Earlier this month, Donald Trump issued an Executive Order calling for the "Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production". As discussed with our guest on today's BradCast, it's difficult to see that separately from his buddy Elon Musk's recent declaration that "logically we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized." [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... A few items of note...

• It was amusing watching corporate media outlets tip-toe in their reporting around the facts of Tuesday's successful return to Earth by astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore after being stranded on the International Space Station for 9 months following what was supposed to have been an 8 day mission. The pair were safely brought home in a SpaceX capsule that splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico. Can you see the dilemma for the nation's major news outlets yet? We discuss. And laugh. (And also point out that the mission was tasked to Elon Musk's SpaceX by NASA last August, under President Joe Biden. No, Donald Trump did not "rescue the astronauts", as his Administration seems to want you to believe.)

• In more important news, after covering a string of losses in federal court for Trump on yesterday's program, a few more came in after we got off air. One was a major ruling that blocked his Order banning transgender people from serving in our nation's military. (Try not to laugh at Trump's straight-faced assertion in his EO that service by transgender people, many of whom have received top military honors, "conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life." Cuz if anyone knows about living an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life, it would be the Commander-in-Chief who was found liable for nearly $100 million for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Caroll and found guilty of 34 criminal felony counts related to hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels to help him cheat to win an election and other honorable, truthful and disciplined living by Corporal Bonespurs.)

• In response to yesterday's program focused, in part, on the lower courts holding firm, for now, against Trump and Musk's rampant lawlessness, we received some interesting feedback from a number of listeners who seemed to view those victories for the Constitution and Rule of Law --- short-term or otherwise --- as hardly worth celebrating, given that all hope is now lost and, in short, America is all but over. While understanding the sentiment, I disagree with that thinking for several reasons, a number of which we discuss today.

THEN... Following news of yet another court loss for Trump late on Tuesday, in which a D.C. U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan blocked the Administration's attempt to claw back some $20 billion authorized by Congress and allocated by President Biden as part of his landmark climate initiatives before leaving office, we discuss a recent Executive Order signed by Trump that would massively expand logging and clear-cutting of our national forests and other public lands.

MATT SEDLAR, climate analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, is here to discuss what this scheme is really about; how it relates to Trump's trade war with Canada; the various dangers it poses to both the economy and climate; and how it has little to do with improving forest management or wildfire protection, as Trump's EO falsely claims.

Sedlar explains how the Order appears to directly contradict pretty much everything else that Trump has been doing at the very same time.

"Laying off Forest Service workers, National Park Service workers, and putting out this Executive Order expanding logging, canceling leases for various offices and visitor centers for national parks across the United States," Sedlar tells me, "all point to the privatization of the public lands. Eliminating what we know of as national forests and national parks, and opening it up to making it into a revenue stream."

"It leans more towards that and less towards what he is saying, that this is forest management. Because the science simply does not support what he's saying. It didn't support it in the '80s when you had researchers and scientists warning against it, and it's definitely not going to support it now."

"These are all moves to generate revenue without a look at how this affecting long-term sustainable development. It's all short-term gain for long-term losses," he argues, citing both the costs to the fight against climate change and the bipartisan popularity of our National Parks and Forests.

Tune in, of course, for much more!...

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Saturday was a very dark day for the cause of democracy and the free press around the world, as detailed on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Since its very first broadcast on February 1, 1942, the Voice of America has been, as my guest today described it in his "Requiem for the voice that carried a nation’s conscience" over the weekend, "a beacon that burned bright during some of the darkest hours."

"To eliminate" VOA and its sister networks around the globe, which broadcast to more than 400 million each week in more than 100 countries in more than 60 different languages, is to "turn our backs on those around the world who have counted on us. It is to surrender a unique platform that no other country can replicate."

"It was never just about America’s voice," wrote STEVE HERMAN, my guest on today's show, "it was about America’s integrity. There will be celebrations in the autocratic halls of power this weekend in Moscow, Minsk, Beijing, Pyongyang and Tehran."

Herman has been reporting for Voice of America overseas for decades --- from war zones, civil uprisings and natural disasters --- as a journalist and as VOA's Bureau Chief in India, Korea and Thailand at various times. He was serving as the federal government-funded outlet's Bureau Chief in Northeast Asia when we first got to know him during his remarkable coverage following 2011's tragic earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown near Fukushima, Japan, when he was one of the first journalists allowed inside of the crippled reactor building just days after the disaster.

Over the past decade, the seemingly fearless Herman returned stateside to serve as VOA's State Department Bureau Chief, then its White House Bureau Chief and, finally, its Chief National Correspondent. At least until he was summarily placed on forced "excused absence" at the end of February by Trump officials who had wrested control of the otherwise non-partisan U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees VOA, as well as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Voice of Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and others.

Over the weekend, following a late-night decree by Donald Trump on Friday and an order signed by USAGM's White House advisor --- and Trump's nominee to run VOA --- failed Arizona Gubernatorial candidate and election denier Kari Lake, some 1,300 journalists were placed on leave at VOA, where the air has now fallen silent, or filled by music instead of the critical news and cultural content that has been a hallmark for so many decades around the world.

