We pick up on today's BradCast with something that came up at the very end of yesterday's program. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

After I raised the question we've been discussing of late, regarding why Donald Trump is seemingly dismantling the U.S. Government from top to bottom, despite the unpopularity of the bulk of his actions, our friend 'Driftglass', one of my guests yesterday, suggested that everything Trump was doing was clearly very popular with Russia and its strongman President Vladimir Putin.

Democratic U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley came at the same the point during a confirmation hearing this week for two Trump nominees in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Is President Trump a Russian asset?," the Oregon Senator asked Deputy Sec. of State nominee Christopher Landau directly, before detailing one thing after another that Trump has done, particularly regarding Ukraine, that would seem to directly benefit Putin.

"What else could a Russian asset actually possibly do that Trump hasn't yet done?," he asked both Landau and Matthew Whitaker, Trump's nominee to be Ambassador to NATO. Tune in for Merkley's full line of questioning and the two nominees' embarrassingly evasive answers.

Relatedly, and amusingly, Elon Musk's AI chatbot called Grok, was asked a similar question this week. The query asked Grok to "use all publicly available information from 1980" through the present to determine: "What is the likelihood from 1-100 that Trump is a Putin compromised asset"?

We share part of the detailed answer, as Musk's AI explains why it estimates "a 75-85% likelihood Trump is a Putin-compromised asset, leaning toward the higher end due to the consistency of his behavior and the depth of historical ties."

Well, that's probably embarrassing for Musk's co-President.

As to Merkley's question about what else a Russian asset could "actually possibly do that Trump hasn't yet done," while Trump's nominees tried to change the subject rather than answer that question, Reuters offers an exclusive today that offers such an answer. The outlet is reporting that Trump is readying plans to revoke legal status for some 240,000 refugees who fled to the U.S. from Ukraine after Russia's invasion of their country. They also cite reporting from CBS News last week that Trump is planning to revoke legal immigrant status for as many as 1.8 million migrants here legally from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela and, perhaps most alarmingly, Afghanistan.

Reuters details the case of a former Afghan intelligence officer who served as a CIA asset identifying "High Value Targets" for the U.S. during our long war there. He was granted a two-year parole by the U.S. in January of 2024, on the very strong recommendation of his CIA handler after the Taliban retook Afghanistan. The man, with no criminal record, identified as Rafi, was recently detained by ICE when he showed up for a regular check-in, in advance of an asylum hearing scheduled for next month. When Reuters inquired with ICE as to why they were keeping Rafi in detention, they were told that immigration policies for Afghan refugees who aided Americans were "ended on January 20, 2025," the day Trump was sworn in to office.

If it's not clear by now that Republicans are lying when they claim to support "legal" immigration, they're just against people coming here "illegally", then the stunning story of what the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) tweeted last night about Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) --- a 40-year American citizen who came to the U.S. lawfully as a child 60 years ago, and delivered the Spanish-language rebuttal to Trump's address to Congress on Tuesday night --- may be an eye-opener for you.

Finally, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report, rebutting a litany of environmental and energy related lies that Trump unleashed during his Congressional address, and much more...

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"This country has gotten bloated and fat and disgusting and incompetently run," said the President of the United States today before his first Cabinet meeting. At least he's right on that last part, as detailed on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Donald Trump and Elon Musk's corrupt gaslighting of the nation continues, as their DOGE Bros continue to violate the law by cancelling contracts they have no legal right to, in the supposed name of "government efficiency" and cutting "waste, fraud and abuse" from the federal government. And yet, they've been unable to find any evidence of any fraud or abuse to date. Other than their own.

The only transparency DOGE has offered to document their "cost-cutting" claims at federal agency after agency is a so-called "Wall of Receipts" claiming to have "saved" $65 billion for the American people. But multiple analyses of those "receipts" by news outlets and people who understand how government contracting ... and math ... and reality ... actually work, have found error after error. The actual savings from canceled contracts and public services to taxpayers is closer to $2.5 billion, rather than $65 billion (which is chump change in the U.S. budget either way). The DOGE Bros seem to have acknowledged as much when they quietly removed their top five largest so-called spending cuts from their website in the middle of the night on Tuesday without notice or explanation.

As these clowns and liars continue their attempted national gaslighting, pretending to cut "waste, fraud and abuse" in government grants and contracts, Musk awarded his own company, SpaceX, a huge new federal government contract to deploy some 4,000 Starlink Internet terminals for the FAA. Given that Trump has fired all of the Inspectors General who would certainly have flagged the obviously grotesque conflicts of interest involved in such an arrangement, Musk --- whose companies and tens of billions in government contracts had previously been regulated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (which are all now being gutted, killed and/or neutered by Musk himself) --- he's probably got nothing to worry about.

Nonetheless, as federal judges continue to order pauses on much of Trump's most unlawful activities for the moment --- (or try to, the Administration apparently doesn't find it necessary to follow court orders) --- Musk is further gaslighting and poisoning MAGA brains on his social media cite, calling for the impeachment of "unelected" judges who, he charges, are threatening democracy...by standing up for the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.

Also today, Desi Doyen explains the breaking news on Trump's EPA Administrator attempting to roll back agency scientists' 20-year old finding that greenhouse gasses cause global warming and, therefore, pose a threat to the health of Americans. That "endangerment finding", according to SCOTUS almost 20 years ago, means that the EPA must regulate greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act. So now, the Administration is trying to fraudulently UN-find the EPA's landmark finding under Trump's corrupt, new leadership.

Finally, in related matters, Desi has our latest Green News Report, detailing new studies on the quickening melting of the world's glaciers; sea ice plummeting to record lows among ridiculously high temps in the Arctic; and Trump's order to shut down all, already-operating EV charging stations at federal facilities. Because, ya know, Trump is just cut government waste, fraud and abuse, right?...

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When we allow a felon to become President of the United States (thanks, in no small part, to extreme rightwing activists on the Supreme Court ignoring and rewriting the 14th Amendment), it's not surprising that he'd quickly begin violating laws and undermining the U.S. Constitution. When that felon also hopes to be a dictator, we certainly shouldn't be surprised that one of his first targets is the Constitution's landmark guarantees of a free press, as discussed on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

FIRST... Unfortunately, the First Amendment isn't the only one Donald Trump is hoping to dismantle. According to nonprofit news outlet CalMatters, ICE has already begun rounding up migrant workers in Central California, resulting in about 75% of farm-workers staying home this week during peak harvest season for oranges and other produce in America's "Salad Bowl". If that continues longer term, economists are predicting "absolute economic devastation" locally, skyrocketing food prices and shortages across the country nationally, along with a "recession-level event if this is the new long-term norm."

