Today on The BradCast: How "news deserts" are quickly expanding across the U.S. and how they played a disturbing role in this year's Presidential election. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

While finger-pointing continues in the wake of the stunning, if very narrow (less than 1.5%) popular vote victory of Donald Trump over Kamala Harris last month, we continue to focus on the many failures of the media that led to it, including corporate media, social media and independent media. And, in some cases, as discussed on today's show, a lack of local media in news deserts around the country.

According to the 2024 State of Local News report from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, "Since 2005, more than 3,200 print newspapers have vanished." They are now said to be disappearing at "a rate of more than two per week", with some daily papers becoming weeklies, and many ending their print editions entirely. "As news organizations continue to contract, news deserts --- areas that lack consistent local reporting that fills critical information needs --- continue to expand."

Our guest today, 36-year former Washington Post media reporter PAUL FARHI, in an analysis of the Medill study with John Volk, finds that while Trump won the 2024 election "with one of the smallest popular vote margins in U.S. history", in 91% of news deserts he won by "an avalanche," by an average of 54 points in the 193 counties identified as news deserts where county-level results were available as of last week.

But, as Farhi and Volk note in their coverage, quoting Steven Waldman of the Rebuild Local News organization, "The wrong way to interpret this is ‘Oh, the rubes voted for Trump because they’re uninformed.’”

What is the right way? Well, that's what Farhi is here to discuss today.

He explains that those voters who live in news deserts --- usually rural, though not always Republican-leaning counties --- do have access to national media outlets such as CNN, Fox "News", the New York Times, etc. But, without local news outlets to add context to national issues, they may end up voting against their own best interests. Those voters, for example, may not realize that the Trump/Republican call for tariffs might end up raising local prices or result in the loss of local employment. They may not understand that access to healthcare and the right to abortion may be lost in their own community.

"These issues have local resonance," Farhi tells me, "but they don't if you have no access to understanding how they affect your local community. So what happens? The research that's emerging is that people frame their choice around their partisanship. 'I'm a Republican, I'm going to vote Republican. I don't need any local news to modify that behavior because I don't have any news to modify that behavior.' It increases the polarization and the partisanship of the electorate, because they have no information to weigh it against what's happening in their local community."

Beyond politics, Farhi notes: "In news deserts, because you don't have a watchdog, you have more political corruption on average. You have higher taxes on average. You have lower bond ratings. You have a certain kind of social alienation and loss of community, because no one is covering the high school sports, or obits, or the community events, or the things that are not major stories, but they kind of give a community some cohesion and coherence, and common knowledge. Those things, when they disappear, which they do in news deserts, are disproportionately affecting Trump voters."

The disturbingly fast expansion of news deserts may also be leading to a growth in ticket-splitting --- votes cast for a Republican at the top of the ticket, for instance, but no votes at all cast for Senator, Congress or in local races. That's because voters may simply not have enough local information to know how to vote. Ironically, that may have helped Democrats win some of those Senate and House races this year in states where Harris lost the popular vote to Trump.

It's a fascinating conversation. And a disturbing one. Also, given Farhi's 36 years as a media reporter at Washington Post until leaving last year, I asked him for his thoughts on the decision by the paper's billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, to nix the planned Editorial Page endorsement of Harris just days before the November election; how Bezos' ownership has affected the venerable news outlet; and whether he thinks it is a good or bad idea, for news in general, for people to cancel subscriptions to such outlets in protest. (More than 250,000 subscribers reportedly did exactly that just after Bezos spiked the paper's endorsement of Harris.) Please tune in for all of that and much more in our discussion today!

ALSO TODAY...

• The Dept. of Justice Inspector General released a report on the abuse by the Trump Administration's leak investigations that included spying on two members of Congress (Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell), along with 43 staff members of both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. One of the staffers secretly caught up in the 2017 probe, was Kash Patel, Trump's proposed nominee to head the FBI. He served as a staffer, at the time, to a Republican Congressman and only recently learned that the Administration abused DoJ policies to obtain his email and phone records. Suffice to say the report may add reasons for Patel to be angry and seek retribution, but not of the media or Obama or Biden Administrations, despite his vow to investigate and jail both members of the media and officials of both Administrations. His problems, it seems, may be much closer to home.

• Finally, as yet another apocalyptic climate change-fueled wildfire threatens celebrity homes and Pepperdine University in Malibu today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with news on deadly back-to-back storms in the U.K. and Ireland; China's EV boom eroding the global demand for oil; and Donald Trump's plans to end Joe Biden's landmark loan programs to renewable energy companies and tax credits to consumers like you, for home improvements such as solar panels, weatherized windows and electric vehicles...

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The cruelty really does appear to be the point, as discussed on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

On Wednesday, the hateful creeps who have been fired up for years by Fox "News" and the Republican Party against trans kids, had their day at the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard some two and half hours of oral argument for and against the state of Tennessee's Big Government ban on safe, medically prescribed gender-affirming care for minors.

U.S. v. Skrmetti, as CHRIS GEIDNER of Law Dork, our guest today, pointed out in his coverage last night after sitting through the full hearing at the Court, should have been an "an easy case, in some ways." The actual legal question for the moment is whether the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld TN's cruel ban, applied the proper standards when hearing the case. If the law banning medical care for youths, as recommended by their doctors and approved by their parents, is based on sex, it should be subject to at least "intermediate scrutiny" by the court, meaning the government needs to prove "there is an important government interest and the law is substantially related to it," Geidner explains. "You need to have a reason" to adopt such a law that may discriminate on the basis of sex.