"I've been in other countries when all of a sudden the broadcasting goes off the air, the programming, and it's replaced by music. That always meant there was a coup that was occurring," Herman says darkly.

"What message are we sending out to the world when the regular programming of Voice of America --- whether it's in English, or Burmese, or Swahili, or Ukrainian, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Urdu, Pashtu, Dari, French Africa, all these services --- when it's Monday, we're supposed to be in regular programming," Herman explains. "There is no regular programming. Transmitters are now going off the air or they are silent. There's loop video running on some of the services streaming. The Voice Of America is effectively silenced as of this moment," he says.

As Herman investigates the possibility of challenging his own removal --- he was told, when placed on leave, that his social media posts are now being "investigated" --- he describes the news of the mass suspension of his colleagues over the weekend as "ten times the gut punch". He reports today that some 550 of them who were contractors have now been informed "that they are terminated effective March 31st."

After 83 years of continuously broadcasting, originally as a counterbalance to Nazi propaganda across Europe during WWII and, as mandated by federal law since then, to "serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of…accurate, objective, and comprehensive" news --- not as political propaganda for any party or President in power --- Herman calls the decision "a national tragedy."

It will be most felt by those in closed, autocratic societies, where VOA and its sister networks long-served as a beacon of light, hope, democracy, American values and a template for what a free, non-biased media outlet sounds like.

"Everybody is astonished and shocked," Herman tells me, describing a meeting earlier today which a bunch of his colleagues. "But every person is more concerned about the institution than they are with their individual job. That that was the utmost concern. What's being lost is not just the livelihoods of thousands of people. When you also put into that what's happening at Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, it's these institutions being silenced."

"To extinguish the entire operation over a weekend," he laments, "what is being lost is not replaceable. And it is a national tragedy. I don't opine much, as you know, but I think that's a fair way to look at what's happening," he says.

Why is all of this happening? What (and whose) purpose does it ultimately serve? What does it all mean and where will it go from here? Those are just some of the points of discussion in today's must-listen conversation with Herman, who has been a helpful source and friend of this program --- and as a champion of a free press --- for years now.

Kari Lake has recently referred to the USAGM networks as "radical Leftist advocacy organizations." Elon Musk, whose DOGE Bros have reportedly been camping out at the agency for weeks, recently tweeted, "It’s just radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1B/year of US taxpayer money."

Herman responds to say that the networks "talk to the hundreds of millions of people who listen to VOA, who listen to Radio Free Europe or Radio Free Asia, or watch the TV programs, or go online to check the news. Obviously we are not just talking to ourselves. We have a huge audience."

"Dollar for dollar," he continues, "US international broadcasting funded by the government --- whether it's totally 100% funded under the government but with a [political and editorial] firewall, or their grantees like Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia --- people who study public diplomacy will tell you that VOA and these other broadcasters are probably the best bang for the buck out there, in terms of soft power of the United States."

As to whether his reporting and that of his colleagues --- whose work had to pass muster of an editorial firewall and be checked for "balance" before publication or air --- was that of "radical left crazy people" or "radical Leftist advocacy organizations", Herman tells me today, as he has in the past, that he believes the work speaks for itself.

You can check out his work for yourself, at least until it is disappeared from the Internet, at the VOANews.com website. I also recommend you sign up for his personal newsletter and check out his book (which we discussed in studio on air when he was in town last Summer), Behind the White House Curtain: A Senior Journalist's Story of Covering the President --- and Why It Matters.

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Yes, we're often critical of the corporate mainstream media on The BradCast. But they also need to be defended in part during times like these, when Constitutional freedom of the press is literally under attack by the Trump White House and the billionaires who support them. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... Before we get to our guest, a few reminders of the critical role the corporate mainstream media play, even amid all of their failures. CNN's instant fact-checker Dan Dale, for example, offers an invaluable service in citing reality, point-by-point, fact-by-fact in quick response to things like Donald Trump's head-spinning hour+ of non-step lies at his "cabinet meeting" on Wednesday.

Also, Washington Post on Tuesday, deserves credit for their news coverage of massive cuts to critical services at Trump's Department of Veteran Affairs, with its new Secretary, Doug Collins, posting embarrassingly giddy videos, praising $2 billion in cancelled contracts at the agency by Elon Musk and his DOGE Bros. In fact, as WaPo reported, the cuts amounted to about 875 contracts for critical services for vets, including medical and burial services, cancer treatment and prevention programs, and the recruitment of doctors for the serially understaffed VA, among other things. The bulk of those cancelled contracts also happened to be with Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs). The Post's coverage on Tuesday ("DOGE to Cancel government contracts that help veterans, records show") was followed up on Wednesday with the much brighter headline: "Under pressure, VA halts contract cancellations in major reversal".

Yes, the mainstream corporate media is critically important, even with all of their failures.

All of which is why the ongoing attacks on the free press by the White House --and by billionaire media owners, like Washington Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos --- right now are so troubling.

NEXT... We're joined today by longtime journalist, media critic and WaPo veteran DAN FROOMKIN, now publisher and editor of the non-profit Press Watch (and, more recently, Heads Up News) to discuss all of that and more.

Among the topics discussed today with Froomkin, who is able to offer unique insight into all of these matters...