In related news, Trump's Executive Order signed on Monday, seeking to redefine, by fiat, the text and clear meaning of the 14th Amendment's very first sentence establishing birthright citizenship to anyone born here, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents, ran into its first legal roadblock in Court on Wednesday. A Reagan-appointed federal judge declared today that the Order "boggles the mind," calling it "blatantly unconstitutional". He temporarily paused the Order nationwide in the first of five different challenges brought by 22 state Attorneys General. If allowed to be enacted, as one of the challengers argued in court today, it would "impact hundreds of thousands of citizens nationwide who will lose their citizenship under this new rule."

THEN... Trump doesn't seem to much care for the First Amendment either. And, shamefully, a number of mainstream broadcast news outlets owned by major corporations have been all too eager to help him dismantle it. See Disney-owned ABC News' pathetic agreement in December to settle Trump's absurdly frivolous lawsuit with blatantly unconstitutional claims. Instead of fighting the defamation suit, they agreed to contribute $15 million to Trump's Presidential Library fund. See also the reports last week that Paramount-owned CBS News is in talks to do the same thing over another ridiculous complaint that 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris in a way that Trump didn't like.

While those outfits are settling private lawsuits, Trump's new Federal Communications Commission Chair, Brendan Carr is weaponizing the FCC to go after the same news outlets. Last week, President Biden's outgoing Chair dismissed several specious complaints against ABC, CBS and NBC that echoed Trump's private lawsuits, declaring "the FCC should not be the President's speech police" and that "the FCC should not be journalism's censor-in-chief." This week, however, the newly seated Carr un-dismissed those complaints (if not the ones against a Fox affiliate, for some reason).

We're joined today by JOHN BERGMAYER, the Legal Director at good government group Public Knowledge. He charges that "Chairman Carr has made it plain he intends to weaponize the FCC to threaten political speech and news coverage he disagrees with." You're not surprised right?

"We have things like defamation law against a public figure, but you can't just prove that they are wrong, or you disagree with them, or they're being unfair or 'mean to me'. You have to prove they are 'actively deciding to harm me' through conscious deception," Bergmayer explains today. "That's a very hard standard to meet. I don't think any of these cases meet the very tough requirements for the FCC to decide in the complainants favor."

He also adds: "It's really notable that Chairman Carr did not reinstate a complaint that was against a Fox affiliate in Philadelphia, that was based on the Fox affiliate airing information that it knew, that was judged to be, defamatory."

"It really is a troubling sign that the current Chairman views these regulatory tools as a means to advance his cultural and partisan agenda," Bergmayer tells me. "What's particularly disturbing is that the Chairman wants to pick fights with the First Amendment rights of broadcasters or use dubious theories of law to go after perceived slights by Big Tech."

We also discuss the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling earlier this month that appears to end the FCC's ability, as a federal agency, to ensure Net Neutrality and an Open Internet (not that Trump or his FCC would have any particular interest in doing so.)

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, following an unprecedented blizzard in the U.S. South; yet another new, climate-changed fueled fire amid record dry weather here in L.A. County; Trump's delusional claims about California's water supply; and more...

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We were promised there would be "shock and awe" and "rolling thunder" in the first few days of felon Donald Trump's second Presidency. Instead, as one of our guests on The BradCast quips today, what we've got, so far anyway, is more like "drooling thunder." [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Before we get to our guests today, some quick news...

• Just as firefighters have largely gained control of the two largest, still smouldering fires out here in Los Angeles, and residents who still have houses standing are finally returning from long evacuations, a new, very fast moving blaze, dubbed the Hughes Fire, erupted in northern L.A. County, near Castaic, on Wednesday afternoon amid continuing, exceedingly dry and windy conditions.

• Meanwhile, back in D.C., the Trump Administration is continuing to pretend there is a "national emergency" at the southern border (there isn't) --- despite Donald Trump's false declaration on Monday --- by sending thousands of more U.S. military troops there. They will join others who are doing largely logistical work, such as data entry and vehicle maintenance. But the new deployments may free up ICE agents for promised raids in U.S. cities in coming days.

• Moreover, after Trump spent the last four years falsely claiming the Dept. of Justice was "weaponized" by the Biden Administration, the new Trump Administration is weaponizing the DoJ to investigate and prosecute local and state officials who are not sufficiently cooperative with upcoming federal round-ups of undocumented migrants.

• Finally, Trump is rolling back Lyndon B. Johnson's landmark 1965 post-Civil Rights Act Executive Order barring discrimination in federal contracting and other federal programs. In Orwellian language, Trump's new Executive Order claims that programs meant to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion by barring discrimination amount to "discrimination". He has ordered federal anti-discrimination staffers put on immediate leave and all anti-discrimination programs immediately shut down.

Those moves were all largely expected, even if variously obnoxious, offensive and performative. In fact, while we had been told for months that Trump, having learned from experience and having shed all of those loser non-MAGA appointees from his first term, was ready to unleash holy MAGA hell on Day 1. So far, however, most of his poorly-written Executive Orders have either failed to include much "shock" or "awe", much less actionable items. The only real surprise is that he decided to issue pardons and/or clemency to more than 1,500 of his fellow January 6 felons and insurrectionists, including hundreds who violently assaulted law enforcement officials that day.

My guests today, two longtime progressive bloggers, are decidedly unimpressed with what they've seen so far. We're joined today for the first time in the new year by our old friends HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo blog, and DRIFTGLASS, author of his eponymously-named blog and co-host of the weekly Professional Left Podcast.

The Inauguration was "ridiculous," Digby tells me. "The fact that they had these oligarchs sitting behind him --- it's a joke. It's going to be remembered forever. It was the Oligarch Inauguration. That was a stupid mistake." She sees Trump's Executive Orders as "full of holes" and "absolutely unprofessional. All these months that they were supposedly putting this stuff together, it turns out that it's the same old sloppy garbage that they had done in the first term."

Driftglass argues that "nothing that happened during the entire Inauguration was anything but performing for his base," while cautioning: "When things actually hit the ground and hurt people, we should take it seriously. But this was all chaff, smoke and mirrors to make his base happy."

