I don't relish saying "I told ya so" on The BradCast. But, in today's lead story, unfortunately, I have to yet again. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

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

• We've been telling you for months that West Virginia's corrupt Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin --- whose family makes millions from the coal industry and campaign rakes in millions from the fossil fuel industry --- never had any intention of allowing any environmental measures to pass that might actually help reduce the deadly emissions that are causing our climate crisis. Nonetheless, his fellow Democrats and corporate media, like Charlie Brown, seem to keep buying his BS claims that he really really wants to adopt environmental provisions and raise taxes on the wealthy to help pay for them. After months of more pretend negotiations, Lucy pulled the football away from Charlie Brown yet again on Thursday night.

• Gas prices are finally falling. Will Joe Biden get credit for that, since he was inappropriately blamed for Big Oil's record profits from war profiteering and price gouging? (Which all Republicans in Congress refused to outlaw recently?)

• Texas' privatized, unregulated electric grid is on the brink of collapse yet again, thanks to record heat (which is thanks to a fossil fuel industry-sponsored climate crisis that all Republicans and Democrat Joe Manchin refuse to do anything about.) Will Lone Star State voters this November finally figure out who is to blame for the outages --- and hundreds of deaths that continue to come with them --- during both extreme heat and cold in the state?

• Oh, look! The Secret Service seem to have accidentally erased all of their text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, even after the Dept. of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General asked to see them. Luckily, not much happened over those days that the American people would very much like to know about.

• Oh, look! A D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer has reportedly testified to the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection and Donald Trump's other attempts to steal the election that there was a physical altercation with Secret Service officials inside Trump's limo when he wanted to go to the Capitol instead of back to the White House that day. The alleged under-oath corroboration has so far received much less corporate media notice than the anonymous, still-unnamed person at the Service who claimed that Cassidy Hutchinson was lying during her explosive public testimony late last month about what she'd been told about the incident just after it happened. And the Secret Service officials who were supposed to come forward to dispute her story to the Committee have still failed to do so. (Sure would have been helpful if the Service hadn't erased their text messages from that day.)

• Mesa County, Colorado's disgraced County Clerk (and recently failed GOP candidate for Secretary of State), Tina Peters, is in yet more legal trouble. The easily-duped MAGA election fraud conspiracy theorist --- now charged with 7 felonies and 3 misdemeanors related to her orchestrating an illicit scheme to unlawfully copy and publicly distribute very sensitive voting system software last year --- had a warrant issued for her arrest by a Judge on Thursday after she left the state without court permission to speak at another evidence-free MAGA election fraud conspiracy conference in Vegas.

• But the actual election fraud perpetrated by GOP officials running for office continues. Just a few short weeks after 5 of the 10 Republicans running for the Gubernatorial nomination in Michigan were struck from the ballot for turning in tens of thousands of fraudulent petition signatures, it's happened again. This time in New York. The GOP nominee for Governor, U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin --- who voted against confirming Joe Biden's 2020 Electoral College victory and whose website features a "Team Zeldin Election Integrity Task Force" page, vowing to work "around the clock now and into November to ensure we have fair elections" --- apparently turned in nearly 13,000 fraudulent petition signatures, including 900 pages of photocopies of signatures, in hopes of appearing on the Independent Party ballot line this fall. The Libertarian Party challenged the fraudulent signatures and the state Board of Elections confirmed the fraud, denying Zeldin a third line on the November ballot.

• Finally, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report, with a passel of climate related stories that are so grim, we can't even bring ourselves to tease them here. On the other hand, she does have one pretty good piece of news out of California...so there's that!

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We've got a grab bag of news items on today's BradCast, though almost all of it ends up making the same case: 'Both sides' are decidedly not the same. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We kick off with some listener mail, critical of our recent show discussing why it's so deadly important to elect Democrats in 2022 in order to have any chance of saving American democracy itself --- and much more along with it --- before 2024. The listener argues that, in fact, democracy no longer exists in the U.S. following 2010's Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court. He argues that "both of the two major parties" are now so corrupted that "the chances of non-corporate funded candidates" being elected to national office are now "equivalent to nil". While that may come as a surprise to folks like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, just to name a couple, there are many other reasons our correspondent couldn't be more wrong. We explain why.

The bulk of the news items in the rest of today's program underscore why that lazy "both sides are the same" notion (while founded in fragments of cynically misreported truths) is dangerously wrong. They also underscore how those on the Left who buy into that self-defeating nonsense are being played as assuredly as Donald Trump and his MAGA buddies have played their own gullible supporters.

Among those news stories covered today...

• Elected Republicans members of the Texas state House, ironically calling themselves the "Texas Freedom Caucus," have sent a letter to a Dallas law firm threatening them with legal "consequences" including "felony criminal prosecution and disbarment" for reimbursing their own employees for out-of-state travel as needed to obtain an abortion, now that Texas Republicans have ended such rights and personal freedoms for residents of the Lone Star State.

• A Donald Trump-appointed federal judge has laughed Steve Bannon's attempt to delay his pending federal trial out of the courtroom. The trial, on two counts of Contempt of Congress in response to the former Trump aide's unlawful refusal to respond to subpoenas from the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection and Trump's many failed attempts to steal the 2020 election, is scheduled to begin next week and could result in up to two years in prison for Bannon.

• At the same time, Mother Jones has obtained leaked audio of Bannon speaking to supporters of his Chinese billionaire pal/funder three days before the 2020 election, explaining that Trump planned to declare victory, whether he won the election or not, and pretend to be the victim of fraud. "He's gonna say they stole it...he's not going out easy...Trump is gonna do some crazy shit," Bannon promised (sound familiar?), as they all laughed about what would become the most dangerous assault on American democracy in our history.

• DoJ has sued Arizona for violations of the National Voter Registration Act and Civil Rights Act, following the signing of a new voter suppression law earlier this year. Adopted by the state's GOP-dominated state legislature and signed by its Republican Governor, the new measure would block voters from voting in the 2024 election without first presenting documents proving their citizenship.

• Wisconsin's GOP-dominated state Supreme Court finds absentee ballot drop-boxes are now illegal in the Badger State. Donald Trump declares the ruling to be proof that he actually won Wisconsin in 2020! (He didn't.) And a Republican state lawmaker running for Governor vows to reverse the state's election results in response.

• In Georgia, a pathetic audio clip from the Republican Party's U.S. Senate nominee, Hershel Walker, discussing climate change --- ("Since we don't control the air, our good air decided to float over to China's bad air. So when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then...now we got we to clean that back up.") --- underscores, once again, the sad, cynical (and ill-considered) scheme by GOPers to push this seemingly mentally ill former football star as their candidate to run against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock this fall.