No such scrutiny was applied to TN's Senate Bill 1 when its challenge was heard and the law upheld by the lower court. The Biden Administration and the ACLU attorney representing the private challengers in the case made clear that the law is, in fact, based on sex and therefore should be remanded to the lower court to be heard under heightened scrutiny to ensure there us a legitimate governmental interest in enforcing the law which, plaintiffs argue, violates the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection clause.

That said, Wednesday's hearing became, at times, more of a culture war over trans rights in general, as 25 other largely GOP-controlled states have adopted similar bans in recent years. Their laws will be affected by whatever happens in this case currently at SCOTUS. That, as Donald Trump and his allies have vowed to roll back protections for transgender people at the national level after he takes office again next year.

The matter, in short, is very high stakes. But the stakes are the highest at the moment for the kids who will be --- and already are being --- unconscionably harmed by these insidious laws meant to help Republicans gain or hold power under the guise of keeping children safe. These laws do no such thing. They are actively harming children rather than help them.

Geidner breaks down what happened at the High Court on Wednesday; how a 2020 case (before the all-out GOP war on transgender people kicked into high gear) in which Republican Justices Neil Gorsuch and John Roberts actually joined the Court's liberals to protect trans rights may affect this case; and whether TN will be able to get five Justices to uphold their ban --- or if the challengers will find five that are willing to at least send the matter back down to the lower court for a proper hearing.

"All that DoJ and the ACLU, representing the private plaintiffs, were saying is that, 'The 6th Circuit got the wrong standard, and all that you need to do is say that this is a sex-based classification, and send it back for them to do the rest of this work'," says Geidner. The case, the challengers argued, is a Constitutional Equal Protection matter. But, as Geidner observes, "What we saw from Chief Justice Roberts and Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh was an attempt to come up with a way of resolving the case that would allow these laws to exist that isn't anti-trans. Which can essentially only happen by turning the Equal Protection clause on its head or rendering it virtually irrelevant." That would have a sweeping effect on all matter of legislation encroaching on Constitutional rights.

The matter, Geidner assess, now most likely rests upon decisions by Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Gorsuch who, Geidner notes --- after having written the majority opinion in 2020's landmark Bostock case that prevented discrimination against transgender people by their employers --- fell curiously silent throughout the entire hearing on Wednesday.

Most media coverage after the hearing on Wednesday suggested things don't look good for the challengers --- and for the children they are hoping to protect. Geidner concedes that may be the case, but he holds out hope and explains why today.

Also on today's program...

• A few words about the 7.0 magnitude quake in Northern California this afternoon, and the tsunami warning that briefly followed it, affecting some 5.3 million people on the West Coast. (For those who asked after the news broke today: We're fine! And nowhere near the quake down here in Southern California! But thanks for asking!)
• And, finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on a North Carolina town suing Duke Energy for years of deception about climate change; how climate change has become the dominant cause of drought in the U.S. West; South Africa's High Court bans new coal plants; and small, imperiled island nations like Vanuatu and Kiribati, whose entire existence is now threatened by rising seas, are leading a courageous landmark fight for global climate action at the U.N.'s International Court of Justice...

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As detailed on today's BradCast, the avenues for massive corruption by the incoming Trump Administration are, shamefully, only beginning to come into view. The fact that our corporate media so utterly failed to make such possibilities clear --- or even to simply explain to the electorate what tariffs actually are and how they actually work --- is just one more indictment that we will spend decades paying the price for. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... The final uncalled seat for the U.S. House in the next Congress, following the November 5th election, has finally been called. Republican Rep. John Duarte conceded on Tuesday night to Democrat Adam Gray in California's 13th Congressional district. It was the closest race in the House this year. As of air time, just 187 votes separate the two out of more than 210,000 cast, as Dems flipped a third seat in the Golden State this year. That leaves Republicans with one of the slimmest House majorities in history, holding just 220 seats to Dems' 215. That said, with the resignation of Matt Gaetz, and two other GOP members set to step down if confirmed to be in Trump's cabinet, the margin for passage of any of his legislative agenda may be in question in the lower chamber in the early part of next year. Just one or two defectors, or members who are out sick, could make it impossible for Republicans to get anything through the House.

THEN... We've debunked the long-ago, many times discredited 2000 Mules film --- supposedly documenting massive fraud by Democrats to steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump --- over and over again in the past several years. Both state and federal law enforcement authorities have done so as well. Even the publisher and distributor of the documentary film and its companion book have pulled both from distribution and offered an apology. This week, so did the fraudulent film's director and rightwing pundit Dinesh D'Souza. He issued an apology to one of the people seen on surveillance video in the film, which claimed the man was committing a "crime" by depositing "fraudulent votes" into a drop-box near Atlanta in 2020. In fact, the man was dropping off his own ballot, his wife's and those of his adult children who lived with him --- all perfectly legal in Georgia. In his apology, D'Souza (who was pardoned for his own ACTUAL election fraud crimes by Trump!) appears to blame his partners on the film, a long-ago discredited GOP "voter fraud" fraudster group called True the Vote, for misleading him about the footage they supplied for his use in the film.

FINALLY... Donald Trump has been vowing for the past year or more on the campaign trail to institute massive trade tariffs on foreign nations of anywhere from 10% to 1000% depending on his mood on any given day at any given event. He has also, for years, been lying to the American public about tariffs, claiming they are paid by the nation whose products are taxed upon import into the U.S. In fact, as our guest today explains, they are almost always paid by the consumer in some fashion and are likely to inflate prices to boot.

