Today on The BradCast: The critical 2026 midterm elections are now officially underway, with early voting having begun in Arkansas, North Carolina and Texas for their March 3rd midterm primaries. But Republicans are not done trying to undermine those elections with legislation meant to undercut democracy itself. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... A few words on the passing, at the age of 84, of Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights icon, voting rights advocate, and two-time Democratic Presidential candidate.

Also, a few words on what appears to be the further collapsing of support for Donald Trump, as detailed in several new polls released in advance of the Washington's Birthday holiday yesterday, and as analyzed by CNN's Harry Enten. Bottom line for the moment, Trump's approval is nearing all-time lows among the public. It is lower than Joe Biden at the same point of his first term as President and even lower than Trump's own numbers at this point during his own failed first term in office. As Enten highlights, Trump is now 27 points underwater among independent voters.

"I don't understand how this works out well for the President of the United States. When you are 27 points below water, under water, with the center of the electorate, with independents, you lose, your party loses," explained the colorful Enten on Monday. With that in mind...

NEXT... If you're losing among the electorate, the Republican Party appears to now believe, don't adjust your policies to popular ones. Just change the electorate!

After seemingly failed mid-decade gerrymandering bids last year (quickly answered by Democratic states); after recent hollow threats by Trump to "nationalize" elections (he has no such legal or Constitutional authority); after ordering the FBI to raid the election warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia in an effort to continue the charade that the 2020 election was stolen from him (they still have shown no such evidence); the GOP seems to believe they can legislate their way to a more favorable electorate this year.

Last week, the Republican-controlled House narrowly passed the so-called "SAVE America Act" [PDF], formerly known as the SAVE Act, with every Republican member voting in favor. The measure would, among other things, if also passed in the U.S. Senate, force those newly registering to vote to somehow show proof of citizenship, in person, during the registration process.

The effort is part of Trump's long-running, evidence-free assertion that millions of noncitizens are unlawfully on the voting rolls and voting against him and, I guess, other Republican candidates.

The measure would also force states to run their voting rolls through a notoriously inaccurate federal Dept. of Homeland Security tool --- originally designed for something else entirely --- known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (or SAVE) database.

That tool has, in recent months, been used by GOP-controlled states to check their rolls for evidence of noncitizen voters. In state after state, it has found almost none. Among the few that it has flagged as potential noncitizen voters, many of them turn out to be false positives, citizens who are inaccurately identified as noncitizens in the database, or noncitizens on the rolls who never voted, but were registered due to clerical error after making clear to DMV workers that they were not American citizens.

Nonetheless, the SAVE America Act, would both force use of that failed tool in all 50 states --- potentially resulting in lawful voters being removed from the rolls --- and mandate proof of citizenship when registering, despite tens of millions of Americans who have no easy, or free, access to such documents.

We're joined today by lawyer turned election integrity social media advocate JENNIFER COHN --- who has been reading through the various iterations of the newly renamed SAVE Act --- to discuss both the barriers it includes for new voters (or those who have recently moved and must re-register), the obstacles that stand in the way of Republican passage of the Act in the U.S. Senate, and what the real purpose of this insidious legislation actually is.

"Up to 69 million women could be disenfranchised by this bill because their last names no longer match their birth certificates because they've taken their husband's name," explains Cohn. She says that while the legislation mentions documents that might help women overcome that barrier, "They're tricky about it. They say, for example, that you could use a 'Real ID' if it indicates your citizenship. What they don't say is that only five states issue Real IDs that indicate your citizenship. So that won't work for the vast majority of Americans."

Passports will work, but they now cost $165 for new applicants or $130 for renewals. They also take time to obtain and require, in most cases, a birth certificate, which many do not have access to. Those may also cost time and money to obtain. But a birth certificate alone won't work either if your name has changed through marriage, or other reasons. And if you have a passport, but your name has changed since you obtained it, that will be a problem as well. Cohn notes that the Republican authors of the bill did something else that is "sneaky in the latest version of the bill. It still omits marriage certificates from the list of approved documents." So even those might not adequately offer proof of citizenship when coupled with a birth certificate during registration under SAVE.

There is much more to be concerned about, Cohn tells me, arguing that "the media really has not caught up" with what Republicans are trying to do with the SAVE Act and just how bad the SAVE database actually is.

While I explain that I think much of this is meant simply to frighten voters into not participating in elections, to scare them, to cause chaos --- especially as I see no path toward passage of the SAVE Act in the Senate --- Cohn thinks I may be wrong, that insidious plans may be in the works to force passage against the wishes of Democrats in the upper chamber, where 60 votes would normally be needed for passage in the 100-seat Senate. (Tune in for details on those insidious plans.)

She believes that people should be freaked out by all of this. If nothing else, she argues, so that they take action to call their Senators (202-224-3121) to demand they vote against SAVE, and to help people understand that this is much much more than a simple "Voter ID bill" as Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and other wildly dishonest Republicans are disingenuously attempting to portray it to the public.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on the heels of last week's landmark rollback of the EPA's critical Endangerment Finding, which had allowed regulation of fossil fuel pollution under the Clean Air Act; and following a massive raw sewage spill at a federal facility near D.C., which Trump is attempting to blame on Maryland's Democratic Governor...

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I wish we coulda talked about Bad Bunny for the entire BradCast. But, alas, fighting fascism calls. (Which actually brings us back to Bad Bunny! But I digress.) [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

After a few minutes on the rollicking, patriotic Super Bowl Halftime show heard round the world on Sunday, and the doddering old man in the White House that it helped drive crazy --- (Yes. It's a short drive.) --- it's back to the business of trying to help save a nation from itself. And, truthfully, as horrible as it is, it's going pretty well, in that regard.

On Saturday, another Democratic candidate won a special election for a state legislative seat in a landslide after Donald Trump won the same district by a landslide in 2024. This time, it was Democratic Louisiana state House candidate Chasity Verret Martinez who defeated her Republican opponent by 24 points on Saturday, in a district that Trump won by 13, for an overall 37-point swing for the Ds. That special election followed on one in Texas just a week earlier for the state Senate, where the Democrat won by 14 points in a district Trump won in 2024 by 17 points. That was a 31-point swing for the Ds...in deep "red" Texas!

