On today's BradCast: The U.S. and world economies continue to collapse amid ridiculous happy talk largely from the President and his GOP pals, as the suffering of millions of Americans grows amid the coronavirus pandemic and, incredibly enough, millions of tons of fresh food being destroyed by farmers and other food producers. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Why are farmers and dairy producers doing that? The American Prospect's ALEXANDER SAMMON joins us today to explain how "Coronavirus has Broken America's Food Supply", and how, amazingly enough, the federal government (including the President who pretends to love farmers...especially in swing states) appears to be doing absolutely nothing about about a collapsing supply chain.

To be fair, neither party seems to be loudly pressing for action here, according to Sammon. But, as we discuss, this is a problem that could pretty easily be solved by the federal government. American families are running out of money as workers are being laid off. The Government is sending them a paltry $1,200 check (which may be delayed for many, because Trump is insisting on his name appearing on the checks), which many are likely to use to buy food. At the same time, food and milk created for commercial use in sectors which have collapsed (restaraunts, hotels, schools) is being destroyed. The Government could be buying that food (delivering much-needed relief to struggling farmers and food producers) and use the storied logistics skills of the U.S. Military to help deliver it to people in desperate need all over the country and around the world.

"It's one of those things where we've seen the President basically almost allergic to using federal authority, the national authority that is at his disposal to make these things right," Sammon explains. "Here is something he could do, well within the capacity of the federal government and the military, but there's been no indication they're going to pursue that. I think that's a pretty astounding political failure, at a very basic level."

Sammon goes on to describe the worsening conditions for food producers and the laborers in the industry who are becoming sick at an alarming rate, as "a very troubling sign for farmers and the food supply chain going forward."

"There's going to be a lot of farmers entering in to bankruptcy," he tells me. "The jolt to the system is not going to be immediate. But a year from now we could be looking at diminished supply at a pretty significant level. That could result in much higher prices. If we're emerging from a global recession, where we're talking about forecasts of 30% unemployment, potentially, at some point later in the year, the notion of having escalating food prices is certainly not something that's going to take the edge off of that."

Despite that grim news and the horrific economic numbers released on Wednesday regarding retail sales --- (yes, CONSUMERS, as it turns out, are the backbone of the nation's economy...They are the job creators, not the parasitic corporations and executives who pretend to be) --- we've got some more good news today for those who can't wait to vote this November. It'll much easier --- and safer --- to do that in Virginia this year, thanks to a series of important election reforms signed into law over the weekend by the state's Democratic Governor. Among the many long-overdue reforms: No-excuse absentee voting; Automatic voter registration at the DMV; Repeal of Photo ID voting restrictions; Expanded early and Election Day voting hours; and Election Day will now be a state holiday, while the Lee-Jackson Day holiday, celebrating Confederate Generals who attacked the U.S., will no longer be celebrated.

All of those reforms come thanks to the Democratic majorities won for the first time in years in both the Commonwealth's Senate and House last year. And that is thanks, in no small part, to the court-ordered UNgerrymandering of Virginia last year.

But that's not all the good news about upcoming elections today. The Republican National Committee, according to mailers they paid for and sent out to Republican voters in Pennsylvania, has declared that absentee voting is "easy, convenient and secure"! Yes, the word "secure" was made bold on the "Official Republican Party Mail-in Ballot Application" sent out to voters in the Keystone State this week.

So, apparently, we can all happily ignore the President and other high-profile Republicans around the country who claim that Vote-by-Mail is a vector for fraud. Their own party, it seems, has just made liars of them! (Though that's not particularly difficult to do these days.)

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We catch up with a bit of listener mail at the top of today's BradCast before moving on to the huge story out of Wisconsin, where, according to results finally announced Monday night, a progressive-supported state Supreme Court candidate has apparently unseated a rightwing Scott Walker-appointed, Donald Trump-endorsed Justice following last Tuesday's disastrous and dangerous election in the Badger State. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

Judge Jill Karofsky reportedly trounced incumbent GOP-backed Justice Daniel Kelly by more than 10 points (or more than 163,000 votes of about 1.5 million cast) to win a 10 year term on the state Supreme Court. The stunning upset victory reduces the longtime rightwing partisan bent of the court from 5 to 2, to just 4 to 3, with a real chance to flip the court's balance to progressives in the state when the next seat either opens up for an appointment (with Democratic Governor Tony Evers having ousted the far-right Walker in 2018) or in the next Supreme Court retention election. The next such election is scheduled for 2023.

What makes Karofsky's win all the more remarkable, of course, is the horrific circumstances under which Republicans forced their own Wisconsin voters to the polls last week amid the global coronavirus pandemic. Republicans in the gerrymandered state legislature, along with the Republicans on the state Supreme Court and on the U.S. Supreme Court's stolen Republican majority all conspired to prevent the election from being postponed or changed to an all Vote-by-Mail election, despite Evers several attempts to do so in response to the COVID epidemic.

Hundreds of thousands of voters and poll workers were forced instead to choose between risking their lives to vote or having their votes suppressed, after tens of thousands of absentee ballots did not reach voters in time to be returned by the April 7th Election Day mandated by SCOTUS as the deadline. That, despite lower federal courts previously allowing for a 6-day extension for the return of absentee ballots, given the extraordinary circumstances. With the two Supreme Courts rulings, voters were forced to wait hours in line to cast in-person ballots in the April 7 election, with hundreds of polling sites closed, while enduring rain and hail and possible coronavirus infection to cast their votes, after Republicans decided that mandating an in-person election during a pandemic, while suppressing the votes of tens of thousands of absentee voters, was their only chance to maintain their 5 to 2 advantage on the state Supreme Court.

We're joined to talk about all of this victory amidst outrage today by WI native son and progressive journalist JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation and of Madison's Capital Times. He tells me that Karofsky's election in WI right now "is the biggest deal of anything we have talked about" on the show, adding that "you and I go back a long way."

He charges "the Republicans ginned up their entire voter suppression operation. They put it on 11. They went for everything they could" and then they "weaponized coronavirus", but were still unable to defeat the dedicated Wisconsin voters who delivered "a true rebuke of the people who tried to suppress the vote."

