On today's BradCast, we turn briefly away from the folly and fallout of Trump's war on Iran to focus again on the folly and fallout of Trump's war on democracy here at home, with the critical 2026 Midterm Elections looming and threatened anew by Trump's corrupted High Court. To that end, one of our favorite guests returns today to offer a bit of what we'll describe as "hope". [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... A few related election matters...

• In a somewhat bizarre --- and seemingly unprecedented case --- a Republican sheriff running for Governor in California recently seized more than 650,000 ballots from last year's Special Election on Proposition 50. That was the ballot measure, overwhelmingly approved by almost 3.5 million votes, allowing the state Legislature to redraw California's U.S. House maps to make them more friendly to Democrats in response to Republican gerrymanders in Texas, North Carolina and elsewhere. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco announced on Friday that he'd obtained a warrant to take the ballots from the Riverside Registrar's office on the basis of a claim made by a local "election protection" group that last year's tally in the County included some 45,000 ballots that were not lawfully cast. Or something. State officials, including CA's Democratic Attorney General and Secretary of State, are objecting to the seizure and tally which was initially to be carried out by the Sheriff's staffers. The count was paused by a court earlier this month, before being restarted with a Special Master overseeing it late last week. We'll try to keep our eyes on this bizarre story.

• In North Carolina today, the state's most powerful Republican, state Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, conceded his 23-vote loss in the state's March 3rd Republican primary to Rockland County Sheriff Sam Page. Berger, who shepherded Trump's demand for a mid-decade gerrymander through the state Legislature last year, was endorsed by Trump. He lost his primary nonetheless in the Republican-leaning district.

• On Monday at the White House, Donald Trump told media: "Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating," adding, "I call it mail-in cheating, and we got to do something about it all." It was also revealed on Monday, according to Palm Beach County, Florida records, that Trump cast a mail ballot for today's Special Election, in the County where he is registered to vote. (Late word after today's show: The Democratic candidate has won today's Special Election in Florida for the state House in the District that includes Mar-a-Lago, flipping the seat from "red" to "blue".)

THEN... On the very same day that it was revealed Trump voted yet again by absentee ballot --- as he frequently does, even while claiming mail-in voting is fraudulent --- in that Special Election, his Solicitor General was at the U.S. Supreme Court arguing against a law in deep "red" Mississippi that allows a five-day grace period for absentee ballots cast and postmarked prior to Election Day to arrive at the elections office to be counted.

Such laws are wildly popular around the country. Some 30 states allow similar. Mississippi's Sec. of State defended it at the corrupted High Court against Trump and the Republican National Committee's challenge. The Court's farthest right members --- Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Alito and Kavanaugh --- offered a series of bizarre hypotheticals about weird ways in which someone might try to exploit such laws to steal an election. (One of Gorsuch's took the prize. It had something to do with mail voters attempting to "recall" their late arriving ballots after Election Day. Tune in for the details on that absurdity which apparently went on to take up about 40 minutes of the two-hour oral argument!)

Then there was Alito's argument that because Congress declared Labor Day, Memorial Day and Washington's Birthday to be held on a specific day, that means they never meant people should be able to count votes after Election Day, even if they were clearly cast before hand. But, what about Early Voting? What about those whose mail ballot arrives before Election Day? As our guest explains, the rightwing Justices did their best to avoid those questions.

We're joined today by the great MARK JOSEPH STERN, longtime legal journalist at Slate, who was, let's say, chagrined by the radical and ridiculously Trumpy arguments offered by at least four of the Trump-friendly Republican Justices.

"Of course the reality is that we do not all vote on Election Day, and our ballots are not all counted on Election Day. So if the plaintiff's theory is correct, and if Alito is correct that the day is the day --- that there is this 24-hour period where everything has to happen --- then early voting is illegal, mail voting is illegal, and no ballots can be counted after midnight on Election Day," asserts Stern. "If it's not your birthday after midnight, then it can't be Election Day after midnight. There has to be a timer that goes off and every ballot that hasn't been counted just needs to be set on fire because the day is over. That's the implication of his theory."

The theory falls far short of facts and reality, including the notion that Congress, when establishing Election Day in federal law, really meant that ballots could only be cast and counted on that day. But that defies the way the nation has voted going back at least to the Civil War, when soldiers deployed in the field cast their ballots early by mail.

"If you take these theories seriously, it means that the way that we have conducted elections in this country, going back to the Civil War, has been unlawful and nobody knew it until now," Stern tells me. "Congress secretly smuggled in this ban on early voting, and nobody figured it out until the geniuses on the 5th Circuit did in 2024."

He calls it "a completely absurd and fantastical legal theory, just flying in the face of 'Support Our Troops.' Because what this theory would do in practice is ensure that a whole lot of service members who are serving in uniform abroad would not be able to have their votes counted in elections."

"Just to be clear," Stern emphasized, "at no point has Congress ever passed a law that says that states cannot count late-arriving ballots." In fact, as he also notes, "there are a lot of states that actually enacted these laws specifically to help military and overseas voters. And when Congress came in, a few decades ago, and issued these new rules about military and overseas voters, it specifically deferred to the states' ballot deadlines. So Congress knew at the time that some states were allowing these ballots to come in late, as long as they were sent by Election Day."

And that is key. Because, the Constitution grants the States the power to determine the "manner" of their own elections, unless Congress adopts a law that counters a state regulation. Congress has done no such thing in this case. Even if the Court's radical members don't like a state law, they have no Constitutional power --- at least for those who bother to read the Constitution conservatively --- to block such laws.

Despite the chaos and disenfranchisement it would cause --- about 750,000 ballots were tallied that way in the 2024 election alone --- and as absurd as all of this seems, you may have seen headlines from a bunch of media outlets' coverage of Monday's oral argument, suggesting that the Court's "conservatives" seem prepared to strike down the counting of late arriving ballots this November. (NYT: "Supreme Court Appears Poised to Reject Late-Arriving Mail-In Ballots Law"; AP: "Supreme Court sounds skeptical of late-arriving ballots, a Trump target"; Guardian: "US supreme court appears poised to limit mail-in ballots ahead of midterms", etc.)

While all three liberal Justices will vote in favor of the plaintiff and the counting of late-arriving ballots, and four of the Court's radical rightwingers seem prepared to vote against, the matter will likely come down to Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

"Not very encouraging whenever we're having to rely on John and Amy to come to their senses," quips Stern, before noting hopefully: "There's an old saying that 'sometimes an opinion won't write.' I really think if there were ever an instance where that could happen, it would be here."

As I express gratefulness for his optimism he counters: "I'm not sure optimism is the right word. But I will say that despair is never a helpful emotion when we're talking about the Supreme Court. And despair is what the bad guys want us to feel. So I'm choosing to hold out some hope."

Nonetheless, he cautions against betting "on the outcome that I foresee is possible. Because, again, if you bet on this Court doing the worst thing imaginable, that bet quite often pays off."

