Today was Election Day for major contests in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and California, not to mention about 30 other states which also held either statewide or local off-year contests. We'll have full reported results for you, of course, on tomorrow's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

In the meantime, there was a whole lot going on today, while America votes...

• Several polling places were temporarily closed in more than half a dozen New Jersey counties on Tuesday following threats, reportedly via email, ultimately determined by officials to be "non-credible". One local official suggested the emails may have originated "abroad", bringing to mind the emailed bomb threats that resulted in temporary evacuations of a number of polling places in at least five different battlegrounds states on Election Day during the 2024 Presidential election. Those threats were reported, at the time, to have come from IP addresses in Russia.

• Former Vice President Dick Cheney died on Monday at the age of 84. His family announced the news today. We share some thoughts.

• The Trump Administration has fired yet another government watchdog whose job it was to root out waste, fraud and abuse at a federal agency. This time, according to a Reuters exclusive, it was the acting Inspector General at the Federal Housing and Finance Authority (FHFA), whose Trump-appointed activist Director, Bill Pulte, has been issuing bogus criminal referrals to the DoJ about "mortgage fraud" purportedly committed by Donald Trump's political foes, such as New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA). The IG in this case, a 40-year veteran DoJ prosecutor, was said to have been in the process of notifying Congress that FHFA leadership was violating the law by refusing to cooperate with the Office of the Inspector General. To date, the Administration has fired almost 20 IGs at almost every major (and not-so-major) federal agency or department.

• Trump's corrupt Attorney General Pam Bondi filed legal documents on Friday in hopes retroactively fixing some pretty huge problems with the weaponized political indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and NY A.G. Letitia James. The filings attempt to rewrite history regarding the corrupt and almost certainly unlawful appointment of Trump's former insurance lawyer, Lindsey Halligan, as Interim U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. She was expressly appointed to the position after Trump's previous USA either resigned or was fired for refusing to file the politically motivated charges demanded by Trump, due to lack of evidence.

• Trump, almost certainly looking at an embarrassing loss tonight in California's Prop 50 initiative --- which would temporarily rewrite the state's Congressional map in response to a Trump-ordered U.S. House gerrymander in Texas over the summer --- was already falsely claiming this afternoon that the contest was somehow "rigged". CA's Sec. of State called out his evidence-free bullshit in a statement late today.

• Speaking of the Gerrymandering Wars kicked off by our desperate and incredibly unpopular President, Gov. Wes Moore, in the Democratically-controlled state of Maryland, announced a new Commission to consider jumping into the redistricting game before 2026. Maybe.

• Voting Rights advocates had a big victory on Friday, as one of two federal judges overseeing different lawsuits against Trump's bogus election-related Executive Order, issued a permanent ban on his attempt to mandate proof of citizenship documents by those registering to vote with the national voter registration form. The judge made clear --- as we did when Trump originally issued his dumb EO --- that Presidents have zero legal or Constitutional authority regarding elections.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with a grim humanitarian crisis brewing in Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean following last week's monster Hurricane Melissa; record rainfall in New York City; incredibly alarming glacial retreat in Antarctica; and the Trump Administration's Godfather-like thuggery used to block the world's first-ever emissions rules for international shipping...

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As the Federal Government shutdown enters its second month --- now almost certain to become the longest in U.S. history --- it's Election Day tomorrow in the first major elections since our ridiculous and criminal President's disastrous second term began ten hellishly long months ago. It is the first chance for a whole lotta folks to ring in on what theythink of this President and his corrupted Party. So, this week on The BradCast, we continue to keep our eyes on both tomorrow's major off-year elections in several states and next year's critical midterms in all 50, as that election is also already underway in more ways than one. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Tuesday is the last day to vote in statewide elections for Governor and the state House of Delegates/Representatives in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively; Mayor in New York City; and for (or against) Prop 50 in California, among other contests of note that we've been discussing and/or previewing in recent days on the program.