• And finally, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report, as wildfires once again threaten California's iconic Giant Sequoias; Utah's Great Salt Lake is drying up; and offshore wind power is booming...in China...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Wildfires again threaten iconic Giant Sequoias, this time in Yosemite; Offshore wind power is booming --- and China is leading the way; PLUS: Utah's Great Salt Lake is drying up... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Europe’s new heat wave is going to be expensive; Dems eye deal with Manchin on clean energy package; EPA describes how it will regulate power plants after SCOTUS setback; 'Disturbing': weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples; Russia’s war in Ukraine forces Arctic climate projects to pivot; Summer in America is becoming hotter, longer and more dangerous... PLUS: If Republicans retake Congress in November, here’s what their agenda will look like... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Special coverage of Day 3 of the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee hearings investigating the Trump-incited Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the disgraced former President's multiple attempts to steal the 2020 election from the American people. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Before diving into details with our two guests today, I want to cite the must-read written statement [PDF] submitted by one of today's live witnesses, the very conservative, oft-cited and well-respected (if extremely slow-talking) former Judge J. Michael Luttig. Appointed by George H.W. Bush to the appellate court in 1991, Luttig was considered several times during his decades on the federal bench for the Supreme Court. He is often compared to Justice Antonin Scalia and virtually all of his law clerks eventually went on to clerk for Scalia or Clarence Thomas. He was one of several advisors who then Vice President Mike Pence turned to as he was being pressured hard by both Donald Trump and his corrupt attorney John Eastman to toss out legitimate electoral votes on January 6 in an effort to steal the election for Trump.

In short, Luttig is no lefty. He advised the Vice President that he had no legal or Constitutional authority to do anything but essentially read the Electoral College votes aloud during the joint session of Congressional to certify the final results of the 2020 election. Despite extraordinary pressure not to, Pence did the right thing and followed Luttig's advice.

But in Luttig's written statement to the Committee, as I note at the top of today's show, he describes the Republican Party's "war on democracy" and correctly characterizes what so many Democrats and most in the corporate media seem to have a problem saying outloud: "The former president's accountability under the law for the riot on the United States Capitol on January 6 is incidental to his responsibility and accountability for his attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election from the American People and thereby steal America's democracy from America herself."

Was that so hard? Go read his statement in full.

Among the many new items revealed during Thursday's hearing, at which Pence's top attorney Greg Jacob was also a live witness, along with a boatload of videotaped testimony and more disturbing, previously unseen footage from the day of the Insurrection...

• All of Trump's top White House and Campaign attorneys knew the scheme to have Pence invalidate the election was unlawful and/or unconstitutional, describing it as "nuts", "crazy" and worse.
• Trump knew as well, because they told him as much. Repeatedly.
• Even John Eastman, credited with devising the scheme, is known to have conceded its illegality on several different occasions.
• Eastman said he would have seen Al Gore or Kamala Harris using the same scheme to nullify an election as unlawful, but wanted Pence to do it anyway.
• Eastman invoked the Fifth Amendment 100 times during his video-taped, subpoenaed testimony with the Committee.
• After his scheme failed miserably, Eastman sought a pardon from Trump. (He didn't get one.)
• Jan. 6 insurrectionists came within 40 feet of Pence after he had been removed from the House chamber.
• One of the Proud Boys cooperating with the Feds has testified that the white nationalist extremist group would have killed Mike Pence or anyone they got their hands on, including Nancy Pelosi, if given a chance.

We've got a lot to cover once again today and are joined by George Washington University law professor, WaPo contributor and blogger RANDALL D. ELIASON, a former Asst. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, where he served as Chief of the Public Corruption/Government Fraud section. And, as always during our J6 coverage, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo. Both offer important insight on today's hearing and the ones that preceded it, as the damning case against Donald Trump continues to come smartly together.

Among the issues discussed, the "outlandishly blatant partisan hackery" of Eastman, as Parton correctly characterizes it and the criminal liability Trump (and Eastman) now face, as Eliason details. In particular, given his background in criminal fraud as a federal prosecutor, Eliason notes that the scheme detailed in Monday's hearing regarding a fake "Official Election Defense Fund" that Trump used to raise $250 million from his duped supporters is classic criminal wire fraud that should spawn an entirely separate criminal investigation from the one now underway at DoJ. He also speaks to the bogus notion that Trump can't be charged because he truly believed that the election was fraudulent and that the Vice President had the authority to overthrow the election. Both of those points have been decimated by the Committee over the past two hearings.

We also hash out the "controversy" over whether the Committee should issue a formal criminal referral to the DoJ at the end of their proceedings; the absurd, and rather pathetic, whining defenses offered by both Trump and Fox "News" in response to the gripping revelations emerging from these hearings; and much more.

And, as if all of that is not enough, we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report as the nation (and globe) swelters; Texas thanking its lucky stars right now for renewable energy; the U.N. begging the world to knock it off already with fossil fuels; and a potentially game-changing way to produce emissions-free concrete comes to light...

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With the bipartisan January 6 Committee having postponed today's hearing, we take the opportunity on today's BradCast to spend some time rebutting the disgraced former President's supposed rebuttal to the two damning hearings held to date. But, of course, we've got much more as well, including election results from Tuesday and evidence of both voting system problems and bad faith elected MAGA officials already trying to disenfranchise 2022 voters. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

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

• An error caused by paper jams during ballot scanning on Election Day at the precincts on the state's computer tabulators in Iowa during their June 7 primaries has reportedly resulted in a whole bunch of recounts across the state. Cedar Rapid's KCRG cites an email from the Sec. of State's office which has lead to those recounts, in hopes of reconciling the number of ballots misreported by the scanners as cast with the number of voters who actually signed in to vote.

• Noteworthy election results from four states which held primaries on Tuesday (Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina) and one (Texas) which purposely held a low-turnout U.S. Special Election yesterday, instead of at the same time as their regular primaries in March or primary runoffs in May. While we cover a lot of Tuesday's races, and why they matter (or don't), the most disturbing one is likely the Secretary of State's race in Nevada, where a 2020 election denialist by the name of Jim Marchant has apparently won a 38% plurality to become the GOP's nominee to become the critical swing-state's chief election official in advance of the 2024 election.

• The dangers of an election denier like Marchant, who served as one of the state GOP's fake electors in 2020, and who has said he wouldn't have certified Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump that year had he been SoS at the time, is a stark warning of what lies ahead. But we're already seeing the dangers of brain-poisoned MAGA Mobsters in positions of elected authority. The three-person County Commission in a very right-leaning rural county in New Mexico, is refusing to certify results from their June 7 primary. Even though votes are cast on hand-marked paper ballots across the state, the County Commission unanimously voted against certification of primary results, citing distrust of the County's digital ballot scanners made by Dominion Voting. They have no evidence of fraud, which might otherwise allow a court to order the hand-count they are seeking. They just don't trust the results in the County where Trump won 62% of the vote in 2020. The Republican County Clerk is furious and the Democratic Sec. of State is now suing the County Commission ahead of this Friday's deadline for County certification. Expect much more of this in the months and years ahead. We've long warned about exactly this type of fallout from our irresponsible rush to the use secret vote casting and counting systems made by private vendors and the avenues it opens for opportunists to claim fraud without any evidence of same.

• On Monday night, after the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and other efforts by Trump to steal the 2020 election, our corrupt former President issued a 12-page rebuttal [PDF] to the Committee's first two hearings. We rebut his dumb rebuttal today. It leans heavily on tired, long-ago debunked nonsense, such as his lead in some swing-states on Election Night "inexplicably" disappearing (after heavily-Republican polling place ballots were quickly tallied before the arduous task of opening and verifying and counting heavily-Democratic vote-by-mail ballots one-by-one) and how thousands attended his rallies, while Biden chose not to hold super-spreader events during the worst pandemic in 100 years. Much of Trump's (ghost-writer's) claims were already debunked during the Committee hearings to date, which he seems to presume that his supporters didn't watch or are too dumb to understand.

