Ain't democracy grand? Messy, unpredictable, maddening, sure. But also grand. And we've got a lot of it to talk about on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

ARIZONA PRIMARY RESULTS

Republicans were turning on fellow Republicans during Congressional and local primaries in the Grand Canyon State on Tuesday. We know, however, there was absolutely no fraud or tabulation error anywhere in the state, because perennial election denier and loser, Kari Lake, actually won her primary for U.S. Senate. She'll run against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in November for the seat vacated by rightwing former Dem Kyrsten Sinema.

In Maricopa County, where 60% of AZ votes are cast, far-right Republicans sadly took down a bunch of not-crazy Republican officials, including the County's very good elections chief, County Recorder Stephen Richer, along with several other not-insane Republicans on the Maricopa Board of Supervisors. Their crime: telling the truth about the fact that Trump lost the County in 2020. All of that, on the other hand, may give Democrats, many of whom ran uncontested on Tuesday, a chance to turn the County even bluer this November.

Also sadly, Republican former Sec. of State and (real) election reform champion Ken Bennett was unseated in the state Senate by Trump loyalist, election denier loon and 2022's failed GOP Sec. of State nominee Mark Finchem in a rather red district. (See my interview with Bennett on his very good, bipartisan, election transparency bill last year on this program right here.) Nonetheless, Dems now have a very real chance of flipping both chambers of the AZ State Legislature this fall.

VENEZUELA ELECTION STANDOFF

President Nicolas Maduro's National Election Council is still claiming that Maduro won Sunday's Presidential election. The broadly supported opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez is still claiming that Maduro lost --- in a landslide. But Maduro has so far refused to release actual election results from tens of thousands of polling places, so it's impossible to know who actually won.

We don't have a political dog in this hunt, other than in favor of democracy and the notion that the candidate who received the most votes should be declared the winner of the election. Now, the Carter Center, which was allowed to observe the election, the U.S. Government (longtime Maduro opponents) and Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Gustavo Petro of Colombia (both allies of the Venezuelan President) are all demanding that Maduro transparently release all polling place election results. They are all correct to do so.

KAMALA V. TRUMP

Finally, as Democratic Party delegates prepare to officially certify their new nominee without any challengers this weekend, and as more new polling finds Kamala Harris surging against Donald Trump both nationally and in swing states, we take some time once again today to try and make sense of the state of this extraordinary race.

We're joined today by two longtime old school bloggers and podcasters, our friends 'DRIFTGLASS' of his eponymously named blog, and his wife FRANCES LANGUM, also known as BlueGal, who serves as Associate Editor at the Crooks & Liars blog. They both produce and co-host The Professional Left Podcast each week from their home in "Flyover Country, Illinois."

And they've both got lots of smart insight today, as we discuss....

• The remarkable emergence of Harris at the top of the Dem ticket just 10 days ago.
• The surprising unity behind her by rarely united Democrats. (Fran: "I think there is a permanent state of PTSD among Democrats after 2016. It's why we've won every election since then.")
• Where, if anywhere, Harris may diverge on policy from Biden.
• Trump's crash and burn during his appearance today at the National Assoc. of Black Journalists conference. (Driftglass: "I really do appreciate Donald Trump giving [Harris] a boost today by going to Chicago and absolutely crapping the bed. It was delightful.")
• What Trump really meant when he told Christians they wouldn't need to vote again in four years.
• What Trump really meant when he said Russia and China will "walk all over" Harris, though he didn't want to say "as to why, but a lot of people understand it."
• Why Trump appears to be trying to wriggle out of debating Harris.
• Who might be Harris' Veep selection, and does it matter in the slightest?

All of that and much more --- including words from Drifty's "Crazy Uncle Liberty" and Fran's insistence that the Trump Campaign is now desperate because they are all but broke --- on today's BradCast!...

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If you haven't begun already, as detailed on today's BradCast (along with much else), now is a good time to start keeping your eyes on the many ways that Republicans are planning to "legally" steal the November election in the event that, once again, they can't win it the old fashioned way by receiving more votes and an electoral Electoral College victory with them. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Recently, Kevin Roberts (pictured above), the President of the far-right Heritage Foundation, creators of "Project 2025" --- an extremist 900-page manifesto designed to repeal the 20th century the next time a Republican wins the White House --- told supporters: "We are winning. There are a lot of victories that have been secured. Some of them are partial. Some of them in ways that the other side doesn't yet know, are foundations for what's coming. And that's just the beginning. And we're not gonna tell ya everything that's coming."

Today, after weeks of focus on that Project 2025 by Democrats and media, it's nominal operational director, Paul Dans, stepped down to assuage Donald Trump, who both doesn't like the fact that Project 2025 makes him look like the puppet of more than a hundred far-right organizations and his own former Administration officials (which he is), and because the document is so extremist that he'd prefer to keep all of its atrocities under wraps until he's safely back in office. But those plans to gut the government as we know it and place a Republican President in direct autocratic control of every government agency, aren't going away, even if Heritage and friends have now been ordered to tone it down for a while until Trump can be installed back into the Oval Office.