FINALLY... We close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, with a look at the climate and environmental damage from Trump's war on Iran, and much more...

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His pathetic lies about the 2020 election will apparently never end. He's a loser and can't get over it. Even now. But, as a longtime expert in election transparency, security and integrity --- and, specifically, Georgia's unverifiable touchscreen voting system --- explains on today's BradCast, there is still much to be worried about in the Peach State's 2026 midterm elections. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP TODAY... a few words on how Donald Trump, following his unlawful attack and invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of its President and his wife --- appears to be barrelling the world toward a full collapse of the post-WW2 order, with his recent threats against Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and even NATO-ally Greenland.

Also, you have by now likely heard Trump's Tuesday "victory" boast, as posted on his failing social media site, that Venezuela would be "turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States of America." A bit of perspective on that claim today. There is, of course, never any reason to believe anything he says about anything. But, even if one assumes it's true, that amount of oil, at the high end, is about what we produce in the U.S. all by ourselves in about 3.5 days. We currently consume (burn) that much in about 2.5 days.

So, yay! Totally worth spending billions of dollars to kill 80 people in Venezuela, capture its President, and set the world on a path toward toppling the post-WW2 order of decades of (relative) peace and prosperity.

On the other hand, none of this madness seems to be escaping notice of the American voters. That was demonstrated yet again in the final Special Election of 2025, in Iowa on December 30th, where the Democratic candidate for a state Senate seat outperformed Kamala Harris one year earlier in the same district by nearly 30 points! That, and pretty much every other Special and Off-Year contest last year suggests it is likely to be a very bad year in 2026 for Trump and his Republican Party. And, as revealed by some comments he made on Tuesday, he knows it.

TO THAT END... Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of Trump's failed attempt to topple the U.S. government with his January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in hopes of stealing the 2020 election.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the notorious, unlawful Coffee County, Georgia statewide voting system software breach by Team Trump. The long-under-the-radar criminal scheme, initially hatched during a late-night Oval Office meeting in December of 2020, was purportedly meant to discover evidence of election fraud in the battleground state that Trump lost that year by 12,000 votes to Joe Biden. We helped break the story on this program, and five of the participants in the plot to steal, copy and distribute the software used across the entire state of Georgia (and in parts of about a dozen other states) were charged as co-conspirators along with Trump in the RICO indictment initially filed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Several of the conspirators pleaded guilty to their part in the Coffee County scheme before the charges were eventually dismissed last month by a different prosecutor who took over the case.

In the meantime, the MAGA right is still pretending that the election was stolen from Trump in Fulton County (Atlanta). The latest ridiculous allegation to come to light in rightwing media, just before the holidays last month, is that 315,000 early votes cast in Atlanta were somehow fraudulent because poll tapes printed out by the ballot scanners were not signed by local officials. After Fulton officials confirmed last month that signatures were missing from those tapes, due to one of many administrative failures in Fulton County that year, rightwingers took to social media to pretend that meant that Trump actually won the election in Georgia.

"Massive voting fraud uncovered," declared Trump's buffoonish pal, Elon Musk, absurdly, as other rightwingers played along with claim that made its way just before the holidays into the supposedly non-wingnut media.

"This is the biggest bunch of nonsense," explains our guest today, MARILYN MARKS of the Coalition for Good Governance. She is a longtime voting system and Georgia election expert. "There is not one thing to suggest that they were fraudulent or there was a lack of certification for the election." She details why the claim is both "foolish" and "absurd".

She ought to know. Marks is the one who has legally challenged the state's 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems in federal court for years now, successfully resulting in the state's older Diebold systems being decertified by a federal judge, only to see them replaced by Republican Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger with equally insecure, unverifiable touchscreens made by Dominion. Marks is no fan of Raffensperger or the way Fulton ran its election in 2020. But she knows "crazy claims" when she sees them from MAGA rightwingers.

We discuss all of that, and what really happened with those poll tapes, along with her continuing concerns about the potential 2026 fallout from the Coffee County scheme's stolen software --- a matter which has been left hanging since Georgia abandoned the criminal indictments against Trump and 18 co-conspirators for his criminal attempt to steal the state's 2020 election.

As usual, there is much more today on all of this, as we barrel toward the critical 2026 midterms, with Georgia's U.S. Senate race potentially determining the partisan balance in the upper chamber of Congress next year. The race will be decided on 100% unverifiable voting systems run by Raffensperger across the entire state --- even as he will be overseeing his own attempt to become the state's next Governor.

"What makes Georgia so different [from every other state] is that the Secretary of State programs every single ballot, in every single machine, in every single county. So you have a central point of failure," Marks tells me. "He is not only programming the elections for his own ballots, he is counting his own votes, he is certifying his own election, and he is auditing his own election. What could go wrong?"

What could go wrong? Tune in to find out!...

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My ears are still ringing after the President of the United States spent about 20 minutes barking at me last night. But the show --- in this case, the final BradCast of 2025 --- must go on. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

VERY QUICKLY... Some final election results for the year, as a Democratic union leader and U.S. Army veteran won a special election on Tuesday for a state Senate seat in Kentucky in a more than 47-point landslide over his Republican opponent! Gary Clemons won almost 73% of the vote, according to today's unofficial results. Granted, it was in a Democratic leaning area of Louisville, but one where Kamala Harris won by just 6 points last year. So, it amounted to an approximately 42-point shift in favor of Team Blue. In Kentucky. That should help propel the Resistance into the critical mid-term election year of 2026.

THEN... Two of our favorite guests are here today for an end-of-year roundtable, of sorts, as we wrap up a...well...tumultuous year, to put it far too nicely, as we try to make sense of whatever happened last night during Donald Trump's weird, lie-filled, prime-time tirade and a whole bunch of other stuff at year's end.

We're joined once again today by fellow old-school bloggers HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of the Professional Left Podcast.

AP noted last night that Trump has frequently said he believes more Americans would back him if they simply heard him describe his track record. Well, I think everybody heard him last night. Even if they had their TVs off, since the guy was shouting so loud. What he was shouting, however, was mostly a string of ridiculous claims and a whole bunch of numbers, many of which were made up out of whole cloth.

In his mercifully brief, but endlessly angry remarks, he said "at levels never seen before" or "at record levels" at least 7 times; referred to at least 11 different "records" that he claims to have broken over the past year; cited "history" --- as in, "never before in American history" --- at least 12 times; and blamed Joe Biden for most of his own failures at least 7 times.

Whether anybody is more inclined to back him after hearing that "record" --- (new polling out yesterday from PBS/NPR/Marist found his overall support at just 38%, AP/NORC clocked him in at just 36% approval) --- than they were before last night remains to be seen.