• AP reporters are now barred from White House and Air Force One press avails, because the AP Style Guide dares to refer to the international body of water known for 400-years as the Gulf of Mexico by its internationally known name, rather than the "Gulf of America" as Trump insists. AP is now suing the White House in response, in what Froomkin suggests is a text book case of unconstitutional punishment for free speech, adding "we're not even getting into the free press element!"

  "The whole point [of the First Amendment] is the government cannot punish you because of something you say that is political. This is exactly what is happening now. They've admitted it. They said, 'We're banning the AP because it refuses to say the words 'Gulf of America'" Froomkin believes that "even our corrupted Supreme Court can't possibly redefine the First Amendment to make this permissible." We'll see about that.

  He explains why he opposes a boycott by the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) of White House events that AP is barred from, as some have called for, and suggests the better response is for reporters who are still allowed access to use it far more aggressively in confronting Trump and other WH officials on their "nonstop" string of lies.

• On Tuesday, WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the WHCA would no longer decide who is welcome in the White House pool coverage, meaning that ideological partisan propaganda sites, like Breitbart, The Blaze, Newsmax and One America News will now be taking the place of well-established, legitimate media outlets.

  "It's important that we actually have reporters who are interested in determining facts rather than just asking him questions that he can hit out of the park because they are actually on his side," Froomkin argues, defending the pool reporters that he is also frequently critical of. "The reporters in this pool are not just representative of the media, they are representatives of the public. This is the only opportunity for anybody to actually confront Trump with facts and assertions and to confront him with his lies. It is so important that the reporters who are chosen to do this are not then at risk of being punished by the White House and being pulled off the beat if they ask tough questions."

  But, of course, if it's the White House, not the WHCA that determines who is allowed in the room, reporters are far more likely to pull punches if only to ensure they do not displease the ones allowing them access in the first place.

• We also discuss WaPo owner Jeff Bezos' gob-smacking announcement on Wednesday that the Opinion Page of the venerable paper --- that previously declared "Democracy Dies in Darkness" --- would now only include opinions "in support and defense of … personal liberties and free markets." That, after the billionaire owner, in 2013, vowed when he purchased paper that he would not interfere in its editorial content.

  It turns out that you just cannot trust a billionaire!," Froomkin, who worked at the Post for 12 years, quips. "It's a gut punch for everybody who works there, anybody who EVER worked there, and anybody who loves the Post. Its just devastating. [Bezos is] basically saying, 'I want my views expressed and opposing views will not be expressed.' It just turns on its head anything that is valuable about an Opinion Page, where you go for a diversity of views."

There is much more worth diving into in my conversation today with the great Froomkin today.

FINALLY... Speaking of gut punches, we close out the week with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, with some alarming news, to say the least, about plans by Trump's EPA to undermine almost 20 years of climate regulation in one fell "legal" swoop...

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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 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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We lost our planned guest this afternoon for today's BradCast to either COVID or flu. (A good chance to remind you: get your shots!) But that afforded us the opportunity to dig into a few important items/warnings we've been hoping to get to. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

As of Monday afternoon, Washington Post has reportedly lost more than 200,000 digital subscribers --- described as a "colossal number" or about 10% of its subscriber base --- following billionaire owner Jeff Bezos' cowardly decision last Friday to spike the legendary paper's planned Editorial Board endorsement of Kamala Harris just days before this year's Presidential election.

While the cost to the already-struggling paper's bottom line comes at an enormous price to journalism, its Amazon-founder owner --- whose aerospace company also has huge contracts with the federal government --- is likely to simply write off those subscriber losses as pocket change. His real goal, according to virtually all coverage of the sad affair, was likely to stay on the right side of a vengeful, petulant, former, and perhaps near-future, President of the United States in Donald Trump.

In fact, the whole sordid affair (coupled with the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times doing the same thing last week at around the same time), probably worked to the political benefit of Vice President Harris. But the shockwave warning it sent to all of us --- as also discussed on yesterday's program --- regarding how it revealed to American voters "what life under a dictator would feel like" remains impossible to ignore. It also offered a repeat of the valuable lesson from Yale's Timothy Snyder, an expert on tyrannical regimes, who warns "Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do."

Longtime Russia expert, and former Trump Administration official, Fiona Hill adds to those warnings today, in a detailed interview with Politico Magazine, explaining how great nations slip into authoritarianism when control of newspapers and other media outlets is taken over by billionaires who behave more like oligarchs, as they try to please strongman leaders. It explains why both Trump and Twitter/X owner Elon Musk are now reportedly in regular contact with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, and why cowards like Bezos (and Musk and L.A. Times' owner Patrick Soon-Shiong) seek to be in the incredibly exclusive oligarchic club approved by --- and at the beck-and-call of --- "the big guy".

None of it, Hill also warns, ends up working out well for the "ordinary people" who supported the strongman in the first place, as a perceived solution to perceived woes, as "ordinary people" are subsequently broken down into various categorical groups (by religion, social status, professions, etc.) who are then set against each other by the strongman.

"In Russia," explains Hill, "for many years, there was a general feeling that Putin was leaving ordinary people alone. The ordinary person is not being left alone anymore. They're being sent to war. They are being repressed. Somebody who supports Trump today and thinks that he's their champion could very easily be on the other end of the spectrum tomorrow --- they could go from being a supporter of Trump to somebody who Trump sees as an opponent, just by being in the wrong category of people, or by saying or doing something publicly that he doesn't like."