So, yeah, there is a way out of this madness, and it runs through the ballot box. Which is obviously why Trump is hoping to game that ballot box, take control of it, "nationalize" elections, etc. All stuff that he has zero legal or Constitutional authority or lawful ability to do. But that doesn't mean he won't try.

Toward that end --- (maybe?) --- at the end of last month, Trump's FBI obtained a warrant from a federal magistrate to raid the Fulton County, Georgia elections warehouse just outside of Atlanta. They absconded with the 2020 ballots and other materials from the state's largest County. The warrant explained that the search was meant to protect against violations of a federal law related to voting fraud and another to the federal law requiring retention of ballots and other election-related material for 22 months after each federal election.

But the 2020 election was more than five years ago now, which is theoretically outside of the statute of limitations to bring criminal charges against some sort of fraud in that election. Also, what was the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard doing at the raid in Fulton County?

Some of these questions may be answered in the next 24 hours or so, as a Trump-appointed federal judge has ordered the Government to release the affidavit that was used to gain the magistrate's approval for the Search Warrant in the first place. Presumably, that affidavit would detail allegations of some sort of ongoing crime or crimes.

But there are also a host of other questions, unlikely to be answered by that affidavit, including what harm Trump may actually do with the materials, including hundreds of thousands of ballots and 2020 voter rolls, obtained by the FBI? How could any of that be used to undermine Georgia's elections this year, or those elsewhere across the country?

We're joined today by longtime friend of the show and election integrity and voting system transparency hero, MARILYN MARKS of the nonprofit Coalition for Good Governance.

Marilyn knows the GA election system as well or better than anyone else, including, arguably, its Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, the Republican who many have regarded as a hero for holding off Trump's attempt to steal the state in 2020 during his infamous phone call seeking to strong-arm Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to flip the state from Joe Biden to Trump. But, as we note again today, Raffensperger is no hero.

It was Marks' long-running lawsuit against the state that resulted in the court-ordered decertification of GA's old, insecure, unverifiable touchscreen voting systems, only to see them replaced by Raffensperger with new, insecure, unverifiable touchscreen voting systems made by a different company. That, despite expert advice to move to a transparent, overseeable, resilient, verifiable hand-marked paper ballot system.

So, what is Trump's game with the FBI raid in Fulton? And should we be worried about it? Should Raffenpserger, who is running for Governor this year, be worried about it? Well, given the disastrous way he ran the 2020 election in the Peach State, argues Marks, yes, he should be quite concerned.

While she breaks down just some of the ways that Raffensperger screwed up the tallies of the 2020 election in Georgia --- and the purported three different counts that "confirmed" the results there (despite each count coming out differently!) --- it wasn't only the Republican Sec. of State whose decisions were odd. For his part, for example, though Trump asked for a received a "recount" in the election he lost by about 12,000 votes, that recount was done on the same computer tabulators that tallied the race the first time, even though he should have had a hand-count, according to state law.

"The law requires a manual count, not a machine recount," Marks tells me. "Trump and Biden and [Libertarian Party candidate] Joe Jorgenson would have all had the opportunity to put a counter at every table. Imagine if a proper hand recount were done and Trump had had a counter at every table. He would have a had a hard time saying later, 'the count was wrong', because it would have been his people counting. Raffensperger knew that was the law. He did not give Trump the recount that he should have had. And, mysteriously, Trump did not ask for the recount he should have had."

We discuss that mystery and many others, even as Marks reiterates that she has seen no evidence to suggest that the election was stolen from Trump in 2020.

"We have no evidence that Trump won the state," she reiterates again today. "Was the election conducted in a reckless, sloppy, unverifiable way? It indeed was."

"There's a lesson to be learned there," she explains. "We've got an even more contentious year here in 2026. And we damned well better get our act together to have a resilient system. So it is important for us to go back and know what was really done wrong in Georgia."

What does a "resilient system" entail? And how can you help ensure one? Tune in and find out. Hint: it begins (though doesn't end) with hand-marked paper ballots at every polling place...

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On today's BradCast: Our final round-up of the Gerrymandering Wars at year's end, as we head into the critical 2026 election year following a big, disturbing, redistricting ruling by the corrupt Republican SCOTUS majority. Also today, similarly disturbing news regarding our petty President's latest scheme to undermine life-saving climate science. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... News broke last night that Donald Trump has ordered the dismantling of the world-renowned National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, due to what the fossil-fueled Administration ridiculously describes as "federal climate alarmism".

NCAR was created by the National Science Foundation in 1960 as an independent executive agency funded by Congress, as global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels was already becoming an increasing concern. Even one of the few climate scientists known for his climate change skepticism described NCAR today as a "crown jewel" for the study of atmospheric chemistry and physical meteorology.

The climate science community is, as Hill Heat journalist Brad Johnson reports, "in complete shock" about this "insane move" to undermine science and put millions of lives at risk.

But, believe it or not, while shuttering the 65-year old institution will certainly serve the White House's fossil fuel industry masters well enough, the move actually seems to have as much to do with Trump's twisted vendetta against Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on behalf of brain-poisoned former MAGA County Clerk Tina Peters. She is currently serving 9-years in prison related to breaking into and making unlawful copies of voting system hard drives in a failed attempt to prove fraud during the 2020 election.

Yes. It's all as ridiculous and self-defeating as it sounds. But, that's Trump. Scientists vow to fight the move, even as Trump will likely have to count on his corrupted SCOTUS to allow him to force his will on yet another federal agency created by Congressional mandate to be independent from the Executive Branch.

THEN... As you know by now, afraid of being seen as a loser yet again next year, our corrupt President began ordering Republican-controlled states earlier this year to take the virtually unprecedented step of redistricting U.S. House maps mid-decade in order to try and gerrymander seats held by Democrats out of existence.

