the Obama Administration (which Republicans used to object to as "unconstitutional unilateral actions"); why the new policy is likely to be challenged in federal court; how almost all of Trump's border policies are exacerbating the very problems he claims to want to solve; and why he continues to take such extreme and often unlawful and/or unconstitutional measures.

"This Administration just doesn't seem that interested in resolving this systemic problem. Instead, they just want to deter asylum seekers from arriving at the southern border. They want to limit how many ultimately apply for asylum, and then limit how many ultimately receive it," she tells me. "There is a political incentive for this President to look like he's active on immigration, to show that he's engaged in the fight, and fighting for the policies that his base is interested in --- and maybe less of a political interest in actually having results on the ground." Pierce surmises that Trump wishes to "keep hammering in these harsh policies, whether or not they're actually going to stand up in court or be effective."

Finally today, some listener comment in response to my rant yesterday regarding the $700 million raised overnight (now up to nearly $1 billion), from a handful of billionaire families and corporations, to restore the fire-ravaged, 850-year old Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of Paris...

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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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It may not be our most hilarious show of all time, but I think it's a very important one and includes more than a few righteous rants. [Audio link to full show is at end of article.]...

Among the stories covered on today's BradCast...

• The New York Times finally figures out, almost a week later, that they may have been duped by Trump Attorney General William Barr's 4-page summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's long-awaited report, as the incurious "paper of record" confirms the full report from Mueller runs at least 300 pages. Nonetheless, Trump and his cult-member Republicans in Congress are running with the Times' original false and/or misleading assertions published the day after Barr's deceptive summary was released on Sunday. For example, the Times' top-of-page, ALL-CAPS screaming headline "MUELLER FINDS NO TRUMP-RUSSIA CONSPIRACY" and "A Cloud Over Trump's Presidency is Lifted".
  
  Of course, we still have no idea how many pages are in Mueller's confidential report delivered to Trump appointee Barr last Friday, or what it actually says about the two-year probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, the Trump Campaign's potential cooperation with them, or Trump's apparent attempts to obstruct the probe. But the summary compiled in less than 48 hours by Barr and then inaccurately reported by many to have somehow "exonerated" Trump, after being written by a man appointed to the job specifically because of his expressed opposition to the Special Counsel, should have been viewed much more skeptically by the Times and many others in the corporate media --- as we've been pointing out since Monday.

• Among the fall-out from the Times' (and others') terrible and irresponsible coverage on all of this, GOP members of the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday demanded Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) step down as Chair and Trump is demanding his resignation from Congress. Schiff, however, is (appropriately) having none of it;

• Speaking of not-particularly-funny behavior from Congressional Republicans, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) held a sham stunt vote earlier this week on the Green New Deal resolution [PDF] proposed by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) in the Senate and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in the House. Their landmark resolution calls for a wartime-like effort to move the U.S. economy from fossil fuels to zero-carbon energy over a decade, while creating millions of jobs in the clean energy sector and supporting those in legacy industries like coal mining to ensure new jobs and protection of their pensions from bankrupt, predator coal companies. During "debate" for McConnell's mock GND vote --- on an issue which would greatly help many coal mining constituents in Kentucky and Utah alike --- Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) offered an embarrassingly unfunny speech that mocked the resolution, dismissed climate change as a concern, argued the Green New Deal is somehow "part of the problem" and that the real solution to deadly and ever-more costly global warming was "churches" and "babies";

• Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) was not amused, as his own small coastal state directly faces a very serious threat posed from global-warming fueled rising sea levels which threaten to turn Rhode Island "into an archipelago" in coming years. "As a small state, we don't have a lot to give back to the ocean," Whitehouse rails on the Senate floor. "This is deadly serious for us."

• But, if you think Whitehouse sounded angry, wait until you hear Ocasio-Cortez' response to the belittling of climate change concerns from Republicans in the House during an epic rant in the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, after Rep Sean Duffy (R-WI) mocked the GND as "an elitist fantasy";

• Underscoring how NOT funny all of this is, a recent, heart-breaking special report from AP detailed how Trump, McConnell and the coal industry have conspired to allow a small tax on coal to expire, which, since the 1970s, has helped to cover the extraordinary healthcare expenses of miners suffering from deadly Black Lung Disease, as well as support for their widows. A new Black Lung epidemic has been striking younger and younger coal miners in recent years, and Republicans, including Trump, allowed the tax that funds the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund to expire during the Government shutdown at the beginning of the year.
  
  That, despite promises from McConnell (who represents the coal state of Kentucky) and from Trump (who has used miners endlessly as props during political rallies, while claiming to "love" them) to ensure the crucial Trust Fund doesn't go broke. Instead, both men have broken their promise and appear to be siding instead with the coal industry owners who have donated millions to them, and do not wish to see the life-saving and now-lapsed tax renewed. All of this, of course, on the same week that Trump reversed positions to support killing the Affordable Care Act entirely, while claiming "Republicans will soon be known as the party of health care";

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, which touches on a number of those maddening topics and more...

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On today's BradCast: The coverage by the corporate media --- and response by many Democrats --- to Attorney General William Barr's terse, misleading 4-page summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report after two years has, by and large, been atrocious in innumerable ways. [Audio link to show follows below.]

We're joined today by HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, who has been covering the corrupt Trump Presidency for years now, including its various Russia-related storylines and other criminal probes at Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo. Among our several related topics of discussion today: Shameful failures by the media and others to demand independently verifiable evidence of speculative allegations both before the confidential Mueller Report was finally delivered to Barr and the subsequent failure by many of the same organizations and individuals in their credulous reporting of Barr's bare-bones, "very, very clever political document" summarizing the sprawling, two-year probe.

Rather than learning from mistakes, many in the media seem to be repeating them all over again in the wake of Barr's memo, which some justifiably regard as a "whitewash" or "cover-up" by a man who was selected by Trump, in no small part, for his previously stated opposition to the probe and to the very notion that any President can legally be charged with Obstruction of Justice. There's much more related conversation here today --- including on the substance of Barr's letter, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein's curious complicity, and the GOP's premature victory laps --- but you'll have to tune in to listen.

Also on today's program: Though Democrats led a decisive 248 to 181 vote today (with 14 Republicans) in hopes of overriding Trump's veto of the resolution blocking his phony "national emergency" declaration, the effort fell 38 votes shy of the two-thirds majority needed. In the Senate, where 12 Republicans previously voted with Democrats, 59 to 41, to block the President previously, no override vote will now be held since a two-thirds majority vote is required in both chambers. AP described Trump's overwhelming loss in both chambers as a "victory" for the President today, and it will now be left to challenges in court to block Trump's order diverting billions appropriated by Congress to the military to instead build his border wall. Mexico is still not paying for it.

Then, in a major reversal of their previous legal position, Trump's Dept. of Justice filed documents in an appeals court Monday to support striking down the entire Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") as unconstitutional. While Jeff Sessions served as Attorney General, DoJ had "only" supported gutting provisions that limited premium prices insurers could charge for the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. Under Barr, however, the Administration now seeks to kill the entire landmark healthcare law. If successful, as many as 30 million Americans would lose their access to affordable healthcare coverage;

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest very busy Green News Report, as fossil fuel-related climate related disasters continue in the U.S. and around the world, while the Trump Administration plows billions of tax-payer dollars into troubled nuclear plants and the Senate GOP carries out a "sham" vote on the Green New Deal, in hopes of mocking the initiative...

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MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
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