He warns, however, that "the amount of corruption" in this Administration "is going to be epic. The amount of looting, straight up looting, is going to be epic." So epic, in fact, he predicts "that it's going to affect the rest of the world. They're going to be taking everything but the kitchen sink, and it's going to have a direct effect on the economy."

As usual, both have got much more to say and make sense of in this historic moment. They concur that Trump has really stepped in it with his pardons of violent insurrectionists and attempted January 6 cop-killers. Do they feel the same about Joe Biden's last minute pardons for U.S. House January 6 Committee members and preemptive pardons for members of his family? Tune in to find out about that and much more, including our conversation about Episcopal Bishop, Mariann Edgar Budde, who, during this week's Inaugural Prayer Service attended by both Trump and J.D. Vance, dared to quote both Trump's own words and Christian scripture to plea with the new President to show mercy to marginalized people like migrants and those in the LGBTQ community.

"That was an act of pure Christian action and bravery in the face of tyranny," Driftglass says. "She really is a resistance hero," asserts Parton. "And I hate to say it, but the minute I heard that speech, the first thought that came to my head, as horrible as it it was: 'I hope they have security for her.' Because I am very worried for the safety of this woman. That is the country we are living in."...

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On Day 2 of the second corrupt Trump Presidency, we catch up on today's BradCast with the destruction he wrought (or attempted to) on Day 1, just hours after he became the first convicted felon, adjudicated rapist and adjudicated insurrectionist to be sworn in as President of the United States. And it all just happens to come, coincidentally, on the 15th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's horrific 2010 Citizens United decision, which helped make so much of this day possible. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Given Donald Trump's "flood the zone" strategy, including scores of Executive Orders, Actions, Directives and Memoranda signed on Monday (much of it for show, some of it dangerously real) we try to cover a lot in a very short time on today's program. I'll do my best to quickly summarize at least some of it here...

• Since MLK Day was largely preempted by yesterday's Inauguration (and our 2025 Inauguration Counter-Programming Special --- thanks to many for the kind words about it!), we begin today with a piece of Martin Luther King's 1967 "Blue Print" speech to a group of students in Philadelphia that, surprisingly, served as inspiration for us today!

• Please note: It has now been more than "24 hours" since Trump was sworn in (and since he was elected in November, since that was the original, oft-repeated promise) and Russia's horrific war on Ukraine is still raging anyway.

• Trump signed scores of orders on Monday night, though the most immediately substantive was his "full, complete and unconditional" blanket pardons for about 1,500 January 6, 2021 insurrectionists and seditionist --- including the leaders of the far-right paramilitary groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were found guilty and sentenced to more than a decade in prison for Seditious Conspiracy, in their treasonous (if failed) attempt to help Trump steal the 2020 election. Many of the violent domestic extremists who were released from prison today attacked law enforcement officers on that awful day at the U.S. Capitol, "armed with firearms, stun guns, flagpoles, fire extinguishers, bike racks, batons, a metal whip, office furniture, pepper spray, bear spray, a tomahawk ax, a hatchet, a hockey stick, knuckle gloves, a baseball bat, a massive 'Trump' billboard, 'Trump' flags, a pitchfork, pieces of lumber, crutches and even an explosive device." But all is now, apparently, forgiven with Trump's pardons, despite the assertion on Fox "News" just one week ago by then Vice President-elect J.D. Vance that "Obviously, if you committed violence on that day, you shouldn't be pardoned." But that was a week ago, and this is now, when, with today's release of the January 6 terrorists, Trump now has his own domestic paramilitary if and when needed. And those who testified against them originally, including law enforcement officers, are now, understandably, very concerned for their own personal safety.

• Trump signed an Executive Order declaring a "national emergency" and "invasion" at the southern border, where there is no such emergency or invasion. But now he has a pretext to invoke the military wherever it may be needed to round up, arrest, detain, imprison and deport undocumented migrants and asylum seekers, among other things.

• Trump signed an Executive Order claiming to end the 14th Amendment's Constitutional right to birthright citizenship, even as historian and tyranny expert Timothy Snyder helpfully reminds us: "A president’s executive order cannot undo a law or a Supreme Court decision, let alone a provision of the Constitution. Forget that and you do have a dictatorship on day one." That EO is already being challenged in court by 24 states.

• Trump, who miserably failed to handle the COVID pandemic, which killed more than a million Americans, signed a declaration withdrawing> from the World Health Organization.

• Trump signed an Executive Order revoking Joe Biden's landmark 2023 Executive Order on AI safety.

• Trump signed Executive Orders "protecting women from radical gender ideology" and declaring there are only two immutable sexes: male and female, as determined by whether they are born with eggs or sperm.

• Trump revoked a 2021 Biden Executive Order calling on federal agencies to promote voting access and expand voter registration. Trump and Republicans will have none of that! What do you think this is, a representative Constitutional democracy or something?!

• Trump also rescinded a Biden era Executive Order that had repealed an Executive Order from Trump's first term that attempted to game the U.S. Census for partisan gain by, among other things, attempting to exclude non-citizen residents of the U.S. from the count of the "whole number of persons in each state", as per the 14th Amendment, for the first time since the very first Census was carried out in 1790.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our first Green News Report of the second Trump era, with more on his Day 1 efforts to use Executive Orders to undermine the climate, the health of Americans, the livability of the planet, and the U.S. economy along with it. Trump signed Executive Orders declaring a "national energy emergency" (which is not a thing that actually exists); to stop all off-shore wind projects (what happened to that "national energy emergency"?!); and to join with Iran, Libya and Yemen by withdrawing (yet again) from the landmark, voluntary Paris Climate Agreement, a move that could end up costing the U.S. hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars via lost leadership, technology and manufacturing of clean, renewable energy...

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I suspect it's gonna get much uglier before it's all said and done. And we're here for it! A "MAGA Civil War"? Count us in on The BradCast! [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

But, first up, some other news today...

• Repeated "wildfire weather" warnings from the National Weather Service for Los Angeles, predicting "a life-threatening, destructive windstorm," with wind gusts as high as 100mph(!) from Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday morning, after months of dry weather appear to have been prescient. The day started here with a neighbors huge tree limb blowing over to crush our backyard canopy amid the gusty winds. By shows end today, tens of thousands being evacuated from a quickly growing wildfire in Pacifica Palisades, on the coast. It has gotten much worse since we got off air today, with hundreds reportedly abandoning their cars on the Pacific Coast highway to flee encroaching flames.