"I couldn't guess about his supporters, because I've lost all sense of anything making sense amongst the American electorate," quips an enjoyably cynical Digby today. "These people are crazy. And so is he. I am just looking at this and thought what kind of person watched that gibbering clown last night and thought, 'Wow, that is a great president'?"

"It is clear that Donald Trump has made a career out of lying to people. Now he's just a living sales pitch. But you can't out-shout kitchen table math," argues Driftglass in regard to last night's speech, before somewhat countering himself. "On the other hand, if you've ever read 1984, it's just a matter of telling the rubes what you want them to think. They are so sunk-cost bought-in to Donald Trump, they know if they don't believe it, the whole thing crashes down."

"There's a thing in aeronautics called the Jesus Nut," he continues. "It's this bolt-nut combination that holds the entire helicopter assembly together. Without it, you'd better pray to Jesus because you're going down. Donald Trump is that to them. He is the thing holding it all together. So whatever crazy crap he says, they have to believe it, they have to go along with it, because the alternative is the abyss."

When we move to the topic of whether Republicans are going to accept the Democrats latest attempt to help save them from themselves by extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies that Trump and the GOP cut --- with monthly premiums now set to skyrocket for tens of millions of Americans in the new year --- Digby believes that "Republicans are not coming to their senses."

"I think that the vast majority of the Republican caucus, in both the House and Senate, are happy to let the subsidies expire because they know they are going to lose next fall. They see the writing on the wall. And they figure, 'The one thing we did was we destroyed Obamacare.' That's been on their agenda from the very beginning. If they get nothing else out of this whole mess, they get that. They destroyed Obamacare. They don't care about how many people suffer, because this is their Great White Whale. Or Great Black Whale, I guess, in the case of Obamacare."

Driftglass, who explains that his ACA monthly premiums are set to quadruple next year for him and his wife thanks to the GOP's cuts (from about $700/month this year to more than $2500/month next year!), believes that Trump's own supporters "are going to take a huge hit, but they are going to go look for scapegoats, not solutions. And that is tragic. And it's dangerous."

He is also wistful about what has happened over the past year. "This country is now a different country than it was in 2024," he observes. "We have become a different place. We've lost our innocence. This happened after the Viet Nam War, the Civil Rights Movement. Fundamentally, this country has changed in ways we do not understand yet. And whatever happens after Trump, it is going to be a different place than you and I grew up in. And part of that is that there is now a solid block of 36% of the American public who are just insane."

We have much more insanity to try and make sense of on today's program. From the house of cards that Speaker Mike Johnson is barely hanging on to; to the release of the Epstein Files that, by law, is supposed to happen tomorrow (both Digby and Drifty are dubious, to say the least); to why it is that Indiana Republicans actually stood up to Trump's threats and refused to gerrymander their U.S. House map; to what could possibly reverse Trump's seemingly quickly sinking fortunes (and health) next year.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen helps us close out the show with our final 'Green News Report' for 2025, at the end of a program that hopefully gives you lots to chew on, worry about, think about, plan for, fight for or laugh about until we return in 2026...

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Today on The BradCast: If Democrats don't put up a candidate for every goddamn contest on the ballot next year --- in every state, county, city, town, village and hamlet in the nation --- they are out of their flippin' minds. If things continue as are seeing week after week at year's end in 2025, they could well be in a position to win any race, almost anywhere in the country in 2026. (Though they may need to demand a few ballot hand-counts to ensure the correct winner, if a disturbing new report out today is any indication.) [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Following up on huge shifts toward Democrats by the electorate in Special Elections across the country all year; an outright Blue Wave in state after state during the November 4th off-year elections last month; and another Special Election in a deep-red GOP-gerrymandered U.S. House district last week; Democrats racked up more stunning victories on Tuesday night in several Presidential battleground states, as the American electorate continues a remarkable shift toward the Left, even in races that Dems don't win outright.

Among the unofficial election results from last night, what they all mean moving forward into the critical 2026 mid-terms, and one great big red flag that voters from all parties need to watch out for next year...

• A Democrat won the Miami, Florida Mayoral runoff for the first time in nearly 30 years, defeating a Republican candidate endorsed by both Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis. She won by nearly 20 points in a city that narrowly went to Trump in the Presidential contest just last year. Eileen Higgins will also make history by becoming the city's first-ever female Mayor in a city not much more than an hour's drive from Mar-a-Lago. She ran on affordability agenda, vowed to protect the immigrant community threatened by Trump, and to take on many of the city's worsening climate change-related challenges ignored by both Trump and DeSantis in South Florida. She also promised, to roars from supporters during her Tuesday night victory speech, to build a city where "immigrants feel welcome and respected".

• There were also two Special Elections to fill vacancies in the Florida state House on Tuesday. One seat was previously held by a Democrat and the other by a Republican. While neither seat was flipped, the Democratic candidate improved on last year's results by about 11 percentage points in one case, and 15 points in the other. It was an incredibly good night for Dems in the Sunshine State, which had been moving farther and farther to the right over the past decade or more.

• In Georgia, Democrat Eric Gisler flipped a GOP state House seat on Tuesday, in a Special Election in a district that went for Trump by more than 12 points last year. He defeated his Republican opponent by just under 2 points, according to the latest unofficial tally, notching a 14 or 15 point swing for Democrats in the previously "red" state House District. The victory comes after what the state's Democratic Party described as "22 years of failed Republican leadership."

• In Albuquerque, New Mexico, two-term Democratic incumbent Mayor Tim Keller became the first Mayor in city history to win a third consecutive term. As he vowed during his victory speech on Election Night: "We are not going to allow ICE in. We are not going to let Trump come into Albuquerque." Democratic wins also appear to have flipped the City Council.

• Even in Iowa, where a Democratic candidate lost her race last night in a landslide Special Election for a vacant state House seat by nearly 40 points, the electorate shifted about 11 points toward the Democrat in the otherwise extremely "red" state House District. It was the fifth Special Election for a state legislative seat in the Hawkeye State this year. In each of them, the electorate shifted to Dems by anywhere from 9 to 15 points.

• In all, as a Bolts Magazine analysis of all 2025 state legislative elections finds today, "Democrats gained 25 state Senate and House seats that were held by the GOP, out of the 118 that were resolved this year in regular or special elections." That number outpaces the party's wins in 2017, before 2018's mid-term Blue Wave during Trump's first Presidency. Republicans flipped exactly ZERO such races over the past year. Moreover, the outlet notes, "the GOP may have gotten lucky this year: Most of the legislative elections that occurred in 2025 were for seats that Democrats already held, which limited their opportunity for gains."

