The headline, and stunning heartbreak over the past 24 hours, likely explain today's BradCast well enough. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

But, as Kamala Harris said today in her brief concession speech at Howard University (shared in full on today's program) after setting an example by vowing to "engage in a peaceful transfer of power" with Donald Trump...

We are joined today (much sooner than anticipated for some odd reason, after speaking with them just last week), by our old friends and fellow old-school bloggers, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo blog and 'DRIFTGLASS', who writes at his eponymously-named blog and co-hosts the weekly Professional Left Podcast from his home in "Flyover Country, Illinois."

Among the questions asked and discussed...

• What did we all miss last week during our final conversation before Election Day, when we were clear-eyed, but bullish on Harris' odds this week?
• What, if anything, could the remarkably well-run Harris Campaign have done better? And what does this actually reveal about Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss to Trump?
• Are a huge number of Americans, millions of whom voted directly against their own self-interests, cruel and stupid or just wildly disinformed by our failed and/or corrupted media?
• Why would so many Latinos vote for the guy who promises "mass deportations"?
• Will Democrats ever figure out how to counter the "perpetual 50 state campaign" that is run by Republicans over their enormous and extremely well-funded media outlets (who have also poisoned the well of otherwise legit corporate media outlets?)
• How soon and/or how badly will Trump and his Republican over-reach after taking power?
• Got any helpful advice for how best to handle all of this and move forward in the days ahead? (Turns out, they do.)

As usual, both of them have much wisdom for us...even on a dark, dark day like today for the nation and the world...

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I do realize The BradCast has been in occasional danger of late of becoming just giddy enough to, perhaps, become all but unrecognizable to some. Oh, well. Too bad. Those may be folks who are failing to realize they may be living through one of the most extraordinary moments in American political history. Lighten up. There's nothing wrong with appreciating the moment after so many years of darkness. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

But to achieve the promise of this moment, there are still a bunch of very difficult weeks and months (not to mention years) ahead. A little-noticed reminder came from the state of Florida last night --- which voted in Congressional primaries on Tuesday along with Alaska and Wyoming --- when a number of county election result websites were failing to work as expected after the close of polls. They were websites run by a contractor named VR Systems, a little-known Tallahassee firm which also runs voter registration systems in several Florida counties and other states. If the name of the company is familiar, it is likely because we would eventually come to learn in 2017, thanks to whistleblower Reality Winner, that the firm was the victim of Russian-based spearphishing attacks in advance of the 2016 election. We still don't know the extent of those 2016 attacks, nor much about what happened to cause problems on Tuesday night with their websites in Florida. But, since nobody else seems to have connected those dots in the media, it seems worth sticking a pin in here for now.

After a few quick thoughts on that today, it's back to the political history underway in Chicago this week...

"Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn't it?," former First Lady Michelle Obama rhetorically asked the packed, roaring crowd at the United Center on Day 2 of this year's Democratic National Convention. "We're feeling it here in this arena, but its spreading all across this country we love. A familiar feeling that's been buried too deep for far too long. You know what I'm talking about. It's the contagious power of hope," she explained to a packed, raucous arena of Dems, who had just gone through what was absolutely the most electrifying roll-call --- to nominate Kamala Harris and Tim Walz --- in American political convention history.

"The anticipation, the energy, the exhilaration of once again being on the cusp of a brighter day," Michelle continued. "The chance to vanquish the demons of fear, division and hate that have consumed us, and continue pursuing the unfinished promise of this great nation, the dream that our parents and grandparents fought and died and sacrificed for."

"America, hope is making a comeback!," she declared. And the crowd of Democrats reached new heights of ecstasy. And all of that before her husband, former President of the United States, Barack Obama, tried to match her with his own unparalleled oratorical skills.

We've got much, much more for you today on all of the above, as we're joined again by old friends and fellow old school bloggers HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of his eponymous blog and his weekly Pro Left Podcast.

I'm not sure I can even try to summarize our conversation today. There is Parton describing how the DNC --- just half-way over this week as of airtime, mind you --- has "far surpassed my expectations ... And having it be this unusually, upbeat, joyful, happy, enthusiastic experience. I didn't expect it. And I have to say I am truly enjoying it, which I don't normally say about political conventions."

Says Driftglass: "The media has a story they want to tell, and that story is Dems In Disarray and protesters and cops in the street. And we are denying them that story. And that's what is freaking them out. Because that is not the fairy-tale they've been telling the public for forty years, which is that both sides are bad, there's no difference between the two parties. Only when there's a breach, a radical opening in that box, can people peek through that media filter and see the actual Democratic Party. ... The base of the party is finally getting heard. And the base of the party is pretty progressive. This weird filter that everything democratic had to flow through, the people who spoke for us in the media, were Maureen Dowd proclaiming, 'What the Democrats need is an open convention.' And the base said, 'Hell no. That is not what we need. Shut up.' It seems like the progressive base, almost as one, has reached out and told them to shut the hell up, the party is actually us!"

And then there is also Desi today: "I think part of what is going on is that hope is a moving thing for the human heart. It's moving to see Democrats articulate these common values that we all hold, no matter what your political party is --- of family, of patriotism, of opportunity, of equality for all. We've all been through a collective trauma over the last nine years. Seeing this kind of hope is like therapy."

Like I said, I can't even begin to summarize it. Perhaps this is why we don't necessarily realize we are going through historic moments until long after. But, tune in to today's show to hear a bunch of battle-hardened political muckrakers watching so much of what we've been advocating for, for so long, unfolding before our very eyes.

Maybe.

But, as Michelle said, there is a contagious power of hope...

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It was a very late night for us here at your friendly neighborhood BradCast. And it's only Day 1 of the DNC. Wish us luck to make it through the week. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The DNC kicked off with a mighty bang on Monday in Chicago, amid lively speeches from a joyful, rollicking cavalcade of Democratic Party superstars, both longtime and upcoming. Before we share a few of our favorite and/or most newsworthy moments today, however, we've got to focus on some "track condition" business for this November, rather than the horse race.

The Arizona Republican Party, now joined by the RNC, is asking the corrupted rightwing U.S. Supreme Court for expedited help in purging some 40,000 perfectly legal American voters from the rolls in the critical battleground state in advance of November's Presidential election. Early voting begins there in a matter of weeks, and ballots must be printed even sooner.