• In what counts for Trump criminal accountability court news these days, his favorite federal Judge/tool, Aileen Cannon in Florida, who was seated at the very end of his first term after he lost the 2020 election, , is working hard for her promotion to SCOTUS. On Tuesday, she exercised dubious authority to block the release, at least for now, of Special Counsel Jack Smith's report on Donald Trump's two different, now-abandoned federal felony indictments for stealing thousands of pages of highly classified national security documents upon leaving office, and for his failed attempts to steal the 2020 election. We'll see how long her ruling stands.

• Meanwhile, in New York, an appeals court on Tuesday rejected Donald Trump's attempt to stay his criminal sentencing, still scheduled for Friday, in the case in which he was found guilty of 34 felony fraud counts related to his hush money payments to a porn star to help him cheat to win the 2016 election. Barring any surprises, the sentencing is still on for this week, though the judge in the case has indicated he is unlikely to issue any jail time, given Trump's re-election. But, even with an "unconditional discharge", he will still become the nation's first convicted felon to be sworn in as President.

• On Monday in New York, in federal court, former NYC Mayor turned disgraced Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani was found in contempt of court for failing to lawfully respond to the $148 million defamation judgement against him won by Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who Rudy and Trump both falsely claimed had committed fraud during the 2020 election. If only Rudy could have figured out how to become President and make all of his crimes go away like Donny did.

• Then, we're joined by RYAN COOPER, Managing Editor of The American Prospect, on the emerging (and hilarious) dust-up between the broligarchs who control Trump, like richest-man-in-the-world Elon Musk (and his sidekick Vivek Ramaswamy), and his hardcore MAGA cultists like Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon. Cooper's article on the matter is headlined "President Musk Declares War on American Workers".

  Just before the turn of the new year, sparks started flying when the duped MAGA cultists learned that Trump was going to continue the H-1B visa program that allows skilled tech workers to come to the U.S. and take less money to work longer hours than American citizens. After facing criticism for the Silicon Valley billionaires' favorite work visa scheme (the South African-born Musk came here himself on an H-1B), Musk took to the social media site he purchased and declared war on Loomer and any other MAGAs who dared oppose him, declaring: "The reason I'm in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B," before he added, "Take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend."

  The self-proclaimed "free-speech absolutist" then proceeded to downgrade and demonetize Loomer's account on Twitter/X, along with dozens of other MAGAs who dared call out Musk and the H-1B program.

  Today, Cooper explains tells me why the Silicon Valley broligarchs are so fond of the H-1B program, which, he says, they wield as a "weapon of class warfare" that "provides a pool of exploitable labor" that must do as you say or get sent back to their country. We also discuss Musk and the Right's actual position on "free speech" ("Tthey get to say whatever they want, and you get to shut up."); who appears to really be calling the shots now in Trumpland (Hint: its the guy who controls the "still depressingly influential social media platform that all the Republicans are on"); and how this nascent war between the two major factions of Trump's MAGA cult/coalition is likely to shake out in the days ahead.

  "We are in the realm of syphilitic emperor history books," Cooper tells me. "You've got Trump, who is 78 and clearly has lost MANY steps from when he was a young man. But Elon Musk is also incredibly erratic and impulsive. With these two megalomaniac narcissists with giant fevered egos, typically you'd see a massive falling out over something." And yet, so far, Trump is standing with the richest man on Earth and pretending he even knows what the H-1B program is. Meanwhile, says Cooper, about "Trump and his toadies, the minute they become inconvenient for him, he just throws them over the side. Which, for some reason, doesn't seem to affect the supply of people lining up to get thrown over the side the next day."

• Finally, Desi Doyen has our first Green News Report of the new year, with much to catch up on after our long holiday break, including the brutal, climate change-fueled weather across much of the country this week; President Joe Biden's last-minute ban on new offshore drilling across most U.S. coastal waters; the environmental legacy of the late President Jimmy Carter; and much more...

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Democracy is under attack again today. And not just in D.C. We're here to do our part in defending it wherever possible on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our many stories today...

• The rightwing, inexperienced, recently elected but now very unpopular President of South Korea attempted a power grab today by declaring martial law and the shutdown of the National Assembly for largely trumped up reasons. (Pun intended.) It didn't work. His own political party joined the opposition Democratic Party majority in the nation's parliament for a swift, unanimous vote to shut down the attempted self-coup just hours after it began. The country's military wasn't much help to the President either. (Which may be just one reason Donald Trump has tapped loyalist stooge, accused rapist and years-long womanizing drunkard, Pete Hegseth of Fox "News", to be his own Sec. of Defense.) But there are a whole bunch of other lessons that we need to learn in THIS country from what happened today in South Korea which may be very helpful in the months and years ahead.

• Meanwhile, power grabs by Republicans are underway at the state level in this country as well following the November 5th election. In the closely divided battleground state of North Carolina, where Donald Trump won at the Presidential level, Democrats were victorious up and down the ballot in a bunch of statewide offices including Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Sec. of State and Superintendent of Public Instruction. The GOP also lost its gerrymandered supermajority in the state House by one seat. So Republicans, in the weeks they have left with supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature, are now attempting, under the guise of a "sham" Hurricane Helene disaster relief bill, to strip extraordinarily broad swaths of power from those offices and hand it to the GOP-controlled state legislature. Outgoing Democratic Governor Roy Cooper has already vetoed the bill, but Republicans in the Senate have voted to override it and protesters in the state are attempting to prevent House Republicans from doing the same. The measure, among other things, strips the incoming Democratic Governor's ability to appoint members of the State Board of Elections, to fill vacancies at both the state Appeals and Supreme Court levels with judges of his choosing, and, in a sop to the fossil fuel industry, prevents the state Attorney General from, as Cooper said in his veto, the "ability to advocate for lower electric bills for consumers." The 131-page bill, originally introduced in November and passed by both chambers within 24 hours, would also place new restrictions on elections in the state, which election officials charge would result in votes going uncounted.

• If that North Carolina measure is adopted before the new state legislature is sworn in next month, it will almost certainly be challenged by Democrats at the state Supreme Court, where last month one of its two liberal Justices, Allison Riggs, very narrowly defeated her Republican challenger, Jefferson Griffin, by fewer than 1,000 votes out of more than 5.5 million cast. A machine recount confirmed the initially reported machine-tallied results. Now Griffin is seeking both a hand-count and the disqualification of more than 60,000 ballots.