After a few news headlines today, we zero in on the Prop 50 statewide ballot referendum in CA, asking voters if they would like to temporarily allow the state to set aside the U.S. House map drawn by CA's Independent Redistricting Commission in order to allow the Democratic state legislature to create a new one meant to flip five Republican seats to Democratic next year. That effort is in direct response to the Republican state Legislature in Texas, earlier this year, gerrymandering their already-gerrymandered Congressional map to steal five Democratic U.S. House seats for Republicans next year at the orders of Donald Trump who, justifiably, believes his Party will otherwise lose their slim House majority next year due to their terrible, unpopular policies.

(I also share today my amusing, bemusing and confusing experience in the parking lot of an L.A. County Voting Center on Sunday, where I went to vote and was troubled to notice a County voting system IT support truck with TEXAS license plates on it?! WTF?!)

Following TX's gross mid-decade gerrymander over the summer and CA's response to it, Republicans in Missouri and North Carolina have also drawn new Congressional maps to steal two more seats from Democrats next year. So, Virginia Democrats --- in the midst of their statewide election for the entire House of Delegates --- announced a complicated, surprise plan just over a week ago that, if successful, could flip as many as three U.S. House seats in the Old Dominion from "red" to "blue" next year. It's a complicated scheme in VA, requiring two affirmative votes by two consecutive sessions of the State Legislature and then approval from voters on a statewide ballot referendum next year. All in time to redraw VA's Congressional map before primaries begin next year.

Last week, Virginia Dems in the Legislature successfully completed Phase One of the plan, as the measure was adopted by the Senate on Friday, following approval by the House two days earlier. To proceed to Phase Two, Dems must retain their majority in the 100 seat state House on Tuesday, which they currently control with just 51 votes.

Also last week, Ohio's bipartisan redistricting commission redrew the Buckeye State's U.S. House map to make it harder --- but not impossible --- for two Democratic Congressmembers to hold on to their seats in the 2026 midterms.

We break down all the new details on all of those latest battles in the Gerrymandering Wars today (and some of the battles still to come), before opening the phones to listeners here in our live Southern California listening area for their last chance before Election Day to make the case for or against Prop 50 and more...

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On today's BradCast: For a guy who believes he's a strongman, or wants to be one --- in a nation where too many have fallen for that idea as well --- the President, with each passing day, is revealing himself to be incredibly weak. Even his own supporters have noticed, and are finally beginning to turn away from him in all of the swing states and even in some of the so-called "reddest" states! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Yes, he's still causing a lot of pain for a lot of people. He'll continue to cruelly do so as long as he can. But don't fall for his tough guy act. He continues to be a wannabe strongman, even while he's failing on virtually every front. We make the case on today's program, along with the latest news and coverage of several under-the-radar issues and contests on next Tuesday's off-year election ballot.

Among the evidence from which we draw today...

• Tough guy Donald Trump calls for the U.S. "Department of War" to resume testing nuclear weapons just minutes before meeting with China's actual strongman President Xi Jinping last night. Just about every point Trump made in his social media announcement on nuclear weapons was false, leaving actual expert in this field completely confused. (And then Xi, like so many other world leaders who have figured out how easy it is to play Trump, went on to eat his lunch. Trump didn't even notice.)

• "What If Trump Is Weaker Than We Think"”and America's Finally Figuring It Out?", muses our friend Thom Hartmann, as Trump's previously ironclad grip on Republicans in Congress begins to reveal numerous cracks in both chambers. "It's just a matter of time," Thom correctly concludes.

• Michigan's Democratic state Senate Majority Whip and 2026 U.S. Senate Candidate, Mallory McMorrow, calls out the Administration for choosing to violate the law by "using food as a political weapon" in cutting off money allocated by Congress to fund payments to some 42 million Americans on SNAP. The threat to starve Americans, beginning on November 1, is supposedly due to the federal government shutdown that our very weak President appears both uninterested and unable to do anything about. Late today, a federal judge suggested she was likely to order the Administration to follow the law by using emergency contingency funds to keep SNAP going as November begins.