We discuss both the important victory on the state Supreme Court as well as several other contests where the GOP was rebuked, along with the stain of last week's election and what all of this means for Wisconsinites and Americans going forward. There are more than 20 states still to hold primaries in the months ahead. All 50 states must figure out how to hold the most critical Presidential election in our nation's history this November. And the desperate Republican Party is hoping to bring chaos to all of it.

If what happened in Wisconsin is any indication, the GOP may have their work cut out for them, however, this year. But, as we also discuss, they may even be willing to bring down the U.S. Postal Service to do it.

Finally, we're joined by Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report following deadly tornadoes in the South, wildfires now threatening Chernobyl, and some good news about yet another coal plant closure in Kentucky...

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What a week. We've got a lot to catch up with on today's BradCast, with much of it not good news at all. But we do try to offer a few bright spots along the way, and finish with a song, to make the stories you need to know about slightly less maddening. [Audio link to show follows below summary.]

Among the many stories covered on today's program...

• Biden leads Trump by 11 points in a new NATIONAL poll taken before Sanders dropped out;

• Trump Admin is desperate to "re-open" America as early as next month. Experts suggest that's insane, with no good plans available to do so, and a vaccine unavailable for as many as two years, if even then, according to Trump's own former FDA Administrator --- and while Americans continue to wait for their paltry $1,200 relief checks, millions of Americans who need them most will never receive them;

• Tuesday's shameful, disastrous and, likely, deadly "shit show" of an election in Wisconsin --- with in-person voting forced in the middle of a global pandemic by Republicans in the state legislature, state Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court --- was even worse and more disenfranchising than previously known. Officials are now calling for an investigation from the U.S. Postal Service to explain why thousands of absentee ballots, many sent far in advance of Election Day, never arrived for many voters in Milwaukee, and as Republican state Sen. Dan Feyen now hypocritically wants an extension to vote for some voters in his district after several tubs of absentee ballots were discovered at a postal facility undelivered. (That, after he and his GOP colleagues in the state legislature repeatedly prevented a postponement of the election and applauded the SCOTUS ruling that prevented a 6-day extension for tens of thousands of voters to return their absentee ballots after having not even received them at all before the April 7 Election Day.);

• And, in very related news, the U.S. Postal Service is now apparently on the brink of complete shutdown, as early as June, thanks to a decrease in mail delivery during the coronavirus pandemic. Democrats on Capitol Hill are begging for a short term bailout [PDF] for the quasi-independent federal agency that otherwise receives no tax-payer dollars. Republicans, however, blocked the effort to include $25 billion to save the USPS in the recent $2.2 Trillion emergency relief/corporate bailout CARES Act (which included $500 billion for private corporations). That, as millions rely on the USPS for prescription drugs and states across the country hope to rely on the Post Office for Vote-by-Mail primary elections in June and perhaps in all 50 states this November. Republicans also refused to include $4 billion needed to help states conduct elections during a pandemic, but they did include $400 million which, since there are few, if any, restrictions on that money, states are already using it for other things instead;

• Finally, we end with a song and a laugh (cuz we really need both at the end of this week as much as you do), as Randy Rainbow plays us out with a tribute to his new favorite Governor...

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It was an action-packed BradCast today, though not in a good way, unfortunately, thanks to Republicans and their state Supreme Court majority in Wisconsin. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

First up, as we've been telling you for weeks, there is absolutely no plan at the federal level for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic --- on either a medical level or an economic level --- even months after the Trump Administration first learned about it. The $2.2 trillion so-called Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, hastily adopted by Congress and signed by the President just over a week ago is a mess.

Individual checks for $1,200 may take months to get to many Americans (if they get them at all) and the process for doling out $350 billion allocated by the measure towards immediate relief for small businesses via forgivable loans is even more of a disaster out of the gate. Banks, serving as middlemen, are not set up for the onslaught of applications that began on Friday, with many applicants being turned away entirely by the largest banks, and with nowhere near enough money included in the pool to serve the 30 million companies considered eligible small businesses. Our guest today suggests that no more than 5% of businesses who need help under the CARES Act's Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) are likely to receive the immediately needed loans before the funding runs out.

Moreover, there is still no nationalized plan by the Trump Administration to ensure that states have all of the basic equipment they need --- from masks, gloves and gowns to ventilators and test kits --- as supply chains have become an all out "Wild West show, with middlemen and drop points and plane rescues," according to our guest DAVID DAYEN, financial investigative journalist and Executive Editor of The American Prospect. He is now producing his indispensable "Unsanitized: Covid-19 Daily Report" column and newsletter at The Prospect.

He reports that it is not only states competing with other states and the federal government for critical life-saving equipment, but that the federal government (FEMA) is also competing with the federal government (the Strategic National Stockpile or SNS), bidding up the same gear! All of this as U.S. deaths officially attributed to COVID-19 blew past the 10,000 mark on Monday, with a week ahead that could include a "9/11 attack worth of Americans" dying, day after day, for 10 days in a row beginning in the next few days, according to one of the more conservative data projections.

Dayen offers detail on much of the above and the problem that many Americans are also now facing in their attempts to file for bankruptcy protection --- at a time that many desperately need to do so --- with courthouses shutdown around the country, and only those lucky enough to be able to afford an attorney able to file electronically.

As CNN's Jake Tapper made clear on Sunday: there is no plan for any of this. It is a disaster that is likely to continue for months (at least) with no competent officials leading the way at the federal level, and absolutely no ultimate plan to help us get out, eventually, from under what is likely to be as bad or worse than the Great Depression. That, despite the "irrational exuberance" exhibited today by a Wall Street that seems to be in utter denial.

Then, where we had hoped when today's show began to bring you the long overdue good news that Wisconsin's Democratic Governor Tony Evers finally did the right thing on Monday morning by issuing an Executive Order to postpone tomorrow's Presidential Primary, state Supreme Court election and municipal races until June 9, we were forced to change course mid-show after the state's Rightwing Supremes blocked Evers' order along a 4 to 2 party line vote.