  Trump's ghost-writer spends most of the rebuttal ink citing what is laughably described as "indisputable proof" of "Ballot Trafficking" presented in the repeatedly debunked 2000 Mules movie. That's a pretend documentary film created by a long-discredited GOP "election integrity" group named True the Vote and a rightwing activist named Dinesh D'Souza who actually pleaded guilty himself to several federal election fraud crimes before he was later pardoned by Trump.

  As noted, the film has been repeatedly debunked, including by us, several times by now. Months before it was even released, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI) and FBI concluded the group's claims about cell phone data purporting to reveal evidence of "ballot harvesting" by "mules" of tens or hundreds of thousands of fraudulent ballots cast in drop-boxes, in fact, reveals no crimes at all. A GA state Board of Elections investigation after the movie's release found that supposed "ballot mules" in Atlanta, shown via security camera footage in the film, were just regular voters legally casting their own ballot and those of direct family members. None of the "mules" are ever seen in the film visiting a drop-box or multiple boxes more than once.

  But, perhaps the most stinging rebuttal came from Trump's own Attorney General, Bill Barr this week. During sworn testimony to the J6 Committee, shared by the panel on Monday, Barr laughed out loud at even the mention of the name of the film, before going on to explain how he found it to be "singularly unimpressive," "indefensible," and that it failed to "establish widespread illegal harvesting." That, of course, is a long way from the "indisputable proof" Trump's dumb rebuttal claimed it to be.

• Finally, speaking of the House J6 Committee, Republican Vice Chair Liz Cheney released a video teaser on Tuesday for its next upcoming hearing scheduled for Thursday. This one will focus on the pressure Trump placed on Vice President Mike Pence to help him steal the 2020 election by tossing out valid Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021. Cheney's teaser video includes testimony from one of Trump's top White House attorneys who says he warned outside lawyer John Eastman, who developed the scheme for Pence to toss out the votes, to "get a great f'ing criminal defense lawyer," adding "you're gonna need it."

Special Coverage of tomorrow's J6 Hearing, of course, on tomorrow's BradCast!...

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For years, as I told my guest on today's BradCast, I've wondered if we were being too alarmist during his many appearances on the show. But now I'm starting to wonder if we haven't been alarmist enough. "I would say that you and I have been the exact right amount of alarmist," he tells me in response. "Time and time again, the Court has proved that it is going rogue, that it is lawless, that it is really corrupted by partisan politics." If the nation hasn't noticed by now, it is likely about to. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Before we get to that cheery conversation, a couple of quick news items today, as voters in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina headed to polls on Tuesday for critical mid-term elections. (Also in Texas, where there is a special election to fill a vacated Democratic U.S. House seat.) Results of note on tomorrow's program.

Wednesday's scheduled hearing in the U.S. House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection and related Donald Trump crimes has been postponed until, presumably, next week. The Wednesday hearing had been set to focus on Trump's failed effort to decapitate the Dept. of Justice in order to install a low-level flunky with a scheme to help him steal the 2020 election by lying to state legislatures that the DoJ had found massive fraud in swing-states. Committee members claim the delayed hearing is only due to a need to give time to their over-worked understaffed video crew. Meanwhile, Thursday's scheduled hearing, focused on the pressure Trump placed on Vice President Pence to help steal the election for him on January 6, is still said to be on track.

In Congress today, the House passed a bill previously adopted by the U.S. Senate to extend security protections to family members of Supreme Court Justices. It's remarkable how quickly Republicans can act to pass laws to protect certain people that they give a damn about from gun violence. Every other family in America is on their own apparently. Best of luck.

And, speaking of SCOTUS, as their term comes to a close over the next two weeks, we catch up with the great MARK JOSEPH STERN, legal journalist and Supreme Court expert at Slate.com, on a whole passel of recent and coming-soon opinions that are currently shaking and set to shake the American legal and judicial system to its core

The outlook, as suggested by my opening graf above, is not encouraging. "I don't know what to tell you except that madness is coming," warns Stern. Tune in for real facts and hard truths about what is coming. But, by way of preview of some of the cases and issues discussed today...

• The tragic case of Terence Andrus, soon to be put to death, and what could represent the end of the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of competent legal representation, particularly in death penalty cases. Perhaps even more astounding, the Court's ruling on Monday directly contradicts their own ruling on the very same case in 2020 when, just two years ago, they sent the matter back down to the Texas State Court, which has since apparently decided that they needn't follow SCOTUS orders. And now, incredibly, with the loss of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, SCOTUS agrees! "There can be no 'settled law' when SCOTUS lets rogue judges flout its own rulings and get away with it," Stern wrote in his coverage on Monday. Today he warns that with the Supreme Court failing to enforce its own precedents, "it really does send this message, a kind of wink and a nod, to lower courts that they can start defying these disfavored precedents, start nullifying these disfavored Constitutional rights, and get away with it. And that is a scary new phase."

• The coming-soon overturning of Roe v. Wade. We haven't spoken to Stern since the unprecedented leak of a draft opinion by the GOP's corrupt, packed and stolen majority which is set to end 50 years of Constitutional freedoms and privacy rights established by the landmark 1973 opinion. He explains that the Court has since cracked down on all such leaks, but that even in a best-case scenario where the final opinion is somewhat softened, the ruling is certain to be "tragic". Moreover, he warns that overturning the privacy rights of Roe will "cast a lot of doubt on decisions protecting the right to privacy --- for gay people, for interracial couples, for people who use contraception --- and lower courts will seize upon that language and use it to start overturning those rights." That is just one reason why the Andrus ruling described above is so wildly dangerous.

• Ending local government's right to protect residents from gun violence. The Court is set to issue its opinion on a challenge to New York's more-than-100-year old requirement that those seeking to carry concealed firearms apply for a special permit to do so. As soon as next week, despite the Second Amendment's mandate that the right to bear arms should be "well-regulated," the NY law is likely to be struck down by SCOTUS. "We should expect the Supreme Court to declare that there is a Second Amendment right, in every state in the country, to carry a concealed weapon in public spaces, even if you have no particularly good reason to want one. And that right cannot be infringed without a very strong interest from the government, which the Court will then explain does not really exist. And, in doing so, will unleash, I think, a wave of violence --- in states like California and New York that have pretty strict limits on concealed carry --- that will be attributable to the Supreme Court," Stern predicts. "But of course the Court will be in its own palace, surrounded by guards and fences, and the Justices will not have to face the lethal consequences of their own ruling."

• West Virginia v. EPA The courts, long ago, placed a stay on President Obama's Clean Power Plan, which would have incentivized the transition from polluting coal-fired power plants to clean, renewable energy production. Then those regulations were replaced entirely by Trump's energy plan. And now, despite absolutely nobody required to follow the Obama EPA's regulations on this, the corrupted SCOTUS decided to take up WV's original challenge to the Obama plan. "This case is incredibly bizarre," Stern rails. "Because right now there is no rule --- I repeat, no rule --- no regulation, that is limiting carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. None. And yet, the Supreme Court is deciding whether the Biden Administration can issue a rule limiting carbon emissions. You might be asking how could it possibly be that the Supreme Court will rule on a regulation that does not yet exist, that may in fact never exist? The answer is that the usual rules about actually taking a live controversy do not seem to apply when the conservative super-majority really wants to kneecap the Biden Administration's regulatory agenda. So, even though the Court has nothing to strike down, it will almost certainly issue a decision purporting to strike down a regulation that doesn't even exist."

