I'm not sure I've ever declared a "winner" or "loser" in any Presidential debate, after covering them here for twenty years. They generally just don't work like that. But, as discussed on today's BradCast special coverage of last night's showdown in Philadelphia, there was one clear winner and one very clear loser. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Kamala Harris absolutely dominated her, perhaps one and only, face-off with Donald Trump from the moment she knocked him back on his heels by invading his space to reach out to shake his hand at the top, until she scraped up his lifeless husk of a soul off the debate stage at the very end.

Am I overstating the murder that some 67 million Americans witnessed with their own eyes during the ABC News debate on Tuesday night moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis? CNN's post-debate flash poll of those who watched it said Harris outperformed him by 63% to 37%. Other snap polls found similar. We'll see what the broader polling finds in the coming days. And, of course, none of that ultimately means anything. Only votes do. But I can't think of anything that Harris could have done better, particularly given Trump's years-long record of surprise successes at these things. Finally, someone figured out how to get under his skin and stayed there for 90 minutes, as we all got to enjoy his, at times hilarious, meltdown in the bargain.

Our roundtablers today --- two of our favorite fellow old school bloggers, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of his eponymous blog and the weekly Pro Left Podcast --- seemed to concur with the bulk of my assessment.

"This was a really great debate for those of us who care about the future of this country, because she absolutely decimated him. And it was beautiful," observed Digby. "All she was doing was telling him facts to his face, and calling him what no one in his circle will ever call him, which is a disgrace, a criminal, and creepy and old. He doesn't know how to deal with that."

"She rolled in there prepped to be a prosecutor of a person who is morally and legally unfit to hold any office in this country, and she prosecuted her case brilliantly," echoed Driftglass. She used "all the keywords that will trigger this lunatic into making dumb mistakes, because we know he can been provoked. Every time, he didn't just take the bait, he swallowed the hook."

I'd share more, but it might take some of the joy out of listening to today's special coverage. Among some of the many specific points we focused on:

• Was Trump catfished by Team Harris' "unsuccessful" pre-debate ploy to keep the microphones open all night?
• Does he actually even know how the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) works?!
• Are undocumented immigrants in Ohio really eating American pets? (Someone said they were "on television" after all.)
• Are those immigrants getting government-funded sex change operations in prison?
• Does Donald Trump know anything about either fracking or solar energy?
• What does that "late great Hannibal Lecter" rally joke actually mean?
• Is Trump being catfished yet again by Team Harris' immediate post-debate call for a second debate?

All of that and much, much, MUCH more on today's BradCast...

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"Through its extensive proof, Dominion has met its burden of showing there is no genuine issue of material fact as to falsity. Fox therefore had the burden to show an issue of material fact existed in turn. Fox failed to meet its burden," the Judge found, before using italics and all-caps to emphasize the central point. It "is CRYSTAL clear that none of the [Fox] Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true."

In a no-uncertain terms defeat for Fox, the 130-page Order [PDF] handed down on Friday by Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis found, as a matter of law, that the Fox "News" Network (FNN), during its post-election coverage of the 2020 Presidential Election, published four categories of false statements about Dominion Voting Systems. No evidence was presented by the Republican propaganda outlet to counter those material facts.

The court also found, as a matter of law, that Fox' statements amounted to "defamation per se," a finding that establishes that damages are to be presumed in the voting machine company's $1.6 billion dollar lawsuit.

All of the Fox motions for Summary Judgement to dismiss the case were "DENIED" by the court. Dominion's motion for Summary Judgement on Liability were "GRANTED in part and DENIED in part."

Barring a settlement by the parties, the case is now scheduled to proceed to trial in mid-April. Some of Fox' top stars, including Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo are believed likely to be called to the stand as witnesses...

We've got a lot of news, both good and not as good, for labor on today's BradCast. Also, some results of some pretty crazy primary contests on Tuesday from the final three states to hold primary elections this year before November's critical midterms. [Audio link to full show is posted after this summary.]

First up, those primary results in Delaware, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. After a couple of races in DE and RI, we hit the most notable on the night, coming out of the Granite State, where Republican voters have elected another hard-right, conspiracy theorist and election denying loon as their nominee in a U.S. Senate race they might have been able to easily win this fall with a non-insane candidate. Instead, retired Army Brigadier General Don Bolduc --- who wants to abolish the FBI and the 17th Amendment (the direct election of U.S. Senators) and has described the state's popular, relatively moderate Republican Governor Chris Sununu as "a Chinese communist sympathizer” --- will now take on New Hampshire's incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan in November.

Two hard-right Trumpers also won the GOP nominations for the NH's two U.S. House Seats, each currently held by Democrats. We take a bit of time today to focus on Karoline Leavitt, the apparent winner of the Republican nod in the NH's 1st Congressional District, where she will fake Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas after winning her upset victory against establishment-preferred Trumper Matt Mowers. The 25-year old Leavitt (who, mark my words, will be a new GOP star whether she wins or loses), previously worked in the Trump White House and has clearly taken on the hard-right mantle and obnoxious manner of her former boss. That resulted in an extraordinarily ugly primary battle between her and fellow Trump Administration colleague Mowers for the nomination and the title of who was the Trumpiest of them all. In both the Senate and House GOP primaries, the candidates preferred (and heavily invested in) by Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy lost. Democrats are likely just fine with the results.