At issue is a fight that AZ Repubs have been waging --- and losing --- over and over again over the past two decades. But they're still trying, clearly hoping that the current, Trump-packed, rightwing activist SCOTUS may be more friendly to their pleas. When the state was almost fully controlled by Republicans back in 2004, they adopted a law to require "documentary proof of citizenship" for those newly registering to vote. That, even though some 13 million Americans do not have access to birth certificates, etc.

But the National Voter Registration Form --- created as part of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to make it easier to register to vote in all 50 states, particularly those with a history of suppression --- requires only an attestation to citizenship, rather than documents. Courts determined years ago that AZ's state law is preempted by the NVRA.

Despite the lack of any evidence of any non-citizens registering or voting in AZ, petulant Republicans in the state then instituted a two-track registration system after losing at SCOTUS in 2013. The new system would allow those who registered to vote with the federal form (without proof of citizenship) to vote only in federal races --- for President, for example --- but not in state or local contests.

In 2018, the state agreed to a consent decree that would allow those "federal only" voters to vote in all races where Arizona was able to determine the voters' citizenship status via their own records at the department of motor vehicles. But now, AZ Republicans are suing yet again, and are being joined by the RNC, to prevent those "federal only" voters --- more than 40,000 of them in the state --- from voting either for President or by mail. And they are asking SCOTUS to decide by this Thursday, given that ballots need to be printed shortly thereafter.

All of that idiocy in a state where Joe Biden won in 2020 by just over 10,000 votes and where Republicans (as in many states) would rather prevent (certain) people from voting, than actually offering popular policy ideas for them to vote in favor of.

Then, it's back to the horse race today --- or, at least the horses in the stable preparing for the race --- as we share a number of clips from Monday's rousing Day 1 of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. There was a lot to choose from on the first night, but we share just a few of the highlights today, including Kamala Harris' surprise appearance on the evening's torch-passing from the current President; Reverend Sen. Rafael Warnock (D-GA) on taking care of our neighbors, including those in Gaza; Joe Biden's call to end Israel's war in Gaza once and for all; superstar Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Harris' support for the working class versus "two-bit union buster" Donald Trump; UAW President Shawn Fein bringing down the house again with his declaration that "Donald Trump is a scab!"; rising freshman superstar and former public defender Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) comparing resumes of the two Presidential candidates. ("She became a career prosecutor while he became a career criminal, with 34 felonies, two impeachment and one porn star to prove it."); Hillary Clinton blowing out the United Center with her impassioned recitation of the history of those women working toward finally breaking "the highest, hardest glass ceiling" of them all (amid unstoppable, if satisfying, chants of "LOCK HIM UP!"); and finally, Joe Biden's moving, heartfelt closing stem-winder, detailing an impossibly long list of accomplishments by the Biden-Harris Administration, and his vow to become the top volunteer for the Harris-Walz ticket...

And finally, as if that wasn't enough, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as environmental groups line up to endorse the Harris-Walz ticket; another catastrophic flooding event unfurls, this time in Connecticut; and new evidence finding that climate change has dramatically exacerbated both the likelihood and severity of wildfires around the globe...

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Was the Trump Campaign really hacked as they've recently claimed? If so, was it actually by Iran, as they also claim? And, If so, isn't that a far greater threat to national security than the corporate media reporting on it seem to understand, so far? Those are just some of the questions asked and answered on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... before we get to our guest today with answers to those questions, another tropical storm has spun up very quickly this week in the record hot Atlantic Ocean. Desi Doyen has the latest today on the climate change-fueled Hurricane Ernesto as it blows by Puerto Rico, which is still rebuilding its crippled power grid from previous storms, and heads toward Bermuda.

NEXT... it was primary Election Day on Tuesday in Connecticut, Vermont, Minnesota and Wisconsin with Congressional and state primaries and even some ballot initiatives for good measure. We've got several noteworthy reported results from all four states after what appears to have been a smooth Election Day in all of them, along with a look ahead and what a number of the contests may portend for November.

THEN... You probably saw the headlines over the weekend about someone calling themselves "Robert" approaching Politico, New York Times and Washington Post with what they claimed to be internal Trump Campaign documents, such as vetting documents for GOP Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance. You probably also heard that the Trump Campaign is claiming they were hacked by Iran, and that Microsoft, just one day earlier, had issued a security bulletin [PDF] stating that a hacking outfit tied to Iran had "sent a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor." (That "former senior advisor" appears to be federal convict, Republican dirty trickster and longtime Trump buddy, Roger Stone.)

So, are all of those things actually connected, as the Trump Camp is claiming? And, after Donald Trump repeatedly lauded the publication of internal campaign email documents hacked from the Clinton Campaign by Russia in 2016, how hard should we now be laughing at his own 2024 Campaign spokesperson warning: "Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America's enemies"?

It's difficult not to chuckle at how the worm has turned, but for our guest today, national security journalist MARCY WHEELER of Emptywheel, joining us to explain what is seemingly being missed by the mainstream coverage of the events --- accurate or not --- as noted above.

First, we try and sort out with Wheeler what is actually known versus still speculative, and how much of it could amount to Team Trump conflating events in hopes of playing the victim and/or protecting themselves from the publication of documents said by "Robert" to be marked as "privileged & confidential". It's certainly interesting to compare how the media have treated these internal campaign documents versus Hillary's in 2016.

But the larger concern, as Wheeler reports this week, is that since Trump doesn't seem to firewall his Campaign documents from the legal documents related to the many criminal cases against him, there are very serious concerns that whoever hacked his campaign emails --- if, in fact, they did --- may also have gained access to highly classified information related to those cases, such as the felony charges he is facing in Florida for having stolen highly classified national security information when leaving office in 2021.

"Donald Trump has not firewalled his campaign from his crimes," Wheeler tells me today. "If you were to hack their computer, it would be a gold mine. It would be a gold mine that would make all of us less secure."

"Remember, we know one of the documents charged against Donald Trump [in the stolen documents case] summarizes the 2019 plans against Iran if they attacked us," she warns. Also, there were documents pertaining to what we know about Iran's nuclear program. She says that, if in fact you have hacked email accounts from the law firm that was vetting J.D. Vance, "then you're getting a lot closer to things that go to Trump's stolen documents case. That's one of several reasons where, if the Iranians were successful, as Russia was [in 2016], you could have a snowballing effect on the national security implications here."

"Most normal humans beings firewall these things," Wheeler asserts, while detailing the way Trump's campaign business is known to have been co-mingled with his legal defense funding and more. "Donald Trump has never kept those separate. We know he hasn't kept them separate. Those are the reasons why the fact that Donald Trump may have been hacked raise additional concerns."