• Trump's national approval numbers are beginning to fall again, to all time lows, following a brief and tiny uptick on the heels of the faltering Israel/Hamas agreement. He continues to have the lowest approval numbers for any President in modern history at this point in his term. So, naturally, he is lying about that to media in hopes they will dutifully report his fake news. For example, on Air Force One this week, he lied to the press gaggle: "I have the best numbers for any President in many years, any President!" Nice try, weakman.

• But where his plunging approval ratings are really beginning to leave a mark are in 12 states that voted in his favor last year, where new polling now shows him underwater in all of them! The states where he enjoys negative ratings after winning them last year include every single battleground state (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) as well as five states where he easily won less than one year ago. His approval ratings are now underwater in Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Texas! In all of those states he's plunged in approval by an average of about 15 percentage points since last November. Does that sound like a strongman to you?

• We'll see if voters agree with the argument in next week's off-year elections, as important contests and ballot issues loom in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and California. But there are also some under-the-radar races elsewhere, several of which we detail today in advance of Tuesday's Election Day, including Republican efforts to make voting more difficult (for certain people) in both Texas and Maine, and a Hail Mary effort by Republicans to try and somehow win a majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in time for the 2028 Presidential election.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the deadly, record-breaking, climate change-fueled Hurricane Melissa continues to wreak havoc in the Caribbean as it begins to peter out in strength during its move into the colder North Atlantic. Oh, and bad news for Iceland, just to add a bite to the end of today's program...

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As the November 4th off-year elections are now just days away, New York City voters appear likely to elect a young, charismatic Democratic socialist vowing to raise taxes on the wealthy as their new Mayor. But, as discussed on today's BradCast, that's not the only place where voters may finally have a chance to begin to even the score against the runaway wealth gap between the rich and...everyone else. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST... A few quick news items today, including...

• Hurricane Melissa's record-shattering path of destruction through the Caribbean --- including Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti and The Bahamas --- and now on toward the Canadian Atlantic coast (with effects likely to be felt across much of the U.S. Northeastern Seaboard this weekend.)
• Breaking news on Donald Trump firing all six members of one of the federal commissions that was otherwise set to review the building plans for his threatened, privately-funded 90,000 square foot ballroom at the White House --- for which he has already demolished the East Wing with neither approval nor permission from anyone --- and a giant "Arc d'Trump" that he wants to build somewhere on the National Mall in D.C.

THEN... Just days from Tuesday's off-year Election Day, New York City's Democratic candidate for Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, appears to be well ahead in pre-election polling. If those polls are correct, it seems that NYC voters are offering enthusiastic support for the "Affordability Agenda" on which Mamdani's remarkable campaign has been built, including promises for a rent freeze, universal child care, free buses and for city-owned grocery stores in food deserts across the city's five Boroughs. Some of those programs, according to the candidate, will be paid for by a small surcharge on the income taxes of those earning more than $1 million per year. Though, even if he wins next week, many of those programs --- including the new surcharge on millionaires --- would need approval from the City Council and/or State Legislature before implementation.

Meanwhile, out here in California, some progressives are already looking toward a straight-on wealth tax for the state's 200 billionaires that voters would need to approve in 2026. But there are some unique elements to this ballot proposal that may distinguish it from other such programs forwarded by progressives in the past.

Last week, one of the state's largest unions, SEIU's United Healthcare Workers West, along with U.C. Berkley economist Emmanuel Saez and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, unveiled what our guest today, HAROLD MEYERSON of The American Prospect, described last week as "The First Politically Viable Wealth Tax" in the nation.

The proposal, which its proponents are hoping to place onto next year's statewide ballot, would levy a one-time, 5% tax on the state's billionaires to help fund California's Medicaid program (known as Medi-Cal) following the massive, historic, trillion dollar cuts to the program enacted by Trump and Congressional Republicans in their so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" this past summer.