Then, railroad workers appear to be ready to go on strike as of 12:01am on Friday, over the horrific working conditions they have been required to endure for years. We detail some of those terrible conditions in advance of what could be a wildly disruptive and expensive work stoppage in advance of the midterm elections, with some 57,000 workers now set to strike barring a breakthrough.

Next, we're joined for some significantly more positive labor news today by The American Prospect's longtime Editor-at-Large, HAROLD MEYERSON to discuss what he describes as a "groundbreaking" new labor law in California to improve the wages and working conditions of some 550,000 fast-food workers in the state. The measure was signed last week, on Labor Day, by the state's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.

In addition to setting a $22/hour minimum wage for the state's half-million fast-food workers (adjusted annually to keep up with the consumer price index), AB 257 also mandates the creation of a 10-person Council to oversee working conditions in the sector statewide. The Council, as Meyerson reported recently at The Prospect, would include "two representatives of franchise owners, two from the corporate chains, two fast-food workers, two fast-food 'advocates' (likely SEIU), and two who are the governor’s appointees to head labor-related state agencies."

"It's been really groundbreaking," Meyers explains today, "There's been nothing like it, really, in American history. It sets up what's called sectoral bargaining, in which representatives of workers in an entire industry sit down with representatives of management in the industry, and in this case, with a couple of state officials, as well. And they set standards for the industry...to craft wage and benefit and workplace safety and other standards for every worker in a chain fast-food outlet in California that has at least 100 outlets nationwide. So McDonalds, Jack in the Box, Starbucks, you name it."

That is a huge victory for labor groups like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and is likely to bring positive change for workers faster than otherwise unionizing hundreds of Taco Bell shops, one at a time.

Along with a helpful dose of American Labor history, Meyerson details how "sectoral bargaining is actually fairly common in Western Europe [where] it evolved on top of a much higher level of unionization of their workers than we have here in the United States." For now, however, as the SEIU has been fighting for a decade to unionize fast-food shops and establish a $15 minimum wage for their workers, the CA state effort is indeed both progressive and ground-breaking.

Of course, that means that an effort is already under way by the franchise industry and other wealthy business interests to shut the whole thing down. If the anti-worker forces in the state can collect enough signatures in the next several months, they can prevent the measure from going into full effect until voters decide on it via a 2024 ballot initiative. Otherwise, as Meyerson explains, "the law goes into effect. They can always then put an initiative on the ballot [in 2024 anyway], but at that point they would effectively be demanding a wage cut for half a million workers and their families."

All of this comes as a new Gallup survey found that, as of Labor Day, support for unions was at 71% among Americans, a nearly 60-year high. That, paradoxically, as just 6% of workers are currently in private unions. Yet, approval for labor unions hasn't been this high since 1965. Interestingly, when Gallup began their annual survey in 1936, amid the Great Depression, approval for labor unions was only one point higher, at 72%.

Lots to digest, I suspect, on today's BradCast. Buckle up...

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The three states carrying out the final midterm primary elections of the year on Tuesday offer a great side-by-side comparison of voting systems on today's BradCast, from the very best to the very worst in the nation. Also, Sen. Lindsey Graham offers an example of the GOP's very worst politics, even as it is likely to work out for the very best for Democrats. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

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

• Why Delaware's so-called "hybrid" Ballot Marking Device (BMD) system made by ES&S and forced on all voters in the state at the polls, places the tiny state in contention for having the very worst voting systems in the country. You'd think they would realize that a 100% unverifiable touchscreen system that prints voters' selections on a paper ballot for them is already a terrible idea. But one that allows the computer to secretly reprint a voter's ballot --- allowing it to add, change or delete votes --- after voters think they've already approved their computer-marked ballot, is unspeakable stupid. That said, the system's "Permission to Cheat" feature is arguably even worse.

• Contrast DE's voting system with New Hampshire and Rhode Island's fully verifiable hand-marked paper ballot system. They, along with DE are also holding primaries today. But in about 40% of NH towns, they go even further in respecting voters by hand-counting all hand-marked paper ballots at the polling place, in public, as soon as polls close and before ballots are moved anywhere. That would be Democracy's Gold Standard. RI, in the meantime, tallies all ballots by computer, but at least (unlike in DE), they're hand-marked ballots, so can be known to reflect the intent of the voters. Well, most of them, anyway. As discovered during the early voting period in four towns, candidates from 2018 appeared on the 2022 touchscreen ballots for some voters who chose to use the state's new BMD systems, made available at the polls for optional use by disabled voters.

• Next, a follow-up to our conversation last week with Marilyn Marks, Executive Director of the Coalition for Good Governance, which is suing Georgia and its Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger, hoping to ban the state's 100% unverifiable touchscreen BMD voting systems in favor of hand-marked paper ballots. Marks was on the show to discuss the security camera surveillance video she unearthed in her federal lawsuit last week, revealing a bunch of Team Trump MAGA Republicans being allowed in to the Coffee County, GA election office last year to unlawfully breach the state's Election Management System software made by Dominion. The breach, as we discussed, was covered-up by Raffensperger, even though the Trumpers copied, stole and shared the critical software with others. That makes the 2022 and 2024 elections in the state (and elsewhere, where the same systems are used) uniquely vulnerable to malware and manipulation, given that Coffee County's system is connected to the state system, which programs all of the identical systems that Raffensperger forces every county in the state to use.