• There is somewhat brighter news this week in another battleground state, where a Wisconsin judge has finally struck down former far-right Republican Gov. Scott Walker's wildly controversial 2011 law that stripped the power of certain public unions to collectively bargain for wages and other benefits. The law, according to the judge, is unconstitutional since it takes those powers from "general" unions, such as the state teachers union, while allowing it for "public safety" officials, such as police and firefighters unions who were supporters of Walker's at the time. Back in 2011, you may recall the weeks-long fight over the measure, bringing hundreds of thousands of protesters to the state capital as Republicans in the legislature muscled the bill to passage. Of course, the judge's ruling will now be appealed up to the state Supreme Court which, as of last year, finally has a narrow, 4 to 3 liberal majority that will once again be tested during yet another WI Supreme Court election this April.

• And, speaking of every vote mattering, a legal and political battle is underway right now in Minnesota over a state House race where Democratic Rep. Brad Tabke was declared the winner by just 14 votes over his Republican challenger Aaron Paul after a recount and official canvass. That said, an investigation by the local County Attorney found that 21 absentee ballots in the race may have been accidentally discarded prior to being tallied. Republicans have filed suit to declare the seat vacant and are seeking a special election. This one seat matters. As of now, with the Democratic Tabke as the winner, Democrats and Republicans will each hold 67 seats in the state House, where lawmakers are preparing a power sharing agreement. If the Republican Paul ultimately ends up winning the seat, the balance of power would be shifted with a two-vote, 68-66 GOP majority. Yup, every vote matters. Even the ones that were tossed due to "human error", according to the County Attorney.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, our first since returning from the holiday. And she's got a lot to catch us up on, from the collapse of a U.N. plastics treaty summit in South Korea (prior to today's attempted coup!), to a lackluster (at best) agreement at the U.N.'s COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, to new worries about how extreme drought is set to exacerbate immigration issues at our southern border...

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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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Apparently it's Fascism Week on The BradCast, as the former President's rhetoric and threats become increasingly dark, and as all warning signs continue to blink brighter and brighter red, no matter how few seem to notice. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... before we get to our guest to discuss that today, a bit of mostly encouraging voting news out of two critical states...

• The first day of early voting on Tuesday in battleground Georgia smashed the state's record by more than doubling it, with at least than 328,000 ballots cast yesterday. Of course, that doesn't necessarily tell us who those voters were voting for. But the best news may be that lines were reportedly moving very quickly thanks to the state's new check-in procedure which is said to take seconds rather than minutes.

• More good news out of Georgia: After a state judge declared certification of results by County officials to be mandatory, as opposed to discretionary, in a ruling [PDF] released yesterday (they must do so by the deadline specified in state law, which is 5pm Monday following the Tuesday election), the same judge went on to temporarily block, at least for this election, a new rule instituted at the last minute by GA's MAGA-controlled State Elections Board mandating a hand-count of the number of ballots cast at the polling place at the end of the Election Day, before they are shipped off to the County. It's a smart rule, if poorly written. It's already done in many states. But the lateness of the adoption of that rule, according to the judge, threatens to result in chaos and confusion in an election that is already under way. (Late today, after airtime, a separate state judge blocked at least seven new SEB rules permanently, including the hand-count rule, declaring them "illegal, unconstitutional and void.")

• The Nebraska Supreme Court today spanked the state's Republican Sec. of State and Attorney General for their attempt to block a law adopted by the Legislature earlier this year mandating the immediate restoration of voting rights for people who have completed the terms of their felony sentences. That means hundreds or thousands of additional residents may now be able to vote this year in a state which could determine who wins the White House and which party wins control of both chambers of Congress.

THEN... we're joined by longtime domestic extremism expert, journalist and author, DAVID NEIWERT to discuss the increasingly fascistic and alarming rhetoric and threats by Donald Trump --- and his supporters --- as Election Day nears.

The disgraced former President and convicted felon has, in recent days, added "the enemy within" to his ongoing threats of mass deportation of millions of migrants, citing his perceived domestic political enemies as "more dangerous" than foreign threats and suggesting he might use the National Guard or active duty U.S. military to take them on, if elected to another term in the White House.

Retired top military officials are now warning about the threat that Trump poses to the nation, its people and its Constitution, with Trump's own Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, recently describing him as "a total fascist" and "the most dangerous person to this country."

"The road to fascism is lined with people telling you to stop overreacting," Niewert, who has been warning about Trump's fascist tendencies for at least 9 years (read this, for example, from his blog back in 2015), quips today. "But I think in the past year, the mask has really come off. Especially in the last few months --- the explicit eliminationism" and his suggestion of directing the military against "the enemies within."

And, yet, the race, according to pre-election polling averages, is said to be a tie. Does half of the voting public not take Trump's threats seriously? Do they not know about them? Or do they know and take him at his word, but don't care and actually want such a ruler for the U.S.?

"I would say about two-thirds of the population is in basic denial about it," Neiwert tells me. "The vast majority, both Democrats and Republicans, they don't acknowledge that this stuff is happening, that this stuff is being said, and is building force." But, in particular, he notes, "The Republican Party is now really wholly owned by this element of the right," after having "utterly failed to redeem itself from that horrific moment [on January 6th, 2021] and instead has just doubled down."

The prolific Neiwert, whose most recent book is The Age of Insurrection: The Radical Right's Assault on American Democracy, has penned three books during the Trump-era, including 2018's Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump and Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us in 2020. After years of contributing to both major media outlets and smaller blogs alike, he also now writes on similar topics at his Substack page.

Today, he discusses how and when what was once describes as the "alt-Right" movement, eventually came to take complete hold of the GOP. "What we're really talking about here is authoritarianism," he argues. "It began really gathering steam in the early 2000s. Ultimately, the origins of that had to do with 9/11. The sheer flood-tide of fearmongering that erupted across the country and was sustained for years in the wake of 9/11. It had a really profound effect on the national psyche."

"You can actually jack up the levels of authoritarian personalities, the authoritarian response within the country, by fearmongering. That's why Trump's whole appeal all along has been fearmongering. He's fearmongering about the immigrants, the crime, Black people, whatever it is he can fearmonger on. That's how you get people to get into what I call an 'authoritarian crouch.'"

And that's where we now are, he explains, with Trump's first term "a practice run," Neiwert suggests we ain't seen nothing yet if Trump wins this year.

"I don't think Americans have any idea what that's going to look like, to have mass police raids, rounding up Latino families, taking people away and breaking up families and frequently deporting actual citizens. If Trump wins and he goes about doing the mass deportation, it's going to make America into a police state. And I don't think Americans are prepared for what that's going to look like."