Meyerson is careful to delineate between Mamdani's income tax proposal of the wealthy (which he also supports), and the one in CA which would tax wealth itself, including assets owned such as stocks, etc. So, why does he see this one as the "first politically viable" such tax? For one reason, one of the well-worn critiques of such programs is that it would lead wealthy residents to flee or deter other wealthy people from moving in. In fact, Mamdani's main opponent in the NYC mayoral race, former state Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary, has repeatedly made that case against Mamdani's plan.

But, whether Cuomo's attack is true or not (Mamdani calls it exaggerated), the CA proposal introduced last week undercuts the critique entirely.

"First, it only applies to the wealth of people from this year, calendar 2025," explains Meyerson. And the "5% tax on wealth can be paid, spread out, over the next five years. It takes effect [if adopted by voters next year] in 2027. If you move into the state and you're ridiculously wealthy anytime after the end of this year, this doesn't apply to you. It only applies to the wealth of this year. If you move out of the state, you're still liable, under the terms of this tax, for paying it. So it is structured in such a way that it eliminates the argument that it will cause billionaires to move out --- because it only applies to billionaires in the state as of this year --- and that it will keep billionaires from moving in because, assuming they move in after Dec. 31st of this year, it doesn't apply to them."

That element alone of this proposal is likely to take the wind out of the sails of many of those who will certainly oppose the measure next year, if it qualifies for the ballot (supporters have until June to gather enough signatures). Meyerson believes that, especially in this blue-leaning state, the idea will be so popular that even conservative billionaire (and former Republican turned Democrat) Rick Caruso, who is likely to run for Governor, would have little choice but to support it. "It would look awfully self-interested, and against the interests of those Californians --- of whom there are gazillions --- reliant upon Medi-Cal, if he were to oppose it, or not take a stance on it," Meyerson tells me. "The optics would look pretty damn bad."

But there are other critiques that wealthy opponents will try to levee as well. Socialism! If it passes, Dems will just want to make it permanent! etc. etc. Meyerson speaks to all of those and offers his insights into the NYC election next week (and establishment Dems such as Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, who have remarkably failed to back the city's Democratic candidate for Mayor), the Prop 50 redistricting referendum in CA, and the gubernatorial contests in both New Jersey and Virginia...

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We've got a lot of news from all over the world, and no small amount of explainers to go with it on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Deadly, record-shattering Hurricane Melissa finally makes landfall in Jamaica as a catastrophic, slow moving, 185 mph Category 5 storm. As discussed, this is likely to be very very bad. The island nation has set up a support and donations site here.

• So much for Donald Trump's recent declaration of "everlasting peace" in the Middle East, as Israel reignites its brutal attack on Gaza following its claim that Hamas has violated the recent peace agreement.

• "Peace President" Donald Trump continues his unlawful killing spree in international waters with the announcement that he ordered the U.S. military murder of another 14 alleged "narco-terrorists" on four small boats off of Mexico's Pacific coast. That, as the Administration redeploys its largest aircraft carrier to the Caribbean, not to help storm victims in Jamaica, but almost certainly to wage --- or, at least, threaten --- war on Venezuela (and, perhaps, Colombia).

• Weird and related?: U.S. Defense Dept. officials are being required to sign NDAs. WTF?

• Twenty-three Democratic state Attorneys General announced they are suing the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to continue food assistance to some 42 million low-income Americans via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP, previously known as food stamps). The suit follows the agency's flip-flop on using already-appropriated emergency contingency funds to feed hungry American families amid the ongoing federal government shutdown. If funding ends on November 1, as planned by the USDA, it would be the first time in the 60-year history of the program.

• Following Friday's announcement by Trump's corrupted Dept. of Justice that it plans to send federal monitors to polling places in five counties in California and one in New Jersey during next Tuesday's November 4th elections, for unexplained reasons, the Golden State has announced it plans to dispatch state monitors to oversee the federal ones.