  Shortly after Marks' appearance on the show last week, a hearing was held in her federal lawsuit, and the judge inquired as to how the Coffee County breach relates to the plaintiffs' complaint. One of their attorneys, David Cross, gave a brilliant explanation in response (see transcript here, beginning on page 4), ending his remarks on the matter with a fantastic metaphor: "If we're going on a skydiving trip and we saw a bunch of bad actors unpack our parachutes, take them all apart, and then repack them and put them back and we learned that when we were on an airplane and if the pilot said to you, it is probably fine, your parachute is probably fine, just go ahead and jump and we'll find out when you're in the air, no one would jump out of that plane.

  "That is where we are," Cross added. "It is not an exaggeration. We have lots of people who are widely considered bad actors because of the lies that they spread about the 2020 election who had unmitigated access to the election system --- not pieces, not disconnected pieces --- the actual system in practice for the better part of two weeks. And we don't know what all they did. But we do know what they could have done. And it is not satisfactory to tell voters, 'Let's just hope the system works, and we have begun an investigation in the last couple of weeks, let's hope that that doesn't find that the system doesn't work.' That, Your Honor, we don't think is an appropriate way to proceed. And that is why this is so critically important for our claims."

• In what ought to win an award for worst, most tin-ear politics of the century, so far, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced a bill today to ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy in all 50 states. States that wish to go further, however, by banning abortions all together, are more than welcome to do so under his nationwide bill. So, this measure --- deceptively being sold by Graham as a "late-term" abortion --- would largely only affect "blue" states where privacy rights and reproductive freedoms are still respected. The bill, which Graham's own Republican Party is already furious about, comes after the GOP's corrupted, stolen and packed (with Graham's help) U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June and just weeks after Graham previously said he believes "states should decide the issue of abortion." Turns out that was just another pathetic lie from one of the nation's most pathetic U.S. Senators.

• Speaking of the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court (and tin-ears), Chief Justice John Roberts offered his first public remarks last Friday since his Court overturned Roe. He blasted those who question the legitimacy of the Court because they disagree with its decisions. "Simply because people disagree with an opinion is not a basis for criticizing the legitimacy of the Court," the Chief Justice said, completely missing the point. Over the weekend, the much-missed former Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) appeared on CNN to debate Roberts' remarks with GOP strategist April Stewart. As you'll hear, it did not go well for Stewart.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as a hurricane finally ends California's record heat wave; reactors are finally shut down at Ukraine's besieged nuclear power plant; a showdown finally looms in Congress over energy permitting; and a climate champion finally ascends to become King of Britain...

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As recently reported by John Kruzel of The Hill, the attorneys taking part in Donald Trump's dishonest effort to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 Presidential election "face mounting ethics complaints" that could result in sanctions ranging from fines to censure, suspension or even disbarment.

Michigan's Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel recently explained why she is seeking to have Team Trump attorney Sidney Powell and others subjected to discipline, including disbarment, for professional misconduct in conjunction with continuing frivolous legal efforts to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 Presidential Election...

Nessel's observations are certainly consistent with Rules 3.1 and 3.3 of the Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct [PDF] which prevent the pursuit of frivolous claims and forbids attorneys from knowingly making false statements of fact or law to any tribunal. "An action is frivolous," Rule 3.1 explains, "if the lawyer is unable to make a good-faith argument on the merits of the action taken, or to support the action taken by a good-faith argument for an extension, modification, or reversal of existing law."

MI's rules are in line with the American Bar Association's Rules of Professional Conduct as well.

Nessel is by no means alone in her critique of the dubious legal tactics being taken by a number of attoneys allied with Trump. In Delaware, a state judge, on his own motion, issued an order "to Show Cause why the permission to practice" pro hac vice (in a specific case), previously extended to out-of-state Georgia Attorney L. Lin Wood, Jr., should be "revoked". The court believes Wood may have "engaged in conduct in other jurisdictions, which, had it occurred [in a Delaware case], would violate the Delaware Lawyers' Rules of Professional Conduct."

There's a growing body of evidence that multiple attorneys have knowingly pursued frivolous claims that in hopes of undergirding Trump's dangerous and baseless conspiracy theories that the election was somehow stolen from him. They've piled up 59 losses in state and federal courts, many entailing outright dismissals by judges who described the pleadings as "without merit". Yet, that didn't stop right-wing groups of attorneys from recently filing 11th hour federal complaints that are not merely meritless but beyond the pale. So much so, that the D.C. and state bar associations might consider imposing the ultimate tool of attorney discipline --- disbarment...

On today's BradCast: Last year, a federal judge in Georgia banned the state's 20-year old, unverifiable touchscreen voting systems, finding them to be "unsecure, unreliable and grossly outdated" and, thus, effectively unconstitutional for use in federal elections. This week, that same federal judge held a hearing to determine whether the new unverifiable touchscreen voting systems Georgia has chosen to use this year for the first time are any better, or whether the Peach State should have listened to the cybersecurity and voting systems experts who strongly urged the state to move, instead, to a verifiable hand-marked paper ballot system. [Audio link to show follows below.]

But first today, Hurricane Sally slammed ashore near the Alabama / Florida border this morning. As predicted, the very slow moving storm is packing a punch, with rainfall "measured in feet, not inches swamping homes and forcing the rescue of hundreds of people as it pushed inland." Desi Doyen joins us for the latest on that slow moving disaster as water is quickly rising, rescues continue, the storm moves into Georgia, and as more hurricanes are already lining up behind it in an already record breaking Atlantic hurricane season (which still continues until late November!)