And, oh yeah, there is the newly revealed evidence, via the Dept. of Justice, that someone linked to Iran was recently working on an assassination plot against the former President. That, too, as she details today, plays into this initially hilarious and, on second thought, potentially horrifying turn of events...

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We are still hanging on for dear life here at The BradCast amid the past four weeks of non-stop political upheavals. But, at least this week, we've got some much more encouraging stuff to hang on to. For now. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

It remains to be seen how fleeing it all is, but over the past several days, I must say, I have never seen Democrats more united and elated as they have been since Kamala Harris ascended to become their presumptive 2024 Presidential nominee. One has to go back to the nomination of Barack Obama in 2008 for anything even close to the kind of giddy excitement and optimism we've seen since Joe Biden decided to drop out and pass the torch to Harris on Sunday. But, even back in 2008, the party was still smarting and somewhat riven over the outcome of a long and bruising primary cycle between Obama and Hilary Clinton (who wrote a very good op-ed about all of this in the Times yesterday, btw.)

The first polls taken solely after Biden's announcement and endorsement on Sunday are now beginning to trickle out, with a new Reuters/Ipsos survey taken on Monday and Tuesday this week finding Harris now up over Donald Trump nationally by 2 points. That may be a small lead, but it's a 4-point swing as compared to Trump's 2-point lead over Biden last week. Moreover, when RFK, Jr. was included in the question to respondents, Harris' lead grew to 4 points over Trump in the first polling from this outfit that has seen the former President actually losing to a Democrat since May of this year.

Furthermore, as one of our guests notes today, in the week following a party's national convention, we traditionally see a bounce for that party of anywhere from 2 to 4 points. In this one poll, at least, there is not only no bounce, but a loss of support for the GOP candidate following last week's Republican National Convention.

Of course, be sure to mind all of the usual caveats about such polls --- only one poll, margin of error, snapshot in time, national versus state numbers, etc. Nonetheless, the numbers would seem to be encouraging news for Dems after many weeks of the opposite.

To that end, we've got a lot to make sense of from the past several remarkable days, and we're joined by two old friends to help us do so. Our steadfast HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo is here once again, along with JOHN AMATO, creator of the notorious Crooks & Liars blog, for the first time in a while.

Among our many topics of discussion, debate and tomfoolery today...

• Thoughts on the extraordinary decision by and presidency of Joe Biden, including whether his decision to get out came too late or just at the right time.
• Republicans, Fox "News" and even a number of theoretically legitimate news outlets have been telling us that there is something undemocratic about what has just happened in the Democratic Party. Are they right?
• Thoughts on Harris and her rise to meet this historic moment.
• Thoughts on the ugly, racist, barely concealed dog-whistle attacks against her already emerging from the right.
• The hilarious "fraud" argument now coming from Trump and his campaign on Harris' ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket, and their astonishingly flat-footed response, so far.
• Thoughts on whether we should expect the same protests from the left that had dogged President Biden regarding his position on Israel to similarly affect the Harris Campaign.
• Some advice for those who may be experiencing a bit of PTSD following the last time Democrats nominated a woman to run for President against Trump.
• Veep Stakes on the Right!: Is Trump regretting his selection of J.D. Vance as his Vice-Presidential running mate this week? Is Vance regretting accepting the job? Is it possible he'll soon be tossed from the GOP ticket?
• Veep Stakes on the Left!: Who would our guests like to see Harris select as her own running mate? And who do they expect she will choose?

All of that and much, much more on today's lively round-table BradCast!...

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Well, this is all going well. Though, somehow, today's BradCast made me feel moderately better about it all for the moment. (See?! He's a moderate!) Anyway, I'm hoping you'll feel somehow marginally better as well after listening to today's program. [Audio link to full show follows this brief summary.]

We begin with a few noteworthy news items for helpful, or at least interesting, context...

• A new survey from a Democratic pollster finds that while Donald Trump is currently beating Joe Biden nationally by one point in head-to-head polling, Kamala Harris is actually ahead of Trump by a point in the same poll. A different Dem, who nobody is talking about (for good reason?) also leads Trump in the same survey.
• Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she stands behind the President, though offered a less than full-throated endorsement for his continuing candidacy on a cable new interview this morning, though she absolutely did not say that Biden should either "Reconsider Decision to Stay in the Race" or "consider dropping out" as New York Times falsely reported before correcting their headline, without explanation, after being called out (and after more than 200 articles focused on Biden's performance in the two weeks since the debate.)

And then we're joined for some much-needed common sense --- and a few similarly much-needed belly laughs (between tears) --- by two of our favorite roundtable guests: HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of The Professional Left Podcast.

You'll never guess what we're discussing today! But we've got a lot of it to talk about, and both Digby and Drifty are on their game.

"I will fight like hell for whoever is the top of the Democratic ticket come November," Driftglass (occasionally known as Bill) tells us. "The threat from Donald Trump outweighs every other consideration. Thus far, for the last three and a half years, [Biden] has governed the country remarkably well, steered through many crises, and done right by me. I think it's time we buckle down and say, 'Look, whoever the Democratic nominee is, is better than Trump.' Period. Full stop."

For her part, Digby concurs with the sentiment, but notes that, although there is no indication yet he plans to do so --- even with support on Capitol Hill for him to continue being lukewarm at best --- if Biden does decide to drop out: "I think that I would really, really like him to do it on the night that Donald Trump is going to accept the nomination for his party, and just stab him as hard in the back on his way out as he can, because you know that Donald Trump would do the same to him."

Now we're talking. And there is much more both insight and snark where that came from today, including discussion of...

• Wildly unhelpful and misleading corporate media coverage.
• What we should learn from the election in France on Sunday.
• Whether he can serve four more years or not, can Biden still actually win in November?
• Would Harris have a better shot?
• The disconnect between elected officials, media "experts" and actual Democratic voters on the ground.
• If Biden were to step down, is there time and process for a reasonably non-chaotic way to transition to a new candidate?
• Would Digby and Driftglass vote for George W. Bush or even Dick Cheney if one them became the Democratic candidate to take on Donald Trump?
• And who is this "Johnny Unbeatable" guy? And where should Democrats find him?

All of that and much more on today's unbeatable BradCast...