As corporate media outlets are finally reporting on Project 2025, Roberts' plans for "victories...that the other side doesn't yet know...and [he's] not gonna tell" us about for now, are becoming clearer by the day, nonetheless. Largely, they are about stealing the election in advance by voter suppression assisted by corrupt friends now seated on the courts; stealing it during the tabulation by the many Trump-supporting election denialist who now serve as county election officials in battleground states, where they plan to prevent certification of a Trump loss; and, in doing so, create enough havoc after the election to toss the Electoral College certification on January 6 to the U.S. House, where Republicans hope to control a majority of state delegations in order to name Trump the "winner", even if he loses again, as he did in 2020.

We detail just some of those plots and plans, along with much more, on today's program. Among our many stories today...

• After hundreds were killed amid downpour-triggered landslides last week in Ethiopia, at least 70 93 were killed by mudslides under similarly climate change-fueled conditions in southwestern India today.

• More than 1 million union workers have now had their pensions saved by the Biden-Harris Administration and Congressional Democrats, thanks to their American Rescue Plan, which not one single Republican voted for in the House or Senate. That now includes some 600,000 Teamsters, many of them in the rust belt, the midwest and New England, as celebrated on Monday in Manchester, New Hampshire.

• Kamala-mentum continues, as new polling shows her favorability rate skyrocketing and her unfavorability rate plummeting, following President Biden's decision to drop out of the 2024 race and endorse his Vice President instead. Favorable/unfavorable numbers for Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance have done the exact opposite according to polling numbers from the week after the assassination attempt on the former President and the Republican National Convention as compared to the week after, following Biden's endorsement of Harris for the top of the ticket.

• Rolling Stone detailed on Monday how at least 70 pro-Trump conspiracists who now hold positions as election officials in a number of counties in six battleground state "are poised to make a giant mess" by refusing to certify election results in hopes of preventing state results from being certified if Trump doesn't win them. The magazine's Justine Glawe's deep-dive report warns that "Republicans have refused to certify election results at least 25 times since Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden"...because practice makes perfect. You have been warned. You may want to keep your Jan. 6 open next year. There may be something dramatic on television, depending on how things go.

• Early legal efforts by Republicans to bollox things up for the Kamala Harris Campaign do not appear to be going well. An FEC complaint filed last week in hopes of preventing Harris from being able to use the money from the former Biden-Harris Campaign account isn't likely to get very far, UC Irvine Election Law professor Rick Hasen notes. Though he does recognize that the complaint will at least give Trump the opportunity to falsely claim on the stump that what Dems are doing is a muchworse campaign finance violation than his own in 2016 which resulted in his 34 felony convictions in New York. Good luck with that.

• Also, recent claims by Republican House Speaker and Trump tool Mike Johnson (who is, theoretically, an actual attorney) that there are legal "impediments" preventing Democrats from putting Harris on state ballots instead of Biden, turn out to be 100% wrong. At least according to CNN, which surveyed all 50 states to find that there will be legal impediments for Harris in (...checks notes...) ZERO states!

• In the meantime, expect a mountain of frivolous legal complaints by Republicans about election laws in hopes of suppressing the vote with favorable rulings from corrupt, Trump appointed federal judges. One such effort in Mississippi, filed earlier this year, seeking to block the counting of mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day but received up to five days afterward, as per state law, failed on summary judgement on Sunday. But you should expect both appeals and more such voter suppression cases to flood the courts between now and Election Day (and beyond).

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report as the climate change-fueled Park Fire in Northern California explodes to become the fifth largest in state history; the death toll from heat exhaustion amid power outages following Hurricane Beryl in Texas continues to climb; Extreme heat and water pollution complicate the Paris Olympics; and the U.N. warns that the nations of the world are not moving fast enough to avoid the far worse effects of climate change that are coming...

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On today's BradCast, we take up the President's charge to stand "in defense of democracy". [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• During President Biden's solemn, somber and historic prime time Oval Office address to the nation on Wednesday evening (transcript here), to explain his Sunday decision to drop out of the 2024 Presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for the top of the ticket, he focused in no small part on the need to defend democracy against wannabe "kings and dictators," while he charged that "the cause of American democracy itself" is now at stake. "We must unite to protect it," he implored. We discuss and continue to join that fight.