Even as that climate change-intensified disaster unfolds on the heels of Hurricane Laura just three weeks ago (with thousands still without power and in shelters in Louisiana), along with the record deadly climate-fueled wildfires out west, Donald Trump has chosen --- amid all of this --- a notorious climate science denier for a top position on "environmental observation and prediction" at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

If those stories don't underscore the existential importance of this year's elections, we don't know what would.

On that score, the final state Primary Elections of the 2020 season were held on Tuesday in Joe Biden's adopted home state of Delaware, with most ballots cast by mail, and with both masks and social distancing in place at the polls. Happily, there have been no reported voting problems to come to my attention yet and, as expected, there were few surprises in the reported computer-tallied results. Some of them, however, are either eyebrow raising, historic, or just plain fun. Among those categories is the QAnon conspiracist who is now the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in the state; the first openly transgender person to (almost certainly) win a seat in a state Senate; and the 12-year, Democratic state legislator who opposed same-sex marriage being beaten soundly on Tuesday --- in a landslide --- by a local, gay, progressive drag queen!

And with the primaries finally (and thankfully!) out of the way, we move straight to the general elections and back to Georgia, which Democrats hope to flip from red to blue in the Presidential election this year for the first time in decades. But it's also a state where not one, but two vulnerable Republican U.S. Senators are facing tough re-election challenges from Democrats.

There is a lot riding politically on the state of Georgia this year, which makes this week's much-anticipated three-day virtual hearing in an Atlanta federal court all the more critical. When the second day of the three-day hearing which wrapped up this week, regarding the security of the state's vulnerable new computer voting, pollbook and tabulation systems was interrupted --- "Zoom bombed" --- with photos of the 9/11 attacks, swastikas and pornography posted by a user calling him or herself "Osama", it would have been impossible for U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg to miss the irony.

"It was a very sobering reminder of just how vulnerable electronics are, and just how targeted the United States and our elections are right now," says MARILYN MARKS, our guest today. She is Executive Director of the non-partisan Coalition for Good Governance, a lead plaintiff in the long-running case. She says it served as a reminder of the need to "get hand-marked paper ballots that are verifiable and auditable."

The Coalition is suing for a ruling that would find Georgia's new, unverifiable, $100+ million touchscreen voting system made by the Canadian firm Dominion Voting Systems to be an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote. That would be a similar finding to the one Totenberg issued last year, effectively banning and decertifying the state's 20-year use of its previous insecure, unverifiable touchscreen voting systems made by Diebold.

In addition to hoping to see those systems replaced with verifiable hand-marked paper ballots, the Coalition is asking the judge to order backup paper pollbooks at every polling place, after the new electronic pollbook systems failed during the state's June primary elections, leading to hours-long lines, largely in minority voting districts. The plaintiffs are also calling for oversight of the state's optical-scan tabulation systems which failed to tally thousands of votes on absentee ballots during the state's recent primaries. (We interviewed Jeanne DuFort, who discovered that problem, and is also a plaintiff in this case on several recent programs.)

Marks shares her observations from this week's hearings, including on the testimony and cross-examination of the Coalition's cybersecurity and voting systems expert witnesses (many of whom have also appeared multiple times on this show, including Univ. of Michigan's Alex Halderman, UC-Berkley's Philip Stark, expert data researcher Kevin Skoglund and legendary Finnish cybersecurity expert Harri Hursti). Similarly, Marks offers her thoughts on the state's, um, less-than-expert witnesses and responds to a number of allegations made by the attorney representing Georgia and its Republican Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger, who selected this new, "Rube Goldberg" computerized voting system despite the urging of experts and voters alike.

Among the stunning points noted by Marks was the testimony from the man who led the certification testing of this system for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Marks reports the witness seemed "quite confused about the technology" and "admitted to having no real security background and not really any long-term established security people on his team." She says his testimony "made it clear that security is really not a top priority for the certification of voting systems" at the federal level, adding, "It was really kind of unbelievable."

While transcripts may be available from the hearing soon (we'll update with a link to them here when they are), Marks noted some portions will be redacted, since the state argued privately in front of the judge on certain issues that even the plaintiffs were not allowed to witness. (Though I wonder whether "Osama" did?)

"The public learned a lot from these expert witnesses about just how seriously vulnerable the Georgia election system is," she tells me. "The expert witnesses gave extremely compelling testimony during the direct examination by our attorneys. But when the state's attorneys got them up on the stand for cross-examination, they were equally strong. Quite frankly, the state was really not able to get in any type of evidence --- because there is none --- that would help get anyone comfortable with their equipment."

When it came to the witnesses from the state and the voting system vendors, she says, her attorneys explained to the court that those "experts have not been able to tell the court just the basic fundamental operational and security details --- the plaintiffs have been the ones who bring all the information. The state basically had no one with any independence. Every expert witness they had had a financial interest in ballot-marking devices. Two of the expert witnesses are [voting system] vendors, three of the expert witnesses are vendors of ballot-marking device suppliers. So they were hardly considered independent, at least by the laymen who were watching."

While Marks says she does not know when Totenberg will issue her ruling, it is likely to be soon. Reports from the virtual courtroom via AP suggest Judge Totenberg appeared concerned by points made by the plaintiffs and may be forced to implement changes --- if she determines there is time to do so with Early Voting beginning in just four weeks in the Peach State. Marks believes there is plenty of time to make the state's elections more secure and overseeable, though the state begs to differ. Soon we'll learn how the Judge feels.