"Speech that now seems free and unfettered on X [Twitter], or anywhere else on the internet, or even privately to a friend, could easily be turned against you. That's happened over and over again in Russia and in many other settings," she says, before Politico asks: "How close are we to that in the United States?"

Hill's chilling answer: "We're one election away."

The cowardice of the Post and LA Times' owners today (as well as the last minute loss of our guest), also affords an excuse to highlight the piece from the New York Times Editorial Board which was not forced to pull their punches over the weekend. They published a stark, must-read, multimedia editorial headlined (as splashed across the entire front page of their Sunday Opinion section): "DONALD TRUMP SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS ABANDON ALLIES PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS BELIEVE HIM."

Today, we step through the case they make as to why American should believe him on each and all of those points, based not only on his behavior during his first term in office, but what we have learned, and what he has learned --- and what he has repeatedly promised --- since then.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with still more on the choice that voters face this year in the Presidential election, in this case as it pertains to environment and energy policy of the two major candidates, and the crushing cost to the U.S. economy that will come with Trump's promised "brown new deal"...

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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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We have a responsibility to call it out on today's BradCast. So we do. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Donald Trump's anti-immigrant, anti-free press, anti-federal government (Biden's federal government, never Trump's), anti-law and order, anti-anyone he believes shows insufficient fealty to him sentiment is growing increasingly menacing by the day. Sometimes by the hour.

It's not just rhetoric. At a rally on Saturday in California, Trump suggested a heckler should "get the hell knocked out of her". Earlier that same day, after week's of his lies about FEMA's response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, federal officials working on recovery in one of the hardest hit areas of North Carolina were sent an emergency notice to "stand down and evacuate" from Rutherford County after National Guard troopers "had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying they were out hunting FEMA."

In recent days, his lies about "illegal migrants" on murderous rampages, having taken over entire cities and towns has grown more Hitlerian and eugenicist (they have "bad genes"); he has called for CBS and all of the other broadcast networks to have their licenses revoked (networks have no such licenses) and for 60 Minutes to be "taken off the air"; the man who, as President in 2017, claimed to "love the First Amendment. Nobody loves it better than me", recently said "wait until you see what I’m going to do with" the New York Times if he is elected again. All of that as he has continued his vow to "put in jail" those who criticize judges and Supreme Court Justices who he likes, as he repeatedly promises retribution against "the enemy within," now including threats to use the nation's military to do so.

If you thought he was just going to be going after immigrants he doesn't like, think again. "What is so jarring to me is these are not just Nazi-like statements. These are actual Nazi sentiments," Robert Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute and author of “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy” told Politico.

With three weeks to go before Election Day and early voting underway in most of the nation now, the disgraced former President and convicted felon is largely tied with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, both nationally and in the seven battleground states, if you believe the pre-election polling averages. Are Americans not hearing what Trump is saying? Or do they not care? Or is this what they actually want? Is all of this not being adequately reported by our by mainstream corporate media? Or is it simply being ignored by voters?

In the second half of today's show --- after covering a number of the items above --- we open up the phones for listeners thoughts on all of it, with some excellent callers from a number of political viewpoints, from both here in Southern California and across the country...

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I do realize The BradCast has been in occasional danger of late of becoming just giddy enough to, perhaps, become all but unrecognizable to some. Oh, well. Too bad. Those may be folks who are failing to realize they may be living through one of the most extraordinary moments in American political history. Lighten up. There's nothing wrong with appreciating the moment after so many years of darkness. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

But to achieve the promise of this moment, there are still a bunch of very difficult weeks and months (not to mention years) ahead. A little-noticed reminder came from the state of Florida last night --- which voted in Congressional primaries on Tuesday along with Alaska and Wyoming --- when a number of county election result websites were failing to work as expected after the close of polls. They were websites run by a contractor named VR Systems, a little-known Tallahassee firm which also runs voter registration systems in several Florida counties and other states. If the name of the company is familiar, it is likely because we would eventually come to learn in 2017, thanks to whistleblower Reality Winner, that the firm was the victim of Russian-based spearphishing attacks in advance of the 2016 election. We still don't know the extent of those 2016 attacks, nor much about what happened to cause problems on Tuesday night with their websites in Florida. But, since nobody else seems to have connected those dots in the media, it seems worth sticking a pin in here for now.

After a few quick thoughts on that today, it's back to the political history underway in Chicago this week...

"Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn't it?," former First Lady Michelle Obama rhetorically asked the packed, roaring crowd at the United Center on Day 2 of this year's Democratic National Convention. "We're feeling it here in this arena, but its spreading all across this country we love. A familiar feeling that's been buried too deep for far too long. You know what I'm talking about. It's the contagious power of hope," she explained to a packed, raucous arena of Dems, who had just gone through what was absolutely the most electrifying roll-call --- to nominate Kamala Harris and Tim Walz --- in American political convention history.

"The anticipation, the energy, the exhilaration of once again being on the cusp of a brighter day," Michelle continued. "The chance to vanquish the demons of fear, division and hate that have consumed us, and continue pursuing the unfinished promise of this great nation, the dream that our parents and grandparents fought and died and sacrificed for."