Before we get there, of course, we've got to get past the election, which Neiwert predicts, if Trump loses, could look like "the Brooks Brothers riot times ten. Which, in a way, is what January 6 was about, too." But, aside from voting, what can be done to change the course this nation seems to be on? For that, tune in. Members of the mainstream corporate media may not like Neiwert's answer, given his argument that "the media plays a central role in all of this because they're the ones constantly telling us to stop overreacting" as they've spent years effectively working to "normalize Trump's behavior...normalize fascism."

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We have a responsibility to call it out on today's BradCast. So we do. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Donald Trump's anti-immigrant, anti-free press, anti-federal government (Biden's federal government, never Trump's), anti-law and order, anti-anyone he believes shows insufficient fealty to him sentiment is growing increasingly menacing by the day. Sometimes by the hour.

It's not just rhetoric. At a rally on Saturday in California, Trump suggested a heckler should "get the hell knocked out of her". Earlier that same day, after week's of his lies about FEMA's response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, federal officials working on recovery in one of the hardest hit areas of North Carolina were sent an emergency notice to "stand down and evacuate" from Rutherford County after National Guard troopers "had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying they were out hunting FEMA."

In recent days, his lies about "illegal migrants" on murderous rampages, having taken over entire cities and towns has grown more Hitlerian and eugenicist (they have "bad genes"); he has called for CBS and all of the other broadcast networks to have their licenses revoked (networks have no such licenses) and for 60 Minutes to be "taken off the air"; the man who, as President in 2017, claimed to "love the First Amendment. Nobody loves it better than me", recently said "wait until you see what I’m going to do with" the New York Times if he is elected again. All of that as he has continued his vow to "put in jail" those who criticize judges and Supreme Court Justices who he likes, as he repeatedly promises retribution against "the enemy within," now including threats to use the nation's military to do so.

If you thought he was just going to be going after immigrants he doesn't like, think again. "What is so jarring to me is these are not just Nazi-like statements. These are actual Nazi sentiments," Robert Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute and author of “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy” told Politico.

With three weeks to go before Election Day and early voting underway in most of the nation now, the disgraced former President and convicted felon is largely tied with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, both nationally and in the seven battleground states, if you believe the pre-election polling averages. Are Americans not hearing what Trump is saying? Or do they not care? Or is this what they actually want? Is all of this not being adequately reported by our by mainstream corporate media? Or is it simply being ignored by voters?

In the second half of today's show --- after covering a number of the items above --- we open up the phones for listeners thoughts on all of it, with some excellent callers from a number of political viewpoints, from both here in Southern California and across the country...

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We have, of course, Special Coverage on today's BradCast of Tuesday night's one and only Vice Presidential Debate, likely the last direct face-off between the two tickets before Election Day. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

It was somewhat disorienting to watch a Presidential ticket debate that didn't include name-calling, one-liner zingers and direct personal attacks. But with "Minnesota Nice" Democratic Governor Tim Walz taking on Ohio's Republican U.S. Senator J.D. Vance, who has an historically low favorability rating and a desperate need to improve his likeability among the electorate, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the debate ended up coming across more like an olde tyme, pre-Trump Era (even pre-Rove Era) 1990s Presidential debate.

But Vance's politeness was there only to try and mask his well-documented, far-right, autocratic MAGA policy preferences on everything from abortion to gun safety to climate change to health care to his running-mate Donald Trump's violent attacks on our democracy, leading to evasive answers to questions from both the CBS News moderators and Walz himself on whether he believed, for instance, that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. "Tim, I'm focused on the future," Vance said, refusing to respond. "That is a damning non-answer," Walz replied, adding: "He lost the election. This is not a debate. It's not anything, anywhere other than in Donald Trump's world." It wouldn't be the only direct question that Vance deflected.

While a nervous Walz stumbled through some of the early moments of the debate, he regained his footing thereafter and displayed a command of facts, data and reality on a host of topics raised by the moderators. The Yale Law School trained Vance also proved to be a competent debater, deftly smoothing over his extremist, hard-right record and former persona as a Trump-opponent, while doing his best to focus his fire on Kamala Harris whenever possible...facts be damned.

We're joined today, as we frequently are on such occasions, by longtime friends and old school bloggers, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of his eponymous blog and The Professional Left Podcast for some help in making sense of whatever played out in the New York City studios of CBS last night. (Reportedly it was in the same studio that Captain Kangaroo was taped. Make of that what you may.)

Both Parton and Driftglass agree that the two Vice Presidential candidates "accomplished what they set out to do" and, as Parton added, "as far as the niceness thing", that should be chalked up to the fact that "Donald Trump wasn't there being a jackass."

"Vance needed to soften all of the ridiculous extremist policies of himself and Donald Trump, and present himself as something other than a full-blown King Cobra, which I think he managed to do," she says, referencing her coverage of the debate at Salon today, in which she described Vance as possessing "all the charm and warmth of a King Cobra." On Tuesday night, she explains today, "he sounded semi-sane. I'm sure most people who haven't been following him probably thought, 'Oh, well, he's not that bad.'"

Both also agree that they would have have preferred to see a more aggressive Walz, even if that might not have been what the MN Guv needed to do to reach whichever undecided voters still exist out there. Instant polling of debate watchers released shortly afterward, gave Vance the slimmest of edges over Walz and a big bump in favorability for both candidates, even as Walz' favorability remains far higher than Vance's.

"Clearly they are executing a strategy," explains Driftglass. "I wanted to see [Walz] come out there with a sword in both hands and just scream, 'Liar!' for 90 minutes," when what he needs, "tactically, is to go out there and be the nicest guy you ever met. I think for the people he is striving to reach, it worked."

On the other hand, he continues, Vance's job was to "polish up the turd" that Trump put on the ticket "to make him look like a human being so that he can go out there and be the nice guy." The result, says Driftglass, "was a festival of whatabout-ism and lying."

We discuss much of the sane-washing, whatabout-ism, lies and damning non-answers to a host of topics raised during the 90-minute debate on Tuesday --- and Walz' responses to them --- in our very lively Special Coverage today...

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Another BradCast necessarily, but not wholly, derailed today by our climate crisis. We were able to open the phone lines to hear from a number of callers with their thoughts in advance of Tuesday's Vice-Presidential Debate. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

We sidelined our planned coverage of Kamala Harris' address late last week on border security and immigration reform in Douglas, Arizona --- and Donald Trump's appalling response, calling her "mentally impaired" and "mentally disabled", before going on to lie (again) about crime statistics, and the fact that violent crime has plummeted under the Biden-Harris Administration --- in order to focus on the unspeakable disaster that continues to unfold in much of the U.S. Southeast.