During closing arguments, according to AP's coverage, Robert McGuire, an attorney for the Coalition and individual voter plaintiffs, "recalled Totenberg's prior admonitions to the state" by noting that "Totenberg previously told the state that a new voting system should address the need for 'transparent, fair, accurate, and verifiable election processes that guarantee each citizen's fundamental right to cast an accountable vote.'" But the state's new computerized Ballot Marking Device system "satisfies none of these requirements," McGuire said...

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Even if several multi-state legal challenges result in a federal court order directing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to repair the damage wrought by his allegedly "illegal" sabotage of the U.S. Postal Service's mail delivery capabilities, absent significant additional funds, it's unlikely DeJoy could fully comply with that order.

The facts laid out in one of the recently filed cases and echoed in the others, along with subsequent developments, suggest that DeJoy was, at best, disingenuous when, in an August 18 formal statement [PDF], he claimed he was "suspending" his nationwide mail sorting, labeling and delivery changes until after the Nov. 3 Presidential Election.

The complaint describes how, pursuant to an Equipment Reduction Plan [PDF], Defendants removed, dismantled and/or destroyed 671 high-speed sorting and labeling machines that had a combined hundreds of millions of dollars in value. As a result, the States allege, "some major cities have already had their ability to sort mail reduced by hundreds of thousands of pieces of mail per hour." (Emphasis in original text).

On the same day that DeJoy issued his "suspension" statement, emails were submitted by Kevin Couch, the USPS Director of Maintenance Operations, informing Maintenance Managers that, irrespective of instructions from their plant managers, they must not reconnect or reinstall sorting machines that had previously been disconnected absent approval from USPS HQ.

Last Friday, while testifying before the U.S. Senate, DeJoy made it clear that he has "has no intention" of reinstalling the sorting machines, even as he claimed that election related mail would receive top priority from the Postal Service. Contrary to DeJoy's rosy predictions, however, the USPS's own Service Performance memo reflects a significant drop in overall performance which precipitated a USPS warning to 46 states that their deadlines for Vote-by-Mail ballots "might impede the timely delivery of mail-in ballots, possibly disenfranchising millions of voters"

While there's ample reason for a court to order reinstallation, absent significant additional USPS funding, which Trump opposes, it is doubtful that DeJoy could fully undo the damage even if he were ordered to do so.

VOTERS BEWARE: Do not be lulled into a false sense of security by DeJoy's "suspension" of changes at the USPS until after Election Day, or by his unsupported assurance that USPS can timely process and deliver every ballot. The wiser course, as laid out in our previously related article, is to deposit your mail-in ballots in secure, state-supplied drop-boxes (where available) or at designated drop-off locations. Check your local jurisdictions to learn what options may be available where you live. In some jurisdictions, voters can deposit their mail-in ballots at the polls either during early voting or on Election Day. In some jurisdictions, voters can link to election official websites to track the processing of their own ballots as well...

On today's BradCast: With the frantic, if justifiable, move towards Vote-by-Mail in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, one shouldn't underestimate the GOP scheming going on right now to figure out how to make sure that their efforts at vote suppression can continue none the less. [Audio link to show follows below.]

That's especially true since broad Vote-by-Mail programs are likely to increase Democratic "turnout" in many, if not most jurisdictions. (That, even as many Democrats, for their part, are underestimating the amount of fraud that can happen with broad Vote-by-Mail programs if safeguards are not carefully instituted. Such precautions are easy, given the rushed deadlines and lack of needed funding and manpower in most jurisdictions right now.)

Our elections this year are most definitely in peril. Even as many states have now rescheduled primaries, optimistically, until June 2nd. Georgia has rescheduled its primaries for May 19 (the date which was originally scheduled to hold Kentucky's primary as well, though they have smartly pushed theirs further down the road).

Perhaps most troubling of all at the moment, Wisconsin will hold primaries and a state Supreme Court election on April 7! That just over a week and a half from today, despite the Governor having shut down all non-essential businesses and ordering residents to stay-at-home through at least April 24! Election officials in several Badger State jurisdictions are complaining they will be unable to find enough pollworkers (resulting in much longer --- and dangerous --- lines); at least one major city is suing, declaring it "functionally impossible" to carry out the election while allowing voters and pollworkers to maintain necessary social distancing; and the County Clerk in for the state's capital (in one of the most Dem-leaning counties in the state) is seeing voters threatened with legal challenges if they follow his advice to declare themselves "indefinitely confined" in order to request an absentee ballot online without uploading a Photo ID, which many seniors are finding difficulty to do.

Nonetheless, the state's Democratic Governor is allowing the April 7 elections to move forward, and the Republicans in the state legislator --- who would be needed to take action in order to postpone it or change it to an all-VBM election --- are applauding the Governor. Now why would they do that?

In Georgia, meanwhile, don't be fooled by the Republican Sec. of State's lofty, high-minded explanation for mailing an absentee application to every "active" voter in the state. While that might otherwise be a very good thing, what about all of those voters who are still registered and eligible to vote this year, even if they have been marked "inactive" by the same Secretary of State?

None of this is particularly encouraging. Though neither is the fact that a record 3.28 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits this past week, shattering the decades-old record of 695,000, with likely many more who were not able to file this past week because state websites and phone systems were overwhelmed, crashing and freezing up.