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Quite literally, as I signed off at the end of yesterday's show, a ton of alerts popped up on my iPhone with some pretty big and surprising news. News that turns out to be far more complex and/or nuanced than many seem to appreciate. So, that's where we pick things up on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... As voters headed to the polls today in New York, Colorado, Utah and South Carolina for the last group of Congressional Primary Elections before next month's Republican National Convention, we're still keeping our eyes on a primary election from last week in Virginia.

Far-right Republican Rep. Bob Good, Chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, is currently just about 375 votes, out of more than 62,500 tallied, behind the even farther-right Republican state Sen. John McGuire in the GOP primary contest in VA's 16th Congressional District. With a margin that slim --- less than 1% --- whoever is certified next week as the winner of the currently "too close to call" race has every right to seek a recount. But Good --- who was opposed in the race by both Donald Trump and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy for various offenses against them --- is already on the offensive, charging that "this race cannot and must not be certified." He is claiming (without evidence, to date) "inappropriate activity" related to drop box voting in Lynchburg City, the largest in the district, that should prevent all votes in the city from being certified. That, even before a recount, apparently.

Good's own colleagues (all largely 2020 election deniers themselves!) appear to be laughing at him. Or worse. "No one is buying it," one House Republican told Axios. "What a loser," said another. "F**k Bob Good," said still another. But a Republican-turned-independent who lost to Good in 2020 may have best summed things up: "I don't find it surprising that an election between an election denier and an election denier would end with one of them denying the election was fair based on conspiracy theories."

In any event, we'll be watching and doing our best to ensure a fair, transparent recount, hopefully by hand and overseen by the public. We'll also be popping a fair amount of popcorn as it all plays out.

THEN... News broke last night that WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange had, at long last, struck a plea deal with the U.S. Dept. of Justice after years in a British maximum security prison fighting extradition to the U.S. and, before that, seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Assange was facing charges filed in 2019 by Donald Trump's DoJ related to the release, beginning in 2010, of a trove of stolen classified documents, many of which related to alleged war crimes carried out by the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. But many of the documents were related to other things that were less than criminal or even newsworthy. And some, in fact, put a number of people in grave danger.

Moreover, as our guest --- a journalist who wrote a number of articles based on WikiLeaks documents herself --- details today, many of the documents were obtained via unlawful hacking that Assange himself appears to have participated in. Other documents published by WikiLeaks, such as a trove of emails from the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton's Campaign Chair, are believed to have been hacked by Russia and given to WikiLeaks for publication before the 2016 Presidential election with dubious or no news value whatsoever.

Still, Assange and his supporters have maintained that WikiLeaks is a journalism outfit and, as a journalist, he can't be held to account under U.S. law for simply publishing documents in the public's interest, even classified or stolen ones --- at least if he was not involved in the theft.

But there is far more to the story, as detailed on today's program by longtime, independent national security journalist MARCY WHEELER of EmptyWheel.net. As of airtime, the plea agreement detailing the single charge he agreed to plead guilty to --- reportedly related to the Espionage Act --- had not been released. But Wheeler attempts to clear up some of what she characterizes as propaganda that has long been circulated by Assange's supporters.

"His hacking into other countries started before he reached out to Chelsea Manning," the military intelligence analyst who turned over reams of documents to WikiLeaks, Wheeler tells me. Among the documents from Manning was the famous "Collateral Murder" video, revealing U.S. helicopter pilots gunning down 11 people in Iraq, including 2 Reuters journalists. Wheeler charges that Assange "tried to help Chelsea Manning break a password. Then the hacking conspiracy continued through 2016. In other words, the attempt to get other people to hack things. It was a larger hacking conspiracy that other people pled guilty to and went to jail for." All decidedly not the behavior of an actual journalist, she says.

She details the "very, very deliberate effort on the part of Wikileaks to hide the fact that the hacking conspiracy started before, and continued long after, the Chelsea Manning stuff," and notes, by way of another example, that, "in 2015, WikiLeaks helped Edward Snowden [a national security whistleblower] flee to Russia."

"That's not something journalists do," Wheeler asserts. "You might think it's honorable or heroic, but that's not something journalists ever do."

Of course, if the charge against Assange relates only to journalistic activity, but not hacking, then, Wheeler believes, it would be a serious threat to press freedoms, "this precedent of somebody being prosecuted for publishing something, especially if they've taken the hacking part away entirely."

Wheeler was "reasonably comfortable" if hacking was tied to the charges against Assange, "but once you take the hacking away, yeah, it is a terrible precedent we should all be worried about."

"Regardless of how much you hate Julian Assange, or regardless of whether you think what he did was newsworthy, just the precedent is a worrying precedent," she warns. "That may be what we're left with going forward."

UPDATE 6/26/2024: With the plea agreement [PDF] now released, Wheeler has a detailed article on the "Damaging Precedent of the Julian Assange Espionage Guilty Plea" that, as she explains, fails to focus "on the alleged hacking, which always distinguished Assange from journalists". She notes, "This plea could have been written in a way that limited the damage of the precedent. For reasons we have yet to discover (but which may have been dictated by Assange’s side, not DOJ’s), it was not.":

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with Climate Change Gone Wild as summer begins, with disastrous record flooding in the Upper Midwest compounding record heat and wildfires already over much of the country. And, with hurricane season heating up, FEMA warns of a shortfall in disaster funding if Congress doesn't act quickly...

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On today's BradCast: As of this week, if it wasn't clear before (and, obviously, for many, it was not) it is now clearer than ever that the U.S., its corporate media, the Republican Party, its front-runner for the 2024 Presidential nomination (and, sadly, even too many on the "left"), have all fallen prey --- knowingly or unknowingly (it doesn't really matter) --- to a wildly successful, decade-long Russian intel op. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

From the Hillary emails in 2016 to the Hunter Biden laptop in 2020 to the Biden Burisma "bribery" allegations that fell apart so spectacularly this week with the arrest of the man who House GOPers cited as the lynch-pin for their entire Revenge Impeachment case against President Biden, it turns out it was all part of a wildly successful foreign campaign to divide and threaten American political system.

Turns out Alexander Smirnov, that guy with the false Burisma claims about the Bidens, apparently got it all from Russian intel operatives who have, for the past ten years, been pushing all of these phony narratives straight out from the Kremlin through various useful idiots, onto the set of Fox "News" and the rest of the rightwing media, into the mouth of the disgraced former President, and straight through to the hearing rooms of the U.S. Congress where it was shared --- either knowing or unknowingly (it doesn't really matter) --- by GOP dupes.