Therefore, unless something changes, where Badger State voters can find an open polling place tomorrow (scores of municipalities found zero poll workers willing to face death to man the polls, and Milwaukee's usual 180 polling sites are being reduced to just 5!), voters will have to risk their lives to cast a vote in person on Tuesday. After Republicans had their way with the state Supremes, they have also filed with the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn an order by a federal judge last week that allowed 6 extra days for voters to turn in absentee ballots, many of which have not yet even arrived to voters on the day before the Election (when they would otherwise be due.) After air time, it appears that the stolen Republican Majority on SCOTUS has also decided with their GOP brethren in WI, and voted along party lines to overturn the federal judge's extension of the deadline for absentee ballots. Tens of thousands will be disenfranchised in the bargain.

It is a chaotic mess and electoral disaster. But, more to the point, it is a DEADLY disaster in the making, with Republicans in the state all too happy to condemn voters to potential death because they think more Democrats will be affected and possibly killed, and they hope that their incumbent Republican state Supreme Court Justice, who is on the ballot on Tuesday, will prevail under these conditions. It is appalling and Americans should get ready for much more of this in the months ahead, with more than 20 states still to cast their postponed primary votes, and all 50 states preparing to figure out how to run an election during a deadly pandemic this November. One of the two major parties has made clear that they are more than happy to place their retention of political power over the lives of actual American citizens.

Finally, today, we open up the phones to allow a few callers from the coronaverse to ring in....

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On today's BradCast: Yes, it is as bad as we warned it would be. And it is getting even worse. And the way some state officials are now behaving, even upcoming elections may be unable to reverse much of this madness. [Audio link to full program is posted at end of summary.]

On Thursday, the U.S. Labor Department released gobsmacking statistics revealing that a record 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the past week. That follows more than 3 million doing so the week before. Both weeks blow to smithereens the previous all-time record high for weekly jobless claims since such records have been kept. That numbers was of 695,000, as set in 1982. We are quickly blowing past the disastrous economic tailspin of the 2008 Great Recession and moving into Great Depression territory.

In response, House Dems are attempting to move to another relief bill, in the form of a $2 trillion infrastructure plan to follow up last week's $2.2 trillion stimulus/corporate bailout bill. But Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is, so far, rejecting Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's proposal to do so, while telling her to "stand down" as the GOP does nothing instead. That, as NBC News reports today that Americans may be waiting as long as five months for the paltry $1,200 check promised them by last week's emergency relief bill.

But, of course, Congressional Republicans aren't doing absolutely nothing. McConnell has vowed to continuing packing the federal courts with unqualified judges, even among this disaster. And several GOP members of the House and Senate are proposing a bill to punish those who disseminated false information about coronavirus or who profited from it --- so long as those people are from other countries. Luckily, Donald Trump's months of repeated and purposeful and deadly disinformation that he and his Administration fed to the American people about the pandemic is all cool! So, apparently, are any U.S. Senators who may have profited from early information about the virus by trading millions of dollars of stock based on insider information, including Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Kelly Loeffler (R-GA). Presumably, they will not be held to account by the GOP's proposal to punish anyone who "financially benefits from acts intended to deliberately conceal or distort information about a public health emergency of international concern."

In the House, at the same time, Pelosi has announced the formation of a new bipartisan Select Committee to oversee the Trump Administration's response to the pandemic and its use of the $2 trillion allocated by last week's relief package. The committee, she says, will have subpoena power. So, if there are any questions the panel may have for members of the Administration dolling out that record amount of tax payer funds, we're certain that all of the President's men will undoubtedly respect any lawful Congressional subpoena they may receive.

Meanwhile, we continue to keep our eyes on how to help to begin to end many of these ongoing nightmares, somehow, via the ballot box. Toward that end, the Democratic National Committee announced they are postponing their national nominating convention, previously scheduled for Milwaukee, Wisconsin in July, back to August instead, in hopes that it will be possible to gather in person by that time (it likely will not be.) It would be held the week before Republicans plan to hold theirs in Charlotte, North Carolina, which Trump has vowed to hold with delegates gathered in person in the final week of August.

But, we're still in utter disbelief that Wisconsin is actually --- seriously --- going to hold their Presidential Primary, statewide Supreme Court election and municipal contests NEXT TUESDAY on April 7, despite, as we noted yesterday, the ongoing unprecedented health emergency, statewide stay-at-home order, and "a massive shortage of poll workers across the state, with more than 100 communities having no poll workers at all as of [this past Tuesday, and] an overall shortage of some 7,000 workers in 60% of the state's municipalities."

As we reported Wednesday, the only thing set to stop this madness with both the state's Democratic Governor and Republican heads of the state House and Senate also on board, is a federal lawsuit filed by voting rights advocates. Well, U.S. District Judge Mark M. Conley issued his ruling on Thursday, declining to postpone the election, while making clear that though he disagrees with the state's decision to move forward, he does not have the authority to postpone it due to a health emergency in which, he suggested correctly, residents could die. "That may be something that happens," he said during closing arguments, adding "that would be outside my jurisdiction. But it will be on the hands of the legislature and the governor."

Yes, it will. Judge Conley did, however, extend a few deadlines for absentee balloting, which has also reportedly already overwhelmed local elections officials who are having trouble keeping up with incoming ballots as well as sending out a record number of requested ballots. The Wisconsin Election Commission has already stated that it is very likely, barring a legislative change by the Republican-controlled legislature, that many votes will not be able to be counted at all in time for the state's statutory deadline. Republicans appear to be very happy about that. Conley suggested he may rule again, if voting rights are seen as imperiled on Election Day.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with the U.N. cancelling its critical upcoming climate conference due to the corona virus pandemic; a bankrupt U.S. coal company attempting to pass its obligations to retired miners over to tax payers instead; several states use the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse to pass laws criminalizing pipeline protests; and Trump's Interior Dept. keeps national parks open despite worker illnesses and their pleas to close the parks in the name of public safety...