The multi-state effort had largely been a wash for the GOP to date, as "blue" states pushed back to try and balance the scales in response. It might have even resulted in a loss for Republicans next year, thanks to a ruling by a three-judge federal panel --- led by a Trump-appointed judge(!) --- after a 9-day hearing of evidence and witnesses, finding that Texas' attempt to gerrymander five Democratic seats in largely majority-minority districts amounted to an unlawful, unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

But, after the briefest of reviews over the Thanksgiving holiday, the corrupt Republican SCOTUS majority issued a terse, unsigned "shadow docket" ruling that allowed the unlawfully gerrymandered Texas map to be used in next year's critical midterms anyway. The 6 to 3 Republican majority said it was just too late and too confusing to use the House maps that used over the past two elections in the Lone Star state.

Citing the "Purcell Principle", another one of the Roberts Court's made-up use-if-and-when-necessary legal doctrines, the majority gave Texas the green light to use its new, unconstitutional, Republican-friendly map next year because the lower court "improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections."

Try not to laugh. That "active primary campaign" the lower court "improperly inserted itself into" would be the midterm primaries scheduled for next March in Texas, to determine candidates for the ballot in November of 2026. While few realized it was an "active" campaign at this point, it could have been, as our guest today notes, moved back by the court, if necessary. Though it is hardly necessary, being months away and, until the new ruling, run on a map that voters have been using without a problem since 2022.

All of that, is ridiculous enough. But, as Justice Elana Kagan noted in her dissent on behalf of the Court's three liberals, the majority ruling now offers a clear roadmap for how states may unlawfully gerrymander at will, in a way that will prevent any court from blocking them, as long as they time their legislation just right.

We're joined today by JAY WILLIS, former attorney, now editor-in-chief at the great legal website Balls and Strikes. He explains that the Court's "Purcell Principle", originally invented in 2006 to avoid chaos at the polling place by a court ruling just days before an election, is now being abused to prevent anything that Republican Justices simply don't like.

"The Purcell Principle has gotten stretched to the point of meaninglessness, where anytime the Justices decide that we are too close to an election in a way where changing the rules would hurt Republicans, they just say, 'No, no! Purcell Principle! Can't do that!,'" Willis tells me. "The Court described the Purcell Principle as forbidding changes on the 'eve' before an election. Now, that Principle is almost an entire calendar year in the hands of this court."

"What this rule amounts to," he argues, "is a free pass for Republican officials to conduct elections outside the scope of the law, as long as they basically get the timing right."

"As Kagan points out in her dissent, you don't have to have a law degree to understand that a racially gerrymandered map is illegal and unconstitutional unless the legislature that passes it waits until close to an election," he says, adding, "That can't be how the law works, a law that allows racial gerrymanders to remain in place in an election, as will be the case in Texas in 2026. That's just not a law that functions. That is not a tenable status quo."

Apparently, it is now. Much more on all of this, and how SCOTUS plans to make things even worse next year, on today's BradCast...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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On today's BradCast: For a guy who believes he's a strongman, or wants to be one --- in a nation where too many have fallen for that idea as well --- the President, with each passing day, is revealing himself to be incredibly weak. Even his own supporters have noticed, and are finally beginning to turn away from him in all of the swing states and even in some of the so-called "reddest" states! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Yes, he's still causing a lot of pain for a lot of people. He'll continue to cruelly do so as long as he can. But don't fall for his tough guy act. He continues to be a wannabe strongman, even while he's failing on virtually every front. We make the case on today's program, along with the latest news and coverage of several under-the-radar issues and contests on next Tuesday's off-year election ballot.

Among the evidence from which we draw today...

• Tough guy Donald Trump calls for the U.S. "Department of War" to resume testing nuclear weapons just minutes before meeting with China's actual strongman President Xi Jinping last night. Just about every point Trump made in his social media announcement on nuclear weapons was false, leaving actual expert in this field completely confused. (And then Xi, like so many other world leaders who have figured out how easy it is to play Trump, went on to eat his lunch. Trump didn't even notice.)

• "What If Trump Is Weaker Than We Think—and America’s Finally Figuring It Out?", muses our friend Thom Hartmann, as Trump's previously ironclad grip on Republicans in Congress begins to reveal numerous cracks in both chambers. "It's just a matter of time," Thom correctly concludes.

• Michigan's Democratic state Senate Majority Whip and 2026 U.S. Senate Candidate, Mallory McMorrow, calls out the Administration for choosing to violate the law by "using food as a political weapon" in cutting off money allocated by Congress to fund payments to some 42 million Americans on SNAP. The threat to starve Americans, beginning on November 1, is supposedly due to the federal government shutdown that our very weak President appears both uninterested and unable to do anything about. Late today, a federal judge suggested she was likely to order the Administration to follow the law by using emergency contingency funds to keep SNAP going as November begins.

• Trump's national approval numbers are beginning to fall again, to all time lows, following a brief and tiny uptick on the heels of the faltering Israel/Hamas agreement. He continues to have the lowest approval numbers for any President in modern history at this point in his term. So, naturally, he is lying about that to media in hopes they will dutifully report his fake news. For example, on Air Force One this week, he lied to the press gaggle: "I have the best numbers for any President in many years, any President!" Nice try, weakman.

• But where his plunging approval ratings are really beginning to leave a mark are in 12 states that voted in his favor last year, where new polling now shows him underwater in all of them! The states where he enjoys negative ratings after winning them last year include every single battleground state (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) as well as five states where he easily won less than one year ago. His approval ratings are now underwater in Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Texas! In all of those states he's plunged in approval by an average of about 15 percentage points since last November. Does that sound like a strongman to you?

• We'll see if voters agree with the argument in next week's off-year elections, as important contests and ballot issues loom in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and California. But there are also some under-the-radar races elsewhere, several of which we detail today in advance of Tuesday's Election Day, including Republican efforts to make voting more difficult (for certain people) in both Texas and Maine, and a Hail Mary effort by Republicans to try and somehow win a majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in time for the 2028 Presidential election.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the deadly, record-breaking, climate change-fueled Hurricane Melissa continues to wreak havoc in the Caribbean as it begins to peter out in strength during its move into the colder North Atlantic. Oh, and bad news for Iceland, just to add a bite to the end of today's program...