• Meanwhile, as the U.S. House on Wednesday voted 417 to 0 to create a special task force to probe what happened during the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified on Wednesday that, in fact, nearly two weeks since the shooting, we have no idea "whether or not it's a bullet or shrapnel" that wounded Trump's ear. In fact, to date, no medical expert or law enforcement official has ever offered an official public accounting of what actually happened to the former President that day, even as mainstream corporate media have simply taken the social media claim by Trump, an inveterate liar, that a "bullet...pierced the upper part of my right ear" as fact. Ever since, Trump has exploited the event to claim at his convention, in rally speeches and on social media, that he "took a bullet for democracy."

  As we detail today, however, all available evidence suggests that is simply a lie. The man who, himself, has become the greatest threat to American democracy in modern history is now using the near miss for stolen valor to pretend to be a defender of democracy.

  As Ernie Canning explains at The BRAD BLOG this week, whether Trump "took a bullet" or not, it was not "for democracy," as investigators have reportedly found no evidence to suggest the shooting was politically motivated. And, as TPM's Josh Marshall has been reporting for some time, evidence suggests it was more likely some sort of flying shrapnel that grazed Trump's ear, along with causing similar minor injuries to several local cops who were near the stage that day. In any event, the media's failure to even ask the Trump Campaign about these details --- as one rally goer was actually killed and two others critically wounded that day --- for apparent fear of angering the former President, is "bizarre" and "a total journalistic failure" to the American people and to history. It also, as we note, underscores tyranny expert and author Timothy Snyder's repeated warnings about giving up power to would-be autocrats by "obeying in advance." Much more on all of this on today's show.

• We've got more details today on the DNC's plan to begin a virtual roll-call vote on August 1st next week --- well in advance of their August 19 convention in Chicago --- in order to finalize the party's Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees no later than August 7th. Why are they doing this? No, it's not to ensure there are no challengers to presumptive nominee Kamala Harris. Rather, it is thanks to a story we've been covering since the beginning of the year about the failure by Republican state lawmakers to change the statutory deadline for submitting certified party nominees for the Buckeye State ballot by August 7th, as they've done for many years, as needed, when Republicans hold their national conventions late in the summer. Yes, state lawmakers, in a late special session, finally changed the statutory deadline. But the new law doesn't take effect until September 1, opening opening up Democrats to a potential legal challenge by Republicans as to whether their nominee can lawfully be on the state's ballot at all this November. Tune in for more details.

• More news "in defense of democracy" out of Ohio this week. A ballot measure for a state constitutional amendment that would create an independent redistricting committee has qualified for the November ballot! If adopted by voters, it could end the state GOP's wildly gerrymandered Congressional and state legislative maps for 2026. Otherwise, Republican Buckeye State politicians will continue to be allowed to choose their own voters, rather than vice versa, until at least 2030.

• And still more good news "in defense of democracy" from the Buckeye State today! A federal judge has struck down part of a sweeping election reform package adopted by Ohio Republicans last year that makes it a felony for disabled voters to allow caregivers, roommates, in-laws or even grandchildren to help them cast their absentee ballot by mail or drop box. The voter suppression law threatened to charge anyone but immediate family members (which apparently doesn't include grandchildren!) with felonies for helping those voters in need to cast their ballot. That, as the CDC finds that people with disabilities make up more than a quarter of the U.S. adult population.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with news on explosive wildfires in the U.S. and Canadian west; the two hottest days ever recorded on Planet Earth (this past Sunday and Monday); and a focus on the Republicans' shocking Project 2025 plans to gut federal science agencies --- such as the EPA and National Weather Service --- along with climate science and many if not most environmental protections and climate change initiatives...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Explosive wildfire season worsens in Canada and Western U.S.; Earth just had its hottest two days ever recorded, thanks to man-made global warming; PLUS: Republicans' Project 2025 would gut federal science agencies, the EPA, and force you to pay for your free weather reports... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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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): Ethiopia landslide death toll reaches 257 as UN warns it could surpass 500; Wealthy Western countries lead in global oil and gas expansion; How Israel’s war on Gaza unraveled a landmark Mideast climate deal; Texas nuclear plant trips offline, grid loses 1400 MW instantly; Enviros challenge EPA's new rules on toxic air plastic and chemical pollution; CA isn't enforcing its strongest-in-the-nation oil well cleanup law; Pollution threatens Mediterranean Sea's health... PLUS: California dam removal project on Klamath River ahead of schedule... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Following the tumultuous events of the last several days (and weeks) today seemed a good moment on The BradCast to check in on how the MAGA side of the aisle is processing everything that is going on. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

BUT FIRST, some quick news items, including the "roaring crowd" which greeted newly presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris in Wisconsin, during her first rally following President Biden's decisions on Sunday to leave the race and toss his support to Harris. Tuesday's rally comes on the same day that Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Hakeem Jeffries joined a rapidly growing list of elected Democrats and pledged DNC delegates coalescing behind the Vice President's candidacy. It also follows on the all-time record shattering $100 million in donations that have flooded into her campaign coffers over the 24 hours following Biden's announcement and the nearly 60,000 voters since Sunday who have reportedly joined the campaign as volunteers.