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On today's BradCast: We are finally beginning to hear, at least from some in the media, about the unprecedented and nearly inconceivable depth of the crisis that coronavirus will wreak on both the lives of Americans and the U.S./world economy. But, for the moment, it's already wreaking havoc on the Presidential Primary election astonishingly still scheduled for this Tuesday in Wisconsin! And, in not unrelated news, employee health care plans, so zealously guarded during the peak of the Democratic Presidential Primary earlier this year, may have actually helped make the pandemic worse than it needed to be in the U.S. [Audio link to full show is posted at bottom of article.]

First up, Florida's mini-Trump Governor Ron DeSantis finally gave up the Fox "News" denial ghost on Wednesday and issued a statewide Stay-at-Home order for the Sunshine State. How many lives might have otherwise have been saved had he acted sooner, as health experts had been long imploring, remains to be seen.

But it's not only Republican Governors who appear in denial about the issue. Wisconsin's Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, while responsibly issuing a statewide Stay-at-Home order on March 24, has nonetheless been supportive of the state holding its Presidential Primary, statewide Supreme Court election and municipal contests as scheduled NEXT TUESDAY, on April 7, in the middle of a global pandemic! (Not to mention amid his own Stay-at-Home order!) While Evers says that only the Republican-majority legislature has the legal authority to postpone it or mandate an all-mail election, state GOPers have agreed with the Governor's plan to move forward as scheduled. The result is already catastrophic.

There is a massive shortage of poll workers across the state, with more than 100 communities having no poll workers at all as of yesterday, with an overall shortage of some 7,000 workers in 60% of the state's municipalities. Evers has now called in the National Guard to work the polls, but it appears to be too little too late. The matter now comes down to the decision of a federal judge as to whether to postpone or not, as the Wisconsin Election Commission argues that large numbers of absentee ballots may never arrive in time for voters, and might never be counted at all, due to a simultaneous deluge of incoming absentee ballots that officials appear wildly unprepared to handle.

I only hope that the more than twenty states which have postponed their primaries (somewhat optimistically) to May or June are taking note of the ongoing meltdown in the Badger State, and that all 50 states get to work NOW to figure out how to safely, transparently and accurately manage the likely need for Vote-by-Mail elections across the nation for the never-more-critical Presidential election on November 3rd.

As we have been trying to underscore in recent days, the effect of the novel coronavirus is likely to be far more extensive --- both medically and economically --- than almost anybody has been discussing out loud, especially our national leaders and the media. Donald Trump and his White House have, of course, been in criminally obscene denial from the jump, but members of Congress and even presumptive Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden have not been much better at telling the truth to the American people about how deeply devastating this crisis is going to be to the economy and how long it is likely to continue.

Today, the New York Times finally began doing so, a bit, in two different articles. One from Jim Tankersley reveals that top White House economists on the National Security Counsel warned about exactly this scenario in a study published last September, long before Trump and his public-facing economic team repeatedly lied to the media about the virus being under control and no threat to the economy. The other Times piece, from reporter Peter Goodman, details how the economic downturn is likely to continue "into next year, and even beyond" and why the almost certainly lengthy "abrupt halt of commercial activity threatens to impose economic pain" that could take years to recover from in what is shaping up to be "a financial crisis of cataclysmic proportions". One result, according to a recent analysis by the St. Louis Fed, is that as many as 47 million Americans could find themselves unemployed soon. (That amounts to an approximately 32% jobless rate, compared to 25% during the Great Depression and 10% in the 2008 Great Recession.)

So, how are those employer-based health care plans looking right about now for millions of Americans who have already or are about to lose both their jobs AND their health care insurance? At the height of the still-ongoing Democratic Primary, the case was made by candidates like Joe Biden and Pete Buttigeig and Amy Klobuchar that such plans were just too good for Americans to give up in favor of a single-payer, government-funded, cradle-to-grave, Medical-for-All type plan, like that proposed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. But our guest today, former healthcare insurance executive turned political columnist and host of The Zero Hour, RICHARD 'RJ' ESKOW, argues at The American Prospect that the structure of many of those employer-based plans --- and the way most such coverage has been structured since the 1980s in the U.S. --- may have resulted in the pandemic's spread being worse than it might otherwise have been in this country, were it not for "a plot twist worthy of H.G. Wells".

Eskow explains how the timing of the viral spread in the U.S. --- at the beginning of the year, instead of year's end, after costly deductibles may have already been covered by many --- might have prevented thousands from seeking care earlier.

"You have 70%, according to polls, of Americans saying they don't have $1000 on hand for an emergency, and you have deductibles on average that are higher than that," he says. "Most people don't meet their deductibles in the first quarter of the year. The pandemic struck in the first quarter of the year. They literally have to pay 100% out-of-pocket at this point. Maybe they'll get reimbursed someday, but remember, they don't have the cash on hand. So we have a situation where people almost certainly are not getting checked out as quickly as they should be, which is promoting the spread of the disease and worsening the progression of the disease for people who have it."

He also details how the cost-sharing structures of most "health benefit plans" --- requiring co-pays, deductibles, premiums and other out-of-pocket "cost sharing" expenses, as implemented by employers and health insurance companies to actually discourage care-seeking ("skin in the game", as many have referred to the concept over recent decades) --- has further helped to unnecessarily worsen the crisis in a way that a Medicare-for-All styled system might have helped to avoid.

Eskow, who served as a Senior Writer and Editor for Sanders' 2016 Presidential campaign, also discusses what effect, if any, all of this may be having on the Vermont Senator's insistence on remaining in the race until a nominee is officially chosen, somehow, at some version of a Democratic National Convention this year...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Good news and bad for the energy sector in Senate's coronavirus relief bill; Even COVID-19 can't stop the Trump Administration's environmental rollbacks; PLUS: Victory in federal court for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe over the Dakota Access Pipeline... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Global efforts on ozone help reverse southern jet stream damage; More evidence North Atlantic “cold spot” is human-caused; Goldman Sachs: Prepare for a massive oil demand shock; Trump Admin walks away from ethanol court battle, angers oil refiners; At a critical moment, the Coronavirus threatens to bring offshore wind to a halt; Coronavirus could disrupt normal refueling practices for nuclear facilities as staffing concerns grow... PLUS: Coronavirus holds key lessons on how to fight climate change... and much, MUCH more! ...