• The Gerrymandering Wars continue and expand. Following Trump's arm-twisting of state GOP lawmakers in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina to rewrite U.S. House district maps to steal seats from Democrats next year --- and Democrats' attempted responses in California and Virginia --- Indiana's Republican Governor has called a special session of the legislature to try and steal another GOP House seat from Democratic voters. But Dems aren't done responding yet, as House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries is said to be in talks with Illinois lawmakers about redrawing that state's map to further favor Dems next year. We do all of the math for ya today, breaking down which party's voters would come out ahead if all of these plans are successful. The answer may surprise you. But the corrupted, rightwing, activist U.S. Supreme Court could still blow up everything (in favor of Republicans) before all is said and done in the critical 2026 midterms.

• Finally, Desi Doyen is back with our latest Green News Report with more on the monstrous Hurricane Melissa; the Trump Administration's withholding of disaster funding to states that didn't vote for him; and the deadly, expensive climate change threats that continue to worsen, whether the Administration removes climate science data from its websites or not...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Monster Hurricane Melissa batters Jamaica, the strongest storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season; Trump Administration denies disaster funding to blue states that did not vote for him; PLUS: Billion-dollar weather disasters hit new record the United States... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Storm drenches Central Florida, creating 'particularly dangerous' situation; Trump Transportation secretary says he will pull $160M from California over non-citizen truck licenses; EPA plan to kill a major climate rule is worrying business leaders; Trump offshore drilling plan faces fierce opposition in Congress; Exxon sues California over new climate disclosure laws... PLUS: Ranchers agreed to leave a national park. Then RFK Jr. got involved... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've done quite a bit on The BradCast over the years, from investigative reporting, to deep dive explainers and interviews with experts and news makers, to ranting monologues, to taking calls from listeners on all manner of things. But, unless I'm mistaken, I believe this is the first time we've turned the show into a game show! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... Before we get to our fun (if disturbing?) game today, a few news items of note...

• Category 5 Hurricane Melissa looks to be a monster deadly storm in the Caribbean on several different levels. It's slamming smack-dab into Jamaica overnight tonight. In addition to record wind speeds (satellite records showed the storm, in record warm waters, topping 190mph for a time last night according to satellite records, which would be a Cat 6 if there actually was such a thing on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale), it's also incredibly slow moving. That means it is likely to dump a lot of water --- as much as 40 inches of rain in some places --- as it slowly swamps the entire island. Desi Doyen also joins us for a few insights on how climate change has worsened just about every aspect of this deadly storm.

• Earlier this year the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA), detailed how "multi-year contingency funds" would be used to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to "continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown." Last week, however, as the shutdown drags on, a USDA memo explained that, despite already appropriated Congressional funding to be used for such a contingency, federal SNAP money would no longer be made available to states after November 1 if the shutdown was still ongoing. That, after Republicans already slashed some $186 billion from the program in Trump's so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" earlier this year. More than 40 million people rely on SNAP to put food on the table --- the vast majority of them employed, by the way --- but the Trump Administration is now planning to help starve people (including millions of their own voters) rather than even negotiate with Democrats who are refusing to help Republicans keep the government open until hundreds of millions (in fact trillions) of dollars in Trump/GOP health care cuts for Americans are restored.

• Next Tuesday is Election Day in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City, California and elsewhere. On Friday, Trump's Dept. of Justice announced that federal monitors were being deployed to polling places in five counties in California and one in New Jersey (which both have Democratic governors), though none to Virginia, which has the most contests on the ballot next week...and a Republican Governor. DOJ has yet to explain why monitors are being deployed or under what law they are doing so. Election experts --- and CA's Governor --- warn this may be a trial run for what the Administration is planning for next year's critical midterms.

THEN... It's on to "Who Wants to be a U.S. Citizen?", the first BradCast call-in game show!

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced that it was making it more difficult to pass the test required for those applying to become U.S. Citizens. They are doubling both the number of questions asked PDF on the Naturalization Civics Test and the number of correct answers that need to be given to pass the test.