"America, hope is making a comeback!," she declared. And the crowd of Democrats reached new heights of ecstasy. And all of that before her husband, former President of the United States, Barack Obama, tried to match her with his own unparalleled oratorical skills.

We've got much, much more for you today on all of the above, as we're joined again by old friends and fellow old school bloggers HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of his eponymous blog and his weekly Pro Left Podcast.

I'm not sure I can even try to summarize our conversation today. There is Parton describing how the DNC --- just half-way over this week as of airtime, mind you --- has "far surpassed my expectations ... And having it be this unusually, upbeat, joyful, happy, enthusiastic experience. I didn't expect it. And I have to say I am truly enjoying it, which I don't normally say about political conventions."

Says Driftglass: "The media has a story they want to tell, and that story is Dems In Disarray and protesters and cops in the street. And we are denying them that story. And that's what is freaking them out. Because that is not the fairy-tale they've been telling the public for forty years, which is that both sides are bad, there's no difference between the two parties. Only when there's a breach, a radical opening in that box, can people peek through that media filter and see the actual Democratic Party. ... The base of the party is finally getting heard. And the base of the party is pretty progressive. This weird filter that everything democratic had to flow through, the people who spoke for us in the media, were Maureen Dowd proclaiming, 'What the Democrats need is an open convention.' And the base said, 'Hell no. That is not what we need. Shut up.' It seems like the progressive base, almost as one, has reached out and told them to shut the hell up, the party is actually us!"

And then there is also Desi today: "I think part of what is going on is that hope is a moving thing for the human heart. It's moving to see Democrats articulate these common values that we all hold, no matter what your political party is --- of family, of patriotism, of opportunity, of equality for all. We've all been through a collective trauma over the last nine years. Seeing this kind of hope is like therapy."

Like I said, I can't even begin to summarize it. Perhaps this is why we don't necessarily realize we are going through historic moments until long after. But, tune in to today's show to hear a bunch of battle-hardened political muckrakers watching so much of what we've been advocating for, for so long, unfolding before our very eyes.

Maybe.

But, as Michelle said, there is a contagious power of hope...

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Well, this is all going well. Though, somehow, today's BradCast made me feel moderately better about it all for the moment. (See?! He's a moderate!) Anyway, I'm hoping you'll feel somehow marginally better as well after listening to today's program. [Audio link to full show follows this brief summary.]

We begin with a few noteworthy news items for helpful, or at least interesting, context...

• A new survey from a Democratic pollster finds that while Donald Trump is currently beating Joe Biden nationally by one point in head-to-head polling, Kamala Harris is actually ahead of Trump by a point in the same poll. A different Dem, who nobody is talking about (for good reason?) also leads Trump in the same survey.
• Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she stands behind the President, though offered a less than full-throated endorsement for his continuing candidacy on a cable new interview this morning, though she absolutely did not say that Biden should either "Reconsider Decision to Stay in the Race" or "consider dropping out" as New York Times falsely reported before correcting their headline, without explanation, after being called out (and after more than 200 articles focused on Biden's performance in the two weeks since the debate.)

And then we're joined for some much-needed common sense --- and a few similarly much-needed belly laughs (between tears) --- by two of our favorite roundtable guests: HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of The Professional Left Podcast.

You'll never guess what we're discussing today! But we've got a lot of it to talk about, and both Digby and Drifty are on their game.

"I will fight like hell for whoever is the top of the Democratic ticket come November," Driftglass (occasionally known as Bill) tells us. "The threat from Donald Trump outweighs every other consideration. Thus far, for the last three and a half years, [Biden] has governed the country remarkably well, steered through many crises, and done right by me. I think it's time we buckle down and say, 'Look, whoever the Democratic nominee is, is better than Trump.' Period. Full stop."

For her part, Digby concurs with the sentiment, but notes that, although there is no indication yet he plans to do so --- even with support on Capitol Hill for him to continue being lukewarm at best --- if Biden does decide to drop out: "I think that I would really, really like him to do it on the night that Donald Trump is going to accept the nomination for his party, and just stab him as hard in the back on his way out as he can, because you know that Donald Trump would do the same to him."

Now we're talking. And there is much more both insight and snark where that came from today, including discussion of...

• Wildly unhelpful and misleading corporate media coverage.
• What we should learn from the election in France on Sunday.
• Whether he can serve four more years or not, can Biden still actually win in November?
• Would Harris have a better shot?
• The disconnect between elected officials, media "experts" and actual Democratic voters on the ground.
• If Biden were to step down, is there time and process for a reasonably non-chaotic way to transition to a new candidate?
• Would Digby and Driftglass vote for George W. Bush or even Dick Cheney if one them became the Democratic candidate to take on Donald Trump?
• And who is this "Johnny Unbeatable" guy? And where should Democrats find him?

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

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Hey, we beat COVID again over the weekend! So, we're back on today's BradCast and with a fearless in-studio guest for that matter! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Very quickly, at top of show, an update on our seemingly never-ending personal COVID nightmares. (Yup, I got it again last week, but kicked it by showtime today! And I ain't the only one.); A bit of breaking news on a spate of wildfires breaking out around Southern (and Northern) California; And some news on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wartime coalition "unity" cabinet falling apart, even as the military seems to turn on the PM, who has reportedly undermined ceasefire and hostage release negotiations "due to political considerations" and his need to stay in power to avoid pending criminal charges.