• With all of that in mind, Republicans should be terrified ahead of next year's mid-terms. Even --- and, perhaps, especially --- in GOP-controlled states that have recently gerrymandered their U.S. House map (at Trump's orders) in hopes of flipping "blue" seats to "red" ones. To do that, they must make safe "red" seats a bit less safe. In Missouri, where Republicans recently adopted a new map designed to remove one of two remaining Democratic U.S. House seats, opponents are trying to block the new map by putting it on next year's ballot as a citizen's veto referendum. Yesterday, organizers of the effort let me know that they have "delivered over 300,000 signatures --- three times what was required" to MO's Sec. of State in order to force a referendum on the gerrymandering measure next November. "Under the Missouri Constitution," they said, "once those signatures are submitted, the map cannot take effect unless voters approve it." But, they are also warning that Republican state officials are "signaling they may ignore that constitutional requirement and attempt to implement the map anyway." The group, People Not Politicians, tells me they are ready to go to court immediately, if necessary, to file a challenge if, in fact, the state is "considering the nullification of its own constitutional check on legislative power."

• But here's something that Democrats and Republicans alike need to be aware of next year. The computer-tallied results from several ballot propositions in upstate New York's Rensselaer County appear to have gone sideways during last month's November 4th elections. Thanks to the tenacity of supporters of the Stephentown Memorial Library in tiny, rural Stephentown, just three miles from the state's border with Massachusetts, a hand recount of the county's hand-marked paper ballots was carried out. After a hand-recount, it was discovered that a measure to fund the town's library, initially reported as having lost 528 to 60, was actually found to have been adopted by voters 540 to 279! Several countywide measures were also mistallied as well by the County's optical scanners made by Clear Ballot. One of them, a measure that would have ended funding for a local volunteer rescue squad, was not adopted as originally reported by results of 517 to 505. In fact, the local measure was found to have been defeated --- 2,381 to 2,250 --- following the hand count! So, how could the original results have been so wildly wrong? We explain today, based on the few details we've been able to gather from local media reporting and some input from several longtime voting system and election integrity experts we reached out to.

• Finally, at the end of another very busy show, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as climate impacts accelerate in the Middle East; Repubs give another big gift to Big Oil; a MAGA v. MAHA feud breaks out over Trump's EPA rollback of toxic chemical rules; and as deployment of utility-scale solar operations sets a new record in the U.S., despite Trump's efforts to kill development of cheap, clean, reliable, renewable energy...

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Not that I hope to tip off our degenerate authoritarian oligarchy on today's BradCast. But if the Republican Party still believes in math (and it's unclear if they do), there was more very bad news for them in Tuesday's elections this week. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Unapologetically progressive Democratic candidate Aftyn Behn appears to have lost the Special Election race for the U.S. House in Tennessee's very "red", GOP-gerrymandered 7th Congressional District to stalwart Trump Republican Matt Van Epps on Tuesday. Unofficial numbers suggest she lost by about 9 points.

Sounds like a rout. But, in fact, it really wasn't. Trump won the district last year by 22 points, meaning there was a 13 point shift toward Democrats on Tuesday, precisely the average shift that we have seen toward Dems in all of the Special Elections for U.S. House this year. There are 14 counties in TN's 7th CD. Everyone of them shifted towards the left on Tuesday. That, after Republicans were forced to dump a lot of money into what should have been an easy contest on Tuesday.

While House Speaker Mike Johnson pretended not to be concerned about any of this --- "They were really trying to set the scenario that there's some sort of wave going on. There's not. We just proved that there's not." --- actual math really does suggest trouble ahead for the GOP in next year's critical 2026 midterm cycle.

With that average 13 point shift toward Democrats in special elections this year, we do a little bit of mathing on today's show. For example, last year, in the 2024 U.S. House general elections...

• 28 Republicans won their races by 10 percent or less.
• 64 of them won by 12 points or less.
• And a whopping 92 Republicans won by just 15 percent or less last year.

With a razor-thin 3 vote advantage heading into the new year, no wonder several GOP-controlled states are attempting panicked mid-decade gerrymanders, and that the corrupt Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court are likely to help them. But new maps may ultimately make their problems worse, not better, if this year's elections are any indication. Safe Republican districts made less safe with new gerrymanders to steal districts from Democratic voters may end up backfiring. Of course, I won't dismiss Democrats' ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory between now and next year. But when Johnson says, "This doesn't concern me at all," he is either lying, in denial or incredibly stupid. And he's not all that stupid.

"This is one of the biggest flashing red light warning signs we've seen yet for Republicans," a far more realistic GOP strategist observed last night. Much more on today's show.

As if that's not enough, in a stunning runoff election on Tuesday in Georgia, the Democratic candidate easily unseated the incumbent Republican Mayor in the suburban city of Roswell, outside of Atlanta. She will be the previously deep "red" city's first Democratic Mayor in nearly 30 years. But don't worry, Mike. All's well!

Also today, our disgusting racist President said a whole bunch of disgusting racist things at the White House on Tuesday about Somalia and the American Somali population in Minnesota and elsewhere, repeatedly describing them as "garbage", "people who don't work," and people who should "go back to where they came from." Where many of them came from is a war-torn nation in Africa, with thousands seeking refuge here in the 90s. Most of them are now American citizens, with many living in Minnesota, where Trump's degenerate federal jack-booted immigration thugs will reportedly be targeting them, specifically in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, with upcoming raids.

State Governor Tim Walz --- who Trump last week described as "retarded" --- as well as the Minneapolis Mayor, its Chief of Police and many other officials and immigration advocates are vowing not to roll over to Trump's racist immigration hooliganism. Similar raids are reportedly being launched this week in New Orleans, where residents are also hoping to push back against Trump's increasingly unpopular thuggery however they can.

Finally today, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report (after we had to preempt yesterday), with news on the end of disappointing U.N. climate talks in Brazil; the rising death toll following two simultaneous climate change-fueled typhoons in Southeast Asia; and the Trump Administration's latest plans to pollute your air and poison your drinking water...

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It's no easy feat getting caught up on The BradCast after just one week off during the madness of the Trump Era. But, hey, nobody said fighting to save democracy amid an attempted authoritarian takeover by a crazy, brain-poisoned, power-mad, criminal cretin was going to be easy. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

With far more to cover than we had time to catch up with, we did our level best today and took a bunch of great callers to boot! But that requires focusing on the stuff that really matters and, well, putting off the rest for another day, if ever. And the stuff that really really counts right now, in my opinion, remains the fight for democracy and voting itself.

To that end --- and many others --- we covered quite a bit of ground in very short order today. Among the many stories we touched on before opening the phones to our first post-Thanksgiving callers...

• Today, a federal appeals court unanimously upheld a lower court ruling finding that Alina Habba, Donald Trump's personal criminal defense lawyer turned U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, was unlawfully appointed.

• That ruling follows on last week's court ruling that Lindsey Halligan, Trump's even more unqualified personal insurance lawyer turned U.S. Attorney in Virginia, was also illegally appointed. That ruling subsequently resulted in the dismissal of Halligan's absurdly corrupt criminal indictments against Trump's foes, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

• Trump's belligerent, unqualified Defense Secretary and former weekend Fox "News" host, Pete Hegseth, may be in very big trouble for reportedly issuing unlawful orders to "kill everyone" in the Administration's first unlawful attack on supposed drug runners in boats in international waters off of Venezuela in the Caribbean. (More on that, I suspect, in the days ahead.)