As to what Stern has to say about some cases that the Court is likely to pick up for its next term, particularly on something called the Independent State Legislature doctrine --- which doesn't actually exist either, but may very well soon, and will "either limit or abolish the ability of anyone other than a state legislature to set the rules for federal elections" --- well, I don't have the heart to go into the details here. But tune in if you want to be informed about what is coming next...and just in time for the 2024 Presidential election.

Stern has been warning about the opinions set to drop shortly for a very long time on this program. I leave it to you if you want to know what he warns is coming next.

"I don't know what to tell you except that madness is coming, and all we can do is try to prepare for it as best we can," he tells me. "Because this is the direction that the conservative Justices are moving in. They have telegraphed it very clearly, and they are moving us there just on schedule."

I wish I could say we close out today's show by cheering you up with our latest Green News Report, but we pride ourselves in telling listeners the truth, no matter how grim...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Another early extreme heat wave shatters records across the U.S.; Yellowstone National Park closed due to catastrophic flooding; Explosion at Texas LNG facility further tightens global supplies; Biden unveils first-ever standards for national EV charging network; PLUS: Gasoline prices and profiteering at new record highs... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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It's 'Super Duper Tuesday' Midterm Election Day today in Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota and California. The good news on today's BradCast? So far, no noteworthy reports, as of airtime, of voting system disasters that we've heard about or been able to find. But the night is young. Results from today's elections, such that we have them, on tomorrow's show. But, don't worry, we've got tons of elections and democracy related news for you nonetheless. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Among our many stories covered today...

• As Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch described it in his email newsletter today, "the multi-millionaire celebrity doctor from New Jersey officially defeated the multi-millionaire hedge fund CEO from Connecticut to become the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania." He's mostly correct. The Connecticut hedge fund millionaire, Dave McCormick, did concede late last week to the New Jersey millionaire TV doctor, Mehment Oz amid Pennsylvania's recount in the very close May 17 race to become the GOP nominee for the Keystone State's U.S. Senate contest to replace retiring Republican Senator Pat Toomey. But a concession doesn't actually mean anything. Oz will not become the "official" nominee until the recount is finalized over the next day or so. Then, the Trump-endorsed celebrity TV doctor, who is not a resident of Pennsylvania, but is a Turkish citizen, will become the GOP's "America First" nominee to run against PA's Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman this November. Presuming Fetterman's health holds out. Dems see the seat as among the most flippable this fall...assuming Fetterman's health etc...

• In other very close primary news, two Democratic recounts in U.S. House primaries now await in Texas. In the state's 28th Congressional District, rightwing, pro-gun, anti-choice Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar ended the canvass period up by just 281 votes (out of about 45,000 cast) over progressive favorite Jessica Cisneros after their May 24 runoff election. Today, Cisneros officially requested a recount --- and must pay for it, unless she ends up winning it --- despite some obnoxious comments from Cuellar who, himself, ended up winning a 2004 primary recount against his Democratic opponent when he first went to Congress. Back then, he had lost by 145 votes after the canvass, but ended up winning the race by 58 votes after a recount. So, you'd think he'd be a bit less obnoxious in this case...but you'd be wrong. Whoever wins the recount will probably take the House seat in the "blue"-leaning district.

• In another Democratic primary race for U.S. House in Texas, there was an even closer race, with progressive Michelle Vallejo topping the more conservative Ruben Ramirez by just 30 votes (out of about 12,000 cast) in the state's 15th Congressional District. Ramirez says he too will seek a recount. Whether either of these races will be recounted by hand in the state is unclear. But if the candidates want to know who really won or lost, they will fight for a count by hand, rather than by the same computers that tallied the results in the first place. The winner of the race will face off with Republican Monica De La Cruz in November, in what is expected to be one of the most competitive House races in the state after this year's round of gerrymandering.

• And speaking of gerrymandering...last month, a state court in Florida found Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' new U.S. House map to be in violation of the state Constitution after voters, in 2010, added an Amendment that outlaws partisan maps and specifically those that diminish the ability of minority voters to elect their chosen candidate. The DeSantis map was enacted after he vetoed the GOP legislature's already-gerrymandered map and made it even worse by removing a district currently represented by Democratic African-American Rep. Al Lawson. Last month, the state court ordered a new, fairer map, but a state appeals court blocked that order. The appellate decision was quickly appealed by voting rights groups. But late last week the state's GOP state Supreme Court allowed the appeals court's stay to remain in place. That means that DeSantis' extremely gerrymander U.S. House map --- found to have been in violation of the state Constitution --- will almost certainly be used anyway this year. The unconstitutional map allows a GOP advantage in 20 of the state's 28 districts, despite DeSantis having barely won his own election in 2018 in the closely divided state by less than one-half of a percentage point.

• In somewhat brighter gerrymandering news (at least until the ruling is overturned by the very rightwing 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals), a federal judge in Louisiana on Monday found the state GOP's U.S. House map in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The map --- originally vetoed by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, but overridden by the GOP state legislature --- includes just one black majority Congressional District, out of six, even though the state's population is almost one-third black. LA's Republican Sec. of State has vowed to appeal the court ruling which bars the use of the gerrymandered map. But, given the corrupt 5th Circuit Appeals Court and the GOP's corrupt, stolen and packed U.S. Supreme Court above them, it's a safe bet the state's unconstitutional map will be allowed for the critical 2022 midterms anyway. It'd be nice if we're wrong about that. But don't bet on it.

• Next, we've been covering, in great detail in recent months, the many schemes by Republican election insiders across the country, in the wake of the 2020 election, to breach proprietary computerized voting systems, make copies of the sensitive software, and even release it to the public in some cases. (See the Mesa County, Colorado County Clerk Tina Peters, who is now facing criminal charges for what she did, or the GOP Board of Elections in Coffee County, Georgia, for just two examples.) While Reuters reports that there have been at least 17 such incidents nationwide, their new exclusive finds that 11 of them took place in Michigan. Based on public records requests, the new outlet found discovered that there has been "a flurry of efforts by state authorities to secure voting machines, poll books, data-storage devices and phone records as evidence in a probe launched in mid-February." Luckily, the state has a Democratic Governor, Attorney General and Secretary of State, the latter of whom tells Reuters that law enforcement officials are now probing whether the broad election system breaches by GOP "fraud" dead-enders are coordinated. This in a state where even the GOP state legislature issued a report finding no evidence of widespread fraud and called for the prosecution of those who fraudulently claimed that there was. "If there is coordination," Sec. of State Jocelyn Benson told Reuters, "whether it's among those in our state or reaching up to a national level, we can determine that and then we can seek accountability for all involved." I expect we'll be hearing more about this effort in the days, weeks and months ahead.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as she gets us caught up on a whole bunch of stuff that happened while we were out last week. Happily, not all of it --- just some of it --- is terrible news...

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It's another three-hour show packed into about 57 minutes on today's BradCast, as we catch up with a lot of primary election coverage that we previously postponed due to all the mass shootings, and a bunch of late updates on several critical stories we've been closely following of late. [Audio link to full show follows after this summary.]

First, before our always-lively guest today, those updates...

• SB 1480, the Internet and Fax voting bill shamefully supported by Democrats in the California state legislature has now passed in the state Senate and heads to the Assembly. We recently discussed with longtime Internet voting expert Dr. David Jefferson why the bill is such an outrageously terrible idea. And we urge you once again to stop by Scrutineers.org/California to learn how (and why) you can help stop it before it becomes law and makes its way into the other 49 states!