THEN, we are joined in-studio by veteran journalist STEVE HERMAN of the non-profit, non-partisan, independent, government-funded media outlet known as Voice of America. After spending nearly three decades as an overseas bureau chief for VOA, mostly in Asia, Herman moved back stateside to become White House Bureau Chief during the four years of the Trump Administration and first eight months of Biden's. Now, he has a brand new book detailing insider observations and lessons from those years, titled Behind the White House Curtain: A Senior Journalist's Story of Covering the President --- and Why It Matters.

While I just got over my latest bout with COVID this past weekend, I was somewhat concerned that Herman might not want to join me in person in a small radio studio for an hour. Then I remembered that he was among the very first civilians to enter the Fukushima Nuclear Plant after its 2011 meltdown and would later go on to serve in the cramped, poorly ventilated basement confines with the White House Press Corps during Trump's mishandling of the worse pandemic in 100 years. So, yeah, he doesn't seem easily shaken.

Among the many topics of my discussion with Herman today, based on details, stories and history lessons from his fascinating new book...

• Details on working as a radio pool reporter during critical historic events during the Trump presidency.
• That time Donald Trump tested positive for COVID, didn't tell the public (or the press corps working in close quarters with him) for four days, became gravely ill, and the White House lied about all of it.
• Which was more unnerving? Walking into the nuclear plant at Fukushima just after a meltdown, or showing up each day in the White House during the worst of COVID, with a President who routinely violated WH safety protocols himself?
• How --- and why --- the Trump Administration tried to capture VOA as a propaganda tool (the agency is prohibited, by law, from engaging in such practices and must remain independent), and how Herman was specifically targeted with a "dossier" compiled by Trump's henchmen at VOA's parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
• Herman discusses that time he was banned from Mike Pence's Air Force Two after revealing that the Vice President was told in advance of his maskless visit to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota that masking was mandatory under the legendary health facilities house rules.
• The need for skepticism of government officials by journalists, and how should be the role of WH correspondents to not only report what officials say, but to report on when and how they are not telling the truth to the American public.
• The differences in the pressures facing journalists at commercial news outlets reporting on the White House, versus that of non-commercial new organizations like VOA.

To give you a quick taste of the conversation today: On the Trump Administration's failed effort to capture Voice of America as a MAGA outlet, Herman tells me "...he was just looking for a head on a pike...And I would have been a good head on a pike. There was a perception that Voice of America was not stepping in line with the Trump Administration. That I and others were guilty of anti-Trump bias, allegedly. And anytime anyone has said that, whether they think I'm anti-Trump or anti-Biden or anti-whoever, go look at the stories we write, and show me where the bias is."

Of course, having the President of the United States himself furious at Voice of America for not being a propaganda outlet, kinda proves the point that, as Herman explains in his fascinating book, VOA, for some eight decades now has not served as a mouthpiece for any particular Presidential Administration. It has proven itself over and again to be a service that its stake holders --- the people of the U.S. whose Government funds it, even as VOA is barred from broadcasting here --- should be proud of. It has long served as a trusted source of news to uncountable millions across the globe in dozens of countries and languages where the service has played a critical role in countering disinformation --- either foreign or domestic --- since the outlets founding in 1942...

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"The Supreme Court of the United States is anti-democracy and antivoter --- and has been for far longer than you might think." That sounds like something we might charge at The BRAD BLOG or on The BradCast. But, today, that allegation comes from our guest, an esteemed law professor in his brand new book. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP, however... A couple of news items of note today. Convicted felon Donald Trump's 2016 campaign manager and Senior White House Advisor Steve Bannon (also a longtime "anti-democracy and antivoter" activist) may finally be heading to jail as of July 1. That according to a ruling today by the Trump-appointed federal judge overseeing Bannon's two 2022 convictions for Contempt of Congress following his refusal to answer subpoenas from the bipartisan House January 6 Committee. He still has a couple of potential options for delay --- including his hope for a lifeline from the corrupt U.S. Supreme Court. But, otherwise, he is likely to soon be locked up for the next four months in the run-up to this year's election. Sad!

Also today, the EU's climate monitor announced this week that, as of May, the past 12 months have each been the hottest ever recorded on Planet Earth. That announcement came on the same day this week that the U.N. Secretary-General, António Guterres, offered a blistering speech deriding the fossil fuel industry as "the Godfathers of climate chaos" who "rake in record profits and feast off trillions in taxpayer-funded subsidies" after having set the planet on "the highway to climate hell". He is, of course, correct. But Guterres also called, for the first time, for a ban on all ads by fossil fuel companies, akin to the one against tobacco companies, given the billions that Big Oil has spent on decades of deadly lies "distorting the truth, deceiving the public and sowing doubt" about the harm they've caused. He also called for "news media and tech companies to stop taking fossil fuel advertising." Think they will? We discuss.