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We've got a lot of news from all over the world, and no small amount of explainers to go with it on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Deadly, record-shattering Hurricane Melissa finally makes landfall in Jamaica as a catastrophic, slow moving, 185 mph Category 5 storm. As discussed, this is likely to be very very bad. The island nation has set up a support and donations site here.

• So much for Donald Trump's recent declaration of "everlasting peace" in the Middle East, as Israel reignites its brutal attack on Gaza following its claim that Hamas has violated the recent peace agreement.

• "Peace President" Donald Trump continues his unlawful killing spree in international waters with the announcement that he ordered the U.S. military murder of another 14 alleged "narco-terrorists" on four small boats off of Mexico's Pacific coast. That, as the Administration redeploys its largest aircraft carrier to the Caribbean, not to help storm victims in Jamaica, but almost certainly to wage --- or, at least, threaten --- war on Venezuela (and, perhaps, Colombia).

• Weird and related?: U.S. Defense Dept. officials are being required to sign NDAs. WTF?

• Twenty-three Democratic state Attorneys General announced they are suing the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to continue food assistance to some 42 million low-income Americans via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP, previously known as food stamps). The suit follows the agency's flip-flop on using already-appropriated emergency contingency funds to feed hungry American families amid the ongoing federal government shutdown. If funding ends on November 1, as planned by the USDA, it would be the first time in the 60-year history of the program.

• Following Friday's announcement by Trump's corrupted Dept. of Justice that it plans to send federal monitors to polling places in five counties in California and one in New Jersey during next Tuesday's November 4th elections, for unexplained reasons, the Golden State has announced it plans to dispatch state monitors to oversee the federal ones.

• The Gerrymandering Wars continue and expand. Following Trump's arm-twisting of state GOP lawmakers in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina to rewrite U.S. House district maps to steal seats from Democrats next year --- and Democrats' attempted responses in California and Virginia --- Indiana's Republican Governor has called a special session of the legislature to try and steal another GOP House seat from Democratic voters. But Dems aren't done responding yet, as House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries is said to be in talks with Illinois lawmakers about redrawing that state's map to further favor Dems next year. We do all of the math for ya today, breaking down which party's voters would come out ahead if all of these plans are successful. The answer may surprise you. But the corrupted, rightwing, activist U.S. Supreme Court could still blow up everything (in favor of Republicans) before all is said and done in the critical 2026 midterms.

• Finally, Desi Doyen is back with our latest Green News Report with more on the monstrous Hurricane Melissa; the Trump Administration's withholding of disaster funding to states that didn't vote for him; and the deadly, expensive climate change threats that continue to worsen, whether the Administration removes climate science data from its websites or not...

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We've done quite a bit on The BradCast over the years, from investigative reporting, to deep dive explainers and interviews with experts and news makers, to ranting monologues, to taking calls from listeners on all manner of things. But, unless I'm mistaken, I believe this is the first time we've turned the show into a game show! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... Before we get to our fun (if disturbing?) game today, a few news items of note...

• Category 5 Hurricane Melissa looks to be a monster deadly storm in the Caribbean on several different levels. It's slamming smack-dab into Jamaica overnight tonight. In addition to record wind speeds (satellite records showed the storm, in record warm waters, topping 190mph for a time last night according to satellite records, which would be a Cat 6 if there actually was such a thing on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale), it's also incredibly slow moving. That means it is likely to dump a lot of water --- as much as 40 inches of rain in some places --- as it slowly swamps the entire island. Desi Doyen also joins us for a few insights on how climate change has worsened just about every aspect of this deadly storm.

• Earlier this year the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA), detailed how "multi-year contingency funds" would be used to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to "continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown." Last week, however, as the shutdown drags on, a USDA memo explained that, despite already appropriated Congressional funding to be used for such a contingency, federal SNAP money would no longer be made available to states after November 1 if the shutdown was still ongoing. That, after Republicans already slashed some $186 billion from the program in Trump's so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" earlier this year. More than 40 million people rely on SNAP to put food on the table --- the vast majority of them employed, by the way --- but the Trump Administration is now planning to help starve people (including millions of their own voters) rather than even negotiate with Democrats who are refusing to help Republicans keep the government open until hundreds of millions (in fact trillions) of dollars in Trump/GOP health care cuts for Americans are restored.

• Next Tuesday is Election Day in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City, California and elsewhere. On Friday, Trump's Dept. of Justice announced that federal monitors were being deployed to polling places in five counties in California and one in New Jersey (which both have Democratic governors), though none to Virginia, which has the most contests on the ballot next week...and a Republican Governor. DOJ has yet to explain why monitors are being deployed or under what law they are doing so. Election experts --- and CA's Governor --- warn this may be a trial run for what the Administration is planning for next year's critical midterms.

THEN... It's on to "Who Wants to be a U.S. Citizen?", the first BradCast call-in game show!

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced that it was making it more difficult to pass the test required for those applying to become U.S. Citizens. They are doubling both the number of questions asked PDF on the Naturalization Civics Test and the number of correct answers that need to be given to pass the test.

According to experts, the questions are also more difficult than they were previously. So, today, we open up our phone lines to listeners --- most of them, presumably U.S. citizens! --- to see if they could answer the questions now being asked of prospective citizens by this Administration.

Like the Trump Administration, we make up the rules of the game as we go. And our listeners did fairly well! But I'll bet they did a helluva lot better than our current President would have been able to had he been forced to pass this test!

Tune in for what turned out to be both an amusing and troubling hour of fun and games with our lucky listeners!...

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Elections, crime and voter suppression. Three of our favorite topics here on The BradCast, all of which we cover in several different ways and several different cases on today's show. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

As I described as a virtual certainty on yesterday's program, the federal government did indeed shutdown this morning as of 12:01am. Republicans, who control the White House and both chambers of Congress --- and who could keep the government open all by themselves --- have chosen to shut it down, rather than negotiate with Democrats. For their part, Democrats want to prevent Republicans from spiking health care costs for tens of millions of Americans as of January 1. Short of a deal to prevent that, Dems seem determined to avoid helping Republicans pass a new spending bill. (Which, did I already mention, Republicans could do all by themselves? Even in the U.S. Senate.)