• In a more encouraging update to a story we've recently been covering in detail, a three-judge federal appeals court panel (including judges nominated by Biden, Obama and Trump) have overturned the ridiculous ruling by a Trump-appointed lower court judge who found that a federal Amnesty Act for many Confederates in 1872 somehow gave amnesty to January 6th insurrectionists running for office 150 years later. This was part of a challenge led by Free Speech for People (FSFP) to the ballot eligibility of North Carolina's first-term Rep. Madison Cawthorn, under the U.S. Constitution's "Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause" (14th Amendment, Section 3). Though Cawthorn lost his recent primary race for reelection, the appeals court found the case was not moot, because Cawthorn's contest has not yet been officially certified. This is the second federal court to find that the clause may still be used to challenge insurrectionist running for office. FSFP called the ruling a "major victory", warning that other candidates, including Donald Trump, if he runs in 2024, will not be shielded "from the consequences of their actions" when seeking eligibility for the ballot during Constitutional challenges at the state level.

• And, in another story of ballot disqualification at the state level that we covered in detail earlier this week, the Michigan Board of State Canvassers on Thursday officially disqualified 5 of 10 Republican candidates seeking the GOP Gubernatorial nomination there --- including the two leading candidates --- after finding that they collectively turned in some 68,000 fraudulent petition signatures in hopes of qualifying for this year's August 2nd primary ballot. All of the GOP candidates falsely claim that Donald Trump only lost the state of MI through massive election fraud by Democrats, before their campaigns apparently went out and committed actual massive election fraud in hopes of qualifying to run. Several of the rejected candidates vow to appeal the decisions and blame the state for their own failure to vet signatures and those they hired to collect them.

• On Thursday, we detailed the story of the "Hiroshima of botched elections," as described by longtime Election Integrity advocate Sherry Healy, that has been playing out since the May 17 primary election for U.S. House in Clackamas County, Oregon. A disastrous ballot printing snafu --- and the way the disastrous Clackamas County Clerk handled it --- has prevented the finalization of several races, including one that was closely watched in Oregon's 5th Congressional district, pitting progressive Democratic challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner against very conservative Democratic incumbent Rep. Kurt Schrader. On Friday, AP finally called the race for McLeod-Skinner as counting continues in that race. But, if it holds, it's seen a huge victory for grassroots progressives in unseating a sitting, rightwing House Dem (who had been supported by House leadership).

• And finally, before getting to our guest today, on Thursday, a New York appeals court panel rejected a plea by Donald Trump, as well as Ivanka and Don Jr., to avoid sitting for a deposition in state Attorney General Letitia James' bank, insurance and tax fraud investigation of the former President and his company. On Friday, the news got even better. A federal appears court rejected the Trumps' attempt to nix the investigation entirely.

NEXT, we're joined by our old friend HOWIE KLEIN, the great progressive House candidate expert, longtime proprietor of the Down With Tyranny blog, and co-founder of BlueAmericaPAC, to discuss primary victories (and losses)for progressive Democrats in the 10 states that have held their primaries so far this year. Also, for a preview of Super Duper Tuesday midterm primaries coming up in seven states on June 7th, including here in California (where Howie has some tips for voters in both state and key Los Angeles races.)

Among the races and candidates Howie offers insight on today...

• Pennsylvania's Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, now running as the state's Democratic U.S. Senate nominee;
• The huge win for progressive Summer Lee in PA's 12th Congressional District;
• Progressive Jamie McLeod-Skinner's apparent victory over incumbent Blue Dog Dem Rep. Kurt Schrader in Oregon's 5th Congressional District;
• The victory of state Rep. Andrea Salinas over a candidate supported by a rightwing crypto-billionaire and Democratic House leadership in OR-6;
• Rep. Madison Cawthorn's loss in North Carolina's Republican 11th CD and what that means for Democrat Jasmine Beach-Ferrara hoping to win that seat in November;
• The ongoing, incredibly close battle between rightwing, pro-NRA, anti-choice Dem Henry Cuellar against progressive challenger Jessica Sisneros in Texas' 28th CD;
• Rep. Lucy McBath's victory over Blue Dog Dem Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux in a rare member-versus-member contest in Georgia's 7th CD;
• And whether GA's far-right insurrectionist Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, victorious in her 14th District primary this past week, can possibly be unseated by Dem challenger Marcus Flowers.

That's just a taste. Tune in for much more from Howie on all of this, including his several tips for progressive Los Angeles voters on June 7th. (Here's one of them: Anyone but Rick Caruso, "L.A.'s Donald Trump," for Mayor.)

We're off next week, as Desi gets to go see her family for the first time since before the pandemic! Nicole Sandler fills in for us for a few days. And if all goes well, we'll be back before Super Duper Tuesday! See ya then!...

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On today's BradCast: More shameful GOP responses to America's continuing mass shooting epidemic; one step closer to some accountability for our corrupt former President; the Republican Party's shameful response to a very close primary election in Pennsylvania; and an unmitigated election disaster for voters continues to hold up a critical U.S. House race two weeks after Oregon's midterm primaries. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

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

• This week in Uvalde, Texas, 19 fourth graders and two teachers were murdered after the shooter at Robb Elementary School had no problem purchasing two semi-automatic rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammo just days after his 18th birthday this month. The state's Republican Gov. Greg Abbott --- who is up for reelection this November --- declared after the massacre that the problem was mental illness and Texas must "do a better job with mental health." But last month, Abbott slashed $221 million from the department overseeing mental health programs in the state which, according to a new study, ranked 50th last year for access to mental health care. That, after Abbott signed bill after bill making it easier for Texans to buy, carry and kill as many people as possible, with high-powered, military-style weapons. (Did I mention that Abbott is up for reelection this November?)

• It's not only Texas Republicans working hard to make it as easy as possible to kill fellow Americans. Just days after back-to-back-to-back mass shootings in America, Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a bill in the U.S. Senate meant to help to prevent domestic terrorism. The measure was already adopted by Democrats in the House. Not one single Republican Senator voted in favor. (Several of them will be on the ballot this November.)

• In somewhat brighter news, a federal judge on Wednesday rejected a lawsuit by gun manufacturers, distributors and retailers which had attempted to block New York's new law allowing those in the firearms industry to be sued by the state, cities and individuals for endangering the public's safety and health. NY Attorney General Letitia James said the judge's ruling offers "a moment of light and hope" following the American carnage of the past two weeks. The trade group representing the domestic terrorism industry, The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), vowed to appeal.

• In more good NY/Letitia James-related news, a four-judge state appeals court panel today upheld a lower court ruling that Donald Trump and his children Ivanka and Don Jr. must sit for a deposition in James' civil investigation examining the Trumps' "fraudulent" valuation of properties in bank, tax and insurance filings. The Trumps claimed their comments under oath could be used against them in a parallel criminal investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney into many of the same issues. The court agreed. But noted that that's why the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination exists. If the Trumps want, they may invoke it during their depositions, in the same "disgraceful" way, according to Trump, that "only mobsters" use it. Some difficult choices await in the very near future for our disgraced former President.