• A quick catch-up on the various battles in the Gerrymandering Wars since we left --- in Texas, Indiana and North Carolina.

• Following the shock resignation of former(?) MAGA stalwart Marjorie Taylor Greene a week or so ago, Punchbowl News reported that a senior Congressional Republican is warning that the House GOP is "a tinder box." That "morale has never been lower" and that Republican House Speaker "Mike Johnson will be stripped of his gavel and they will lose the majority before this term is out." We'll see about that. But it's anything but inconceivable, at this point.

• Speaking of, in tomorrow's Special Election for the U.S. House in Tennessee's 7th Congressional District, progressive Democrat Aftyn Behn was said to be within two points of Republican Matt Van Epps, according to new polling last week, in a District won last year by Trump by a whopping 22 points! I wonder why morale is so low among Republicans in the House these days.

• Never mind polling. Let's look at some actual numbers following Democrats' rout of Republicans in the November off-year elections last month. A deep dive by Politico into 268 county, town and village executive seat races last month in New York --- including in deep red counties, towns and villages --- found that Dems out-performed 2017's "blue wave" election in the state, flipping, for example, more than 50 executive seats from "red" to "blue" last month. That, compared to the GOP flipping just one (1!) seat from "blue" to "red" on the same day.

• Another appeals court panel ruling while we were off --- this one from judges nominated by both George W. Bush and Donald Trump --- upheld a lower court ruling finding that a ridiculously frivolous lawsuit filed by Trump and Habba against Hillary Clinton and James Comey, claiming they tried to steal the 2016 election (or something), will, in fact, result in a one million dollar fine against the pair.

And finally, we open up the phone lines to listeners, who are, apparently, in a very lively mood after a bit of rest over the holiday weekend. Enjoy!...

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Tying up a few loose ends as another insane week wraps up on The BradCast today. But with a few laughs along the way and a song to help us over the finish line. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Donald Trump's corrupted Dept. of Justice joined a federal lawsuit filed by the California Republican Party to block Prop 50 on Thursday. The statewide measure was approved by voters in a landslide just last week at the ballot box in response to Texas lawmakers' Trump-ordered gerrymander of their state's already gerrymandered U.S. House map. It is likely to result in five "red" seats in CA turned "blue" in next year's mid-year elections. But Trump's corrupt Attorney General, Pam Bondi, with the announcement of DOJ joining the suit, hilariously characterized the voter approved measure as "a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process." She is very concerned that it will "entrench one-party rule and silence millions of Californians". Specifically, white Californians. When the suit was originally filed last week, the response from Newsom's office: "Good luck, losers."

• The longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history is now over. At least until the end of January. We detail all the loose ends, takeaways as we head into another election year, and how the Congressional Democrats' fight to restore massive Trump/GOP cuts to health care that will spike costs for tens of millions of Americans by January 1 is continuing.

• All of that, as Trump's approval numbers continue to plummet. Now, even among Republicans, as just 33% of Americans approve of Trump's management of the federal government.

• In one election from last week that couldn't be called until today, progressive, self-declared democratic socialist Katie Wilson, a community organizer and first-time candidate, appears to have narrowly won the race to become Seattle's next Mayor. She defeated the Democratic establishment supported incumbent Bruce Harrell while running on an affordability agenda being compared to Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's in NYC. The contest foretells the fascinating battle emerging between the younger, more progressive and older, more centrist wings of the Democratic Party as we move into another critical election year.

• Finally, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report, with news on the ongoing U.N. climate summit in Brazil (which the U.S. isn't even attending); Trump's newly reported plan to drill for oil off the coast of California (which Gov. Newsom describes as "dead on arrival"), and the 50-year anniversary of the tragic 1975 wreck of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, which inspired major, life-saving changes by NOAA (which Trump is decimating) and a haunting hit song by Gordon Lightfoot which also has a fascinating history that we discuss at the end of today's eclectic program...

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It's another busy day on The BradCast But what else is new? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... The U.S. House was finally back in session on Wednesday for the first time after the nearly two month paid vacation ordered by GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson during the nation's longest ever federal government shutdown. It should soon be over with tonight's House vote on an 11-week stop-gap Continuing Resolution --- at least until all of this happens all over again when the CR times out at the end of January.

With the reconvening of Congress, Arizona's newest Representative, Adelita Grijalva (D), was finally sworn in, nearly two months after her Special Election. As promised, she immediately became the 218th member to sign a Discharge Petition that, with signatures from a majority of the House, will now force a vote on the release of the Epstein Files being held by the Dept. of Justice and covered up there by order of Donald Trump. He reportedly appears multiple times in the DOJ's investigative files into the late child sex predator and Trump's longtime best friend, Jeffrey Epstein.

A vote to release those files should happen within seven days under House rules. But before Congress even reconvened today for the first time in weeks, several previously unseen emails written by Epstein were released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. They reveal, among other things, Epstein asserting back in 2011 that Trump "spent hours at my house with" a victim whose name is redacted from the documents released today. And another email from Epstein in 2019 declaring "of course [Trump] knew about the girls."

THEN... New York City's Democratic Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani ran on a so-called "Affordability Agenda" including promises of a Rent Freeze for about 30% of the city's tenants; Free and Faster Buses; Free Universal Child Care; and a pilot program for City-Owned Grocery stores across the five Boroughs.

So, how affordable for NYC is the Affordability Agenda promised by the charismatic 34-year old Muslim and self-declared democratic socialist who won by a landslide last week?

We're joined today by our old friend RICHARD (RJ) ESKOW, longtime columnist, host of the weekly Zero Hour television and radio program, and former lead writer for Bernie Sanders' 2016 Presidential campaign.

Eskow did the math on each of Mamdani's four top-line Affordability Agenda items, concluding that, at least three of the four of them, are "surprisingly affordable". Even the fourth, he finds, is also easily affordable if both city and state officials are willing to play along. That one will require raising taxes on millionaires in the city (who currently pay the same percentage of their income as a resident earning just $50,000) and on corporations, whose taxes will be raised to parity with the rate charged by neighboring states like New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire (while still remaining lower than they were before Trump's 2017 tax cuts).

"Every revolution should come this cheap," quipped Eskow after his analysis.

We run through the presumptive costs of each of the new Mayor's headline programs, discuss how they will be paid for (one of them should actually make money for the city), and why it is that these not-particularly-radical programs caused so many Republican (and many "conservative" Democratic) heads to explode during Mamdani's remarkable campaign.

These are programs for working people that "can make New York City a city for everyone again," Eskow tells me. "It's all doable. It's all affordable. The rest is just scare tactics."