We're joined today by DAVID DAYEN, investigative financial journalist, award-winning author and Executive Editor of The American Prospect magazine. He offers both a primer on how tariffs actually work (and/or don't), and how Trump plans to use them to muscle concessions and favors from other nations, beginning with Mexico, Canada and China, our three largest trading partners from whom we import some $1 trillion worth of goods each year.

"The heyday of tariffs was the 1890s," Dayen explains. "But the way that Trump is going about it, you've got to think of these tariffs as more like economic sanctions." Sanctions that could come back to bite the U.S. via a trade war if those nations decide to slap their own tariffs on our goods in return.

Trump has claimed that his recently promised 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and new tariffs of 10% on goods from China are meant to stop the "invasion" of migrants and drugs into the U.S. But that explanation, charges Dayen, is dubious at best. They are more likely intended as "simply leverage" in advance of renegotiations of the USMCA, the slightly modified replacement for the NAFTA trade treaty that was struck between U.S., Mexico and Canada during Trump's first term.

But, as Dayen reported at The Prospect last week, "there's a second piece to Trump's tariff strategy" that involves corporate importers and exporters, rather than nations. That, as he explains today, is where Trump's ability to give away tariff waivers is set to be a wildly lucrative scheme that will open the door to perhaps unprecedented corruption and payoffs from corporate interests hoping to avoid the economic pain of tariffed goods.

In his explanation, Dayen cites the famous "Cantillon Effect" which "comes down to whoever is closer to power is going to have better success in business." And now, between Trump's hotels and publicly-traded social media company and, perhaps most disturbingly, his new cryptocurrency venture --- (which a Chinese entrepreneur currently under SEC investigation for fraud, market manipulation and other violations of U.S. law just dropped $30 million into, three weeks after the election) --- it is going to be open season to buy favors and favoritism galore from the new President.

"This is what oligarchies look like," says Dayen. "This is what Russia looks like. If you're closer to the king, you're going to do better. The next four years are going to reflect this tendency."

And, yes, as he argues today, "the mind boggles at the potential for corruption"...

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

Among our many stories today...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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It's a jam-packed show today, as we try to fit as much in as we can for our last BradCast until after the Thanksgiving holiday. Yes, we're taking a much-needed week off next week. But we've got some advice for all of us on today's program on how to (try and) survive the holidays with MAGA friends and family members and, perhaps, pave the way for a better tomorrow. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Minutes after the Gaza Health Ministry announced that 44,000, mostly women and children, have been killed during Israel's 13-month long war following the October 2023 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 in Israel, news broke from the International Criminal Court. Warrants have been issued by the ICC for the arrest of Israel's far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyau, his former Defense Minister and Hamas' military chief on charges of crimes against humanity and other war crimes. We explain what that means and doesn't.

• Police in Monterey, California on Wednesday night released a 22-page report [PDF] on the 2017 sexual assault allegations filed by the organizer of a Republican women's event against Pete Hegseth, a featured speaker at the forum, Fox "News" weekend host and Donald Trump's nominee to be the next U.S. Defense Secretary. The police report includes disturbing and seemingly damning details, as well as corroborative statements and texts from a number of witnesses and medical personnel. Police had recommended the case to the Monterey County District Attorney's Office for review at the time. Hegseth, who says the tryst was "consensual" and denies allegations of drugging the victim and preventing her from leaving a hotel room, paid a cash settlement to her last year to avoid a lawsuit. Somehow, the Trump Transition team claims to have known nothing about these charges and, in the meantime, Hegseth remains Trump's pick to head the U.S. Dept. of Defense.

• Fellow accused sexual miscreant, Matt Gaetz, however, is no longer Trump's nominee to be the nation's top law enforcement official. He withdrew from consideration to be the next U.S. Attorney General on Thursday morning, following daily revelations of new evidence supporting claims that the former Florida Congressman paid thousands of dollars for sex with 17-year old girls, trafficked the underage minors across state lines, used illicit drugs and other activities which would be disqualifying for the job of the nation's top cop in every Administration but Trump's. Gaetz resigned from Congress last week, on the same day he was tapped by Trump, just one day before the House Ethics Committee was to consider releasing their report on all of these allegations. His resignation letter reportedly stated that he did "not intend to" take the oath of office in the new Congress following his re-election on November 5. Don't be surprised, however, if he shows up anyway to take the oath of office on January 3rd, when the new Congress is sworn in. Telling the truth about anything has never been Gaetz' strong suit. (Moments after we got off air, former Florida A.G. Pam Bondi --- who declined to investigate allegations against Trump after he made a donation to her campaign --- was tapped as Trump's new nominee to lead the U.S. Justice Dept.)

• We've got still more evidence today about the polluted "information environment" that many, including myself, have blamed for the re-election of Trump over Kamala Harris on November 5. In this case, a new survey finding that some 74% of voters had heard about Harris' non-existent "plan" to "protect the rights of transgender people," thanks to $37 million in ads citing the false claims about the Democratic nominee, and a failed media environment --- corporate, social and independent --- simply unable (or uninterested) in accurately informing the electorate to the contrary. (In related news, both Desi and myself are now on Bluesky! Please follow us there! She is @GreenNewsReport.bsky.social. I am @TheBradBlog.bsky.social.)