According to experts, the questions are also more difficult than they were previously. So, today, we open up our phone lines to listeners --- most of them, presumably U.S. citizens! --- to see if they could answer the questions now being asked of prospective citizens by this Administration.

Like the Trump Administration, we make up the rules of the game as we go. And our listeners did fairly well! But I'll bet they did a helluva lot better than our current President would have been able to had he been forced to pass this test!

Tune in for what turned out to be both an amusing and troubling hour of fun and games with our lucky listeners!...

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The first six months of the year in the U.S. featured the costliest weather and climate-related disasters on record. The "good news", however, as we discuss on today's BradCast, is that we know about it. Had it been up to the Trump Administration, we would not have. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We've also got some other good news today, including some rather stunning, surprising news in the Gerrymander Wars. But we begin today with climate, scientists pushing back against the Trump Administration to save the world, and a fantastic guest to discuss it all.

Since 1980, the Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters Database at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has tracked disasters that caused at least one billion dollars in damage each. Amid our quickly worsening climate crisis, the number of such disasters each year --- and the cost of them --- has been skyrocketing.

According to the latest update to that database unveiled this week, as of June 2025 there were a total of 14 weather events that exceeded $1 billion in damages this year, totaling more than $100 billion, including the Los Angeles wildfires which caused more than $60 billion in damage alone, clocking in as the costliest wildfire in U.S. history.

Between 1980 and 2024, there were an average of nine such disasters each year. But over the past five years, the average is now 24 per year and climbing. If it weren't for the folks at the non-profit Climate Central, we wouldn't have any of these numbers, since the Trump Administration shut down that database as of this year, on behalf of their deadly, dirty fossil fuel-industry friends. Thankfully, Climate Central has picked up the ball, the records going back to 1980 and the scientists who tracked this critical data --- who were pushed out of NOAA earlier this year --- to continue upkeep of the critical dataset that has long been relied upon by states, cities, farmers, insurance companies and many others.

We're joined today to discuss this and much more by meteorologist, climate scientist and award-winning science communicator TOM DI LIBERTO, who is now Media Director at Climate Central. He formerly served in NOAA's Office of Communication and served as Senior Climate Scientist at NOAA's critical Climate.gov site. That site has since been shutdown by the Administration (though it is being resurrected at Climate.us) and Di Liberto was fired by earlier this year, by form letter, after 15 years at the agency, along with more than 1,000 others who have been laid off as Trump continues to gut climate science and research at the nation's (formerly) most prestigious climate organization. NOAA also houses the National Weather Service.

"The amount of information that goes into creating this billion-dollar disaster analysis is a lot," Di Liberto explains. "For a long time, the one place that could manage to do all that was a government agency like NOAA. It was much too difficult for an individual company to be able to do this." He tells me that while some groups, like insurance companies, collect similar data "that data ends up being proprietary, unlike the billion-dollar disaster dataset, which was freely available when it came out of NOAA."

He describes the database --- now reborn at Climate Central, along with a lot of other critical data that might otherwise have been lost or destroyed --- as "a jewel" in both the U.S. and across the globe, because "other countries looked to it as a model for what they wished they could do."

My conversation with Di Liberto today is broad ranging, on that, on what the latest updates to the database warn us regarding the climate crisis; why it was shut down by Trump; why Republicans dismiss the database as "deceptive" ("I think when they said 'deceptive' they meant 'powerful'."); how and why he was fired by the Administration; why they want to make climate data disappear ("If you can't see it, you can't deal with it" even though "billion-dollar disasters will continue to happen whether we call them billion-dollar disasters or not."); what morale is now like at NOAA; and whether the agency can possibly be rebuilt after --- and if --- this man-made Trump nightmare finally ends.

Di Liberto is an excellent communicator on all of this. Please tune in for our very lively and informative conversation! You'll be glad you did.