• In Pennsylvania, nearly two weeks ago, Trump-endorsed celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz and former hedge-fund CEO Dave McCormick battled to a virtual tie for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination. The winner will run against Democratic nominee, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. As of today, Oz leads McCormick by fewer than 1,000 votes out of more than 1.3 million cast in the Keystone State's GOP primary. This week, McCormick sued in federal court to assure that all legal ballots are counted, including mail-in ballots that arrived on time but have a missing or incorrect date on the secrecy envelope. Another court recently ruled such ballots are valid and must be tallied. The RNC and Pennsylvania Republican Party, however, are intervening against McCormick to prevent those lawful, valid ballots from being tallied in the U.S. Senate primary and are attacking their own candidate, McCormick, for daring to enfranchise all Republican voters. On Wednesday, the state announced there will be an automatic statewide recount in the race, with about one-tenth of one percentage point currently separating the two leading candidates in the unofficial results. The official winner should be named by June 9.

• Another midterm primary election held on the same day in Oregon, on May 17, has far worse problems. The closely watched U.S. House race in the state's 5th Congressional District between grassroots-supported Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner and conservative Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader caused much excitement on Election Night, when McLeod-Skinner appeared on her way to unseating the incumbent Congressman. Then, with about 68% of the vote in, pretty much all of the counting stopped and hasn't moved much, if at all, since then.

  What happened? We're joined today by one of Oregon's longtime Election Integrity activists SHERRY HEALY --- co-founder of the California Election Protection Network, and, more recently, the Chair of the Oregon Democratic Party's Election Integrity caucus --- to explain the disaster in Clackamas County, OR which has held up the tally.

  As she details, a printing problem on the barcodes (used to identify party and precinct) on tens of thousands of the County's vote-by-mail ballots means they cannot be run through the computerized tabulation system. But, rather than count those ballots publicly by hand, the County's longtime beleaguered County Clerk, Sherry Hall (pictured above), decided that those tens of thousands of otherwise valid ballots should be "remade" by hand --- duplicated by election officials --- on separate ballot sheets so they can then be running through the optical scanners for tabulation.

  "This county clerk has a long history of bungled elections," Healy explains. "But this is the Hiroshima of botched elections." Healy details how Hall failed to adequately test the ballots for this problem after receiving them from the printer before sending them out to voters. Moreover, the decision to remake tens of thousands of ballots, rather than simply count them by hand, "imperils" the entire election, she charges.

  Healy calls Hall's decision "absurd" and "insane," explaining that a simple hand-count "would take less time and be more efficient and accurate" than recreating "in excess of 66,000" ballots.

  Hall, a Trump supporter elected to the job back in the Tea Party days about a decade ago, has a long history of problems in her office. Way back in 2012 we reported on an election official in Clackamas who was indicted on six felonies and two misdemeanors after she was found to have secretly filled in unvoted races for Republican candidates on incoming mail-in ballots.

  When Hall announced that the printing error on the ballots made them unscannable, she claimed that it was new deadlines adopted by the state legislature for the receipt of incoming mail ballots that would hold up her county's tally, as opposed to her own failure to test ballots before sending them out. More recently, she denied that she gave permission for a Schrader campaign observer to enter the counting room an hour early, before observers from the McLeod-Skinner campaign had arrived. Then security camera footage was obtained through a public records request revealing she had lied about that.

  It's unknown when the tabulation in Clackamas will finally be complete. The 5th Congressional District primaries on both the Democratic and Republican side remain uncalled, with just over 70% tallied in each almost two weeks after Election Day. (More have come in since air time today.) For now, McLeod-Skinner remains almost 15 points ahead of Schrader. But that could change. In the meantime, there are a whole lot of lessons to be learned from this entire mess, as we discuss with Healy today. (And, yes, Hall is also up for reelection this November.)

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with some disturbing news about this year's hurricane season (it officially begins next week, buckle up). But she's also got some encouraging news about accountability for an upcoming climate fraud trial for ExxonMobil, and the Biden Administration's EPA putting what may be the final nail into the coffin on a longtime controversial proposed mining project in Alaska...

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On today's BradCast: While seemingly separate issues, the school shooting in Texas on Tuesday and the same day's midterm primary elections aren't separate issues in the least. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

On Tuesday, at least 19 fourth graders and two teachers were murdered at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. As in Buffalo, New York just over a week ago, the shooter in TX was 18-years old, armed to the teeth with sophisticated semi-automatic weaponry, wearing body armor and able to easily overcome "a good guy with a gun." In Buffalo, the "good guy" was an ex-cop turned grocery store security guard who was killed trying to stop the gunman. In Uvalde it was a school security guard and two local cops --- three law enforcement officials in all --- who were unable to prevent the gunman from battling his way into the school to use the two AR-15 style assault rifles and nearly 400 rounds of ammo that he'd just purchased immediately upon turning 18 this month. All of that, thanks to the Republicans in Texas, from the Governor to the state Legislature to the Attorney General to the state's voters, who made it all not just possible, but easy.

While so much of this has become normalized, none of it actually is. We cover a lot of territory on all of this today, from the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that worked well from 1994 to 2004, before Republicans, by then fully captured by the gun lobby, allowed it to end; to President Biden's emotional and at times angry remarks in response; to the horrific increase in recent years in crimes carried out with these types of weapons; to the pathetic statements from Texas' chief law enforcement official Attorney General Ken Paxton and its Governor Greg Abbott who both worked hard to make all of this carnage not just possible but much more likely; to responses from Abbott's Democratic opponent this November, Beto O'Rourke and even the Golden State Warriors head coach Bill Kerr; to a sobering reminder from Richard Nixon's conservative Republican U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in 1991, when he made it clear that 2nd Amendment has been the subject of "one of the greatest frauds every committed on the American people."

While the demons at the NRA and in the Republican party and on the GOP's stolen and packed Supreme Court all share in the blame, so do we the people for continuing to elect the (mostly) Republican lawmakers who have helped to ensure these unspeakable tragedies will continue by refusing, for decades now, to take any legislative action at all to prevent them.

The ballot box is now our only way out.

To that end today, we also cover noteworthy results from Tuesday's critical primary elections in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and, yes, the very bloody state of Texas...

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On today's BradCast: It's hardly the first time this has happened in Michigan. But now it may take down a whole bunch of the GOP's top nominees for Governor in 2022 all at once. If you're wondering where the "massive election fraud" is, look no further than the Republican Party in Michigan. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

But, first up today, it's midterm primary day in Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia, with a couple of midterm primary runoffs of note in Texas. We'll have full results (or, at least, noteworthy and available ones) on tomorrow's show.

The good news today is that we've found few reports, so far, of voting or voting system problems in the states holding elections on Tuesday, though there were a few reported failures, naturally, of GA Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger's 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems in the Peach State, preventing some from voting when polls opened in several different (Democratic-leaning) counties.

In other GA-related election news today, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that a change made in January last year to the website at the state's Department of Driver Services resulted in a huge drop-off of new voter registrations. State law requires automatic registration on the Department's website whenever someone applies for a new license or changes their address. The program had been a tremendous success when first implemented in 2016. Last year, however, the Department changed the format from an automatic registration, unless the user chooses to "opt-out", to a form where users are asked to chose "yes" or "no" to register. This March, after reports of registrations at the site falling over a cliff in 2021, the old "opt-out" format was restored and registrations immediately sky-rocketed in April. Nonetheless, Raffensperger, as he runs for reelection this year, has called for doing away with automatic voter registration entirely.