The devastation and tragedy continues today, following Thursday's monster, Category 4 Hurricane Helene. It came ashore in the Big Bend region of Florida's panhandle, the third major tropical storm to do so in 13 months, and the second over the past two months alone. But Florida was hardly the only state affected, as death and destruction overtook parts of Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina as well. The latter, perhaps, having weathered the most damage, to date.

With over one hundred killed and more still missing, millions of survivors in the Southeast remain without power today. Some, particularly in Asheville, NC, remain physically cut off from the rest of the world, as the County's water treatment facility has failed and may be down for weeks.

Desi Doyen joins us for insight on the impacts and government response, and how denial of climate change by many elected officials from these states has exacerbated the destruction they are now hoping to claw their way out of today.

Then, there is the question of how this will affect the ability of voters in the most damaged areas --- particularly in NC, but in a number of other states as well --- to be able to cast their vote in this year's upcoming Presidential elections. In battleground NC, the U.S. Postal Service announced the suspension of service in a bunch of areas, making delivery of vote-by-mail ballots to voters and back again to the county, a question mark right now. That's particularly disturbing since state Republicans killed the the three-day grace period for ballots that were postmarked by Election Day to arrive at County to be counted after Election Day.

All of this also comes after NC Republicans spent years fighting to implement draconian Photo ID restrictions, despite a federal court describing the effort as targeting Black voters in the state with "almost surgical precision". So, what happens to those voters whose IDs blew away or were washed away in the wind and flooding? We've got a few details on all of the above today, and will continue to monitor the situation voters in the days and weeks ahead.

Then, we open up the phone lines to listeners in advance of Tuesday night's upcoming Vice Presidential debate between Democratic candidate Tim Walz and Republican J.D. Vance, asking what listeners expect and/or hope for from what appears to the last face-to-face debate between the Harris-Walz and Trump-Vance tickets. (Harris has agreed to another debate in October but, so far, Trump has declined. Probably smart considering the drubbing he took at their first and, so far, only debate in early September.) The debate host, CBS News, has announced good news for the Trump-Vance ticket, their moderators will not be fact-checking the candidates, both of whom, unlike Trump, are actually pretty good debaters...

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Two organizations representing the Haitian Diaspora filed a civil Complaint [PDF] in the U.S. District Court in Miami on Friday on behalf of the terrorized Haitians who legally reside in Springfield, Ohio.

The named defendants include Republican candidates for President, Donald J. Trump, for Vice President, J.D. Vance, and Ohio U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno. The other named defends include Donald Trump, Jr., Ohio's Republican Attorney General Dave Yost, X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) and the State of Ohio.

The Complaint alleges that the defendants, with full knowledge of falsity, not only spread dangerous defamatory lies --- the false claim that Haitians were stealing and eating pet dogs and cats --- but have also engaged in hate speech, a contention, plaintiffs allege, that is bolstered by a federal judge's determination, in Segat v. Trump (2019), that then President Trump's decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitians was likely influenced by racial animus. The court based its conclusion in that case, in part, upon Trump's reference to Haiti as a "shithole country" and the former President's false claim that Haitians migrants were bringing AIDS to the U.S.

In addition to defamation per se, the Complaint alleges that the Defendants have engaged in a conspiracy to violate their civil rights, including the 14th Amendment right to Equal Protection under law. It goes on to allege defendants incited, aided and abetted violence against the Haitian residents of Springfield...

I don't know if they're gonna lose or not. But, as we report on today's busy BradCast, the disgraced former President and his Republican party this week sure do have the stench of losers on them. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among our many stories covered today...

• Breaking just before air time: Turns out North Carolina's Trump-endorsed freak show Republican Lt. Gov and gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson is even more of a freak show than previously known. And, by his own words on a porn site he frequented for many years, a "black NAZI!". Good luck this November in NC, Republicans!

• Stock market hits record highs today after the Fed lowered interest rates Wednesday more than expected, signaling post-pandemic inflation is back under control. Donald Trump's failing media company, however, which trades as DJT, hits record lows today and still appears to be on track to become a penny stock by November 5.

• The already terrible situation in the Middle East gets worse, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds news ways to keep the war(s) going to keep himself out of prison.

• House Republicans and Donald Trump stay on track to cause another government shutdown at the end of this month, just before the election, after House Speaker Mike Johnson's dead-on-arrival scheme, on behalf of Trump, to demand a new law to prevent already-unlawful non-citizen voting fails to get the support needed for passage from Republicans.

• J.D. Vance continues Trump's lies about "illegal" migrants taking over Springfield, Ohio. They're not "illegal". Trump, as President, gave them legal protected status. Vance says he gonna call them "illegal" anyway, as the Republican Mayor of the now-terrorized town begs them to knock it off, asking for "help not hate".

• New polling continues to look good for Kamala Harris in swing states. But the Democrats "Blue Wall" strategy of winning the White House by winning Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania --- along with all of the other traditionally "blue" states --- could hit a snag if Team Trump's newly reignited scheme, reportedly now being led up by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Pathetic) is successful. This week Graham was in Nebraska meeting with the state's Republican Governor and members of the legislature, encouraging them to call a special legislative session to change the way the state divvies up Electoral College votes.

  Currently, NE is one of just two states, along with Maine, that apportions Electoral College votes by U.S. House District. That means Harris is likely to win one of the state's votes, in the Omaha district, in the otherwise very "red" state. But Team Trump wants the state to change the law to move to a winner-take-all system just weeks before the election (and just 10 days before vote-by-mail voting begins!) in hopes of a scenario where, even if the Democrats' three-state Blue Wall strategy is successful, the Electoral College end in a 269-269 tie with NE's 2nd Congressional District vote given to Trump instead of Harris. That would send the decision of who will become the next President to the U.S. House, where the vote would be by state delegation, where Republicans are likely to hold a controlling majority even if Democrats win the House back in November.

  If this insane-but-theoretically-plausible scenario proceeds as Team Trump desperately hopes, however, Democrats may still have an ace in the hole...in Maine.

• A government watchdog group gets a hold of to emails among Georgia election denialists serving as county election officials, detailing their conversations about plans to block certification of 2024 election results in the Peach State if it looks like Donald Trump is going to lose it again.