This is likely to go on for a while. The Trump Administration is hoping to hurt as many Americans as possible in the bargain, and is violating federal law by posting notices on every single page of federal government websites (which are supposed to be strictly non-partisan), like the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), falsely claiming: "The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government." Completely unlawful. But, as we know by now, Donald Trump doesn't care about Law and Order or the Rule of Law.

In the meantime, voters may have something to say about all of this in several states next month and in all 50 states next year. So, rather than offer policies the American people might like, Republicans at Trump's corrupted, weaponized Dept. of Justice are hoping to help him rig next year's midterm elections instead.

In the battleground state of Nevada, Trump's U.S. Attorney, Sigal Chattah, according to an exclusive report last night from Reuters, is asking DOJ to help Republicans by investigating "voter fraud" claims made by the state Republican Party and to investigate organizations that help to elect Democrats. Chattah was formerly the state Republican Party Chair. She is also seeking to drop the cases against the GOP Fake Electors in Nevada, who tried to help Trump steal the 2020 election. Chattah was the personal attorney for one of those Fake Electors, even as she, as a federal prosecutor, is now trying to undermine the case against them rather than recusing, as required by DOJ ethics rules, from such cases.

Tune in for more of Chattah's corruption today. But amusingly, a George W. Bush-appointed federal Judge ruled just last night that she is unlawfully serving as the top federal prosecutor in the state as Acting U.S. Attorney beyond the 120 days allowed for someone to hold that position without Senate confirmation.

And, speaking of the failed GOP attempt to steal the 2020 Presidential election, a federal judge late last week found that MyPillow CEO and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell defamed the election technology company Smartmatic at least 51 different times while falsely asserting that the election vendor interfered with the 2020 election to steal votes from Trump and give them to Joe Biden. The only jurisdiction in the entire nation where Smartmatic's voting systems were used that year was in Los Angeles County, where Biden won 71% of the vote. Smartmatic and another company, Dominion, have either won or struck multi-million settlements in every defamation case that each has brought so far against three different rightwing media outlets (Fox, Newsmax and One American News) and several of Team Trump's 2020 MAGA election deniers, such as Lindell. (In a side note, the MyPillow dude says he is now preparing to run for Governor in Minnesota next year against Democratic Gov. Mike Walz! That should be fun!)

AND THEN... Earlier this year, Trump's DOJ ordered 27 mostly Democratic-controlled states to turn over their entire, unredacted statewide voter registration databases to the federal government for unspecified reasons. The Department's Civil Rights Division (which has been turned on its head under Trump) is demanding the entire files, including unredacted personal and sensitive information such as Social Security and Drivers License numbers, etc., for every registered voter. The reasons are unclear, and most states have refused to turn the files over. But now the Department is suing at least eight of those states, including California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania for those files.

Our old friend ARI BERMAN, best-selling author and National Voting Rights Correspondent at Mother Jones, has been covering this story and joins us today to help us try to make sense of it.

The DoJ is claiming in their lawsuits that the states in question are somehow violating the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and the Civil Rights Act of 1960. We discuss all of this today with Berman, who describes the weaponization scheme as of a piece with the GOP's broader "voter-suppression agenda" (which he details in full in MoJo's cover story this month.) Among the questions I've got for him today...

• Why is the Trump Administration demanding access to these databases and the sensitive information within them in the first place?
• What are they accusing the states of having done, in their claims that they have somehow violated three of the nation’s landmark voting rights related laws?
• If it's a fishing expedition regarding claims of voter fraud and non-citizens supposedly voting illegally, didn’t the Trump Administration already try (and fail) to show the very same thing with their quickly disbanded "Election Integrity" Commission during Trump’s first term, when our delusional President was falsely insisting he actually won the popular vote in 2016 but for some 3 million unlawful votes he pretended were unlawfully cast against him in the very blue state of California?

Lots to discuss with Ari today! Hope you'll tune in!...

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We're back on today's BradCast after a much-needed, "end of Summer" break. That's either good or bad news depending on how you (or I) might see it. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The good news for me, I suppose, is that we missed one of the most insanely busy news weeks of Trump's second term. The bad news is that I need to get both you and me caught up on "our story so far", so everything makes sense (or, as much as is possible amidst this insanity) going forward into the Fall (and pending government shutdown at the end of this month.)

To that end, we've got a day-by-day, blow-by-blow, collected summary of much --- if not all --- of the key news from over the last week today. From many of the ongoing losses for Trump in the (lower) courts, to some very encouraging electoral news on several fronts for Democrats, to Americans pushing back (effectively) against the regime on several levels, to some of the not so good news, including natural and man-made disasters and tragedies, and the ever-ongoing, non-stop, self-destructive idiocy of the Trump Administration.

Also, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report, catching you up with some maddening and important stuff there as well!

It doesn't make too much sense for me to go into the details here. I'd be writing and linking all night. So tune in to get caught up on a lot of the unofficial "end of Summer" news to help get yourself buckled up for all the madness that most assuredly lies ahead...

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On today's BradCast: I don't use the word easily. But, if they're gonna use actual Nazi book titles and Nazi fonts in their ICE recruitment ads, they can hardly be offended, much less surprised, if they are called Nazis, right? Also, if they're going to undermine democracy the way the Nazis did, yeah, they're gonna get called out as Nazis! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

On today's program...

• We kick off with a new tune at the top of the show called "Join ICE", by brilliant young folk singer Jesse Welles. You'll enjoy it. If I'm right, and you wanna hear it again, or see what Jesse looks like, the video of his new song is right here.

• Next, they're not even trying to hide it anymore. As the nonprofit news site Religious Dispatches points out, it's "less of a dog whistle than a bullhorn" at this point. The outlet cites two recent cases of the Dept. of Homeland Security tweeting out ICE recruitment propaganda with both purposeful Nazi references --- that might only be fully appreciated by actual Neo-Nazis --- and a "Join ICE" recruitment video that uses "the very same gothic lettering, or Frakturschrift, used by Nazis in their publications --- including on the cover of Mein Kampf"!