ALSO TODAY... In, frankly, stunning news, Democratic state lawmakers in Virginia unveiled a seemingly ingenious plan today to rewrite their map for Congressional Districts before next year's midterms that could result in flipping as many as three currently "red" U.S. House seats to "blue" in the critical 2026 midterms. The unexpected scheme comes in direct response to unprecedented Trump/Republican mid-decade gerrymandering schemes in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina (so far). It is not an easy path. It will require two different successful votes both this year and next by both chambers of the state Legislature, and adoption of a state Constitutional amendment in a statewide special election early next year. But it actually appears doable, despite a Republican Governor (at the moment), an election for a new Governor and for every seat in the House of Delegates in just twelve days, and a wickedly clever technical administrative procedure by Dems in both the state House and Senate. Tune in for the full details. But it's great to see Dems even trying to pull off something that usually only Republicans would do!

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report! But even that ends on a high-ish note today! At least for the whales!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Groundbreaking report reveals powerful link between poverty and the climate crisis; The world is not on track to meet the Paris Climate Agreement's 2030 targets; The U.S. government is shut down, but not for the fossil fuel industry; PLUS: Endangered Right Whales bouncing back!... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Ten years of the Paris Agreement: the present and future of extreme heat; Trump policies gutting US oil production; Super-warming methane gas is being tackled too slowly, UN says ahead of COP30; Biggest meat producers unleashing more methane than biggest oil firms; Anti-science bills hit statehouses, ending public health protections; Tropical Storm Melissa expected to become major hurricane... PLUS: American e-waste is causing a 'hidden tsunami' in Southeast Asia... and much, MUCH more! ...

We try to make sense of a couple of different things on today's BradCast, neither of which make much sense. Wish us luck. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... It's official. Donald Trump is literally demolishing the entire East Wing of the White House in order to make room for his enormous, garish, 90's Vegas casino-styled ballroom. There is almost nothing that seems in any way legal about any of this. None of the official bodies have approved it. It's private funding is unlawful. But, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, Presidents no longer have to worry about laws and stuff. So, whatever. All of that after Trump told us last July that the new addition to the People's House "won't interfere with the current building. It'll be near it, but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which I'm the biggest fan of."

I know. Shocking. Donald Trump lied. About all of it. But, don't worry, as we discuss, there are still a whole bunch of ways that he'll also be able to line his corrupt pockets with millions of tax-payer dollars in the bargain.

THEN... Of greater concern at the moment, at least to me, is the fact that Liberty Vote, a company that nobody ever heard of before last week --- because, apparently, it did not exist before last week --- has just purchased Dominion Voting, the nation's second largest voting system vendor, which supplies election hardware and software to 27 states. It is also the company that Trump and his supporters falsely claimed had stolen the 2020 election from him.

Liberty's CEO is a guy named Scott Leiendecker who was formerly the Republican Election Director in St. Louis, Missouri. He was hired for that job by the city's Election Commissioner at the time, a guy by the name of Ed Martin. Yeah, That Ed Martin. The far-right Republican activist who is now running Trump's "Weaponization" of the Dept. of Justice. The one who is pulling together the corrupt indictments of Trump foes like James Comey and Letitia James, and overseeing Trump's pardons and commutations for fellow corrupt Republicans like disgraced former Rep. George Santos. Yes, that Ed Martin.

Martin's old pal Leiendecker, after serving as the Republican Election Director in St. Louis, went on to create a company named KNOWiNK, which is now the nation's largest electronic pollbook vendor. He now owns both that company and the nation's second largest voting and tabulation system company. What could possibly go wrong?

There is a whole lot we don't know about the purchase, who is funding it, or what Leiendecker intends to do with the company. Though last week's official announcement of the acquisition (which does not appear to even be published in full on the web, as far as I can tell), begins triumphantly: "As of today, Dominion is gone. Liberty Vote assumes full ownership and operational control." The statement then goes on to emphasize "enabling compliance with President Trump's executive order" regarding voting systems as a top priority, even though that Order has since been blocked by several federal judges for failing to comply with the Constitution.