• Then, we're happy to once again be joined today by RICH LOGIS, Founder and Executive Director of Leaving MAGA, a non-profit formed to help others, like himself, escape what he describes as the "Cult of MAGA". Logis spent years as a Republican pundit turned dyed-in-the-wool Trumper, having voted for the disgraced former and future President in both 2016 and 2020, before finally coming to the difficult realization that he'd been taken in by a dangerous cult leader.

  Logis contributed to the Democratic National Convention this year with video testimonials from fellow former MAGA members and worked on behalf of the Republicans for Harris campaign.

  Today he joins us to discuss, among other things, what he's learned over the past year from his series of podcast interviews with fellow former MAGA cultists; what he attributes Trump's victory to (hint: he agrees me with about the polluted "information environment" in which Trump supporters are no longer able to distinguish truth from lies); and how he recommends non-MAGA Americans deal with their MAGA family members and friends over the upcoming holidays.

  "Donald Trump's toxic superpower is lying," Logis tells me today. "The rightwing in the Republican Party lie about everything. So I succumbed to mis- and disinformation. When I realized that I had, by diversifying my news and information sources, it set me on the pathway to leaving MAGA."

  Logis believes, as I do, that there will be more --- not fewer --- people looking to leave MAGA in the months and years ahead, as the reality of Trump's next clown show takes shape. The time to start helping them to do so is now, he argues.

  While conceding that it might sound "very naive", he advises progressives and other non-MAGA folks to try and "make some dinners politics-free this year." But, if that can't be done, he recommends attempting to "extend the olive branch and say, 'I would like to have more of the kind of relationship that we may have had before 2015 and 2016.'"

  Logis makes the case that, even while recognizing that many MAGA opponents will not feel like it's their duty to take that step. "It's a way to reopen opportunity, reopen that door," he asserts, so when those folks are finally ready to leave MAGA, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, they will know there is space and an exit ramp for them to do so.

  Anyway, as usual lots more in my conversation with Logis today. And he does have some cred here, as he once again felt it necessary to apologize for his part in "helping Donald Trump divide our country, pitting complete strangers against each other, tearing asunder friendships, families, communities and places of worship." He explains that his work in creating Leaving MAGA "is a way for me to make amends."

• Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report and last before our Thanksgiving break, with news on the back-to-back, climate change-fueled monster storms that slammed the Pacific Northwest over the past several days; a new report on how the climate crisis intensified every U.S. hurricane in 2024; the discovery of a huge cache of "rare earth" elements in a surprising location in the U.S.; and New York's Governor changing her mind, yet again, about congestion pricing in NYC to help reign in both traffic and air pollution while bringing in a ton of much-needed dollars to the city...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Back-to-back major storms slam the Pacific Northwest; Climate change intensified every hurricane in 2024, new study finds; US has huge cache of rare earth elements buried within its coal ash waste dumps; PLUS: NY Gov. revives congestion pricing to rein in traffic and air pollution in New York City... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Parts of Great Barrier Reef dying at record rate, alarmed researchers say; "worst fears" confirmed; China's soaring emissions are upending climate politics; Fossil fuel transition talks rescued from brink of collapse at COP29; Super Typhoon Man-yi devastates Philippines, 6th typhoon to hit country in 4 weeks; Beekeeper mourns millions of bees killed in Mountain fire; FEMA worker tells of avoiding MAGA homes due to threats of violence... PLUS: Giraffes are up next on the endangered species list... and much, MUCH more! ...

Will he ever face any punishment for his many crimes? That is among the many issues covered on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... The fight over Donald Trump's absurd selection of alleged statutory rapist Matt Gaetz as the next U.S. Attorney General continued in Congress today, as Republicans on the House Ethics Committee appeared to block the release of the report from a years-long investigation into the former Florida Reps' well-documented record of alleged sex trafficking of minors, paying some $10,000 for sex, and illicit drug use, among other (previously) disqualifying issues for someone tapped to head the Dept. of Justice as the nation's top law enforcement official.

THEN... The clown show of other Trump appointments to key government posts has continued over the past 24 hours with the selection of pro-wrestling's WWE co-founder Linda McMahon to head the Dept. of Education (which Trump has previously vowed to shut down) and TV doctor/snake-oil salesman Dr. Mehmet Oz to head up the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.

But one of Trump's picks this past week has received much less attention than it deserves. Brendan Carr, author of the chapter on the FCC in Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 [PDF], was selected over the weekend to become Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, even though Trump pretended during the campaign that he wanted nothing to do with Project 2025 and the people who created it. Carr quickly took to his friend Elon Musk's Twitter/X after his nomination on Sunday to declare a war on "censorship" by Big Tech companies, before subsequently appearing on Fox "News" to suggest the FCC must review broadcast licenses granted to news outlets like CBS. During the campaign, Trump called for the censorship or complete shutdown of almost all broadcast and cable news outlets that are not rightwing propagandists.

It must also be noted that Project 2025 specifically calls (see p. 279) for reviewing the broadcast licenses to Pacifica Radio Network, which has dozens of affiliate stations across the country that air The BradCast every day, including KPFK, our flagship station here in Los Angeles.

NEXT... The New York state justice system is in completely uncharted waters at the moment, with the election of Donald Trump following his conviction earlier this year on 34 felony counts of fraud related to his hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Sentencing in the case had been scheduled for November 26. But this week, prosecutors from the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg informed Justice Juan Merchan they were willing to pause sentencing to litigate Trump's assertions that, following his election this month and the U.S. Supreme Court's absurd "Presidential Immunity" ruling over the Summer, he can never be sentenced at all and the case must be dismissed in full. NY prosecutors, however, disagree and argue he should still be sentenced even if, in a worst case scenario, it must wait until after Trump is out of office.