As Congress fights over its promised $2 trillion "Phase III" relief bill in response to the coronavirus pandemic, we've got some dumb questions for our guest about it all on today's BradCast.

But first, some of the latest news from around the world and the nation. India announced a 21-day lockdown for all residents, including "a total ban on venturing out" of the house, according to President Narendra Modi on Tuesday. That lockdown for all of India's 1.3 billion citizens, in a nation with three of the world's 10 most densely populated cities, comes after just 469 identified cases of COVID-19 and 10 deaths there.

That is by way of contrast with New York, where its "only" 20 million residents are now facing more than 25,000 reported cases and at least 157 deaths, as the number of cases is now reportedly doubling every three days. The most infections are in New York City, which does not even make the list of the world's 10 mostly densely populated cities. The state's Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday is expressing growing frustration with the federal government, after they received just 400 ventilators in New York City, despite a need for as many as 30,000. They also estimate that as many as 140,000 hospital bed will be needed for virus patients, while only 53,000 are currently available. The state, the Governor says, has not "flattened the curve," which he describes as "actually increasing" despite the statewide stay-at-home order issued late last week.

At the same time, Donald Trump is attacking Cuomo for some reason or another, while lying about GM, Ford and Tesla "right now" making ventilators "FAST!". They are not and likely will not be doing so for a number of weeks or even months at earliest.

Nonetheless, on Tuesday, Trump suggested that by Easter (April 12), he hopes to roll back the current White House recommendations for social distancing in order to try and save the economy --- apparently no matter how many Americans he helps kill in the bargain. And it could be millions dead if he follows up with the action that he and Fox "News" have been suggesting and threatening of late, while the President of the United States continues to misleadingly argue that "we can't let the cure be worse than the problem." The "problem" for Trump, in this case, is not dead Americans. It's a tanking economy that he fears may harm his reelection chances.

But while Trump is busy lying and misleading in televised briefings and Fox interviews, Republicans and Democrats in Congress are trying to pass a record $2 trillion emergency relief package and claim they are close to reaching an agreement. That, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats, frustrated with GOP intransigence on the Senate side on Monday night, released their own 1,400 page proposal called "The Take Responsibility for Workers & Families Act" which would pump hundreds of billions toward hospitals, health care workers and emergency medical coverage while expanding unemployment insurance, medicaid, food assistance programs, offering $500 billion in loans and grants to small businesses, help on some student loan debt, and immediate cash assistance to everyone in America.

We're joined today by The American Prospect's Executive Editor, longtime financial journalist DAVID DAYEN to explain the proposed bills and answer several "dumb questions" of mine about how the bailout programs might be structured to actually ensure help to individual Americans rather than corporate interests. One is my question about his thoughts on my own bipartisan stimulus proposal for a bailout that would let corporations keep the huge tax cuts they received in 2017 (stimulus that many of them have squandered) in exchange for the same amount of direct cash payments to individuals now and in the future, until such time as both can be stopped when the emergency is over.

Another question is whether all rent and mortgages can simply be paused until the crisis is over. Dayen tells me that is called "forbearance" and a version of it was actually included in the proposal Pelosi introduced last night. Whether it will remain in the Senate bill, of course, remains to be seen.

Dayen, who wrote an award-winning book on the 2008 financial meltdown, also offers a likely explanation for Trump's threatened plan to try and re-open the country for business after Easter, and whether the economic damage wrought by the current pandemic is likely to be even worse than the 2008 mortgage disaster.

Also, the two excellent recent stories by David at The Prospect that I quickly referenced on today's show:

• "Mind the Trust Gap" - The story of scarce face masks during a pandemic points to a greater failing: Government has placed corporate greed above the public good.
• "An Iowa-Style Voting Disaster in Los Angeles": A new voting system led to a debacle on Super Tuesday in the City of Angels. With similar machines in critical states like Georgia, election experts are raising alarm. (As noted, I am liberally quoted throughout that one, but it is an excellent piece anyway!)

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report in these grim times, with a few more "bright" lessons we can take from the coronavirus fallout around the globe, several ongoing and pending climate crisis-related disasters in African and the U.S. Midwest, and California's largest utility company pleading guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter. (Told ya these were grim times!)

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Crashing oil prices have ominous implications for oil companies and oil-producing countries; Melting ice caps put sea level rise on track for scientists' worst-case scenario; Democratic Senators demand corporate climate action in exchange for coronavirus bailout; PLUS: More perverse silver linings, as COVID-19 shutdown reduces water pollution... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Tackling the growing threat of water conflict; Oil and gas companies want to drill within a half-mile of Canyonlands National Park; 'A test of governments.' Oil industry faces worst glut ever; Coronavirus creating a solar industry 'crisis'; Global banks 'failing miserably' on climate crisis by funneling trillions into fossil fuels; Nuclear power startup submits first advanced reactor license application in US as NRC moves to streamline reviews; Coronavirus slows developing nations’ plans to step up climate action in 2020... PLUS: Coronavirus shows us America is broken... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Former Vice President Joe Biden trounced Bernie Sanders in three more states on Tuesday. The coronavirus pandemic continued to spread as all of the stock market gains since Donald Trump's inauguration were finally wiped out. And the nation's elections officials --- at least some of them --- began eyeing the need to move to Vote-by-Mail elections as a temporary mitigation for the foreseeable future. But is that a good idea? Are we ready for it? [Audio link to show is posted below below.]

First up, however, some good news, believe it or not! Marie Newman, a progressive challenger to far-right anti-abortion Democratic U.S. House Rep. Dan Lipinski, appears to have won her primary race against the conservative eight-term Congressman in Illinois 3rd Congressional district. The victory in the very "blue" suburbs of Chicago virtually guarantees Newman's election to the House in November, mirroring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' 2018 defeat of longtime (if less execrable) Democratic incumbent Joe Crowley in New York.