He explains how the billionaires who went to war against Mamdani during the campaign simply "don't want to give up the money. It wouldn't cost them any more a year, it's a marginal tax, an incremental tax. They don't want to give up that 1%. They don't want to pay their property taxes on their luxury apartments."

"But more than that," argues Eskow, "it is the presentation. That working people deserve to have an affordable, pleasant, decent life in New York City, like they did for 200 years. I think that's what threatens them the most. And that's where the struggle comes in."

We also discuss how ginned-up fears about fairly unremarkable "democratic socialism" --- which rightwingers and billionaires like Trump tried to turn into "COMMUNISM!" during the campaign --- are both wildly misleading and little more than another scare tactic.

"If you like Social Security, if you like Medicare, if you want to strengthen and expand those programs, you may be a democratic socialist," he explains. Tune in for much more...

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Both the solutions to the problems we face and the problems themselves, are created and/or ultimately settled at the ballot box. In theory. So, once again, much of our coverage on today's BradCast --- both good news and bad --- revolves around that fact in one way or another. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

A good chunk of today's show focuses in on the fallout following Sunday's late-night capitulation by seven Senate Democrats and one independent who caucuses with them over the federal government shutdown. A central point is that the huge majority of Dems in both chambers of Congress did not capitulate. They stood united during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history in favor of holding out for the restoration of enormous cuts by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans to health care, including the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and Medicare.

And, while the shutdown's imminent end is a disappointment to many who wanted the fight to continue --- especially those who understand that the 7+1 caving Democrats received little to nothing in return for their decision to vote with the Republicans --- it's important to understand that the failure was not by "the Democrats", but by those 7+1 (and, arguably, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer who shamefully failed to prevent it) and the hundreds of Republicans in both chambers who unanimously stand by their cuts to health care subsidies that will result in skyrocketing prices --- by as much as 400% or even higher as of January 1 --- for millions of Americans, along with the loss of coverage for millions and the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands.

It's also important to notice how well the Democratic caucus hung together this time --- how they are learning to fight in the Trump era, as opposed to similar situations in the recent past --- until a handful of rogue lawmakers undermined them on Sunday night. The Senators who caved should be held to account. Not the ones who didn't. That's particularly important to remember as the Continuing Resolution now working its way through Congress to reopen the government will time out again at the end of January, when all of this may start up all over again.

Tune in for much more detail and nuance on all of the above.

Among the stories cited in support of that particular argument, and other news covered on today's program...

• Good news in the Gerrymandering Wars! A judge in Utah has ordered implementation of a new U.S. House map for 2026 that includes a new, heavily "blue" district in Salt Lake City. It will likely flip one of the state's four currently "red" seats in the U.S. House to "blue" next year.

• Donald Trump's approval ratings continue to plummet through the shutdown and last week's blowout election results for Democrats. Relatedly, eight counties in California that voted for Trump last year voted in favor of Prop 50 last week, to redistrict the state to flip as many as five "red" U.S. House seats to "blue" in response to Trump and Texas Republicans' mid-decade gerrymander. (All further begging the question about the wisdom of the handful of Senate Dems to end the shutdown before affordable health care coverage could be restored to millions of Americans.)

• While there are many reasonable arguments for reopening the government after 40 days of the longest shutdown in U.S. history, with many Americans suffering, even the right-leaning "center left" Third Way group slammed the supposed "moderate centrists" who caved on Sunday night. In a statement the group's President said they "oppose the agreement in the Senate to end the government shutdown," arguing: "This was a battle worth fighting, and it was worth fighting longer."

• Trump issued full pardons over the weekend to 77 of his personal attorneys and political allies, including the fake electors in swingstates he lost, who worked so hard to try and help him steal the 2020 election. Those receiving clemency including folks like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Ken Chesebro, Jenna Ellis, Christina Bobb, and many others involved in spreading lies about fraud in 2020, the fake electors scheme and the unlawful efforts to breach voting systems in places like Coffee County, Georgia. While many of those pardoned are facing state criminal charges, which a Presidential pardon can't change, none are currently facing federal charges. That begs the question of why he pardoned them and who else may be covered by the vaguely worded clemency statement. The Dept. of Justice's former Pardon Attorney, who was replaced by Trump, believes that the criminal President is sending a message that he has their back if they are needed to violate the law again to help him try and steal future elections.

• On Monday, the corrupt, activist, rightwing U.S. Supreme Court majority announced they would hear a case regarding the Republican National Committee's challenge to Mississippi's law that allows mail-in ballots cast and postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive up until five days afterward. The RNC and Mississippi State Republican Party argue that when Congress defined "Election Day", they meant that lawful ballots could only be cast on that day. A SCOTUS ruling in their favor, against the State, could undermine elections in some 30 states with similar laws allowing for late arriving ballots, just in time to create chaos in the critical 2026 midterms.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as a new round of U.N. climate talks kicks off in Brazil without U.S. in attendance; and as Australia finds itself with so much rooftop solar energy they are now planning to give it away for free...

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If it weren't for a handful of Democrats caving Sunday night in the U.S. Senate, we'd have spent the full hour on today's BradCast discussing last week's remarkable election victories for both the party and, more importantly, for democracy, voting rights and elections themselves. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Such as it is, however, today show is a bit bifurcated.

FIRST UP... We're joined by journalist ALEX BURNESS of Bolts Magazine. The outlet did their usual yeoman's job of covering not just the topline election contests you may have heard about, but hundreds of other smaller or more under-the-radar elections in more than 30 states last week that you likely haven't heard as much or even anything about.

Today we focus with Burness on his article last week covering five different ways that last week's off-year elections will reverberate moving forward on issues like mail voting, felony disenfranchisement, mid-decade gerrymandering and related election matters in at least five states. In almost every case --- from redistricting in California and Virginia, to restoring felony voting rights in Virginia, to a Photo ID initiative in Maine, to election scheduling in New York, to "the backstop of democracy" in Pennsylvania --- the news for voters and voting rights advocates was very good indeed. (Texas was, as usual, like a whole 'nother country. Tune in for those details.)

THEN... We turn back to the federal government shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history, following last week's enormous wins for Democrats at the polls in state after state; Donald Trump's approval rating at all-time, historic lows; and clear pluralities of Americans blaming Republicans for the shutdown, as Democrats were seen as united in their fight to restore trillions of dollars in health care cuts for millions of Americans (to the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and even Medicare) made by Trump and the GOP.

With that backdrop and the wind very much at the backs of the Dems in this fight on Sunday night, seven Democratic Senators --- Tim Kaine (VA), Dick Durbin (IL), John Fetterman (PA), Maggie Hassan (NH), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Catherine Cortez Masto (NV), and Jacky Rosen (NV) --- and one independent who caucuses with them (ME's Angus King), decided this would be the perfect time to undercut their own caucus by jumping ship to vote with Senate Republicans to allow them to reopen the government. None of the eight turncoats are facing reelection next year.