• Speaking of police states now in America, Democratic state lawmakers returned to Texas on Monday after breaking quorum in the state Legislature for the past two weeks. Their goad had been to block the adoption of a newly gerrymandered U.S. House map for Texas in advance of next year's midterm elections. We discuss why the Dems say they have returned and what that means for the fight against the new map in Texas and for democracy across the U.S. But the Republican's state House caucus leader has now ordered the Democrats who returned from out of state to be escorted "around-the-clock" by Texas state troopers to prevent them from fleeing again, until the new Special Session called by Gov. Greg Abbott (at Donald Trump's order) is over. Or, at least until they've used their rightwing legislative muscle --- and state troopers --- to deprive voters in five blue-leaning U.S. House districts of their right to be represented by a candidate of their choosing.

• Then, Donald Trump is really hoping you'll forget about his failure to strike a ceasefire "deal" with Vladimir Putin in Alaska last Friday (any his failure to apply "severe" consequences, as promised, against Russia if he didn't). Of course, Trump continues to hope that you'll be too outraged about everything else, to remember that he is still refusing to release the Epstein Files that he is featured in. Today's latest attempted distraction was a long post Monday morning on his failing social media site, vowing to end the use of "MAIL-IN BALLOTS" and get rid of "VOTING MACHINES", by Executive Order, before the 2026 midterm elections. Of course, he has no Constitutional authority as President to do any of that and, naturally, his rambling, at-times ALL CAPS screed announcing his plans was filled with one false claim after another, which we break down on today's show. The biggest takeaway, however, is not only that Trump is hoping to undermine democracy, but that he is now putting in place excuses to blame for his party's trouncing in next year's midterms. Presuming, of course, that they are trounced. If so, he'll be able to claim it was the "MAIL-IN BALLOTS" and "VOTING MACHINES" that dunnit, without any actual evidence to support his claims --- other than his previous tweets "warning" about same. It's his 2020 sore loser act redux. Much more on all of this on today's show.

• Finally, we close with a few callers today, on all of the above...

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It's a tough call on today's BradCast as far as which is worse: the stupidity or the outrage in response. (It's the stupidity, stupid.) But we report, you decide. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Donald Trump's many wars on America, Americans, American democracy, American values and the rest of the world, including livability on the planet itself, continued this week, as one of this nation's greatest accomplishments turns 60 years old, even as it founders under years-long GOP assault. And, coincidentally, the state of Texas plays a part in just about every one of our stories today...

• We kick things off with some goodish news. Following the unspeakable tragedy last month when at least 135 people, including dozens of camping school children, were killed during flash flooding on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Texas Hill Country, the Trump Administration is finally allowing the National Weather Service to hire new meteorologists and other critical staffers. That, after Trump's DOGE scam resulted in the firing and early retirement of hundreds at the now hollowed-out NWS.

• As another heat wave broils much of Texas this week, cheap, clean, renewable energy --- including wind and solar (as well as battery storage for when it's dark or the wind isn't blowing) --- has helped prevent collapse of the state's grid under extraordinary demand, even as some of its coal and gas plants were taken off line due to the climate change-intensified heat.

• Nonetheless, the Trump Administration has been doubling down this week on its war against cheap, clean, renewable energy, such as wind and solar, on behalf of the fossil fuel industry which has captured it. Former fracking CEO turned Trump's Energy Secretary Chris Wright was making the media rounds this week, attempting to justify the Administration's Orwellian removal of Congressionally mandated National Climate Assessments from government websites. He told CNN it's simply an effort to "fix" the science contained in those reports, released every four years after being compiled, peer-reviewed and fact-checked multiple times over several years prior to publication by hundreds of scientists and more than a dozen federal agencies. Wright is hoping to counter the peer-reviewed science on climate change in those landmark quadrennial reviews with a "report" released by the Dept. of Energy last week, as authored in two-months time by five notorious climate science deniers hand-picked by the former fracking executive. Wright's denialist, AI-assisted slop is now being used as the basis for the Administration's effort to scrap every federal climate change-related regulation enacted since 2009.

• Meanwhile, the GOP's War on Democracy continued on Thursday, as Texas state lawmakers remained in other states to try and save it. They are breaking quorum in the Lone Star State's House of Representatives in order to prevent passage of a new U.S. House map, ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott at the direction of Donald Trump, which would steal five seats currently held by Democrats in majority minority districts in next year's midterms. Republican state officials --- from its Governor to its corrupt Attorney General to its U.S. Senator to its Republican House Speaker --- are hoping to enlist Trump's FBI to hunt down, round up and arrest the fleeing Dems in other states, despite no criminal charges against them and a state Constitution that allows them to break quorum (according to the state's all-Republican Supreme Court.) That, as California advances its own effort --- to be placed before voters this Fall --- to counter Texas' attempted mid-decade gerrymander. We get you all caught up with the latest in this harrowing ongoing saga today.

• The Republican attack on democracy --- including on U.S. House districts drawn by federal court order to correct Texas districts found in violation of the Voting Rights Act --- comes on the very same week that the landmark Act, which added tens of millions to to the voting rolls since its passage, turns 60 years old. The VRA has been under successful attack by Republicans in recent years. But today we mark the law's 60th anniversary with some of the remarks upon its signing by heroic President Lyndon Baines Johnson...of Texas.

• Finally, born and bred Texan Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, detailing some of the remarkable actions taken this week by the Trump Administration --- remarkably, as energy costs and demand are quickly rising --- to roll back successful efforts to incentivize cheap, clean, renewable energy. Among the new fronts in his war this week: An absurd "energy density" requirement for power sources; an attempt to rescind $7 billion appropriated by Congress during the Biden era to help defray the cost of residential rooftop solar in low- and middle-income communities; orders to shut down on-going wind energy projects; and Trump's ridiculous mandate that wind farms may no longer be built any closer than a mile from roads and railways...

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Today on The BradCast: Democratic state lawmakers from Texas are, right now, fighting for democracy for all of us, no matter where we live and which party we belong to --- or even if we belong to no party at all. So what can you and I do to help? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Democratic members of Texas' state House of Representatives fled the Lone Star State on Sunday to deny Republicans the quorum needed in a special session of the state legislature to redraw U.S. House maps in the middle of the decade. The GOP hope is to steal five seats from Democratic-leaning voters by redrawing district lines. Governor Greg Abbott called the special session at the demand of Donald Trump, who clearly feels his agenda is on the ropes, as Dems appear set to retake the U.S. House majority next year. That, he fears, will put an end to his unfettered authoritarian agenda.