It's quite an extraordinary success story, in truth. For Vladimir Putin. And a shameful failure of our corporate mainstream media to even notice much of it happening in real time. They also played the role of useful idiots when it counted the most over much of the past decade and right on up until today.

Josh Marshall described it as "A Bigger Story Than You Can Possibly Imagine" this week, and I believe he is correct. Much more on all of that --- and Putin's deadly rise --- on today's program.

ALSO TODAY...

• MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is not only an election denier and grifter. He also won't pay off a bet. In 2021, Lindell claimed to have obtained "irrefutable" evidence that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump by China over the Internet. His evidence was Internet data packets that he claims to have obtained from a "whistleblower". He offered $5 million to anyone who could prove the data wasn't from the election. A two-time Trump voter did so in 2022. The data, he proved, was nothing but junk. But Mike wouldn't pay up the $5 million he offered via his "Prove Mike Wrong" challenge. A private arbitration panel agreed the man was owed the money. Cheap chiseler Mike still wouldn't pay. This week, a federal judge ordered him to do so.

• Corporate media spend a lot of time focusing on Joe Biden's bad polling numbers against Donald Trump. This week, a new survey by Quinnipiac University, a major pollster, found Biden beating Trump among registered voters nationally by 4 points. So Politico covered the new survey with this headline: "Poll: Nearly 70 percent of voters say Biden is too old to serve again".

• Is it any wonder so many on the left are still under the misguided impression that someone, anyone, who knows who?, but certainly someone, should replace Joe Biden on the 2024 ballot! Because that unidentified someone would certainly have a better chance of defeating Donald Trump this year! Well, even if there was evidence of Biden not running this year (there isn't), recent polling doesn't even back up the assertion that other Dems would do better against Trump than Biden would. But, hey, if you've got a realistic scenario to replace Joe Biden that won't result in a second Trump Presidency, please feel free to email me! I'd love to hear it and maybe even share it with listeners!

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as SCOTUS seems set to gut yet another landmark environmental protection; A bizarre winter heat wave slams Japan; and the Biden Administration continues moving forward with its historic effort to replace all of the nation's toxic lead water pipes...

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We dumped a big planned portion of today's BradCast to open phone lines to listeners, in hopes of taking their end of year temperature before next year's Presidential election year begins in earnest. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Specifically, I wanted to hear from voters who claim to have supported Joe Biden in 2020, but are now planning to...do something else in 2024. Why would they want to do that with so much --- including American democracy itself --- on the line next year? They call in to explain. Lively conversations ensue.

Also today, before we took our right turn toward callers: Donald Trump is getting more and more dictator-y with each new rally and social media post of late. Over the weekend, in Nevada and New Hampshire, it was in regard to immigration (and his increasing love for fellow dictator, Vladimir Putin).

On Friday, a D.C federal jury awarded Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss $148 million dollars in their civil defamation lawsuit against the racist Rudy Giuliani, who lied about the women falsifying 2020 election results in Atlanta and turning their lives upside down ever since in the bargain. The judgment was $100 million more than they'd even asked for. And, on Monday, the pair filed yet another suit against Giuliani following new defamatory remarks he made outside the federal courthouse after the first day of his trial last week.

But ya know who was arguably the most terrified by the verdict in Rudy's case? One Donald J. Trump, who is both facing a huge multi-million dollar judgement in his own civil trial in New York State for years of fraud, even as he is facing a federal criminal trial, scheduled to begin in just over two months time, for crimes related to his attempt to steal the 2020 election. That trial will have a jury pulled from the very same D.C. federal jury pool that just awarded Freeman and Moss $100 million more than they even asked for.

Buckle up....

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I hope you'll tune in for my fascinating, informative conversation on today's BradCast with a man who spent years as a self-identified "Ultra-MAGA" --- he voted in both 2016 and 2020 for Trump and had more than a dozen Trump hats and shirts to prove it. He is now working to rebuild his life after finally escaping the "cult" to become what he describes as a "born-again human being". [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

First up, however, the latest news from the Israel-Hamas war and the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Gaza, including Biden's trip to Israel and his warning about mistakes made by the U.S. when reacting out of rage following 9/11. There is also encouraging news today that Israel and Egypt will allow some 20 truckloads of desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza, following the bombing of a hospital on Tuesday which Israel claims to be the work of a terrorist group allied with Hamas. Both dispute the evidence presented by Israel, who they blame for the tragedy that took hundreds of civilian lives.

Also, in his remarks from Tel Aviv, the President announced the U.S. will be sending some $100 million in humanitarian aid to Gaza, which presumably he will discuss more in a prime-time Oval Office address now set for Thursday night. It's unclear whether that money is already available to the White House or whether Congress will be needed to allocate it. If so, it may take a while...

The House GOP failed yet again on Wednesday to elect a new Speaker after deposing their previous one two weeks ago. In this week's second try, Ohio Republican Jim Jordan received even more GOP votes against him than he did on the first ballot on Tuesday. The House remains all but shut down now until Republicans can agree on a new Speaker or until Democrats decide to save them again. That is apparently becoming more of a possibility with each passing hour as the mess continues and as a government shutdown looms on November 17.

None of this comes as a surprise to those of us who have covered --- and have been warning about --- the Republican Party's long descent into madness and chaos over the years. It didn't begin with Trump by a long shot, but the manipulation by the narcissistic egomaniac and the rightwing media outlets which fostered it have left millions of otherwise well-meaning Americans in the MAGA lurch, as our guest today details.

RICH LOGIS was formerly a rightwing pundit and dyed-in-the-wool Trumper. He even wrote for the The Federalist Society. As he recently explained in Newsweek, he was a "four-time Donald Trump voter (twice in the primaries, and twice in the general elections)" and voted for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in both the primary and general election in 2018. "And I am here to tell you that I was wrong about all of it," he now concedes.

Today he joins us on the program to explain both how he was sucked into MAGA World before the 2016 election and what it finally took to shake him out of it in 2021, after years of damage that his obsession with Trump caused to both his family and friendships.

As a reformed "Ultra-MAGA," Logis tells me today that, as I was introducing my conversation with him, he was "thinking to myself, I cannot believe that I actually thought so much of that."

In short --- and none of this will do it justice, so please tune in to listen to our conversation --- his "skepticism of the two-party system" was the initial reason he was attracted to Trump. He notes that he says "none of this as a self defense," but being drawn in he allowed himself "to be influenced by many others, which is why that rabbit hole kept getting deeper and deeper for me as I stayed in MAGA."