Speaking to a huge crowd in Milwaukee on Tuesday, Harris --- a former California District Attorney and Attorney General --- described the choice this November as one between "freedom and chaos", as she laid out how she plans to prosecute her case against the 79-year old 34-time convicted felon, adjudicated rapist and fraudster, Donald Trump. We share a few sound bites from her rally today.

In other news today, Biden announced that he will address the nation from the Oval Office at 8pm ET on Wednesday explaining his decisions; Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle announced her resignation following the security lapse that led to the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13; And Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey finally announced he would be resigning next month following his conviction on 16 felony bribery and corruption charges. Fellow Democrats had been calling for Menendez' resignation for months, while Republicans, ironically, did not, since, after all, they are now supporting a man who has 34 felony convictions as their party's Presidential nominee!

IN THE MEANTIME, Republicans are having a difficult time figuring out their plan of attack against Harris after spending years assuming they'd be running against Biden. So, how are Trump's MAGA supporters responding to all of this?

We're joined today by former, dyed-in-the-wool MAGA member, RICH LOGIS who, after voting for Trump in 2016 and 2020 finally came to realize that he had been played for a chump as he had become little more than a member of a cult lead by the former President. Though it took some time to come to terms with it (as we've discussed with Logis on previous shows), he has courageously renounced his MAGA past, and has become the Founder and Executive Director of the non-profit called LeavingMAGA.org. It's mission statement: "Empower others to leave MAGA and tell their stories. Foster reconciliation with their friends and family. Develop movement leaders to help others leave."

As a former "MAGA American", Logis is also becoming our MAGA Whisperer. I wanted to touch base with him to find out how Trump supporters are processing the whirlwind of recent news, from the assassination attempt, to the naming of J.D. Vance as Trump's Vice-Presidential running mate, to the latest stunning turn of events with Biden dropping out and Harris taking over the ticket.

We've got a lot to discuss on all of those points, as well as on his continuing mission to offer a safe space for folks trying to extricate themselves from Trump's cult, and how he sees things playing out for MAGA World in the days ahead, based on whether Trump wins or loses this November.

"The assassination attempt, a lot of the rhetoric we're seeing now with Vice President Harris as the likely nominee, what it does is it really embodies that MAGA Americans view Mr. Trump as really the last stand," Logis tells me, after I share a clip from an Ohio state Senator who, yesterday at a Vance rally, asserted that "civil war" would break out if Trump loses. "And if he is not victorious," Logis continues, "if MAGA is not victorious, then it will mean that liberal democracy has taken over, and all of those in the MAGA community are going to lose their country." He admits, "it is what I believed."

Logis argues now, however, that "we need to move on from Mr. Trump, and the way that that will happen is that he and the Republican Party, ideally, are not just defeated but historically repudiated." In fact, he believes "the Republican Party is going to be historically renounced and repudiated in November. I think the Republican Party knows that."

We'll see if he's right. But we've got a lot to discuss along all of those lines with Logis today, including the years-long "grooming" of MAGA Americans by Trump, the rightwing media and cynical, opportunistic Republican politicians.

AND FINALLY today, some disturbing news out of Ethiopia, where heavy rain resulted in a pair of mudslides that have killed at least 229 people, including children, pregnant women and rescuers who had been searching for survivors from a previous landslide when the second one happened. That is followed up by our latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen, detailing the extraordinary climate legacy of Joe Biden, and the climate action records (or lack thereof) of both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump...

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I've got to post today's BradCast quickly a) before convicted felon Donald Trump speaks at tonight's RNC and b) before more political shoes (and/or earthquakes) drop. So, here's the quick skinny. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Donald Trump critic-turned-toady J.D. Vance of Ohio, officially accepted the GOP's nomination for Vice President during his remarks at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night. His speech was long on hillbilly biography but very short (virtually bereft) of the horrifying policies that Vance actually supports. Helpfully today, we correct his oversight with actual facts and policy proposals from the ambitious Yale-educated Senator, including his push for a nationwide abortion ban with no exceptions; ending no-fault divorce; slashing Social Security and Medicare; embracing Project 2025, turning over Ukraine to Russia and much more!

• While leaving out his radical policy positions, Vance also dropped a few big lies about a number of things during Wednesday speech. When it comes to his lies about all-time record, world-leading energy production under Joe Biden, our own Desi Doyen has a few thoughts and a corrective that J.D. and his convicted conman running mate would prefer you didn't listen to.

• Self-proclaimed "Liberal Redneck" comedian Trae Crowder, who hung out with the GOP's new Veep nominee back in the days when Vance regarded Trump as "America's Hitler", also has a few insights on him today.