Beyond that, Biden appears to have delivered a thumping to Sanders in Florida, Illinois and Arizona, increasing his lead in the nominating contest to a seemingly insurmountable 300 delegates. All three states held low-turnout primaries on Tuesday amid warnings from health officials to avoid large gatherings, polling places that were closed or moved at the last minute, and a shortage of pollworkers due to cancellations in the wake of coronavirus concerns. Ohio, which was also supposed to vote on Tuesday, postponed its Presidential primary until June at the very last minute.

Both Biden and Sanders addressed supporters on Tuesday night via live Internet streams due to the cancellation of live rallies. They both focused mostly on actions needed to address the pandemic. Despite rumors throughout the day on Wednesday, and the cancellation of online digital ads, the Sanders campaign maintains that they are not suspending, but reassessing their campaign with three more weeks until the next scheduled primary, given all of the various states which have now postponed elections amid the COVID-19 crisis.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate finally passed an emergency relief measure adopted by the U.S. House last week to guarantee paid sick leave and expanded unemployment benefits to certain workers, while extending some food security programs, even as a FAR larger stimulus package will be required in response to the ongoing crisis, as markets fell again on Wednesday, reversing all of the gains since Trump took office. For his part, the President vowed to invoke the Defense Production Act to allow the federal government to commandeer private U.S. facilities to manufacturer various needed medical supplies such as masks and ventilators. With the economy in tatters and after weeks of bungled responses, Trump has now declared himself a "wartime president", even as he continues to attack his perceived political enemies and employ racist terms to describe the coronavirus pandemic.

Amid all of this, the nation's elections officials are turning their efforts toward quickly devising ways to safely hold upcoming primary elections as well as the general election in November. On Tuesday, the Governor of Maryland postponed the state's April 28 primary elections until June 2, but allowed the scheduled U.S. House Special Election to fill the Baltimore seat of the late Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings to proceed as an all-mail contest. Joining us today to discuss the efforts now underway to quickly move to Vote-by-Mail elections in Maryland (and elsewhere) is ALYSOUN MCLAUGHLIN, longtime Deputy Election Director for Montgomery County, MD. She also serves as Secretary on the Board of Advisors to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and as Vice Chair of the National Association of Counties.

Following her Governor's executive order postponing the statewide primary while calling for an all-mail U.S. House Special Election next month, McLaughlin explains some of the many challenges officials face in turning to VBM elections in the state. "The way we see it, we don't have a choice. The way we see it, there's a whole lot of really challenging problems in conducting an election under these circumstances right now, and the best way for us to serve everyone --- and to serve everyone avoiding the kinds of stresses and strains that we saw on polling places on Tuesday --- is for us to mail everyone a ballot. And immediately that takes the pressure off of the polls. That allows us to deal with the fact that our workforce is so significantly diminished in staffing a polling place election."

She tells me that officials in all 24 counties in the state feel the move to mail every registered voter a ballot is necessary for the newly-reschedule primary, though the state Board of Elections will still need to approve the plan. At the same time, there are many challenges and concerns in turning to such a system, particularly in such short order. We discussed a number of them on yesterday's program and Washington Post's Cybesecurity 202 column detailed several more. I've laid out even more such concerns over many years counseling caution, as I have long opposed VBM elections except where voters were unable to vote at the polls on Election Day or where a jurisdiction forces voters to vote by unverifiable, unsecure --- and, yes, germy --- touchscreen voting systems at the polls. (Thankfully, Maryland, which, with Georgia, was first in the nation to adopt statewide touchscreen voting in 2002, no longer does so, having moved recently, and sensibly, to hand-marked paper ballots for all.)

My conversation with McLaughlin today highlights some of those concerns, including questions about signature verification which, she says, her state does not use at all in determining if absentee ballots are to be included in the tally or rejected from the count. It's an eye-opening and important discussion that we will, necessarily, continue to have, in hopes that states adopt new temporary election practices in line with recommendations from health experts, even while observing best practices required to make sure VBM elections are secure, inclusive and publicly overseeable...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump administration moves to shore up oil industry amid crashing oil prices; Coronavirus shutdown clears Italy's air; China's shutdown cuts emissions by a quarter; PLUS: Last men standing --- remaining Democratic Presidential candidates duke it out over climate action... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Scientists warn we may need to live with social distancing for a year or more; Oil Nations Could See Income Crash By Up To 85 Percent In 2020; Greenland, Antarctica Melting Six Times Faster Than in the 1990s; Medical waste companies preparing for potentially elevated volumes as coronavirus concerns accelerate; Military Sees Surge In Sites With 'Forever Chemical' Contamination... PLUS: There's an unlikely beneficiary of coronavirus: The planet... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: It was another big night for Joe Biden, as he appears to have been the clear winner in 4 of the 6 states (Michigan, Washington, Missouri, Mississippi, Idaho and North Dakota) which held Democratic Presidential primaries on Tuesday. But Bernie Sanders said on Wednesday that he is not out of the running just yet. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

In the meantime, the fallout from the coronavirus --- now officially a global pandemic according to the World Health Organization with more than 1,000 cases in the U.S. --- continues to have a growing affect on nearly every aspect of life in the U.S. and around the globe. Aside from school closures, town lock-downs, industries directing employees to work at home, cancellations of large festivals, conventions and now sporting events, including the NCAA's March Madness tournaments set to be played without spectators in the arena, the Dow took another tumble today, falling more than 1,400 points and ending the 11-year bull market begun under Obama in 2009.

We discuss all of that today, and the bumbling Trump Administration's egregious failures in managing the worsening epidemic, before breaking down the reported results from Tuesday's 6 primary states, where voters appear to have chosen Biden in MI, MO, MS and ID, while preferring Sanders in ND and maybe WA, where the Vermont Senator currently leads by a hair as Vote-by-Mail ballots continue to be tallied.

Once again, voters on Tuesday were forced to shamefully wait in hours-long lines to cast their ballots in locations in both Michigan and North Dakota, even as many voters on social media persist in forwarding unsupported charges that the DNC is somehow behind the numerous failures of local and state officials to run efficient, reliable, and publicly overseeable elections.