• Texas' wildly corrupt Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing county election officials in state court to prevent them from sending voter registration forms to eligible but unregistered voters in several different Democratic-leaning Counties. The Counties are now, in turn, suing Paxton in federal court, charging his efforts amount to voter suppression in violation of longstanding federal laws.

• While the Lone Star State is busy suing its own election officials for daring to register voters, here in California, state lawmakers have passed a law, SB 299, to make the state's current automatic voter registration system even more automatic, potentially enabling the ability to vote for an additional 4.7 million eligible but currently unregistered voters. Politics Girl does the heavy lifting for us today. You can get more details from the grassroots coalition of more than 140 groups supporting the measure right here.

• Finally, at the end of a busy show, Desi Doyen joins us form our latest busy Green News Report, as the climate crisis rapidly worsens around the globe, despite new U.N. warnings; North Carolina estimates damage from a brutal, sudden tropical storm this week will top $7 billion; and as a new study finds Joe Biden's air pollution policies will save some 200,000 lives in the U.S...

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From darkness to light on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... As an increasingly panicked Team Trump continues to find new depths in which to sink and new, more dangerous lows to drill down into --- Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world turned virulent Trump supporter, has gamed his increasingly rightwing social media site (which we still call Twitter) to force his obnoxious, dangerous, wildly false political commentary even beyond the nearly 200 million followers he has. All while turning off the very limited, crowdsourced fact-check system, for himself, even as it is supposed to apply to everyone else on the increasingly trash-filled site.

Among the results, a tweet of his this week that suggested someone should try and assassinated Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It became a rare incident where even he decided he had gone too far and deleted the tweet after tens, if not hundreds of millions, had already seen it. (And, upon deleting it, going to on to blame everyone else for not appreciating his brilliant sense of humor).

That came after dozens and dozens of tweets this year, which have reached billions of people, falsely claiming that Democrats are bringing non-citizens into the country to vote in this year's election. The Washington Post, last week, did a deep dive into how Musk's false tweets have translated into very specific threats against elections officials around the country. "He's by no means unique," Maricopa County, Arizona's Republican Election Recorder told WaPo. "He just happens to have a very, very large microphone."

He's not the only one.

Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have spent the last week endangering the residents of Springfield, Ohio by spreading false claims about legal Haitian immigrants there (who they falsely describe as "illegal") destroying the town and eating the pets of other residents. The results of those lies: dozens of bomb threats that shutdown City Hall, schools, hospitals and has turned the Republican-run city into somewhat of a police state, as OH's Republican Governor was forced to deploy state law enforcement officials to protect town residents.

Kamala Harris, who doesn't utter falsehoods that threaten the lives of Americans, was asked about all of this madness during an forum with the National Association of Black Journalists this week. We thought her answer to that question was worth sharing in full today. It ends with this assertion: "This is exhausting and it's harmful. And it's hateful. And grounded in some age old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for. So, let's turn the page and chart a new way forward and say 'You can't have that microphone again.'"

THEN... Despite all of the above, there remains a huge number of Americans who regard themselves as very religious and yet appear dead set on voting again for the most un-religious person who has ever run for the White House.

Recent polling, however, shows that at least some of Trump's support from the religious community may be falling, even as other polling makes clear that the thrice-married, philandering and felonious former President still dominates the white Christian evangelical vote. At least the male voters who describe themselves as such.

But, according to our guest today, a white evangelical pastor himself, it doesn't have to be that way. And he is devoted to changing it. We're joined today by DOUG PAGITT, Executive Director and co-founder of Vote Common Good, a non-profit focused on "energizing and mobilizing people of faith to make the common good their voting criteria."

In a recent opinion piece for MSNBC, Pagitt detailed how his group's bus tour through battleground states this year is helping Christians to understand they don't have to vote Republican, while helping to teach Democratic candidates how to reach those voters, particularly in swing-states and counties.

So how did we get to such a place in this country, where a guy like Trump --- who has never been seen attending a regular religious service, either before, during, or after his Presidency --- would be the preferred candidate for a huge part of the religious community? Pagitt has a bunch of thoughts on all of this today.

"What's really going on is that the Democratic Party has had a pattern and reputation for not wanting religious voters," he tells me. "Kamala Harris is changing that. Joe Biden was changing that. Barack Obama worked to change that. But what Donald Trump exploited was this idea --- you hear him say, 'Democrats hate you religious people' --- somehow making out evangelicals to be both the rightful heirs of this nation as Christian Nationalists, but then also the persecuted minority. And somehow they get to hold both of these views."

Pagitt asserts that many Christians have, just by dint of birth, become Republican voters over the years. Because, as he says, "We don't know how to talk about faith in politics in the United States. We've been struggling with it since the founding of the country. We've never been good at it."

"But it doesn't have to be that way," he says. "Forty-four years ago, Jimmy Carter was an evangelical pastor from Georgia. He got 60% of the evangelical vote. In a lot of ways, the Democratic structure said to Republicans, 'You can have the religious white voters, we'll take the other voters.' That would be fine with me if we didn't keep electing someone like Donald Trump."

"The only reason we are out here, trying to get faith voters to consider voting for a Democrat for the first time in their life, is because this country cannot stand having Donald Trump have the power of the Presidency in his hand ever again."

Pagitt and his group have arguably made inroads. They are able to show deeply religious communities where they spent time in 2020 that swung radically in favor of Democrats after voting for Trump in 2016. He tells me that he believes their work can be critical in helping to do that again elsewhere, including in some of the most religious communities, where winning over a small subset of the electorate may be key to winning in marginal races for Congress and even the Presidency.

"There's an awful lot of people who have been told their whole life that Democrats are the enemy, and they're realizing they're not. But behavioral change is extremely slow," he explains today. "We know that three things always have to be in place when someone makes a behavioral change, whether that's doing a new diet or changing your voting habits."

"You have to take in some kind of new information that makes you think, 'Maybe I should do something different.' You need someone to invite you to actually behave differently based on that information. And then you need a community to participate in where people like you do that new thing. So many of these people, they don't have that. So we try to create that for them and let them know it's okay. It seems so rudimentary, but I've watched people with tears in their eyes when we say to them, 'If you choose to vote for a Democrat, first of all, it doesn't make you one. But even if it did, you're going to be okay. Your faith is still going to be alive.'"

We had a lot to talk about with Pagitt on today's show around all of this that I suspect you'll find enlightening. I know I did!...

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