• What explains the complete lack of pressing by corporate media for any kind of official medical statement on the injury suffered by Donald Trump during last Saturday's assassination attempt?

• The Chief U.S. District Court Judge in Nevada tossed out a suit on Wednesday brought by the Trump Campaign, the RNC and the Nevada GOP seeking to block the counting of potentially tens of thousands of perfectly legal mail ballots in the battleground state, cast and timely post-marked by Election Day, but arriving up to four days after, as allowed by NV state law.

• With President Biden now battling COVID again, top Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have all reportedly been pressing the President, in various ways, to reconsider his insistence on staying in the race for reelection. If there is to be a change at the top of the ticket, it is believed likely to come (and would need to come) within days. Perhaps as soon as this weekend.

• In the meantime, President Biden has been continuing to present new, popular policies --- as all Democrats should be joining him in doing at this point. This week, for example, Biden is reportedly planning to issue a long-overdue proposal for SCOTUS reform to include term limits and an enforceable code of ethics for Supreme Court Justices. He will also be proposing a Constitutional amendment to counter the Court's recent corrupt ruling granting criminal immunity to Presidents. Also this week, Biden has called for a national rent control statute that would cap rent increases at 5% annually unless landlords choose to forego federal tax write-offs. These are the sort of things that Dems should be doing right now, rather than squabbling amongst themselves. (Not that anyone asked me.)

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as Toronto is crippled by extreme storms and flooding; the cost of extreme heat is quickly escalating in the U.S.; and as Marathon Oil agrees to pay a record fine for pollution under the Clean Air Act...

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Welp, we've just been through about three political weeks in this country unlike any other, at least in my lifetime, as briefly summarized at the top of today's BradCast. And, before I'm even able to get today's show posted, that summary is already out of date, with the breaking news just after airtime that President Biden has COVID again. Good lord. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Other than that, to help me "hold on for dear life" amid the political whirlwind, I brought back our friends and fellow old school bloggers HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of The Pro Left Podcast to try and help us make sense of everything that continues to unspool this week. Among those things...

• The weekend's assassination attempt of Donald Trump by a registered Republican and how all of that has (or hasn't) affected the current state of the Presidential race.
• The temporarily-undergrounded and now-reemerging battle among elected Democrats as to whether Joe Biden should or shouldn't be replaced on the Presidential ticket.
• The "sign of weakness" in naming of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as the GOP's Vice-Presidential pick and what Trump hopes to gain from selecting a former critic-turned-toady who opposes support for our democratic allies in Ukraine and seeks a nationwide abortion ban (even in cases of rape or incest) as his running mate.
• Other noteworthy observations from the Republican Party's "unity" convention, including the curious and controversial anti-corporate elite/pro-union speech delivered at the RNC by Teamsters President Sean O'Brien, why Republicans refuse to learn how to pronounce Kamala Harris' first name after more than 3 years in office, and the media's terrible job in covering the entire affair. (Especially MSNBC in this case!)

All of that and too much more on today's BradCast! Enjoy!...

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On today's BradCast: Boy, if Joe Biden's "weaponization" of the Justice Department against Trump and Republicans keeps going like this, there won't be any Democrats left who haven't been convicted of a crime! Too bad old Joe didn't realize he should have just packed the courts with corrupt judges, like Donald Trump did. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

First up today --- after a kick-off by TikTok's @DanasInspired; a few thoughts on Trump's appearance at the RNC on Monday night after the weekend's failed assassination attempt and his naming of Ohio's Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate --- we start with news about today's conviction, on all counts, of New Jersey's Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez. The three-term U.S. Senator and former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was found guilty by a jury on Tuesday after a nine-week criminal trial on charges related to abusing his office to protect foreign associates from criminal investigations and to help funnel money to Egyptian officials. In exchange, prosecutors alleged, Menendez and his wife Nadine Menendez collected millions in gifts, cash and gold bars. She was charged as well, though her trial has been postponed for the time being as she undergoes cancer treatment.

Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and NJ's Democratic Governor Phil Murphy each called for Menendez to resign following the verdict. He had previously vowed to run for re-election as an independent this year, while Democratic Rep. Andy Kim has been nominated by state voters to run for his seat in November against Republican Curtis Bashaw in the Dem-leaning state.

But Menendez' corruption doesn't hold a candle to Donald Trump's, thanks in no small part to the corrupt jurists Trump appointed to lifetime positions on the federal bench while in office, many of whom are now returning the favor at an alarming rate in recent weeks. On Monday, it was U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's turn, apparently, to use her position to let Trump off the hook. In this case, dismissing his 40-count federal criminal indictment brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith in South Florida for Trump's theft of thousands of pages of highly classified national security documents upon leaving office; his repeated refusal to return them to the government; and his attempts to hide them from prosecutors and enlist Mar-a-Lago employees to help cover up and/or destroy evidence of the crimes.