We share extended excerpts from Biden's remarks following his victories on Tuesday night, offered to a nearly empty hall in Philadelphia were coronavirus concerns resulted in only media and campaign staffers in attendance. And we also share Sanders' remarks from Vermont today, vowing to stay in the race at least through Sunday night's scheduled debate, the first head-to-head forum between the last two Democratic candidates still standing.

We are then joined by the great progressive journalist JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation to try and make some sense of this remarkable moment in history and the surprising state of play in the increasingly bizarre 2020 election. He argues that Sunday's one-on-one between the two candidates is likely to be "the most consequential debate of 2020," adding that he "suspect[s] it will matter more than the fall debates between Trump and whoever is nominated at this point, presumably Biden."

Citing Sanders' remarks on Wednesday, Nichols believes Sanders "left himself an exit ramp, and left Biden an entry ramp. Because he essentially told Biden what Biden's got to do" in order to win support from Sanders' movement. "I genuinely think that Sanders is proposing a debate where, if Joe Biden really steps up, he's going to narrow the lane for Bernie Sanders --- which is already narrow. If Joe Biden steps up, he's got a lot of opportunities here as an entry lane into the fall campaign [to]bring the movement on board and this will sort out."

Whether Biden seizes that moment, however, remains to be seen. His subdued and even Presidential remarks from Philadelphia on Tuesday certainly suggest he is capable of it. But we'll see. "Is he the right candidate?," Nichols asks rhetorically. "If you can't build your movement, your coalition, and you can only do it by kind of forcing people to make choices rather than inspiring or exciting people, then that's a problematic situation."

Among the other oddities and ironies of this moment, Nichols observes in his column today that while voters in MI, MO and MS voted for Biden on Tuesday, exit polls reveal that they actually support Sanders' central campaign proposal for single-payer Medicare for All by huge numbers in all three states. What explains that irony? Nichols offers his thoughts on that and much more on the state of the race in very dark times during our conversation today...

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On today's BradCast: Staying laser focused on the things that actually matter if we ever want to restore this nation and the world with it! [Audio link to show is posted below.]

The stock market cratered (again) on Monday, over fears about the quickly spreading coronavirus and plummeting oil prices. That, as the President of the United States tried to tweet away the problem while spending the weekend playing golf and throwing parties for his son's girlfriend at his Palm Beach resort before finding time on Monday to attend two fundraisers in Orlando as the Dow dropped more than 2,000 points, its largest one-day point drop ever and the worst crash seen on the markets since the 2008 global financial meltdown.

With the abysmal failure of this Administration to competently handle either ongoing crisis (and, in fact, make them both worse), we continue to focus on the only foreseeable way out of this disastrous mess: The November 2020 election. On that front, we've got both good news and bad, as usual, with 6 more states --- Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington --- set to vote tomorrow, even as mop-up from voting system failures and counting of votes continues from last week's Super Tuesday in 14 states.

Among the many stories covered on today's program before opening lines to callers with still more tales of horror from voting out here in Los Angeles County last week on our failed new touchscreen voting systems and electronic pollbooks...

• Bernie Sanders supporter Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said she would vote for Joe Biden if he becomes the nominee, and she recommends that you do too;

• Montana's popular Democratic Governor Steve Bullock announces that he will jump into the race for U.S. Senate to unseat Republican Sen. Steve Daines after all, giving the Democrats a fifth potential takeover to win back a Democratic majority this November;

• We share some listener email including a woeful story of failure at the polls here in Los Angeles last week, and from a regular listener in Oregon who can't understand why Los Angeles, which saw hours-long lines to vote at the County's new "Voting Centers" on Super Tuesday, doesn't go to an all Vote-by-Mail system (as used in the Beaver State now for two decades.);

• California's Sec. of State Alex Padilla, who has been a big proponent of L.A.'s County's new $300,000,000 unverifiable touchscreen voting system over the past ten years, pretends to be outraged about what happened last week and directs L.A. to move to an all VBM system for the critical November election. However, Dean Logan, L.A. County's Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, the man who spent the last ten years developing the new failed voting system, says he's not sure he thinks VBM for all would be a good idea;

• And the Washington Post's Margaret Sullivan penned a landmark column on Sunday, charging "the media is blowing its chance to head off an Election Day debacle" by obsessing over "the horse-race" while ignoring "the very core of Election Day: voting itself". She excoriates the corporate media for failing to cover the many predictable disasters we saw last week in California and Texas until "after-the-fact" while ignoring "deeper issues such as the pressures and inducements for governments to invest in untried new voting machines" when "old-fashioned hand-marked paper ballots" are "the least hackable and the most audit-able". In short, her column sounds alot like just about every rant we've ever offered at either The BRAD BLOG or on The BradCast and spurs us to keep going...whether you like it or not. Thank you, Ms. Sullivan!;

While we've got a bunch of related stories about voting failures, dirty tricks and concerns out of Georgia, Texas, Florida and elsewhere, they'll have to wait until tomorrow's BradCast, as we wanted to open the lines to still more callers with woeful stories of their voting experiences at the Super Tuesday polls here in Los Angeles last week...

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We enjoy a brief pause from our wall-to-wall election coverage of late on today's BradCast (if not entirely) to revisit the ongoing unraveling of the rule of law as we know it at the U.S. Dept. of Justice under Donald Trump's fixer Attorney General Bill Barr. [Audio link to show is posted at end of summary.]

Late on Thursday, a long-time U.S. District Court judge appointed by George W. Bush issued a blistering --- and perhaps unprecedented --- opinion, essentially describing the U.S. Attorney General as a liar. Judge Reggie Walton described Barr's characterization of the Robert Mueller Special Counsel's Report on the investigation into Russia's influence on the 2016 election, as "distorted" and "misleading".

He cited "inconsistencies" between Barr's description of the findings in Mueller's 381-page report before it was released in redacted form last year, versus the often-damning evidence actually revealed by the Special Counsel's probe. Walton declared that Barr's "lack of candor" called into question his "credibility and, in turn, the department's" reasons for redacting portions of the report in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the full, unredacted text of the document.