Shamefully, that would make it both more difficult to register and more difficult to keep voter rolls up to date with accurate addresses as voters move around the state. Keeping registrations in sync with voters' latest address is a good thing for those of us who believe in accurate rolls. Apparently, if Raffensperger's recent comments on this are any indication, Republicans only pretend to care about such things.

They also only pretend to care about election fraud, it seems, if the enormous election fraud scandal breaking wide open this week in Michigan is any indication.

Ten years ago we reported on a signature petition forgery scandal by a sitting U.S. Congressman in Michigan. Four of his top staff members were found to have falsified most of the 1,000 signatures needed for his reelection bid (which he eventually abandoned after not receiving enough valid signatures). The staffers of then-U.S. Congressman Thaddeus McCotter were charged at the time with a total of 12 felonies and 21 misdemeanor election fraud charges.

Now, a decade later, complaints were filed last month against three top GOP Gubernatorial candidates charging that their petition signatures were riddled with forgeries, including people who had died. On Monday, the state's Bureau of Elections, after investigating the complaints, issued a shocking report finding that that 68,000 fraudulent signatures had been submitted by ten GOP Gubernatorial campaigns! At least five of them appear not to have submitted enough legitimate signatures to qualify for the ballot.

The Bureau's investigation [PDF] found the two front runners for the Republican nomination each appear to have failed to submit the 15,000 legitimate signatures needed to qualify for this year's ballot. The campaign of James Craig, formerly Detroit's Police Chief, submitted more than 11,100 fraudulent signatures, and businessman Perry Johnson's campaign allegedly submitted more than 9,000 forgeries. Though both submitted more signatures than needed to qualify, neither were able to turn in 15,000 valid ones.

The Bureau also found that Gubernatorial hopefuls Michael Brown, Michael Markey and Donna Brandenburg also fell short of the required 15,000 valid signatures, with each submitting more than 10,000 fraudulent ones on their petitions.

This Thursday, Michigan's four-person Board of State Canvassers meets to determine which candidates will be allowed on the state's August 2nd midterm primary ballot. The Board is made up of two Republicans and two Democrats. Candidates will need at least three votes of the Board to qualify. As one of the original Democratic complainants said, "All indications are, it's going to be a long meeting Thursday."

(All of this comes, ironically enough, after a "crazy" state GOP convention last month where party officials selected two Trump-backed 2020 election deniers to be the party's nominees for Sec. of State and Attorney General. Each maintain that the election was stolen in Michigan from the disgraced former President, who was defeated by Joe Biden there by more than 150,000 votes.)

Next time you are told that Democrats are committing "massive election fraud" (despite the lack of evidence to support the claim) feel free to point them toward this matter, after 5 of the 10 Republicans running for Governor in Michigan in 2022 were all found to have submitted thousands of fraudulent signatures in hopes of qualifying for the ballot. Or, you can point them to the story we wrote ten years ago about the same problem in Michigan back then. That report also included evidence of election fraud crimes by a whole bunch of other top Republicans at the time, from then-former MI Governor, now Utah's U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, to former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, to Indiana's former Sec. of State Charlie White, to former GOP superstar Ann Coulter (and many others).

We had hoped to wrap up today's show with our latest Green News Report, which includes some very good news indeed about a huge increase in the sale of electric vehicles and even better news about climate and last weekend's Australian elections. Unfortunately, news of the latest horrific school shooting in Texas broke while we were on air, and we close today with some of that tragic, breaking news...

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What's the difference between a white supremacist mass murderer in Buffalo, NY and a GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate? Well, in terms of their racist rhetoric not a heck of a lot, it seems. That and many more reasons to both pay close attention and be skeptical of "conventional wisdom" regarding this November's critical midterm elections on today's BradCast, as American Democracy v. Violent Strongman Authoritarianism is most definitely on the ballot in every state this year. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the stories underscoring all of that on today's program...

• A number of the attorneys who helped Donald Trump try to steal the 2020 election have had their law licenses suspended or are facing permanent disbarment. One attorney who has yet to be held accountable in any way, however, is Sen. Ted Cruz, who volunteered to represent Trump in two different bogus election challenges before the U.S. Supreme Court; knowingly spread false claims of fraud; and then voted against certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory even after Trump's deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. A bipartisan group is now hoping to change that. This week, they filed a complaint with the State Bar of Texas, seeking an investigation into possible disbarment for the sleazy Texas Senator/still-licensed attorney.

• Speaking of sleazy still-licensed Texas attorneys, the state's chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Ken Paxton now says he has been sued by the Texas State Bar for misconduct. Paxton has already been charged with several securities fraud felonies; is being investigated by the FBI for abuse of power and bribery after a federal criminal complaint by eight of his top former deputies; and brought a laughable case to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to toss the 2020 election results in four states that were not Texas. It is for his help in trying to steal the election for Trump at SCOTUS that has resulted in the state Bar's lawsuit against him. Paxton is running for re-election anyway. On Tuesday he's in a runoff election with the state's Land Commissioner George P. Bush (the very Trumpy son of Jeb and nephew of the guy who made "one of the biggest Freudian slips of all time" at Southern Methodist University yesterday.) No sooner did Paxton get sued by the state bar then he turned around and opened an investigation into the Texas Bar Foundation for "facilitating mass influx of illegal aliens" --- ya know, the stuff that racist "great replacement" conspiracy theories are made of.

• And speaking of the racist "great replacement" conspiracy theory, as repeatedly cited by the white supremacist domestic terrorist who murdered 10 and wounded 3 others in a Buffalo supermarket in a predominantly black neighborhood last weekend, a whole bunch of Republicans running for the U.S. Senate this year have been using nearly identical rhetoric to that racist murderer for a very long time. The once-fringe, now mainstream rightwing theory claims that Democrats are hoping to replace white American voters with immigrants, Jews and people of color to control the electorate with one-party rule. Or something. And, in the wake of Trump's embrace of white nationalism as President, AP highlighted a bevvy of mainstream GOP Senate candidates this year --- either running for reelection or for the party's nomination --- whose rhetoric on immigration directly echoes the same baseless, racist fear-mongering. Their list includes Blake Masters in Arizona; A.G. Eric Schmitt and disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens in Missouri; GOP Senate nominee J.D. Vance in Ohio; and two-term U.S. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. The full list of elected and hopeful GOP officials who also espouse rhetoric shared by rightwing domestic terrorists is obviously much, much longer.

• And speaking of domestic terrorists, the U.S. House passed the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act (again) on Wednesday. All Democrats voted for it. Every Republican, except for retiring Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, voted against it. Democrats vow to bring it up in the Senate next week. It may be a heavy lift over the undemocratic 60-vote filibuster threshold in the upper chamber. Too bad it wasn't called the Domestic Terrorism by Non-White People Prevention Act. It might have easily passed in both chambers, as most legislation related to terrorism that doesn't target white supremacists tends to.

• And, speaking of extremism, on Thursday, the Oklahoma legislature passed a new law that, if signed by the Governor, would ban nearly all abortions starting at fertilization, which would make it the nation's strictest abortion law. It would also, in turn, make certain forms of birth control --- like IUDs, The Bill, Plan B, which don't necessarily prevent fertilization, but prevent implantation of a fertilized egg --- a form of "abortion" or, in Oklahoma, a homicide. More Republican-controlled states are likely to follow suit, despite the vast majority of Americans who support abortion rights. Please keep all of this in mind in November.