But, don't worry. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says the quintupling of the all-time weekly unemployment record is "not relevant", thanks to the emergency stimulus bill passed by the Senate 96 to 0 on Wednesday night and now waiting for passage in the House, most likely on Friday. Of course, it's not only Mnuchin misleading Americans on behalf of the Trump Administration, the New York Times did a pretty good job of it as well recently.

All of which should serve as a reminder of the importance of supporting independent local journalism, with alt-weeklies dropping like flies (with no ad revenue to support them since restaurants, theaters, concerts, and other social gatherings are mostly shut down), even as their online readership is way up during the crisis, and local, non-commercial, listener-supported radio stations also having a similarly difficult time keeping their transmitters humming during this pandemic.

We discuss all of that and more today, before closing with Desi Doyen's latest Green News Report, which, along with some good and bad news on the stimulus bill and some bad news about the Trump Administration's continuing rollback of public safety regulations even during the crisis, actually includes some bona fide good news from a federal court regarding the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's ongoing battle against the Dakota Access Pipeline...

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On today's BradCast, some potentially good news for Philadelphia voters (and, thus, voters across the entire country), after a citizen led effort has resulted in the state of Pennsylvania re-examining its certification of a shockingly vulnerable --- and wholly unverifiable --- new touchscreen voting system selected by the city earlier this year (under questionable circumstances) for use in upcoming elections. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

But first up, before we get to our guest today and the astonishing election integrity nightmare against which he is working with a coaltion on the ground in Philly to try and save democracy there, a few quick news items to start the show. Those include the now-deadly, climate change-fueled heat wave bearing down on dozens of states and millions of Americans and the latest on the dangerously intensifying disputes in the Persian Gulf --- thanks to Trump pulling out of the landmark 2015 anti-nuclear deal.

Then, last May, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate that would mandate HAND-MARKED paper ballots for every voter in the country, to help hedge against the possibility --- some may say likelihood --- of manipulated or erroneous elections results, and to help assure that results are publicly verifiable after elections. His bill, the Protect America's Voting and Elections (or PAVE) Act of 2019 now languishes in the Senate, despite passage of a bill in the House that also mandates HAND-MARKED paper ballots for all, thanks to Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's vow to disallow a vote on any election-related bills that might make our democracy more secure and overseeable in advance of the 2020 Presidential elections.

The White House has been similarly disinterested in improving election security and oversight, though Trump-appointed Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, the nation's "top spy" announced a new initiative today said to help the Intelligence Community coordinate their response to potential election manipulation, at least from foreign threats. Domestic threats, including from election insiders --- such as contractors from the private vendors who run much of America's elections, as well as simple programming errors or other manipulation by elections officials --- remain both as serious and much more difficult to guard against. Election protection ultimately comes down to public oversight, at the local level, of verified election results.

To that end, an Election Integrity coalition in Philadelphia this week has successfully petitioned the state of Pennsylvania to reexamine the Commonwealth's previous certification of a wildly dangerous and vulnerable new computer Ballot Marking Device (BMD) made by the nation's largest (and, arguably, most failed) private vendor, Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S). The company's new ExpressVote XL is a 100% unverifiable touchscreen BMD system recently contracted for use by the Philadelphia Elections Board for use in upcoming elections, beginning with municipal elections this November and the Presidential contest next year.

We're joined today by KEVIN SKOGLUND, election integrity expert and Chief Technologist for the non-partisan Citizens for Better Elections, which, along with others in the Protect Our Vote Philly coalition petitioned the state for a re-examination of the ExpressVote XL. The costly voting and tabulation system --- one must be purchased for each voter voting at the same time in every precinct --- is described as a "universal" or "all-in-one" system, because one computer in the system is used to mark and print a voters ballot, and a second computer in the same system is then used to optically-scan and tabulate that ballot.

The system, chosen under a mysteriously truncated process by the Philadelphia Commissioners earlier this year --- "without any public or expert input" and with "no criteria for things like security, and resilience, and accessibility" as Skoglund tells me --- also violates state election code in numerous ways, as detailed in the citizen groups' petition to the state filed on Tuesday. Most alarmingly, however --- especially given the importance of Philly's one million votes to be cast in the crucial Keystone State during next year's Presidential election --- is a remarkable security design flaw in the ES&S ExpressVote XL.

In short (Skoglund offers more details on the show), the system allows the Ballot Marking Device's printer to change votes on the computer-printed ballot summary card before it is tallied but after the voter has already been given the opportunity to approve what was initially printed on the ballot summary card by the computer! In other words, of all of the terrible, 100% unverifiable BMD voting systems that Pennsylvania's Democratic stronghold of Philadelphia could have chosen, its City Commission chose the absolute most dangerous and unverifiable one.

"After this machine was certified in Pennsylvania, security researchers determined that there was a big flaw in these machines. That flaw is that they have a single paper path. It takes the blank piece of paper, it sends it to a printer, you make your selections on the screen, it prints those on the piece of paper, puts them back in front of the voter so that the voter can look at them and say whether or not they're happy with those selections. And once the voter says 'Yes, this is the ballot that I intend to cast, I am happy with these selections' and they press the button on the machine, it sends that card back through the same printer again before it goes to to the tabulator," Skoglund explains. "That means the machine has the opportunity to mark on that ballot --- potentially changing votes on it, invalidating votes on it, adding votes to it, basically changing what the voter cast." And, of course, the voter would never know.