What did they get for Dems in return? The promise of a vote in the Senate, perhaps in December, on restoring Affordable Care Act subsidies. That's it. No promise of a similar vote in the U.S. House (where Republicans control the majority anyway), and no promise that Trump would even sign such a bill if the GOP allowed passage in both chambers.

In other words, at least as I see it, those 7+1 Dems got nothing in exchange for their votes, and the rest of the caucus, in both the Senate and House, is reportedly furious about it. On the other hand, thousands of federal workers will be paid again and the critical Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will now eventually be restarted...albeit at lower levels following Trump and the GOP slashing some $180 billion from the program in their so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" over the Summer.

You'll note that Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is not among those who voted on Sunday night in favor of reopening the government. He voted against it. But, of course, those seven Dems would not have moved forward without his approval. Or, if they did, it's just more evidence of what an awful Leader he is for the Party right now, and how much he needs to be both replaced as Leader in the Senate immediately and primaried out of the Senate entirely next year.

That's my take anyway. At the end of today's show we have time for just a few callers. At least one of them sees things somewhat differently --- at least, sees a brighter side to all of this --- and, for the record, notes that the Government reopening also means that there will (or should) soon be a bipartisan vote on releasing the full Epstein Files in the U.S. House. We'll see if that comes about as the week proceeds. I'm not yet holding my breath...

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Today on The BradCast: Analysis (and giddiness) continues amid the fallout from Election 2025, during which the bottom appeared to drop out for Team Trump --- at least for now --- pretty much everywhere that voters turned out in some 30 states holding off-year local or statewide elections. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We're joined today by listener faves and fellow old-school bloggers HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo and 'DRIFTGLASS' of the Professional Left Podcast in the wake of Tuesday's remarkable elections, in which Democrats and other anti-Trump voters made their opposition to the failed first year of the second Donald Trump presidency crystal clear --- even to Republicans who care to take notice.

Not only did Democratic candidates --- from the left to the center --- win, so did ballot initiatives supported by them. And, not only did they all win, they all won by huge margins in virtually every jurisdiction across the country holding elections on Tuesday, in both high and low profile contests and ballot initiatives from Maine to New York City to New Jersey to Virginia to Georgia to Mississippi to Pennsylvania to California and beyond.

"Trump and Trumpism, and this style of politics that he has brought into the Republican Party, the cult of personality that has been dominating our country over the last decade --- I think we can see a light at the end of the tunnel here," Digby argues. "Trump is now officially a lame duck. It's earlier than people thought it would be. It sent a shock-wave, I think, through the Republican Party that he's on his way out. And now, let the games begin. Because the fighting within the Republican Party is going to be a glorious thing to see."

"I was surprised how deep the coattails were, how deep the 'blue' ran in all these elections," observes Driftglass. "I am very confident now that a bunch of 'blue' states can redistrict with confidence." Rooting on Texas Republicans to please proceed with their gerrymandering, he continues: "Please, go ahead and do that. Because I think they did not understand that lots of large blocks of voters were not theirs permanently. We saw huge shifts in almost every demographic [on Tuesday]. 'Blue' won everywhere. And that should send a signal to Democrats everywhere it's okay to take risks, it's okay to be who you are, say what you believe and swing for the fences, because that is now being rewarded."

Among the many related and unrelated topics discussed today...

• The death and legacy of Dick Cheney.
• The announced retirement (next year) and legacy of Nancy Pelosi.
• The fallout from the surprising results of Election 2025.
• The media failures in the leadup to the election.
• The ridiculous, cowardly failure of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York (and other "leading" Dems) to endorse the young, charismatic Democratic sensation, now NYC Mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani.
• Are those establishment Dems more afraid Mamdani will fail? Or that he will succeed?
• Who's more of a socialist, Mamdani or Trump?
• Does Trump even know what "socialism" means, much less "communism"? (Much less whatever fairly moderate and measured affordability measures Mamdani ran on in his NYC campaign?)
• The D.C. Sandwich Guy is found "not guilty" of misdemeanor assault with a deadly hero. ("That's a 'wrap'," quips Driftglass. "Another example of the Trump Administration not knowing how courts work.")
• After Gov. Gavin Newsom's Prop 50 redistricting measure's resounding success in California on Tuesday, will other Dem Governors follow suit?
• Will Trump-ordered mid-decade GOP gerrymanders come back to haunt them next year?
• Will Tuesday's results finally bring Republicans any closer to ending the federal government shutdown?

And more! Including Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report on the critical climate races in Tuesday's elections and Brazil's successful climate fight against deforestation under its new President...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Democrats win in key climate races in the 2025 Elections; Climate change raised in Supreme Court oral arguments over Trump's 'emergency' tariffs; PLUS: Brazil's fight against deforestation is paying climate dividends... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): India's Ganga River drying at unprecedented levels; What the last gas boom (and bust) says about today's rush to build; Trailer: The White House Effect; Fishermen missing in Vietnam as Philippines mourns dead from Typhoon Kalmaegi; FAA reducing air traffic by 10% across 40 'high-volume' markets during government shutdown; Brazil launches plan to scale climate finance to $1.3 trillion a year... PLUS: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've covered a lot of Election Nights on The BradCast over the years. But it's difficult, if not impossible, to remember one where Democrats (and anti-GOP, anti-Trump voters) won pretty much everything in every corner of the country. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

True, it was an off-year election. Only about eight states even had statewide contests. But there were also local races in about 30 states. And, wherever voters voted, Team Trump lost on Tuesday. Badly. From "blue" California, to "purple" Virginia, to rural Maine, to battleground Pennsylvania, to deep "red" Mississippi and everywhere in between. And they lost by a lot in almost every case, whether it was for a candidate or an initiative on the ballot.

We run through as many reported results as we can fit in today --- both high profile contests and some that were deep under the radar --- before sharing an excerpt of the electrifying victory speech from Democratic New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who just blew the roof off the Brooklyn Paramount Theater with one of the best victory speeches I have ever seen. Actually, one of the best political speeches, of any kind, I have ever seen.

Then we're joined by longtime progressive journalist and author JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation magazine, where has been covering Mamdani, and many other progressives up and down the ballot --- along with the more centrist candidates in between --- for many months now, during the run-up to Tuesday's elections: the first time since Donald Trump took office for his failing second term that voters have been able to register their opinions about him at the ballot box in a whole bunch of states at once.

"We have had so many conversations where we are trying to find the straw" of good news following an election, Nichols observes, referencing our many post-election conversations. "But now we are in the bizarre, reverse position where, when you look across the entire United States, you are very hard pressed to find any disappointing results. And the reason for that is pretty simple. Donald Trump, a year after his election, nine months into his second presidency, it has been an unmitigated disaster."