We're joined today to help us make sense of this mess by George Washington University law school professor RANDALL D. ELIASON, who previously served as chief of the U.S. Justice Dept.'s Fraud and Public Corruption section in D.C.. Over the weekend, Eliason argued in an article at The Atlantic that New York must proceed with sentencing of Trump before he is sworn in to office next January.

"At this point," he tells me today, "it's almost less important what the actual sentence is. But I think it's important for the justice system to see that this case gets concluded, and doesn't just kind of dangle out there for the next four years. The case has already been tried and we already have a jury verdict. And it could be sentenced before he even takes office. That's not going to 'chill' him from doing anything as President, because it's over, and it's not going to take any of his time because appeals are handled by the lawyers."

While conceding "we don't have any precedent for any of this" and that a prison sentence certainly can't happen while he's in office, Eliason argues that it's "important now that A sentencing happens," even if it "can't be that meaningful or consequential. But I think it should take place just as a matter of the justice system completing this prosecution, honoring the jury's verdict, and having an official judgment of conviction entered on the record that he is, in fact, a convicted felon. Then the appeals can proceed in the normal course."

In addition to much more on that, we also discuss...

• The "extremely concerning" appointment of Matt Gaetz as U.S. Attorney General, who, the longtime DoJ veteran Eliason describes as "completely unqualified for the job" with "his only connection to the Justice Department, as far as I can tell, as the subject of a criminal investigation";
• The likelihood of Trump using recess appointments to push many of them through without Constitutionally-mandated Senate oversight. "How much Trump can get away with is going to come down to whether Senate Republicans have any backbone at all, and are willing to stand up for their Constitutional role for advice and consent." (Uh, oh);
• Whether the sprawling racketeering conspiracy case against Trump can continue in Georgia against his 18 indicted co-conspirators even if the ringleader of the attempt to steal the 2020 election in the Peach State is now either let off the hook entirely or is allowed to defer the trial until after he is out of office;
• How Eliason would like to see Special Counsel Jack Smith end the two federal indictments against Trump for his attempt to steal the 2020 election and his theft of hundreds of pages of highly classified national security documents the last time he left office in 2021;
• And whether Trump will still have to pay his civil penalties no matter what happens, including the $355 million fraud verdict against him in New York State and the $83 million jury award in the sexual assault case against him won by writer E. Jean Carroll...

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Today was our first chance to open the phone lines to listeners on The BradCast, in the grim wake of last week's disastrous elections for the nation, the planet and democracy itself. It was, to say the least, a very lively show today, FWIW. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Before getting to callers today, a few items of note...

• First, an update on outstanding Senate races still to be determined. Though AP called Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race for Republican hedge-fund CEO David McCormick last week against three-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Casey, other outlets have not yet called it. McCormick is currently said to be leading Casey by about 40,000 votes out of nearly seven million cast, or just over one half of one percentage point. If the gap falls to less than half a point, with provisional and overseas ballots still being tallied, a recount will likely happen under state law. For the record, about 175,000 votes were reportedly cast in that race for third-party Senate candidates, including about 65,000 for the Green Party candidate.

• Over the weekend, media outlets called the U.S. Senate race in Nevada for the incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen, who appears to have defeated Republican challenger Sam Brown by about a point and a half.

• The last uncalled U.S. Senate race is in Arizona, where Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego leads Trump-endorsed election denier Kari Lake by a little more than two points. Republicans have flipped at least three Dem seats overall this year in the Senate, so far, and will have a majority of at least two seats in the upper chamber over the next two years to allow all of Donald Trump's appointments --- to his cabinet, other executive agencies and, of course, lifetime appointments to the federal judiciary --- to sail through for his second term in office. Many more details (and concerns) about the tabulation of those races on today's show

• As many have been writing in to ask about voting system concerns and various reported anomalies since last Tuesday, I take a few minutes today to discuss just some of the incidents currently of most note that I have been looking into and speaking with computer scientists, election integrity advocates, and folks on the ground about over the past week.

  For the moment, I don't see many signs of anything that could possibly change the results of the race, at least for President. Though I am looking at several incidents in several different swing states that deserve both explanation and a broader look to see if similar anomalies, still unreported, may have occurred elsewhere. For example, I have been eyeing whatever happened in both Centre County, Pennsylvania and Battle Creek (Calhoun County), Michigan, where some absentee ballots inexplicably, for now, failed to upload properly to the central Election Management System (EMS) server after being scanned by tabulators without incident.

  Yes, I am also looking at a host of other reported incidents and concerns, including the use of Elon Musk's Starlink system for Internet connectivity in some jurisdictions. Though, in theory, that would only effect Electronic Pollbooks at voting precincts, rather than ballots themselves. As noted on today's program, rest assured that I and others are still watching and digging where we can. And, my usual reminder here that sometimes it takes a while for tabulation errors to come to light after an election. Your problem reports that you believe I may not have seen are welcome in comments below, as always.