In a remarkable 93-page ruling [PDF] issued on Monday, Cannon dismissed the entire federal case against Trump and his co-defendants on the basis that Smith's appointment as Special Counsel was somehow in violation of the Constitution and federal statutes. The argument made by Trump's attorneys and accepted by Cannon --- who had already been slow-walking the case for months --- was similar to those repeatedly rejected for decades by judge after judge, including appellate courts and, as our guest details today, unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court in Nixon v. U.S. But Cannon, appointed by Trump at the end of his term and seated after he lost the 2020 election, appears to know more about the law than all of those other lesser judges.

We're joined today by former lifelong Republican and attorney KEITH BARBER, who writes on the law and Constitution for Daily Kos as "KeithDB", where he detailed Cannon's ruling yesterday. He explains why both the text of the Constitution and several federal laws written to allow Attorneys General to appoint Special Counsels in cases where it is important to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, prove Cannon's ruling wrong. But, as he argues today, being right on the law doesn't actually matter. "She just wanted to dismiss the case because her buddy Trump appointed her [and] gave her that job. It's time to return the favor, and so she has," he says.

Barber published a second article yesterday listing more than half a dozen Special Counsels and Special Prosecutors appointed similarly to Smith, from Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski in the Watergate matter to Ken Starr during the Clinton Administration to Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference on Trump's behalf in the 2016 election to the recent probe of President Biden himself by Special Counsel Robert Hur.

"A lot of people have gone to jail as a result of special counsels appointed by the Attorney General" over the years, Barber tells me. "None of them got the benefit of a rogue judge saying, 'Nope, all of that is not valid.' The Republicans and the MAGAs like to talk about this notion of two-tiered justice and how unfair it's been to Trump. No court accepted the notion that Special Counsels weren't authorized by statute and weren't something Attorneys Generals could do until it came to Trump. That is what two-tiered justice looks like."

If Cannon's ruling on Monday is correct, Barber asserts, then as part of the Mueller probe, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen's three-year prison sentence would have been unconstitutional and Trump associate and convicted pedophile George Nader would need to be freed immediately from his ten-year prison sentence, among other cases convictions that would need to immediately be revisited.

Will this ruling hold up to appellate scrutiny by the conservative 11th Circuit Court of Appeal, much less Trump's corrupted, packed, stolen and activist U.S. Supreme Court majority? We discuss that and much more.

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the misery and power outages continue in Houston, Texas following Hurricane Beryl, thanks in no small part to state Republicans refusal to harden infrastructure for a climate changed world, and as Trump appoints flip-flopping climate science denier J.D. Vance as his Vice-Presidential running mate...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Texas' electric grid infrastructure buckles under multiple extreme weather disasters; Damages from Hurricane Beryl now estimated at nearly $3 billion; PLUS: Republican Vice-Presidential nominee, Sen. J.D. Vance, was for climate action before he was against it... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Soaring insurance prices lead some Floridians to 'go bare'; How to power your home through an outage without a gas generator; Marathon Oil agrees to record penalty for oil and gas pollution; Vermont floods raise concerns about future of state’s hundreds of aging dams; What Project 2025 would mean for the fight against climate change;
... PLUS: Meet the Californians in the first class of the American Climate Corps... PLUS:

... and much, MUCH more! ...

Well, it's been several slow news days since we last spoke on The BradCast. Sigh... [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

On Saturday, a 20-year old registered Republican tried to kill Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania with the type of long-range, high-capacity, semi-automatic rifle that Republicans have spent years fighting to ensure are easily available to almost anyone in the country who wants one. Their only use is for mass shootings. Now we've had one at a Republican political rally. Thankfully, the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, barely missed the former President. Though he did kill one rally goer and critically injured two others.

Democrats, from President Biden on down, have since been calling for a cooling of political rhetoric, the type of which led to the assassination attempt on Nancy Pelosi's husband, the attempted kidnapping and murder of Michigan's Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, among too many other such recent incidents.

Republicans, on the other hand, from the new Republican Vice Presidential nominee and Trump critic turned toady, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance on down, have opportunistically used the tragic shooting to blame Democrats somehow for the attempt on Trump's life. Some have gone so far as to blame Biden himself in one for somehow personally attempting to murder Trump. Republicans have also attempted to use the incident as a way to chill factual, peaceful political speech that is appropriately and accurately critical of their standard bearer and the party's efforts to undermine America's Constitutional democracy in favor of autocracy and fascism.

No actual motive has emerged for the shooter who was killed by the Secret Service and has so far been identified as a gun enthusiast and "definitely" a "conservative" by one of his former classmates.

We discuss much more on that story today which should have been our lead and only story today. Sadly, it wasn't.