• And, speaking of this November, polling last month from the Harvard Youth Poll suggests --- contrary to "conventional wisdom" --- that young voters are very eager to vote this year. The number who say they are "definitely" voting in the 2022 election is almost identical to the number who said same before the 2018 "blue wave" election. That could be good news for Democrats. Again, please ignore "conventional wisdom" in these decidedly unconventional times.

• And, speaking of young people, even in deep "red" Wyoming, they don't dig attacks on LGBTQ+ people --- yes, even trans people --- as the state's U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis found out the embarrassing way during a commencement address she gave over the weekend at the University of Wyoming. It took a while, but now she "apologizes" if she offended anyone with her remarks that were broadly booed during the speech at the school once attended by Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was brutally beaten and left to die on a fence nearly 25 years ago. He became one of the namesakes of the landmark Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

• And, speaking of civil rights for all --- and of keeping Big Government and the GOP's stolen and packed Supreme Court out of our bedrooms and doctor's offices --- support for abortion rights has reached a record high in a new NBC News poll following the leak of SCOTUS' draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade and its 50 years of protection for reproductive rights. The poll also finds support for same-sex marriage (perhaps next on the chopping block after Roe's Constitutionally established right to privacy is killed) at an all time high, while approval for the High Court is at an all time, 30-year low in this particular poll.

• Finally, speaking of nothing but disturbing news....Desi Doyen joins us for too much of it in our latest Green News Report...

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On today's BradCast: It's primary election day in five states, with voting system problems reported in at least three counties in one of them, as the President traveled to upstate New York to condemn white supremacist "terrorism" and grieve with the community following Saturday's racist massacre at a neighborhood grocery story in a predominately black area of Buffalo. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

FIRST UP, a bit of seemingly encouraging breaking news just before airtime today from the New York Times. They report that the Dept. of Justice "has asked the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack for transcripts of interviews it is conducting behind closed doors, including some with associates of former President Donald J. Trump." The paper describes the news as "further evidence of the wide-ranging nature of the department’s criminal inquiry into the events leading up to the assault on the Capitol and the role played by Mr. Trump and his allies as they sought to" steal the 2020 election.

That sounds like encouraging news, even if the Times, for some absurd reason, describes the effort to steal the election as an attempt "to keep him in office after his defeat in the 2020 election." Normal humans would describe it simply as an attempt to steal an election. Our corporate media, and even most Democratic officials, for reasons I cannot explain, do not do so. In any event, sounds like good news no matter how stupidly the Times is reporting on it.

NEXT, it's midterm primary day in Kentucky, Oregon, Idaho, North Carolina (where insurrectionist Rep. Madison Cawthorn is running for his life) and Pennsylvania (where Dems see one of their best opportunities to flip a Republican-held U.S. Senate seat.) We'll have noteworthy results on tomorrow's program, but today we focus on three counties in PA, where voters were reporting problems simply trying to cast their vote.

In Berks county "widespread" problems were reported apparently with the County's new electronic pollbooks made by ES&S, just added to polling places countywide for the first time this year. Those new computers were added to the complicated mix of high-tech equipment already forced on voters in Berks, where residents are required to vote on 100% unverifiable touchscreen Ballot Marking Device computers at the precinct. It was a full two and a half hours after polls opened before officials finally deployed backup paper pollbooks(!)to all locations in the county, so voters could finally vote. It's unclear whether the systems simply didn't work, or election officials didn't make sure to properly train poll workers to use them. Either way, voters couldn't vote for hours and some were undoubtedly disenfranchised entirely because emergency paper ballots were not supplied either, according to one state Rep. who said he was held up for hours (though he appears to have misreported the problem as one with voting machines, as opposed to the e-pollbooks.)

In Alleghany County (home of Pittsburgh), some precincts reportedly opened hours late, due to a mix of problems, including lack of keys to get into precincts or a lack of Election Judges in some case, thanks to COVID. At least they respect their voters enough there to allow them to vote on simple, verifiable hand-marked paper ballots (with simple paper pollbooks) ... once the polls finally opened, in any event.

In Luzerne, a Republican-leaning county with a history of voting system issues, it was reportedly the touchscreen voting machines made by Dominion that held up voters, though the Chair of the County's Board of Elections seemed happy to throw poll workers under the bus for what she described as "human error". That, instead of taking blame for forcing those over-worked, under-paid workers to use overly complicated computer systems with a lack of training, in order to eventually (maybe) allow voters to cast unverifiable ballots on touchscreen voting systems after they manage to sign in with e-pollbook computers made by ES&S.

THEN, we head to Buffalo for President Biden's remarks to victims of Saturday's mass shooting by an 18-year old white supremacist who killed 10 and wounded 3 with a Bushmaster assault rifle in a matter of minutes in a predominately African-American neighborhood. The massacre came just three days after a Trump-appointed federal appeals court judge issued a ruling overturning California's law banning semiautomatic weapons purchases for those under the age of 21, finding the law to be an unconstitutional violation of the 2nd Amendment.

In his Wednesday ruling, Judge Ryan Nelson cited "the heroism of the young adults who fought and died in our revolutionary army" in "reaffirm[ing] that our Constitution still protects the right that enabled their sacrifice: the right of young adults to keep and bear arms.” Never mind that young adults during the Revolutionary War used rifles that fired one shot at a time after being laboriously loaded through their muzzle --- as opposed to the semi-automatic Bushmaster rifle used to shoot more than a dozen, including an armed guard, in mere seconds on Saturday in Buffalo.

Biden said today that the nation must "reject the lie" of "replacement theory" spread the far-right, Fox "News" and GOP elected officials, while describing America's diversity as its strength. He derided the "hateful minority" who spread the lie "for power, political gain and for profit" --- as Fox' Tucker Carlson has done hundreds of times on his primetime show and as GOP House Leadership's Rep. Elise Stefanik of upstate NY has recently done in her campaign ads.

"Evil will not win," the President vowed in moving and powerful remarks which we share at length. "Hate will not prevail, and white supremacy will not have the last word," Biden said, charging that "hate and fear have been given too much oxygen by those who pretend to love America."

FINALLY, Desi Doyen joins us for a few thoughts on all of the above, as well as our latest Green News Report. Among the matters she covers today: a new analysis finding wildfires are likely to double across the U.S. in the next several decades; while Russia has used energy as a weapon in its war on Ukraine, they are now threatening to cause a global food crisis as well; and while the state of California recently became powered by 100% renewable electricity for a short time, the state of Texas is, once again amid another heat wave, having trouble even keeping their lights on...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New national analysis warns wildfire risk to double across the U.S. over next 30 years; Extreme drought and Russia's war in Ukraine risk triggering global wheat shortage; California briefly hits milestone of 100% renewable electricity!; PLUS: Texas electric grid struggles amid extremely early extreme heat... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): John Oliver explains America’s electric utilities; Creaky US power grid is critical factor limiting renewables, and anything else; Buffalo suspect may be latest mass shooter claiming to be motivated by 'eco-fascism'; Menaced by flames, nuclear lab peers into future of wildfire; 6 months in, Biden’s infrastructure plan has 4,300 projects; The 'Carbon Bombs' set to trigger catastrophic climate breakdown; Study says warming played a role in deadly South African floods; GOP lawsuit targets CA's Clean Air Act Waiver... PLUS: Climate change is hurting insurers, report finds... and much, MUCH more! ...