He describes the "really toxic, perfect storm and amalgam of factors" that initially sucked him in. "It was a confluence of factors that all aligned themselves --- between Trump being brash, not giving a you-know-what, my dislike of the two-party system, those I was around who were influencing me --- and I came to conclude, and I know that it's going to really sound illogical, the more and more that I was around others who were in the MAGA world, in the rightwing world, the more I came to conclude that the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton needed to be stopped. Because, if they won the election, they would never lose another election ever again. And anyone who was not a Democrat was going to be rendered irrelevant in their own country. If someone really believes that, as I genuinely believed that, that person will support anyone or anything."

Logis, as you'll hear, is anything but an uneducated rube. So how could he fall victim to what he now describes as "a cult"? He tells me that "when I woke up in the morning, I thought about MAGA. I went through my day thinking about MAGA. I went to bed thinking about MAGA. God knows I probably dreamt about MAGA. And then I got up the next day and did it all over again. It was all-consuming for me. And the more I was involved in the MAGA world, the more I came to see, and believe and conclude, that I and we in MAGA were on the correct side of history, and everybody else was on the wrong side of history."

In 2021, however, as DeSantis took a right turn regarding COVID, something began to give way for Logis, as you will hear him detail, along with how he was finally able to crawl his way out of the rabbit hole.

"One of the strategies I enacted, which is so simple," he explains, "I began to diversify my information sources. I lowered the defense mechanism of the black-and-white world of MAGA, which was that everything in the national press is out to get us. I started to realize, and very painfully, that so many of the rightwing mythologies that I believed, were actually the exact opposite. The Democrats were not coming for our guns. They were not trying to replace white people. They were not trying to render anyone who was a Republican or a conservative irrelevant in their own nation."

There is much more, of course, as discussed. But Logis has, since becoming a "born-again human being," formed Perfect Our Union, "an organization dedicated to healing political traumatization" and "building diverse, pro-democracy alliances" and writes for many outlets, including progressive ones like Daily Kos, where he is known as "@Leaving MAGA".

He offers advice today on how to approach your own friends and family members who may be similarly brainwashed by the MAGA cult, and explains that while he is now a registered independent, he plans to vote for Democrats for the foreseeable future because "MAGA must be electorally defeated."

"The Republican Party is a party in name only. They are a MAGA Party. That is a party that must be electorally mercy-killed so we can then enable responsible Republicans to think about how they're going to come back and rebuild that Republican Party."

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Not only was it another historic Arraignment Day on today's BradCast, but it was also an opportunity to wish a very happy 77th birthday to our disgraced former President, who was celebrated with the circus-like atmosphere of a smattering of supporters, protesters and observers outside of the federal courthouse in Miami today. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Donald J. Trump's attorney pleaded "Not Guilty" on his client's behalf Tuesday, during his historic arraignment in the Southern District of Florida on 37 federal felonies related to his theft of hundreds of highly classified documents and repeated attempts at obstructing the government from taking them back. Those attempts included, according to the indictment [PDF] filed last week by Special Counsel Jack Smith, efforts to have his attorney Evan Corcoran commit a list of crimes on his behalf.

Former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut, detailing the seriousness of these charges yesterday, explained how highly the documents in question were classified and the "bone-chilling" concerns about specific foreign nationals who visited Mar-a-Lago under false identities as Trump stored dozens of boxes of stolen documents haphazardly in a ballroom, a bathroom, a storage room and other unsecured locations at his resort property. "There's never been anything remotely like it," Aftergut contended, adding that Trump's legal peril is "extreme" and "that prosecutors' obligation, should there be convictions, would be to ask for the maximum term of imprisonment available." That would amount to decades in prison for the Birthday Boy.

We're joined today for special coverage analysis by HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, award-winning columnist at Salon and Hullabaloo, and KEITH BARBER, a former Republican attorney who now writes for Daily Kos and Medium.

Among the many points discussed in our very lively conversation today...

• Whether Democrats previously critical of Attorney General Merrick Garland may now have changed their tune.
• The breathtaking nature of this "slam dunk" indictment and these charges.
• Whether Trump's problems finding lawyers to represent him will help or hurt in this case.
• What a lawyer would normally do when a client asks them to violate the law, as Trump allegedly did with his attorney --- and, now, likely star witness --- Corcoran.
• What should we make of the horrible Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon currently presiding over this case?
• Are we any closer to knowing why Trump refused to return the documents, despite repeated polite requests from the National Archives for over a year and a subpoena from the Dept. of Justice?
• What legal strategy should an attorney recommend at this point for Trump --- for example, to seek a plea deal to avoid jail time --- and would Trump even consider such deal?

We also spend some time debunking (yet again) the absurd claims still being made by duped Republicans that Trump is somehow the persecuted victim of unequal justice and that "Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton did the exact same thing, but were never charged for it!" Over the weekend, dopey, dishonest Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) even ridiculously claimed on Fox "News" that Trump "decided not to pursue any kind of prosecution of Hillary Clinton" and that "Joe Biden could have made the exact same decision, but he didn't. He allowed a SWAT raid on the very secure residence of President Trump."

Every point made by the lying Senator is simply false. Biden had nothing to do with the FBI search warrant approved by a federal judge after finding probable cause that Trump was committing several serous crimes, including those he's now been charged with under the Espionage Act, at his South Florida resort.

As to the handful of classified documents found at an old office of Biden's and at his Delaware home, Barber explains: "Of course they say, 'They should be treated the same!' So I say, fine, let's treat them the same. Donald Trump was not charged for anything related to any of the documents that he voluntarily returned. So, if you're going to treat them similarly, then Biden [who immediately returned all documents inappropriately found in his possession] should not be charged for any documents that he voluntarily returned. It's simple. And that is what's going to happen."

For her part, Parton dismantles Johnson's stupidly false claims about Trump having "declined" to prosecute Clinton. "There were five investigations into the Clinton email server," she explains, after writing about this very point on Monday. "There was the original FBI investigation. There was a DOJ Inspector General's investigation. There were two State Department investigations. And Bill Barr himself...named a US Attorney in Utah to also look into all that stuff. They all concluded the same thing: Hillary Clinton didn't break any laws with this."

"The facts of the case don't match at all on the Clinton thing," says Parton. "All of this is nonsense, it's what-aboutism. It is, of course, what they would do. And there are a million cases of poor schmucks that worked in the government that did much less than anything that Trump did, much lesser kinds of offenses, that actually went to jail."