While recent studies have found that most voters do not even bother to verify computer-marked paper ballots, and that of those who do, many do not notice if the computer has changed their selections, "The voter can do everything that's asked of them, do everything right, they can verify that ballot, and it still might not end up being the vote that gets cast. This is a violation of a fundamental principle of being able to audit these paper ballots. It's the whole reason we're going to paper ballots, to have good evidence of what the voter intended."

Skoglund explains, however, that it's not just Philadelphia preparing to use these systems in 2020. Other counties in PA are considering them as well, even though they are at least twice the price of a paper ballot system. Similarly states such as New Jersey and Delaware are moving to these same, horrible, unsecure systems. Elsewhere, jurisdictions from Georgia to Ohio to Kansas to Texas to Los Angeles are all preparing to move to only slightly less vulnerable (if equally unverifiable) BMD systems for 2020. That, instead of simpler, cheaper and actually verifiable HAND-MARKED paper ballot systems.

All of that is just part of what we discuss with Skoglund today that will likely leave your jaw hanging open as you wonder what the hell these people are thinking, and why it is that McConnell has disallowed Wyden's PAVE Act --- requiring HAND-MARKED paper ballots for all --- from becoming the law of the land long ago...

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On today's BradCast: A stunning political upset in MA's primary on Tuesday, the Kavanaugh hearings continue, and a senior Trump Administration official drops an anonymous late day bombshell in the New York Times. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

First up today, primary election results out of Massachusetts, including the stunning, double-digit defeat of 10-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano by progressive challenger Ayanna Pressley. With no Republicans running in the state's 7th Congressional District this November, Pressley is set to become the first African-American woman to represent MA in the U.S. House.

Then, Judge Brett Kavanaugh dodges many questions as "hypothetical" --- including on whether a sitting President must respond to a subpoena and whether the Constitutional allows one to pardon to themselves-- from Democrats in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on the second day of confirmation hearings for Donald Trump's nominee to fill the U.S. Supreme Court seat of retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh also stumbled a bit when seemingly taken by surprise by a line of questioning from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) regarding about his knowledge of stolen emails from the Democratic Senator's office during the mid-2000s when, as a GOP operative, Kavanaugh was helping to shepherd George W. Bush nominees through Senate hearings. Leahy indicated that a number of emails still being protected as "committee confidential" for no legitimate reason, demonstrate Kavanaugh was aware of the ill-gotten information and lied about it during Senate testimony some years ago.

"There's a reason that Republicans don't want all of these documents released," argues my guest today, Roosevelt University political scientist DAVID FARIS, columnist at The Week and author of the recently published book It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. He joins us to discuss all of the above, including his thoughts on the Democrats' strategy to oppose Kavanaugh's nomination and to continue his call, first published in his book this Spring, for Democrats, once they eventually regain control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, to "pack" the U.S. Supreme Court with enough new seats to create a Democratic majority to replace the one stolen from them by Republicans in 2016.

"We're still living in the dream palace of the previous normative order," he tells me. "And there's a lot of Senate Democrats who are clinging to the fantasy that if they adhere to Senate norms, then at some point in the future, we will return to what they see as regular order."

Faris discusses how Democrats might have fought harder or more effectively against Kavanaugh's nomination, while conceding they are most likely powerless to block his seating. "I think what's being revealed over the past two days is that they are stuck with a much worse nominee, with much greater baggage, than anyone understood," he says, before adding: "I wish I could say those revelations would be enough to have a couple of Republican senators vote against him, but I've really, over the last couple of years, just lost faith that there are even two people, two Republicans, in the US Senate who are willing to take a political hit to do the right thing."

He is optimistic, however, in describing what he sees as an incredible "generational transformation" of the Democratic Party over the past year or so, highlighted by the rise of more progressive, diverse and younger candidates vying for office, and details what he feels Democrats should do after the November midterms if they are able to regain control of one or both houses of Congress.

Finally today, just before we go off air, stunning breaking news of the anonymous op-ed by "a senior official in the Trump administration" published in the New York Times late on Wednesday. The remarkable column from a self-described member of a "quiet resistance within the administration" charges that Trump is unmoored from reality, that top officials must work to counter his "impulsive," "half-baked," "ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions" in order "contain" the worst and most dangerous of them. The author also asserts that cabinet officials had, at one time, considered "invoking the 25th Amendment" to remove the Trump from office given "the instability many witnessed", but decided against it in order to avoid "a constitutional crisis". Wow.

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Donald Trump's newly celebrated 'pivot' to becoming a 'maturity' as a Presidential candidate, as declared by some Republicans and some in the corporate media, may be far less of a 'pivot' than he and his surrogates are pretending, especially in his new attempts to woo African-American voters.

On today's BradCast [audio link posted below.], we take a look at some of the claims of Trump's surrogates, and how they stack up against reality. (Hint: Taking out a newspaper ad calling for the death penalty for five African-American kids found completely innocent of a horrible crime doesn't seem a particularly smart way to woo the African-American vote.)

Similarly, if the GOP wants to reach out to minority voters, they have a very peculiar way of showing it, as Republican Party officials, operatives and Governors --- from CA to NC, from NJ to MI --- re-double their efforts to keep 'certain' voters from being able to cast a vote at all this November.

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On today's BradCast, guest hosted by Angie Coiro, we discuss how multinational corporations avoid taxes (and what to do about it). Then David Dayen brings us his award-winning book on the mortgage swindle, Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud.

First up, David Atkins from The Washington Monthly and Dave Johnson of The Campaign for America’s Future dive into the murky waters of how to finally tax offshore corporate profits.