NEXT... We're joined by Constitutional election law professor JOSHUA A. DOUGLAS of the University of Kentucky's College of Law to discuss his brand new book, The Court v. The Voters: The Troubling Story of How the Supreme Court Has Undermined Voting Rights. That title almost speaks for itself. But, as you might imagine, it gives us a lot to discuss today.

In his book, Douglas highlights nine different landmark SCOTUS rulings --- some you almost certainly know of, but others that you may not --- going back about 50 years, which he says have "contributed to the rise of anti-democracy forces animating our elections" today, leading the nation on the path toward the attempted rightwing insurrection on January 6, 2021.

"Legitimacy requires buy-in from everyone," when it comes to election law, Douglas tells me today. "So the fact that I make this statement about the Supreme Court, as someone who has tried to be very non-partisan in my work, says a lot about how stark it has become with respect to the way in which the Court has crafted or thought about the Constitutional right to vote."

"It has been death by a thousand cuts," he explains. "A slow march. There's no one case or one concerted effort." But the result of the Court's persistent rulings has been to undermine voting rights and, ultimately, the Constitutional order by giving more and more power to the states, after years of previously requiring strict scrutiny when it comes to restrictive voting laws. Each new ruling, he says, has fed off previous ones, granting more and more power back to states to restrict voting rights, eroding federal protections in both law and the Constitution.

In some cases, Douglas argues, such as 2021's Brnovich v. DNC, the Court (in this case, Justice Samuel Alito writing the opinion for the majority) has taken to simply making up new tests for state election laws "literally from thin air" to support their antivoter rulings.

Ever since the decade following the Civil Rights era, "it's been a slow march towards dismantling some of the protections of the Voting Rights Act, as well as undermining the constitutional importance of the right to vote within the U.S. Constitution. When you look at any one case, you don't necessarily see it. It's when we look at these combined, to note the way in which the Court has placed a thumb on the scale of the [state] legislatures at the expense of voters."

The book is written not for legal scholars, Douglas promises, but for actual voters. Rather than offering simply legal analyses, it is chock full of stories about the individual people involved in each of the cases he highlights. Evidence to support his argument here may be found in the title of Chapter 8, "An 'Embarrassing Judicial Fart'", on 2000's Bush v. Gore ruling.

While The Courts v. The Voters argues "we can no longer count on the Supreme Court to protect an equal right to vote for all" and that "voters are left with nowhere to turn to vindicate their rights," Douglas also offers a prescription for overcoming what he regards as an assault on our Democratic Republic in both the book and on today's program.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with more on what the European Union's chief climate monitor describes as the "shocking but not surprising" record heat over each of the last 12 months; the U.N. Secretary-General's well-supported screed against the deadly "Godfathers of climate chaos" in the fossil fuel industry; a record number of heat deaths in the U.S. last year; and the world's largest solar farm --- the size of New York City --- now finally online...in China.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Canada wildfires expand, threaten oil industry town of Fort McMurray, again; Climate change made extreme heat in Asia significantly worse; PLUS: Broadcast media ignored Donald Trump's blatant, billion-dollar quid pro quo offer to Big Oil... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): DeSantis signs law deleting climate change from Florida policy; A Trump win puts $1 Trillion in US energy investments at risk; How Alabama turned to restrictive deed covenants to ward off flooding claims from black residents; Oakland is now first in the US to have a 100% electric school bus fleet - and it's V2G; Impunity and pollution abound in DRC mining of critical minerals; Persistent Brazil floods raise specter of climate migration... PLUS: Don't fall for 'climate-friendly' beef... and much, MUCH more! ...

Corporate media failure and a small, if noteworthy, success (for a change) are just part of today's BradCast, which also includes a 'bloodbath', more House GOP dysfunction, a wingnut Recall, and plenty of rape victim shaming...by a rape victim. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

• Colorado's far-right Republican Rep. Ken Buck, who announced he would not be running for reelection earlier this year due to party dysfunction, announces he is quitting Congress entirely next week instead, further narrowing the House GOP's razor-thin majority. Buck says he has another "job to do out there", claims that voters are unhappy with both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and vows to find "the right organization to join" and "start working on the issue" of "hav[ing] better candidates up and down the ballot." Is he on his way toward joining the supposedly bi-partisan Presidential "Unity Ticket" promised by secretive, Republican-funded, third-party group No Labels?

• Donald Trump's personal takeover of the Republican National Committee is now complete, with his inexperienced daughter-in-law as co-chair, his Campaign's information officer as RNC Chief of Staff, and a "bloodbath" of firing as many as 60 longtime officials on Monday, their first day of operational control. The fired will be replaced with Trump loyalists (or with nobody, so Trump can pocket more RNC cash?) If you are wondering what he will do to tens of thousands of federal agency workers on his dictatorial Day One if he's allowed to win the Presidency this year, what he is doing to the RNC right now should be considered Exhibit A. Don't say you weren't warned.

• More eating their own, this time in Wisconsin. A Trump-endorsed MAGA group says they've submitted more than enough signatures to the state to schedule a Recall Election for the far-right, longtime Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos for, apparently, not being Trumpy enough. Or, at least being unwilling to break the law to steal the 2020 election in the state for the disgraced former President. [UPDATE since air time: Looks like the effort is not going well so far.]