All of that and much more in today's special coverage!

Finally, we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, because even as Trump now faces a total of 71 criminal felony charges in both New York and at the federal level (with more to come soon), our worsening climate crisis is undeterred and making life much much worse (and deadly) for everyone on the planet...

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Thanks, kudos and apologies to our friend Tom Sullivan of Hullabaloo for the headline of today's BradCast (even if he smartly picked it up from someone else). [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We've had a weekend of experts and pundits on the TV opining on Donald J. Trump's Friday federal indictment [PDF] on 37 criminal felony counts related to Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation of Trump's theft of documents from the White House and multiple attempts to conceal his crimes. So it was very good to hear from a lot of listeners on the matter on today's program!

That, as experts warn that comments from Republican elected officials and wannabe elected officials could result in acts of lone wolf violence, if not an organized January 6th-style attack. Just some of those folks would include GOP Trump supporters like Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), who described the attempt at accountability for Trump's criminal violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice a "war phase" requiring an "eye for an eye". And wannabe elected officials, like Arizona's losing Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake warning "Merrick Garland and Jack Smith and Joe Biden" that she and 75 million Americans who support Trump "are card-carrying members of the N.R.A." at the Georgia state GOP convention over the weekend.

Even Trump's own, wildly corrupt Attorney General Bill Barr scraped up the decency to tell Fox "News" on Sunday that the evidence in the indictment by 23 random citizens in South Florida last week demonstrates Trump is likely "toast" for having stolen highly classified state secrets belonging to the American people, not to the former President. One would think the photos in the charging documents alone, of dozens of document boxes fill with sensitive materials, stored haphazardly at Mar-a-Lago in a public ballroom, a bathroom, a storage space, his office and bedroom, would turn even the most braindead 2016 MAGA "Lock Her Up!" supporter against their cult leader.

But, alas, there remain plenty of disinformed folks out there who still actually believe Trump's preposterous claims belied by his own well-documented actions recorded on tape and by his own attorneys who documented his attempts to use them to commit crimes such as hiding the documents on his behalf and lying to federal officials about them.

And, yes, some of those still-duped folks (who admit they didn't bother to read the indictment) called us on today's show to try and make the case for Trump. A lively call-in segment ensued. Hope you'll enjoy it!

The disgraced former President will be arraigned on Tuesday in Miami at 3p ET, after which he will officially be facing a gob-smacking total of 71 criminal felony counts at both the federal level and in New York state. But there are still more felony charges to come before America's Summer of Accountability concludes...

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There has been a boatload of news from late on Friday, over the weekend, right on up to airtime before today's BradCast. That seems to happen a lot these days. In any event, we tried to keep up or get caught up with a whole bunch of it today, and to take calls from a diverse range of listeners on almost all of it.

Among the topics and news items we discussed today (along with a number of callers who saw some of these things differently than me...at least when their calls began)...

• The House GOP's dangerous plan to hold the nation's borrowing limit (and the nation's and world's economy along with it) hostage to their disingenuous demands to cut spending programs such as Social Security and Medicare. The White House is refusing to negotiate on the stupid, statutory debt limit, but should they?

• The corporate media's ridiculous coverage of some more classified documents discovered at Joe Biden's home over the weekend, thanks to a 13-hour consensual search by the DoJ that uncovered a few more documents. Despite the entirely different nature of this case as compared to Donald Trump actually stealing classified documents, refusing to return them, even after subpoenaed, and lying to officials about them, corporate media outlets --- and elected Democrats who are too cowardly to challenge them --- are painting the two cases as somehow similar. Or, at least, claiming that Biden's case means charges cannot not be be brought against Trump for some reason. As explained, that is absurd.

  In fact, this is the "Goofus and Gallant" of document scandals, as fans of Highlights Magazine from the dentist office of your childhood may remember. Goofus (Trump) stole documents and, when caught, lied and refused to return them. Gallant (Biden) discovered he had documents he wasn't supposed to have, promptly notified authorities and returned them. As explained today, if anything, that stark difference should make it more, not less likely that Trump is charged. Or even that both are charged. But to suggest Trump can't be charged now --- as media and some Dems are doing --- is patently ridiculous. We discuss. Including with callers. One of whom tells us she also got in trouble regarding classified documents that were accidentally mishandled by someone who worked with her.

• An 11th victim was pronounced dead shortly before airtime today in the mass shooting that took place at a dance hall Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, just east of L.A. over the weekend. One interesting caller tried to make the case that the problem with all of these mass shootings is not semi-automatic weapons with extended magazines that can kill dozens of people within second. The real problem is mental health issues in America, he argued. Our conversation was very interesting, I thought. You'll let me know if you agree.

• Four more Oath Keepers were found guilty today of Seditious Conspiracy for their part in attacking the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection on January 6, 2021. The leader of that conspiracy, however --- the disgraced former President --- has yet to be charged.

• The idiot infamously photographed putting his feet up on the desk in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office during the Jan. 6 insurrection was found guilty today on all 8 counts on which he was charged after just two hours of jury deliberation. He also brought a weapon into the office with him and stole an envelope. Apparently, the jury didn't buy his "I was just looking for the bathroom" defense.

• A few thoughts on the nearly $1 million in sanctions slapped on Donald Trump and his attorney last week by a federal judge in response to a laughable dismissed-with-prejudice lawsuit filed by the former President against Hillary Clinton, James Comey and more than a dozen other FBI agents and elected officials. The largest single recipient of those sanctions will be Clinton, who Trump will have to give nearly $172,000 to. But Trump's litigation grift continues, as our own Ernie Canning wrote about here earlier this afternoon.

• Another reminder today as to why elections and democracy matter. On Friday, the newly-elected Attorney General and newly-elected Governor in Arizona --- both Democrats for the first time in years --- finally put the state's death penalty on hold, following an horrifically "botched" execution that took more than two hours to complete in 2014. Hopefully, this will eventually result in a full moratorium on the barbaric practice in the state. None of this would have happened had Republicans been elected as Governor or Attorney General last November.

• And, though I don't believe I raised the issue myself today, a caller rang in to explain why Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine is actually all the fault of the United States...or something. I disagreed and explained why. But, in fairness, as we got to the call very late in the hour, I had to end it much sooner than I would have liked. Hopefully we can pick it up again with more time the next time we're able to open up the phone lines! Always happy to have the conversation and appreciative of all of today's excellent callers!