Down in federal court in Florida, the corrupt Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon imagined up a reason to dismiss the entirety of Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal indictment of Trump and two co-conspirators on 40 criminal counts related to his theft of thousands of pages of classified documents when leaving the White House and his refusal to return them, in violation of the Espionage Act and other federal statutes. Cannon's reasons [PDF] for dismissing the case --- questioning the constitutionality of the Special Counsel's appointment --- has been rejected by court after court for years in many other cases where a Special Counsel was appointed (including the Robert Mueller probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election and more recently in the case against Hunter Biden) But, following recent instructions in a solo opinion issued by corrupt Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (signed by no other Justices) in an unrelated case, Cannon dismissed the entire stolen documents case. The Dept. of Justice has said they will appeal. Hopefully, when they do, they will also finally move to have Cannon removed once and for all from this case.

Finally, we open up the phone lines again today to listeners who have many thoughts on all of the above...

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We went to air on today's BradCast prior to Joe Biden's several-hours-delayed post-NATO Summit press conference, allowing us to catch up on an item or two that we've otherwise been trying to get to all week. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Yet another poll is out today, in this case from WaPo/ABC, finding President Biden and Donald Trump tied nationally. (It also shows Vice President Kamala Harris actually leading Trump by 2 points.) That said, the survey also finds some 67% of Americans, including more than half of Democrats, currently believe Biden should end his re-election bid. What should we take from that? And is there reason to believe that Biden can outlast the seemingly never-ending drip-drip-drip of former supporters calling for him to step aside? We discuss.

• While Biden was busy completing the NATO Summit he has been hosting this week in D.C., Donald Trump was planning a previously unannounced meeting with Hungarian strongman and Christian Nationalist Victor Orban down at his Florida resort. The meeting between the autocrats comes just days after Orban's surprise meeting with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Chinese strongman Xi Jingping in Beijing.

• New Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers released on Thursday once again beat expectations and offer still more good news for the American economy and, specifically, inflation in the U.S. Among that good news, the annual inflation rate fell to just 3% as of June with consumer prices actually falling overall from May to June for the first time since May of 2020. The Biden Administration touted its anti-inflationary policies for the good news, including the easing of gas prices and items such as cars, appliances, airfare and groceries.

• On Tuesday, Oklahoma's long-serving U.S. Senator James Mountain Inhofe died at the age of 89 following a stroke he reportedly suffered on July 4th. The five-term Senator --- who notoriously described global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels as "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" --- was instrumental in blocking critical climate reforms in Congress over decades, helping to lead the nation and world into the deadly climate crisis we are now facing. He abused his position of power to spread lies and misinformation about climate science for which our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren (including his own) will now pay the price for decades to come.

• After Inhofe repeatedly and falsely warned that America could not survive without fossil fuels, California has been steadily proving otherwise. The most populous state in the union has already had nearly 100 days this year when renewable energy, largely from solar and wind, has exceeded 100% of the state's entire electricity demand for at least some part of the day. In fact, CA is now producing more solar energy than it is able to use on many days, thanks largely to rooftop solar and a lack of transmission lines and battery storage. It is now producing so much clean renewable energy, in fact, that, so far this year, the state has had to waste more than enough renewable energy to power every home in San Francisco for a year. Transmission capacity and battery storage is now being furiously added. But, at the same time, the state's Public Utilities Commission has enacted wildly controversial new rules for selling back solar energy to the grid from rooftop solar installations via net-metering. We discuss.

• Finally, as the nation is suffering from the deadly fallout of the record Hurricane Beryl, including massive power outages, flooding and record tornadoes from Texas to Michigan, and suffocates under stifling heat and humidity from the West Coast to the East, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on all of that and much more, including Republicans in the U.S. House spending their time fighting to ensure that appliances like refrigerators and dishwashers cost Americans much more than they need to...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Flooding, power outages, sweltering heat --- fallout from Hurricane Beryl wreaking havoc across U.S.; New federal flood risk standards will finally incorporate future climate impacts; PLUS: House Republicans tackle the real enemy: energy saving appliances!... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): A guide to Project 2025, the extreme right-wing agenda for the next Republican administration; Shuttered auto plants will become EV factories thanks to $1.7 billion Biden program; The Pacific Northwest is littered with ‘deadbeat dams’; Wildfire ‘burn scars’ bring repeated flash floods to Ruidoso, New Mexico; Canada’s 2023 wildfires burned nearly 30,000 square miles of forest, spewed heat-trapping gas into the air... PLUS: CA v. FL: Two governors confronting extreme heat take opposite approaches to worker safety rules... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New Mexico town grapples with cascading consequences of simultaneous weather disasters; Environmentalists on edge awaiting critical US Supreme Court ruling; PLUS: Good news! Biden's climate law has created more than 300,000 clean energy jobs... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Environmental rulings to watch at the Supreme Court; Summer heat brings new misery to Palestinians in Israel's war on Gaza; We've been accidentally cooling the planet - and it's about to stop; Rising sea levels will disrupt millions of Americans' lives by 2050, study finds; Second wave of devastating floods hits Bangladesh in less than a month; Next-generation geothermal will soon power Southern California's grid; Trump says clean energy is a scam, and that could benefit China... PLUS: Scientists found another way we're exposed to 'forever chemicals': Through our skin... and much, MUCH more! ...