"The inconsistencies between Attorney General Barr’s statements, made at a time when the public did not have access to the redacted version of the Mueller Report to assess the veracity of his statements, and portions of the redacted version of the Mueller Report that conflict with those statements cause the Court to seriously question whether Attorney General Barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller Report in favor of President Trump despite certain findings in the redacted version of the Mueller Report to the contrary," Walton said.

The unusually blistering opinion by a federal judge of a sitting U.S. Attorney General, challenging the credibility of DoJ prosecutors who, he felt, might be lying about the reasons for redactions in order to protect Barr's earlier false claims (that Mueller found no evidence of collusion and was unable "to establish that the President committed an obstruction of justice offense" --- all lies) is being cited by former prosecutors as "indicative of the fabric of the justice system deteriorating".

Judge Walton has now ordered the DoJ to privately reveal to him what is under the redactions that the government is claiming are related to national security and other lawful exemptions from FOIA requests.

We're joined today by BuzzFeed News investigative journalist JASON LEOPOLD, who filed the FOIA request in question and has now been forced to sue with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) to challenge the validity of the DoJ's redactions. Leopold tells us he's filed "well over 3,500" such requests, having sued the government "70 times" to force them to follow the law, but says he has never seen anything like the response unleashed by Walton (who has presided over other suits brought by Leopold as well.)

In other similar litigation, Leopold explains, judges tend to simply defer to claims by prosecutors. If they say there is good reason to keep the material redacted, judges do not tend to question them. "It's rare, it's very rare that a judge will actually say 'let me take a look at this and make a decision'." But, Leopold tells me, he has noticed Walton increasingly losing patience with the Department in recent months. "He's become very, very frustrated and sees this as politicization...and therefore, he just can't take their word that these redactions are justified and followed the law."

When I ask if Walton's charge that Barr was "lacking in candor" is a polite way for the judge to say he may be lying, Leopold says "not 'may be' lying --- is lying!," according to his reading of the federal jurist's opinion.

"This is a very important opinion," he argues, "because you're going to see this opinion cited in other Freedom of Information Act cases, when they go to court to say that the withholding of records, that there's questions about whether there's politicization behind that, and that Barr is the person who presides over this department and simply doesn't have credibility." Leopold continues: "This doesn't just disappear. It doesn't just go away. This is in the record. This is a case that people can cite. Barr has really damaged the reputation of the Justice Department."

All of which serves as a helpful reminder of the importance of removing this dangerous Administration from office this November, no matter who ends up becoming the Democratic Presidential nominee. On that important point, and on the likelihood of Democrats winning back the Senate this year, we've got some encouraging news today --- presuming voters who oppose Trump can come together.

And, after that, some less encouraging news as we're joined by Desi Doyen for our latest Green News Report...

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On today's BradCast: Sad news for many regarding the end of Elizabeth Warren's run for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination. But we start with what suffices for good-ish news today regarding both voting and electoral politics, and one very mysterious Super Tuesday election result out of Texas. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

• First up, the Board of Elections of Georgia's Athens-Clarke County, where early voting has already begun for the state's March 24 Primaries, has voted to ditch their new touchscreen voting systems to move to a hand-marked paper ballot system. The move is in defiance of the state's Republican Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger, who has ordered the use of new, 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting machines across the entire state, after the County's Board determined that the huge screens on the new Dominion ImageCast systems, said to be visible from 30 or 40 feet away, violate voter's right to a secret ballot under state law. (We interviewed Marilyn Marks of the Coalition for Good Governance, the plaintiff in an emergency lawsuit to move to hand-marked paper ballots in another Georgia county for the exact same reasons, last week.);

• More good-ish news out of Montana, where the state's popular Democratic Governor Steve Bullock is reportedly considering reversing his earlier vows that he would not run for U.S. Senate this November against Republican incumbent Sen. Steve Daines. The Governor, a former 2020 Democratic President candidate, won his statewide re-election in 2016 on the same ballot on which Donald Trump is said to have won the state of Montana by 20 points. If Bullock decides to enter the race by Monday's filing deadline, it might offer Democrats a shot at winning the fifth seat they would need to flip in order to retake a clear majority in the U.S. Senate next year. Dems have targeted four other U.S. Senate seats --- in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina --- which they believe to be winnable in November, but would need a fifth seat if Alabama's Democratic Sen. Doug Jones is unable to hold on to his this year;

• The totally predictable fallout from Los Angeles County's disastrous Super Tuesday election continues today, after the County's new $300,000,000 unverifiable touchscreen voting systems and electronic pollbooks failed so spectacularly during their first countywide use in the March 3rd elections. Washington Post's coverage last night confirms that election workers in L.A. were, indeed, ordered not to speak to media (as I originally reported on Sunday, only to be called a liar on Twitter by the brainchild of the new, failed voting system, L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan).

  But the biggest breaking news in the embarrassing meltdown that resulted in hours-long lines and disenfranchised voters on Tuesday is that CA's Democratic Sec. of State Alex Padilla --- who certified the new systems for use in January despite warnings from cybsersecurity and voting systems experts, and despite the system's more than 40 violations of California Voting Systems Standards --- has now directed L.A. to send hand-marked Vote-by-Mail ballots to every voter in the County for this November's critical Presidential election;

• And, in Houston --- which also saw hours long lines for voters during its primaries on Super Tuesday --- a mysterious, completely unknown candidate on the Democratic ballot has has helped force a run-off for one of the longest serving members of the Texas state House. Despite Natasha Ruiz receiving more than 20% of the vote on Harris County's 100% unverifiable voting systems, the other three candidates in the race say they have never seen Ruiz or found any evidence that she actually had a campaign. She placed third in the four person race, resulting in just 45% of the vote (less than the 50% required to avoid a run-off) for long-serving State Rep. Harold Dutton, who is now investigating whether Ruiz even exists;

• Finally, we're joined by the former Editor in Chief of Rewire.news, JODI JACOBSON, a devoted Elizabeth Warren supporter, who is mourning today's announced end of the crusading progressive Massachusetts Senator's once-very promising Presidential bid. We discuss what Warren did right and where her candidacy appears to have gone wrong, why Americans appear to have been afraid to vote for her, and whether Warren might be tapped with a Vice-Presidential nod on either a Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders ticket...

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