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"Everything Donald does is transactional," Mary Trump, a licensed psychologist and niece of the disgraced former President has explained.

A scathing federal court decision late last week, awarding nearly one million dollars in sanctions against Don the Con and his attorney in response to just one of his many recent frivolous lawsuits against perceived political enemies, underscores Mary's point. It also details how, since leaving office, 2020's biggest loser has engaged in and continues to engage in a litigation grift.

The withering 46-page order [PDF] handed down last Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks in Donald J. Trump v. Hillary Clinton, et al. does more than explain why the veteran federal jurist awarded an eye-popping $937,989 in attorney's fee sanctions against the former President and his New Jersey lawyer, Alina Habba. The erudite legal ruling also contained an in-depth discussion of more than a half-dozen other deceptive and frivolous lawsuits that this "predator" and "successful sociopath" filed against those he has long hoped to paint as enemies since leaving office.

In an attempt at reversing his more than 7 million vote loss at the polls, Trump and his allies filed and lost 61 out of 62 post-election lawsuits. The cases were so devoid of merit, so replete with deceptive allegations, that many of the former President's attorneys were later confronted with ethics complaints and sanctions ranging from fines, to censure and even disbarment.

In the aftermath of that debacle, a normal, non-sociopathic person would have slunk off towards oblivion, tail between his/her legs. Not The Donald.

From a "transactional" perspective, those 61 "losing" cases were a smashing success. They provided the failed President an opportunity to rake-in $250 million from his gullible "base".

But, along with imposing nearly $1 million in attorney's fees sanctions --- including almost $172,000 that Trump will now have to pay out to perhaps his greatest perceived personal nemesis, Hillary Clinton --- Judge Middlebrooks expressed the need to remediate the harm caused to the 31 named Defendants, whom he regarded as the victims of an "abusive" and "completely frivolous" complaint. His Honor eviscerated Trump's lawsuit as one "that should never have been filed"; a lawsuit that was drafted only "to advance a political narrative; not to address legal harm caused by any Defendant." The veteran and very able jurist also expressed a hope that the eye-popping amount of court sanctions might act as a deterrent.

Nonetheless, as long as Trump's litigation fundraising continues to rake-in enormous sums, it's unlikely that anything short of criminal prosecution for some of his many alleged crimes will ultimately accomplish that worthy goal. Maybe...

Today on The BradCast: Naturally. Now they're coming for citizen ballot initiatives too. They really do hate democracy, don't they?

But, first up today... As we await several criminal indictments hopefully headed the way of our failed, twice-impeached former President, an order released by a federal Judge in Florida last night was particularly satisfying.

It came in response to a motion for sanctions by Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and more than a dozen other defendants in a failed lawsuit filed by Donald Trump and his latest foolish attorney/sucker, Alina Habba, last year. In fact, the first version of Trump's suit was so deficient and devoid of facts or even actual charges, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks was kind enough to allow them to refile it before dismissing the second, longer, but no better version with prejudice.

On Thursday night, Judge Middlebrooks, in a blistering (and I mean blistering) 46-page order [PDF], explained why he was granting the defendants' request for sanctions. He began thusly: "This case should never have been brought. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim. ... Thirty-one individuals and entities were needlessly harmed in order to dishonestly advance a political narrative. A continuing pattern of misuse of the courts by Mr. Trump and his lawyers undermines the rule of law, portrays judges as partisans, and diverts resources from those who have suffered actual legal harm."

And that's just the first two paragraphs! It gets even more brutally scathing from there, before concluding with an order for Trump and Habba to pay nearly $1 million to the defendants for the "completely frivolous bad faith" suit brought for "an improper purpose" amounting to "abusive litigation tactics." Perhaps most fun: the single biggest award of fees for a single defendant went to Clinton, who Trump must now pay almost $172,000!

Then, in more serious news today... Progressive citizen ballot initiatives did exceptionally well in 2022, on everything from abortion rights to the legalization of marijuana to the expansion of health care. Yes, even in so-called "red" states. As it turns out, progressive ideas seem to be wildly popular among voters of all stripes! And there is likely much more to come in 2023 and 2024, on abortion rights, minimum wage, gun safety, independent redistricting commissions and much more.

Therefore, in a number of states where Republicans have locked themselves into power with gerrymandered legislatures, they are moving toward making such statewide exercises in "direct democracy" more difficult to get onto the ballot in the first place, and hoping to make them harder to adopt by raising the threshold for passage, for example, from 50% to 60% where they can get away with it.

We're joined today by CHRIS MELODY FIELDS FIGUEREDO, Executive Director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center to discuss both progressive successes on statewide ballot measures around the country in 2022 and what the GOP is now doing to try and prevent those successes from happening again.

"That was a huge moment last year in a trend that I know is going to continue as we look at 2023 and '24, where we really see, in many states, that our elected officials are out of touch with the people," Figueredo tells me. "And in most states where they tried to limit the ability of the people to bring forth issues to their community through the ballot measure process, in most cases those were rejected in the states. So there's a lot of opportunity ahead of us."

But, she cautions, "We are seeing a direct backlash to what is happening across the country, of progressive issues winning when they're put before the voters. We're not seeing those changes, which the people say are urgent and important, through our representatives in government, whether it's at city council, whether it's at the state legislative level, and even in the federal government."

We've got a lot to discuss on all of this, including where the direct democracy ballot initiative process has seemingly been captured by corporate interests (in states like California) and about the dozens of states which still don't even allow citizens to place measures on the statewide ballot at all.

I'm also curious how much of the new blowback against such initiatives Figueredo attributes to the number of them in recent years that have instituted independent redistricting commissions in hopes of breaking gerrymandered strangleholds that the GOP still has on many state legislatures. "You have to connect the dots," Figueredo responds. "I think this is ultimately the question that is before us right now in our democracy. Is it of, for and by the people? And who ultimately has the power to make decisions for all of us? That's what's at stake right now."

"It's ultimately this question about power. You can connect the dots. And if we are looking at the ballot initiative process, or the initiatives in general, as a tool for power in our democracy, then yes, if you are an elected official who does not agree with people who may be your constituents and it doesn't fit your agenda, then your next step would be to undermine or weaken the will of the people."

There is much more in our conversation today, including what the U.S. Supreme Court may soon do to gut all such statewide initiatives regarding elections in their upcoming Moore v. Harper decision. Please tune in!...

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