• Lastly, before we get to a lot of listener phone calls today, from all sorts of political perspectives, a few thoughts of my own about the unspeakable failure by our nation's media --- mainstream corporate media, social media, independent media --- to adequately inform voters about actual facts regarding this election. Facts including why it is that Donald Trump now poses an exponentially more acute threat to the nation and the world than he did during his first term. (I discuss several such reasons, including that his corrupted U.S. Supreme Court majority has, since his previous term, issued a ruling that Presidents may commit any crime they like while in office, and can never be held to account for it.) And how, if voters claimed they were voting for Trump in response to the economy and inflation under the Biden-Harris Administration, they were obviously wildly uninformed, misinformed and, too often, purposely disinformed about the facts on which they claimed to have voted, given the success of the Admin's record on the economy, versus the inflation and debt that is promised by very few economic policies that Trump promised during the campaign. Yeah, I've got a word or two to get out on all of that today. (And will, almost certainly, have many more in the future.)

• Finally, a bunch of callers ring in to let it all out on whoever and whatever they'd like to blame for what happened, or to discuss why they still seem pleased with their votes for third-parties (one caller supported RFK, Jr., who wasn't evening running!), or to simply call in, in the case of at least one Trump supporter, to gloat. Today was the day to let it all out with, likely, many such days to come --- along with the suffering and misery that awaits all of us now. Yes, even the Trump and RFK supporters, sadly, who seem to have no clue how bad this is all going to get...thanks to our failed media...

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We do our best to avoid being Pollyanna-ish on The BradCast. But not everything that happened on Tuesday (or since) has been terrible. Just a lot of it. But, in fact, some of it was quite good and worth taking notice! [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among our many stories today...both good, bad and otherwise...

• A quickly moving wildfire exploded northwest of Los Angeles on Wednesday, fueled by dry brush and wind gusts up to 80mph. As of Thursday afternoon it had scorched some 14,000 acres, burned through several homes, mansions, ranches and agricultural areas and threatens another 3,500 other structures in the suburban community. 10,000 residents have been evacuated. The so-called "Mountain Fire" was 0% contained at air time. "It's like trying to put out a blowtorch with a squirt gun," said a Ventura County Fire Dept. official in a climate changed wildfire season that has, so far, burned three times as much land as last year at this time.

• Speaking of California and climate, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday called an emergency special state legislative session beginning next month "to protect our state against any unlawful actions by the incoming Trump Administration." He declared on Twitter that "California is ready to fight. Whether it be our fundamental civil rights, reproductive freedom, or climate action --- we refuse to turn back the clock and allow our values and laws to be attacked."

• AP announced late this afternoon that carpet-bagging hedge-fund billionaire and Pennsylvania's Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick had defeated three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey on Tuesday, adding yet another pick up for Republicans in next year's U.S. Senate, where they are already set to take back majority control. (After we got off air, however, Democratic election attorney Marc Elias countered, "The Pennsylvania Senate race is not over," citing a statement from PA's Republican Sec. of the Commonwealth estimating another 100,000 ballots remain to be adjudicated in the race where McCormick currently leads by a reported 32,000 votes over Casey.)

• This morning, President Joe Biden took to the Rose Garden to offer his first public remarks since Election Day, following Kamala Harris' apparent loss to the lawless former President, noting, "You can't love your country only when you win,". By way of contrast to Trump, Biden vowed a peaceful transfer of power, lauded Harris' run, discussed the importance of democracy (even when ya lose) and offered encouragement to staffers and supporters by telling them that "setbacks are unavoidable, giving up is unforgivable." We share his brief remarks today in full.

• Protecting and/or expanding reproductive freedoms was on the ballot in 10 different states on Tuesday. Abortion rights won in seven of them, including Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York. In fact, otherwise "deep red" MO became the first state in the union, since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, to reverse a near-total abortion ban and enshrine reproductive rights into the state's constitution!

  Similar initiatives failed, however, in three states: Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota and for various reasons in each, which we discuss today. Most notably, in FL, the measure to restore freedoms and repeal the state's Big Government six-week ban was supported by a healthy 57% to 43% majority of voters. But the state mandates a 60% supermajority for adoption of Constitutional ballot amendments and, at the same time, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis applied state muscle and seemingly unlawful measures to prevent passage.

  Politico's longtime Capitol Hill heath care reporter ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN joins us today to break down what happened in each state, and where the never-ending battle for and against reproductive freedoms goes from here.

• In other good ballot measure news, voters in Washington state overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to repeal the state's landmark climate law, adopted two years ago under outgoing Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee. The new law slashes dangerous carbon emissions by charging fossil fuel polluters for their pollution. The law has already brought in some $4 billion for habitat restoration and hardening the state against the worsening ravages of climate change. Voters reportedly voted by a 24-point margin to keep the law in place!

• Finally, Desi Doyen is here with our first post-election Green News Report, with details on the troubling worldwide implications for climate under the incoming Trump Administration, as environmental groups vow to press forward. Also, details on both the wildfires in Los Angeles and the rare, late-season Hurricane Rafael which has knocked out power to Cuba (again) and is making its way into record warm Gulf of Mexico waters...

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

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

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

Among the questions asked and discussed...

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

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

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I'm writing today's BradCast summary much quicker than usual, as polls are now beginning to close with unofficial results coming in momentarily. But we've got a lot packed into today's show no matter when you tune in, that may help you make sense of what will happen tonight and over the next several days (and weeks and even months!). [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Among our coverage today....

• Not much help on who's gonna win from the voters of first-in-the-nation Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, the first town in the nation to both open and close their Election Day polls just after midnight last night. Their six total voters tied 3 to 3 between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. But four of those voters are registered Republicans and two are independent. So it might actually tell us more than originally appears.