Stand by for news --- some good-ish, some not-ish --- on today's BradCast! [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

First up today, some noteworthy results from yesterday's primary elections. Among a bunch of races covered today from four different states...

• Progressive New York "Squad" member Rep. Jamaal Bowman was soundly defeated in his 16th District U.S. House primary race by longtime local Democratic official George Latimer in what was, notoriously, the most expensive House primary ever run. The cost of the contest was largely due to the American Israeli Political Affairs Conference (AIPAC)'s investment of millions of dollars to defeat Bowman, who, among other sins, described Israel's war in Gaza as a genocide. That said, as many pointed out before Tuesday and as we detail today, Bowman, as a movement progressive, was likely to have lost this race anyway in a very diverse "normie Dem" district, even without the flood of AIPAC money.

• Far-right Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert's carpetbagging jump from her right-leaning, but swingy-ish 3rd District to the farther right 4th district --- after barely winning in the 3rd in 2022 by just a few hundred votes --- paid off as she managed to beat off three other Republicans to win the GOP nomination in the new district on Tuesday and, with it, most likely, another term in Congress this November.

• U.S. Rep. John Curtis, a not-insane, Mitt Romney-like, pro-climate action Republican from Utah, defeated a Trump-endorsed opponent to win the GOP nomination to fill the seat being vacated by the retiring Romney in the very red, but not completely Trumpy state this November.

• Another Trump-endorsed Republican lost, if narrowly, on Tuesday to Republican Sheri Biggs in South Carolina's primary runoff election for the U.S. House in the state's solidly red 3rd Congressional District.

And, some noteworthy news today from the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court, where a number of still-outstanding decisions remain, suggesting they may still be releasing opinions after the usual end of term in June, after we'll be on break over the Independence Day holiday week. Among the still-unreleased opinions are two that relate to criminal accountability for Donald Trump. It's up to you if you want to check out the (seemingly encouraging) abortion-related opinion that the Court appears to have accidentally released prematurely on their website for a few minutes on Wednesday morning. Beyond that, the two they meant to release today include...

• A seemingly absurd finding that federal law does not prevent payoffs by private parties to public officials after an official has done something --- such as award a multimillionaire contract --- to the private party. The case overturns a conviction against an Indiana Mayor who received $13,000 after fixing the bidding process to award a million-dollar contract to a local trucking company. A payoff, or an agreement for one before such the contract was awarded, in a direct quid pro quo, would be considered unlawful bribery. But a payoff after the action in question, no matter how much, is considered a "gratuity" that, the Court ruled [PDF] in a 6 to 3 partisan decision today, is not barred by federal law. State and local jurisdictions may still prosecute such payoffs under their own laws, however, if they wish.

• In a slightly more encouraging 6 to 3 ruling [PDF] today --- with three Republican-appointed Justices joining all three Liberals in the majority opinion --- the Court sided with the Biden Administration to reject claims by several Republican states and private plaintiffs that federal officials were unconstitutionally forcing social media sites to remove posts by so-called conservatives. The Court ruled that Plaintiffs had no standing here, since they all failed to demonstrate they faced any Constitutional harms by actions taken by federal officials --- in both the Trump and Biden Administrations --- to advise social media companies like Twitter and Facebook about potentially dangerous or misleading posts regarding COVID-19, election integrity and more.

And finally, on his HBO show last week, Bill Maher lauded Maryland's Democratic Governor Wes Moore for recently announced pardons to tens of thousands convicted over the years under state marijuana laws that have since been lifted. Maher then lamented how sad it was that Joe Biden wasn't smart enough to do the same thing at the federal level...even though Biden did exactly that two years ago when he also encouraged state Governors like Moore to do the same, as most marijuana convictions are at the state level. Of course, we covered both Biden and Moore's pardons as they happened. But, since Maher apparently never heard about it, I also want to make sure that at least you know about the new set of pardons issued today by the Biden White House...

• As the military news outlet Task & Purpose reports: "U.S. troops who were convicted under a now-defunct military law that targeted gay service members will receive formal pardons, the White House announced Wednesday." The pardons will apply to thousands of LGBTQI+ troops who were discharged, going back to 1951, for military rules that have since been removed and/or found unconstitutional. Said President Biden in a statement: "Today, I am righting an historic wrong by using my clemency authority to pardon many former service members who were convicted simply for being themselves." I hope someone tells Bill Maher before he misinforms millions yet again...

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