"Last night, you got the confirmation that across this country, from New York to Virginia, to New Jersey to California --- but also to Mississippi, where they took away the Republican supermajority in the state Senate; to Georgia, where they were winning Public Service Commissions that they never win; to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Mayoral races in Iowa --- it was just across the board that Democrats won and won and won."

Beyond that, however, there are a lot of details to discuss, regarding why it happened and what message both Republicans and Dems need to take from what happened on Tuesday and, in particular, from the landslide election of the charismatic, 34-year old, Ugandan-born, Muslim, Democratic socialist immigrant whose charm offensive, good humor and promises of a tangible Affordability Agenda for NYC have now made him its next Mayor. And how, incredibly, it is even possible that many establishment Democratic Party leaders --- including U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York --- couldn't bring themselves to endorse the Democratic nominee for Mayor of NYC.

Are they most fearful that Mamdani will be a failure? Or that he will be a success?

We discuss all of that and much more on today's BradCast...

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Today was Election Day for major contests in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and California, not to mention about 30 other states which also held either statewide or local off-year contests. We'll have full reported results for you, of course, on tomorrow's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

In the meantime, there was a whole lot going on today, while America votes...

• Several polling places were temporarily closed in more than half a dozen New Jersey counties on Tuesday following threats, reportedly via email, ultimately determined by officials to be "non-credible". One local official suggested the emails may have originated "abroad", bringing to mind the emailed bomb threats that resulted in temporary evacuations of a number of polling places in at least five different battlegrounds states on Election Day during the 2024 Presidential election. Those threats were reported, at the time, to have come from IP addresses in Russia.

• Former Vice President Dick Cheney died on Monday at the age of 84. His family announced the news today. We share some thoughts.

• The Trump Administration has fired yet another government watchdog whose job it was to root out waste, fraud and abuse at a federal agency. This time, according to a Reuters exclusive, it was the acting Inspector General at the Federal Housing and Finance Authority (FHFA), whose Trump-appointed activist Director, Bill Pulte, has been issuing bogus criminal referrals to the DoJ about "mortgage fraud" purportedly committed by Donald Trump's political foes, such as New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA). The IG in this case, a 40-year veteran DoJ prosecutor, was said to have been in the process of notifying Congress that FHFA leadership was violating the law by refusing to cooperate with the Office of the Inspector General. To date, the Administration has fired almost 20 IGs at almost every major (and not-so-major) federal agency or department.

• Trump's corrupt Attorney General Pam Bondi filed legal documents on Friday in hopes retroactively fixing some pretty huge problems with the weaponized political indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and NY A.G. Letitia James. The filings attempt to rewrite history regarding the corrupt and almost certainly unlawful appointment of Trump's former insurance lawyer, Lindsey Halligan, as Interim U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. She was expressly appointed to the position after Trump's previous USA either resigned or was fired for refusing to file the politically motivated charges demanded by Trump, due to lack of evidence.

• Trump, almost certainly looking at an embarrassing loss tonight in California's Prop 50 initiative --- which would temporarily rewrite the state's Congressional map in response to a Trump-ordered U.S. House gerrymander in Texas over the summer --- was already falsely claiming this afternoon that the contest was somehow "rigged". CA's Sec. of State called out his evidence-free bullshit in a statement late today.

• Speaking of the Gerrymandering Wars kicked off by our desperate and incredibly unpopular President, Gov. Wes Moore, in the Democratically-controlled state of Maryland, announced a new Commission to consider jumping into the redistricting game before 2026. Maybe.

• Voting Rights advocates had a big victory on Friday, as one of two federal judges overseeing different lawsuits against Trump's bogus election-related Executive Order, issued a permanent ban on his attempt to mandate proof of citizenship documents by those registering to vote with the national voter registration form. The judge made clear --- as we did when Trump originally issued his dumb EO --- that Presidents have zero legal or Constitutional authority regarding elections.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with a grim humanitarian crisis brewing in Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean following last week's monster Hurricane Melissa; record rainfall in New York City; incredibly alarming glacial retreat in Antarctica; and the Trump Administration's Godfather-like thuggery used to block the world's first-ever emissions rules for international shipping...

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As the Federal Government shutdown enters its second month --- now almost certain to become the longest in U.S. history --- it's Election Day tomorrow in the first major elections since our ridiculous and criminal President's disastrous second term began ten hellishly long months ago. It is the first chance for a whole lotta folks to ring in on what theythink of this President and his corrupted Party. So, this week on The BradCast, we continue to keep our eyes on both tomorrow's major off-year elections in several states and next year's critical midterms in all 50, as that election is also already underway in more ways than one. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Tuesday is the last day to vote in statewide elections for Governor and the state House of Delegates/Representatives in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively; Mayor in New York City; and for (or against) Prop 50 in California, among other contests of note that we've been discussing and/or previewing in recent days on the program.

After a few news headlines today, we zero in on the Prop 50 statewide ballot referendum in CA, asking voters if they would like to temporarily allow the state to set aside the U.S. House map drawn by CA's Independent Redistricting Commission in order to allow the Democratic state legislature to create a new one meant to flip five Republican seats to Democratic next year. That effort is in direct response to the Republican state Legislature in Texas, earlier this year, gerrymandering their already-gerrymandered Congressional map to steal five Democratic U.S. House seats for Republicans next year at the orders of Donald Trump who, justifiably, believes his Party will otherwise lose their slim House majority next year due to their terrible, unpopular policies.

(I also share today my amusing, bemusing and confusing experience in the parking lot of an L.A. County Voting Center on Sunday, where I went to vote and was troubled to notice a County voting system IT support truck with TEXAS license plates on it?! WTF?!)

Following TX's gross mid-decade gerrymander over the summer and CA's response to it, Republicans in Missouri and North Carolina have also drawn new Congressional maps to steal two more seats from Democrats next year. So, Virginia Democrats --- in the midst of their statewide election for the entire House of Delegates --- announced a complicated, surprise plan just over a week ago that, if successful, could flip as many as three U.S. House seats in the Old Dominion from "red" to "blue" next year. It's a complicated scheme in VA, requiring two affirmative votes by two consecutive sessions of the State Legislature and then approval from voters on a statewide ballot referendum next year. All in time to redraw VA's Congressional map before primaries begin next year.

Last week, Virginia Dems in the Legislature successfully completed Phase One of the plan, as the measure was adopted by the Senate on Friday, following approval by the House two days earlier. To proceed to Phase Two, Dems must retain their majority in the 100 seat state House on Tuesday, which they currently control with just 51 votes.

Also last week, Ohio's bipartisan redistricting commission redrew the Buckeye State's U.S. House map to make it harder --- but not impossible --- for two Democratic Congressmembers to hold on to their seats in the 2026 midterms.

We break down all the new details on all of those latest battles in the Gerrymandering Wars today (and some of the battles still to come), before opening the phones to listeners here in our live Southern California listening area for their last chance before Election Day to make the case for or against Prop 50 and more...

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Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)