• Polling guru Nate Silver's final forecast model for the 2024 Presidential election, which ran 80,000 simulations just after midnight, based on the latest pre-election polling and other noteworthy data, finds that Kamala Harris won precisely 40,012 of them. Or 50.015% of the time! Not much help there either. We may have to wait for actual, ya know, votes to be actually, ya know, counted before we can find out if all the polls telling us that everything is "tied" are actually right. (I wouldn't bet on it.)

• There were a number of problems for voters around the country today, though not widespread, so far, and, thankfully, not violent (so far) as some had feared. There were bomb threats in Georgia, said to have come from Russian sources. But most of the issues that have come to light so far were with voting systems, of the type we've seen many times in the past. Hand-marked paper ballots that failed to scan in a very Republican-leaning county in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where polls were ordered to stay open an extra two hours to accommodate. Print-on-demand ballot printers that failed in a very Democratic-leaning county in battleground Arizona, leading to long lines for Native American voters. Similar isolated problems in a Democratic-leaning Louisville in Kentucky, as well as in parts of Alabama and Iowa. Thankfully, in most cases reported so far, voters were able to continue voting on hand-marked paper ballots, even if they will be tallied later --- and, in some cases, by hand --- as opposed to by computer tabulators at the polls. In some cases, lines grew longer as the problems were worked out, and judges ordered polls to stay open a bit longer tonight in the bargain. While rain drenched parts of several states, reports today suggest that voters were happy to tough it out with raincoats and umbrellas in long lines in order to cast their votes in the most critical Presidential election in U.S. history.

• We run down what is now expected to lie ahead over the next few hours, days, weeks and even months, particularly in the event that Kamala Harris is declared the winner by the media either tonight or over the next few days, and how Donald Trump will likely declare victory tonight no matter what.

• Relatedly, longtime election data researcher and author Richard Hayes Phillips helps us break down the battleground states likely to offer a "red mirage" in their reported results beginning this evening. That is where initially reported results misleadingly suggest a Republican win before more Democratic-leaning results come in because of various factors, including absentee ballots taking longer to tally in states where officials are not allowed to begin processing them until Election Day. He advises to be on the lookout for that "red mirage" effect tonight --- and to not panic when it inevitably does! --- particularly in the critical battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Many more details on that in today's show.

• And, while we wait...a couple of somewhat related moments out of television's "Golden Years", including a 1958 western featuring a conman actually named Trump (seriously!) who is trying to terrify a town into paying him for a wall(!) to protect them from what he warns will otherwise be complete and total destruction. (Yes, seriously!) We played this clip originally back in 2019, but hauled it out again today in hopes that it might be the last chance for it to be relevant ever again. (Wishful thinking?)

• And, some thoughts from TV's 98-year old legendary icon Dick Van Dyke who, yesterday, endorsed Kamala Harris and, along with it, included a video in which he reads a speech he initially delivered at an event with Martin Luther King, Jr., as written by Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, in Los Angeles in the Spring of 1964, just before passage of the Civil Rights Act. "Hatred is not the norm," Van Dyke reads from the 60-year old speech this week, during a moment in history that, he says, makes the speech "mean as much today, if not more, than it did then."

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our Election Day Green News Report, as wet weather complicates voting after October was one of the driest on record in almost every state; as a new tropical storm threatens the Gulf Coast; along with a boatload of actually very positive climate news for the U.S. as President Biden begins to wind down his term in office amid landmark climate achievements...

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The contrast and choice for American voters, as discussed on today's BradCast, couldn't be more stark, now less than a week before the most consequential Election Day in modern American history. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Last night, in the nation's capitol, on the Ellipse in front of the White House, on the very same spot where, on January 6, 2021, the now convicted felon and former President of the United States urged his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol in a desperate last gasp effort to steal the 2020 election, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered her "closing argument" to what her Campaign described as more than 75,000 supporters.

She summarized her many policy prescriptions to help boost young and struggling Americans and the middle class, underscored her calls to restore reproductive freedoms stolen from American women, accurately characterized her opponent as a threat to democracy itself, and promised to work to end the hateful divisiveness that he has turned into his singular political bludgeon.

Her remarks came just two days after Donald Trump offered his own "closing argument" in his old home town of New York City, before a packed house at Madison Square Garden, the site of a notorious 1939 American Nazi rally. The historic parallel was made impossible to ignore.

His six-hour raucous event was chock full of crude, racist and misogynistic attacks on his opponent, with mostly male speakers characterizing Harris as a prostitute, a "devil", and the "Antichrist," among other things. A comedian opened the affair by describing Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage", along with demeaning jokes about Black people, other Latinos, Palestinians and Jews. Trump, when he finally took the state, made no effort to disassociate himself from any of his fellow speakers who, by yesterday, he had characterized as taking part in a "love-fest".

These are the two major choices for President of the United States now before voters in a contest that pre-election polling averages, if you believe, describe as a virtual tie. "On November 5th," quips a popular social media post making the rounds in recent weeks, "it’ll be as if the whole world is waiting for the results of a biopsy to come back."

That is where we are. And that is why I needed to hear today, for the last time before Election Day, from our old and always very smart friends and fellow old-school bloggers, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo blog and 'DRIFTGLASS, who writes at his eponymously-named blog and co-hosts the weekly Professional Left Podcast from his home in "Flyover Country, Illinois."

I've got much to ask them both about today, as we try to make sense of this moment before the storm likely to be unleashed --- no matter who is ultimately announced to be the winner --- as early as next Tuesday night. Though Driftglass sagely warns today: "This election is not going to be over once the votes are counted. This election will be over in January, when hopefully Madame President is sworn in."