• Mainstream corporate media outlets begin quietly resetting their dozens of misleading reports last month on Special Counsel Robert Hur's findings about Joe Biden's "faltering memory" after the release of the actual transcripts of recorded interviews with the President by Hur (a Trump-appointee at DoJ) reveal a pretty different story. The interviews were part of Hur's probe of classified documents found by Biden's attorneys in one of his old offices and elsewhere. Hur determined "no criminal charges are warranted," but slimed Biden in the bargain and media ran with it. Now, they are quickly revising the earlier misleading reports. NYT: Biden was "clearheaded". WaPo: Biden "doesn't come across as absent-minded as Hur made him out to be." WSJ: Biden was "not stumped on basic factual questions". That after each paper published dozens of stories each in the days following the release of Hur's report questioning Biden's mental faculties and fitness for office...just as Republicans had been hoping they would.

• George Stephanopoulos deserves kudos for refusing to fold or be intimidated by the ridiculous and relentless attack from South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace who claimed that the ABC reporter, during his interview with her on Sunday, was attempting to "victim shame" her by asking her to justify her endorsement of Donald Trump after he was found liable for rape and repeatedly defaming the victim by two separate juries in New York. Mace bizarrely charged that, because she was a rape victim herself, Stephanopoulos' question was a "disgusting" attempt to "shame" her. In the bargain, she offered a mountain of victim shaming for Trump's rape victim, E. Jean Carroll and suggested that rape wasn't real because Trump's nearly $90 million liability for the rape and defamation came from civil trials instead of criminal ones.

• Longtime media critic Dan Froomkin accuses the New York Times of "repeatedly abus[ing] the English language in its political reporting," and offers some really good suggestions for much-needed additions to their style guide. Smart suggestions from the former, longtime Washington Post, HuffPost and Intercept columnist include the proper use of words such as "baseless", "Congress", "conservative" and "moderate".

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with climate related news from Joe Biden's State of the Union Address; horrific global temp and ocean heat records from February; and more terrible news for Australia's Great Barrier Reef (and, in fact, coral reefs everywhere!)...

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I fear we are still far from peak madness, even if it feels like we're getting dangerously close on today's BradCast, with our Special Coverage analysis of New Hampshire's First-in-the-Nation Primary results and whatever the hell may be happening next. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Donald Trump defeated Nikki Haley on Tuesday in NH, though only by 11 points, the same number by which he defeated his GOP challengers in last week's Iowa Caucuses, according to the latest reported results. Once again, he received just over half of the votes cast by those who participated in the Republican contest. Trump's tally is currently just over 54%, Haley's is just over 43%.

On the Democratic side, where Joe Biden's name didn't even appear on the ballot, as the first sanctioned Democratic Primary is set for South Carolina instead early next month, the President won easily in NH nonetheless. Thanks to an unofficial Write-In campaign, he garnered nearly 56% of the vote, with a whole bunch of Write-In ballots still to be hand processed as of airtime today. Biden's final vote share is likely to climb to 60% or above. MN Congressman Dean Phillips received just below 20% of the Democratic vote, while self-help guru Marianne Williamson came in at just below 5%.

On the GOP side, Haley offered what sounded like a victory speech Tuesday night, deriding Trump and as loser and vowing to continue the race through her home state of South Carolina and "dozens of states left to go". A furious Trump responded, as he does, with disjointed, angry remarks and thinly veiled, if evidence-free, threats regarding criminal investigations of his former U.N. Ambassador. "I don’t get too angry --- I get even," he promised.

What sense does any of this make? We're joined today by our very smart old pals HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of The Professional Left Podcast for whatever analysis any of this may be worth. Among the many questions discussed on today's program...

• What's the most important 2024 election news today? Results from the NH primary or the fact that Jon Stewart is coming back to The Daily Show in time for the 2024 elections?
• What does Haley think she will accomplish by remaining in the race?
• Is there any remaining chance that Trump won't actually become this year's GOP nominee?
• Are media outlets such as CNN and MSNBC, who break away from lies told during Trump's victory speech, doing America a favor or a disservice?
• While key establishment GOP donors have thrown support behind Haley, will they eventually come around to Trump anyway?
• Is the Biden camp, which reportedly wanted the GOP race to be over after NH, wise in rushing toward a two-person race against Trump?
• Would a conviction for Trump in any of his four felony indictments really dampen support for Trump among Republicans as recent polling suggests?
• Why is Trump still tied with or beating Biden in a number of polls right now?

"It's mobster stuff," notes Driftglass about Trump's vague threats to Haley during his victory speech on Tuesday. "In an alternate universe," he contends, Haley might have been a good candidate for the GOP. But "the universe that we live in is one where Trump has a full-blown cult behind him." He adds a reminder to his "Never Trump friends that you built a Doomsday machine with no off-switch."

Parton joins Driftglass in arguing that Trump WILL now be the GOP nominee, unless he "falls face-first into the omelet bar at Mar-a-Lago." Other than that, she warns, "we're looking at a Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden campaign." The GOP donor class will "be there no matter what" for Trump, she observes, noting, "these guys are the zombies of the American political system and they're never going away." As to Haley, Parton adds: "If last night was any example of what Trump is going to do to her, it's about to get very, very ugly."

You mean it's not ugly yet?!...

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