Republicans, apparently, don't feel they can win by offering policies that voters like. So they are going to cheat, to rig the 2026 midterm elections in their favor if they can. It is now easier than ever for them to do so, thanks to recent rulings by the corrupted, activist Republican U.S. Supreme Court majority. Partisan lawmakers are now allowed to rig elections by implementing partisan gerrymanders. SCOTUS has said that federal courts must not intercede in such matters. At the same time, the rightwing Supremes are now gunning to allow racial gerrymanders as well, despite its prohibition in the Voting Rights Act.

All of this has combined for a toxic mix of rightwing extremism that has opened the door for Republicans to simply rewrite Congressional maps to prevent Democrats from winning seats at all in states where the GOP controls both the legislature and governor's mansion. Texas is now trying to do it. Democrats in the state are trying to block them by leaving the state. And states controlled by Democrats are looking to respond in kind, if necessary.

Yet, as we discussed on the show a couple of weeks ago, it's not so easy for Dems to push back for a number of reasons. One of them is that many Democratically controlled states have implemented nonpartisan or bipartisan independent redistricting commissions. That means that partisan legislatures cannot simply game the maps as easily as Republicans can in states that they control.

I have fought against such undemocratic efforts for years, whether it is done by Republicans or Democrats. However, given the Republican capture of the High Court and their apparent determination to simply steal an authoritarian-friendly majority forever by gaming the state maps, it would also undermine democracy itself if Democrats failed to step up to meet the moment in response.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul now describes what is happening as a "war". She says she intends to rewrite state maps as well. But due to state constitutional restrictions she wouldn't be able to do so until 2027 earliest. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker --- who is helping to house Texas lawmakers who have fled their state to break quorum and avoid their Governor's threat of arrest and expulsion from the legislature --- is similarly exploring options to rewrite the U.S. House map in the Land of Lincoln before the 2026 midterms.

In California, with some of the most competitive districts in the nation --- thanks to our constitutionally mandated independent redistricting commission --- maps could be redrawn in a way that Democrats could almost certainly win all 52 seats in the state's U.S. House delegation. They currently hold 43 of them. California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom threatens to do exactly that if Texas Republicans are able to proceed with their partisan redistricting scheme. (Republicans in other states, such as Ohio, are threatening to to follow in Texas' footsteps with their own mid-decade gerrymanders.)

But in California, a vote of the people would be required to temporarily waive the U.S. House map drawn by the state's constitutionally-mandated independent redistricting commission. Newsom has said he preparing to push for exactly that in the first week of November this year if Texas stays on course.

"We will go to the people of this state in a transparent way and ask them to consider the new circumstances, to consider these new realities," Newsom told reporters last week. "This is not going to be done in a back room. This is not going to be done by members of some private group or body. It's going to be given to the voters for their consideration in a very transparent way so they know exactly what they’re doing and they can go back in 2030 to original form with our independent redistricting intact."

So, will Golden State voters support such a move this November at the ballot box if it comes to pass? We open up our phone lines today to find out how our live Southern California listeners feel about it. The responses may surprise you as much as they surprised me. Tune in to find out why...

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Democrats are hoping for a "Blue Wave" in next year's critical mid-term elections, as Trump's approval numbers continue to fall around the nation. But Republicans, at their corrupt President's direction, are working on a scheme to hold on to their slim House majority next year, come hell or high voter turnout. Our guest on today's BradCast explains why the GOP plot may work. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... Last week, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called for full transparency in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the late pedophile, sex-trafficker and years-long best friend of Donald Trump. "I'm for transparency. We're intellectually consistent on this," Johnson told a rightwing podcaster after being asked about releasing the Epstein Files, as Trump had long promised during last year's campaign. "We should put everything out there and let the people decide," the Speaker said.

That was before, apparently, he'd heard that Trump had reversed course, and was now blocking the release of those files, for some reason, despite considerable push-back from his own MAGA supporters.

Today, rather than allowing a vote on a non-binding resolution calling on the Dept. of Justice to release the files in question, Johnson ditched plans to hold votes on a number of issues and announced instead that the House would recess early for their planned August recess. They will finish business tomorrow and not return until September.

A number of MAGA Republicans in Congress, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA) and Thomas Massie (KY), are none too happy about that. Suffice to say, Johnson's plan is unlikely to give Trump the "space" that he said the President deserves to figure out how to proceed on this "delicate" matter. So much for Johnson's continuing promises lies to provide "maximum transparency."

THEN... Texas' Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has convened a Special Session of the state's Legislature this week. Not in order to respond to the chain of failures in the state that resulted in the flash flooding deaths of at least 135 people on July 4th, including dozens of children camping on the banks of the Guadalupe River. Lawmakers may discuss that as well. But Abbott, at the command of Donald Trump, has called them back to Austin for the "emergency" of redrawing the state's already-gerrymandering U.S. House maps in order to elect more Republicans in advance of next year's mid-term elections.

The GOP state delegation already holds twice as many seats as Democrats in the U.S. House. But, with a razor-thin margin in the lower chamber in what could be a rough year for Republicans, Trump, Abbott and the GOP are hoping to flip as many as five more seats from "blue" to "red" in the Lone Star State next year. The plan is to further disenfranchise state voters by preventing even more of them from electing representatives of their choosing --- particularly minority voters.

Some Democrats are suggesting the TX scheme could backfire. They argue that the Republican plan to adjust Congressional district lines to move more GOP voters into Democratic districts may result in otherwise safe Republican seats flipping to Dems in a wave election, a concept recently referred to as "dummymandering".

Moreover, Dems are said to be considering answering the Republican effort by carrying out their own mid-decade gerrymandering in states they control state, such as New York, New Jersey, California, Minnesota, Washington state and/or Illinois.