Finally, David Dayen discusses three unsung heroes of the mortgage meltdown – ordinary people who wouldn’t let their homes be foreclosed without fighting back. They sparked a movement that turned foreclosures back on the banks and led to real legislative change...

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On today's BradCast, the "election nightmares" continue. We get an explanation, of sorts, about the mysterious "disappearing" Sanders votes in Sussex County, DE on Tuesday night, and one of the two lawsuits filed after Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ's disastrous March 22nd Primary is dismissed by a local judge.

First up, after a bit of happy news for voters in Vermont and some more Luciferian news for the GOP, we continue to mop up from the ongoing 2016 Primary Election messes, as questions about the reported results in Arizona and Delaware (among many other states) remain.

Thousands of Bernie Sanders votes appeared to "disappear" in Sussex County, DE during tabulation of Tuesday's Primary (as described on yesterday's show). We finally receive an answer or two from the Delaware State Elections Commissioner Elaine Manlove about what might have happened. In short, without saying so directly, she chalks up the apparent disappearance of some 4,000 reported votes --- as captured via results screenshots from Washington Post, The Guardian and elsewhere --- to a clerical human error by the Associated Press, from whom many media outlets take their numbers on Election Night.

While her explanation --- which I share in full on the show --- has the ring of truth to it, the fact is that DE uses 100% unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) systems across the entire state. And, as her answers make clear, while certain FOIAs can be filed, there is really no way for voters to ever know that any of the reported results from Tuesday actually reflect the will of the voters. Tune in for the complete details and explanation and, yet again, why DRE voting machines can never satisfy a justifiably skeptical public hoping to be able to oversee their own public elections.

Then, I'm joined by longtime election integrity champion Emily Levy, who worked with the transpartisan EI group AUDIT-AZ on the lawsuit filed just after Arizona's disastrous March 22nd Primary, when voters across Maricopa County (Phoenix) faced hours long lines to vote. The problems occurred after County Recorder Helen Purcell radically decreased the number of polling places from 211 in 2012, to just 60 this year. The suit also sought to obtain answers to reports by some voters that registrations had mysteriously switched from Democratic to independent (thus, preventing those voters from casting a normal ballot in the state's closed Primary).

After two days of disturbing testimony "in a courtroom packed with voters and elections officials," including Purcell, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge David Gass dismissed the case on the basis that plaintiffs didn't offer proof that the election results would be overturned if they were allowed to proceed with discovery and a full trial.

Levy tells me the judge failed to rule on the Constitutional issues raised in the suit, and focused only on the state's Election Code "which apparently requires that we be able to --- in the 5 days we have between certification of the election and the deadline to file a case --- prove exactly what the problems were, and that they would have affected the outcome of the election."

"The election code really needs to be changed, because we need to have the ability to contest elections in meaningful ways," she says, adding: "I've seen the same thing in other states." As have I. Both the AZ and DE stories discussed on today's show underscore why it's so important to get election procedures and processes right before an election, rather than waiting until afterword, when it's generally too late to do anything about it. It's also another reminder why the Voting Rights Act --- which used to allow for that in some locations, like Maricopa --- needs to be restored after being gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013.

In the meantime, the legal complaint filed by the DNC, as joined by both the Clinton and Sanders campaign, along with a separate investigation by the DoJ, both continue to move forward. AUDIT-AZ's official response to the dismissal is posted, along with declarations and other documents from the case, on their website, ElectionNightmares.com.

Finally, we close today with Donald Trump going "nuclear" over climate and much more in our latest Green News Report' with Desi Doyen...

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On today's BradCast, following the Northeastern Primaries on Tuesday in PA, CT, MD, DE and RI, the 2016 cycle gets even stranger, if that's even possible. But, first, the longest serving Republican U.S. House Speaker in U.S. history is sentenced to 15 months in prison for a crime related to being a "serial child molester," according to the judge.

74-year old former Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) will serve more than a year in jail after pleading guilty in a hush-money case related to payments to one of his 14-17 year old victims during the time he served a high school wrestling coach years earlier. "Nothing is worse than using serial child molester and Speaker of the House in the same sentence," U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin said during today's sentencing in Chicago, marking yet another shameful disgrace from the years of GOP control of Congress during the Presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Then, as if the 2016 Presidential race couldn't get any more bizarre, imaginary GOP nominee Ted Cruz today named his imaginary Vice-Presidential running mate, who promptly broke into song. Really.

Then, results from Donald Trump's reported crushing landslide victories in five states yesterday, Hillary Clinton's huge reported wins in four of those five states, what Bernie Sanders plans to do do now, and some concerns about the accuracy of Tuesday's reported results (some debunked, some not.)

Then, phone calls from listeners on all of the above.

And, as if all of that's not enough, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown and, other than that, some actually encouraging green news, believe it or not!

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Well this item from Washington Posts' "The Fix" blog today is rather troubling. It seems the the media consortium which previously ran Exit Polls on Election Day --- the best indicator of fraud and failure in election results (as opposed to pre-election polling which is far less accurate) --- is being scrapped in some 19 states, for the very first time, in the upcoming Presidential Election...

That would seem to be an invitation to fraud in those states, since Exit Polls have traditionally served as a helpful check and balance against fraudulent or simply inaccurate election results, particularly for the almost 100% unverified election results that the media now count on to report results in all 50 states. Those results come from often-failed, easily-manipulated computer tabulators used across the entire country.

This news is disturbing, as you probably already noticed, for a number of reasons...