Hailing from Abraham Lincoln's birthplace in Springfield, IL, Driftglass explains why Harris' remarks on Tuesday led him to recall the Gettysburg Address. "Nobody can be Lincoln," he acknowledges, before observing that while his most famous speech "didn't end the Civil War, it changed the terms under which the war was being fought." He details a number of parallels with Harris' speech at the Ellipse on Tuesday, including: "The opening was about honoring the people who had fallen defending liberty --- the bastards who charged the Capitol --- and how we have to reinvent the country, how we have to come together. I think it was a very deliberate choice of venue and style, drawing explicit connections between what has happened on this ground, and what we need to do next."

Parton, for her part, characterized Trump's "fascist" rally at MSG as a "a hate-fest, not a 'love-fest.' The fact that he even said that is hilarious. They made it clear what they were doing. They were trying to gather the faithful through hatred, bigotry, racism and homophobia. This is something they did on purpose. They want to reach their low-propensity voters --- the 'Bro Vote' --- who basically don't pay attention to politics."

"By having all these other people say all these awful, ugly things, Donald Trump gets a pass on that stuff," she explains. "This wasn't him saying this stuff, this was all the people he lined up at his rally. That has an effect."

But, she argues, and Driftglass concurs, he may have made a fatal error in a contest that is purportedly this close by allowing that racist attack on Puerto Rican voters, who number nearly half a million in the battleground state of Pennsylvania alone.

We've got much more than that, of course, to discuss with them today, including...

• Why this election is reportedly so close and if it really is that close.
• If so, where all of these Trump voters coming from, given the number of Republicans --- and female voters --- who have abandoned him in favor of Harris.
• How Trump "cracked the code", as well as the media, in how to run for President as a Republican.
• How Harris is being "held to impossibly high standards" while Trump is "being held to no standards at all."
• What Trump's "little secret" with GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson might be, and how easily Democrats are "panicked" by it.
• How Trump and Johnson promise to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) if Republicans win the White House and Congress, even as some 50 million Americans --- including millions of Republican voters (who either don't notice or care?) --- now have health coverage thanks to that landmark legislation.
• And whether we are all victims right now of the greatest mass gaslighting in world history.

Before they go today, both Digby and Driftglass offer their own "closing argument" for our listeners who may still be either undecided, considering voting for Trump or a third-party candidate, or who may be thinking of not voting at all...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate and the U.S. economy are on the ballot; World on pace for significant and dangerous warming without faster action, U.N. report warns; PLUS: Biden cracks down on lead paint, a serious threat to America's children... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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On today's BradCast: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein would be weeping in their graves --- but they're still alive and joining many of us in calling out WaPo's cowardly billionaire owner today for kowtowing to a wannabe dictator who's not even in office yet. Thus is the shameful price --- and cost to American democracy and Freedom of the Press --- of American Oligarchy, 2024-style. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Among our stories today, before opening up our phone lines for listeners to "endorse" the Presidential candidate of their choosing, just one week before Election Day in arguably one of the most critical elections in U.S. history...

• Last week, more than 20 absentee ballots were burned in an apparent case of arson inside of a U.S. Postal Service collection box in Phoenix, in the battleground state of Arizona. Today, hundreds of ballots were burned in a ballot drop-box in Democratic-leaning Vancouver, Washington as well as Democratic-leaning Portland, Oregon. The FBI is investigating and local law enforcement report they have identified a "suspect vehicle" thought to be connected to the incendiary devices used in both cases in the early A.M. hours on Monday.

• Last week, Donald Trump-supporting billionaire Elon Musk, the richest many on Earth, kicked off a "lottery" where registered voters in battleground states who sign his pledge would become eligible for a one million dollar give-away each day before next Tuesday's Election Day. The DoJ subsequently warned Musk that the stunt was likely an unlawful vote-buying scheme under federal law. On Monday, the Philadelphia District Attorney sued Musk for running what he is describing as an unlawful lottery in violation of Pennsylvania law.

• On Friday, the Washington Post --- with the now-laughable tagline "Democracy Dies in Darkness" --- announced it would not be making an endorsement in the Presidential race for the first time in nearly 50 years. It's billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos --- whose space travel company has billions of dollars of contracts with the federal government --- was reportedly behind the decision that undercut the legendary Watergate paper's own Editorial Board that was set to endorse Kamala Harris. The decision came just after the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times --- who happens to be a close friend of Elon Musk --- forced that paper to do the same. It is what noted U.S. fascism expert Timothy Snyder describes in his landmark 2017 book, On Tyranny, as "obeying in advance," which he strongly warns against as "Lesson One" when fascists threaten to take power. Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer also has a few thoughts in response about the "billionaire cowards" at the two papers who are already "showing what life under a dictator is really like", even before Donald Trump's becomes President again (if he ever does.)

• With all of that in mind --- and a few more stories of note here or there --- we open up our phones for listeners to make their own endorsements today on air in this year's election. That, because The BradCast and our many affiliate stations --- many associated with the Pacifica Radio Network, founded in 1946 to, specifically, stand up against then-rising fascism --- are not owned, run or controlled in any way by billionaires or their corporations. The result: a lot of calls today, with endorsements for Harris, Trump and --- because our live-listener base largely draws from KPFK, our very left-ish flagship station here in Los Angeles --- for the Green Party's Jill Stein, as a protest vote against the Biden-Harris Administration's position on Israel. (Never mind how much worse a Trump Administration would be on the same issue...which leads to a few very lively conversations with listeners today!) Please tune in!...

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