We're joined today by longtime redistricting expert, historian and author, DAVID DALEY of the nonprofit FairVote. He details the GOP plan and why he believes that the Democratic Party's efforts to respond to it is likely too little and too late.

Daley, the author of three books on gerrymandering, including last year's best-seller, Antidemocratic: Inside the Right's 50 Year Plan to Control American Elections, throws cold water on the idea that GOP 'dummymandering' may ultimately benefit Democrats. He authored a detailed article explaining his position this week at Salon, where he formerly served as Editor-in-Chief.

"Democrats are talking about dummymanders, not because they think it is actually going to happen," he tells me today, "but because they have no other ability to stop this except to try to scare [Republicans]."

But, he continues, "this is not going to scare Republicans, because they've got the best map-makers on the planet. Not a single Republican map has backfired in a single election in any Republican gerrymandered state in the modern era of redistricting, ever since technology and voter data supercharged these lines. It hasn't happened once, anywhere. The lines are too strong, the mapmakers are too good, too smart, too specific, and too precise. If Democrats are counting on Republicans to enact a dummymander, the dummies are them."

Okay. Then how about the Dem plan to carry out mid-decade gerrymanders in states that they control in order to flip some seats from "red" to "blue"? Tune in for Daley's full thoughts on that, and why he believes that "it's the Democrats that would risk a dummymander" in the process.

We also discuss the legal underpinnings for all of this ("It's always a delight to me to see exactly when it is that Republicans and a Republican Dept. of Justice get upset about gerrymandering. It tends to be when they think that districts might actually be drawn that gives somebody other than a white dude a chance of winning."); how the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court has supercharged the ability for Republicans to undermine democracy itself; and what, if anything, can possibly be done in the future to end this apparent race to democracy's bottom.

FINALLY... As the nation sweats, and burns, and floods this Summer, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on all of the above, and the astounding cost to the nation, over the past year alone, of climate change-related damages...

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Yikes. On today's BradCast, Trump's fascistic lawlessness is really taking hold this week in several areas...with a lot of help from his fellow corrupt Republicans. A few GOPers, however, who serve as election officials in Colorado, aren't having it. And we are grateful to them. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Lots of news today, and not much of it encouraging amid America's existential fight against Donald Trump's rising tyranny...

• Late last night, for the first time since 1999, in a simple majority vote that avoids the filibuster, Senate Republicans approved a Trump-requested package to rescind some $9 billion dollars in federal spending that had been previously approved through the bipartisan appropriations process. About $8 billion was to have been for foreign aid, and more than $1 billion was slashed from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting which helps fund NPR and PBS stations around the country. That is likely to kill a number of public radio and TV stations around the country entirely, particularly in rural areas which heavily rely on CPB support to continuing broadcasting over our public airwaves. After one more vote in the GOP House tonight or tomorrow, the bill heads to the President for his signature.

• Perhaps in hopes that it will somehow make up for Trump's refusal to release the "Epstein Files" (that he is almost certainly named in, many times), the Dept. of Justice in DC on Wednesday night ordered the firing of a top career federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York (SDNY). The longtime, very well respected prosecutor is Maurene Comey, prosecutor of the late Jeffrey Epstein's case, as well as his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell (who is currently serving 20 years for her part in Epstein's child sex trafficking scheme.) Comey --- whose "fear is the tool of the tyrant" statement to colleagues upon leaving is here --- also happens to be the daughter of Trump's imagined enemy, James Comey, the Republican FBI Director fired by Trump during his first term for his refusal to violate the law on Trump's behalf.

• In the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Democrats walked out after Republicans prematurely ended debate on the Appeals Court nomination of Emil Bove, one of Trump's criminal defense attorneys who is currently serving as a top DOJ official. Trump has nominated him for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. Since being tapped for a top job at DOJ, Bove has played a key role in the Department's dismissal of corruption charges against NYC's mayor; headed up weaponized mass revenge firings at the Department; threatened officials who resisted Trump's agenda; and, according to a mountain of on-the-record evidence from a DoJ whistleblower, instructed prosecutors to defy court orders in immigration cases. His nomination is opposed by hundreds of bipartisan prosecutors and judges. So, naturally, Trump wants him to have a lifetime appointment as a federal appeals court judge and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee were happy to approve his nomination today in a 12 to 0 vote after Dems walked out in protest.

• With unpopular Republicans desperate to hold on to their very narrow majority rule in Congress, so they can continue to abuse it, some are now turning to voter suppression schemes in advance of next year's critical mid-term elections. In Wyoming, where it is already unlawful for non-citizens to vote, its MAGA Sec. of State Chuck Gray is implementing a new requirement for physical proof of citizenship for voting. Voting rights advocates --- some of whom are suing --- argue that the new law is certain to disenfranchise thousands of otherwise eligible voters (particularly women, whose married names may not be reflected on papers such as passports, REAL IDs, birth certifications) in a state which, with the recent help of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, has been able to uncover exactly ZERO cases of noncitizen voting in the state's most populous county.

• But the most alarming news this week regarding the Trump White House's assault on voting rights and voters and elections and democracy itself this week, comes out of Colorado. On Thursday the Washington Post reported on what appears to have been a --- so far --- failed scheme to breach sensitive voting systems in 10 counties across the state. The Denver Post subsequently confirmed and added to the report. The clumsy plot appears remarkably similar to the one that resulted in the unlawful copying and theft of proprietary statewide voting and tabulation software by Trump allies in Coffee County, Georgia in early 2021. (We covered that story closely, and helped break some of it, on this show.) In Colorado, however, where Republican County election Clerks say they were contacted last week by someone said to be working for the White House, seeking access to the voting systems by DHS, all of them say they rejected the attempt. No doubt, memories are fresh in the state of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who is currently serving 9 years in prison related to having breached her own County's voting system hardware and software following the 2020 election. Much more on all of this on today's program.

• And, finally, as the "Summer of Floods" continues, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on that; a new NASA analysis on the dramatic, climate-fueled increase in extreme weather events; and on the Trump Dept. of Defense decision to cut off access to key satellites used in the forecasting of hurricanes...

Told ya today's news wasn't great. So..."enjoy" today's BradCast!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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