WIRED's Kim Zetter offers the deepest overall background on the purchase, its players, and the many concerns about it from voting system experts.

Our guest today, longtime election integrity advocate and security expert SUSAN GREENHALGH of Free Speech for People published a piece at Slate this week about the out-of-the-blue acquisition that blind-sided, among others, elections officials (Dominion's customers) across the country who were told nothing about it in advance. In her piece, Greenhalgh argues why, although "the announcement that the second-largest U.S. voting system vendor would be in the hands of a self-declared partisan [has] sparked concerns," the "wildly inappropriate and troubling" development "is merely one aspect of the badly broken, opaque, and corrupted election system industry that we've been subjected to for decades."

Greenhalgh joins us to discuss concerns about the Leiendecker/Liberty Vote purchase, the "corrupted election system industry" she mentioned, and how Congress, states, local jurisdictions and the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) could take action to mitigate all of this madness and the dwindling confidence Americans have in our elections in the wake of computerized voting systems made by a handful of opaque private companies.

The Dominion website now automatically redirects to Liberty's new, one page site which, for the moment, offers nothing more right now than a letter from Leiendecker focusing on his "promise" for "a 100% American-owned election technology company dedicated to restoring trust in our elections" with, among other things, "American values". The letter vows that the company is "turning the page and beginning the vital work of restoring faith in American elections."

While "faith" is not needed in American elections, public oversight certainly is, in order for Americans to have confidence in their reported election results. Whether Liberty improves on Dominion's record there, remains to be seen. Though lies and insinuations about Dominion --- which won a three-quarters of a billion dollar defamation settlement against Fox "News" after the Republican media outlet repeatedly and knowingly lied about the company --- certainly don't help to restore either "faith" or public oversight and confidence.

Nor does it help that Liberty suggested in its announcement that it would somehow carry out a "top-to-bottom" review of Dominion's hardware and software and would "report any vulnerabilities" it finds. While it's unclear who they would "report" them to, we already know, from last year's trial against the Georgia Sec. of State's mandated use of the company's insecure touchscreen voting systems across the entire state, that there are lots of very serious vulnerabilities in Dominion's systems as well as those made by other companies. But Leiendecker then goes on to vow to somehow replace those systems as needed before the 2026 mid-term elections. As we discuss with Greenhalgh, that is a virtual impossibility, given the time it takes to develop voting systems and have them tested and certified for use by federal and state regulators.

"We need a system that the Devil himself can run," argues Greenhalgh, citing a well-worn phrase among longtime election integrity folks. "The solution is not more transparency with the voting system vendors, just so we know exactly how partisan they are --- although we should know that, we should be entitled to know that --- it should be a system that is so transparent and so auditable --- and that is audited in a trustworthy and public way --- that we can trust the election results at the end of the day, no matter who is running it. That is the solution that we need to be going to."

As you can tell, we've got a lot to dig into with Greenhalgh on today's program, on all of the above and much more...

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To be fair, we warned you on yesterday's show, when setting aside one blissful hour to celebrate the weekend's joyous and peaceful "No Kings" rallies across the nation, that there would be plenty of time to get back to less-than-joyful news on The BradCast from America's unprecedented criminal Trump Era. Well, as promised, we're back to it today! In spades! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Donald Trump doesn't know a whole lot. But, if there's one thing he knows well, it's how to break the law. Civil law. Criminal law. Foreign and domestic. You name it. As the first felon to ever become an American President, he knows how to commit crimes of all sorts and, unfortunately, how to get away with most of them. It's especially easy for him now, after taking office again following a ruling last year by his own corrupted, activist, rightwing U.S. Supreme Court majority which, similarly, has no interest in the rule of law, and is willing to make up a wholly nonexistent "Presidential Immunity" doctrine that has existed nowhere in our Constitution or rule of law in the 250 years of our nation's history.

We have a few too many examples of Trump's crime and pro-crime spree in today's news, highlighting the Golden Age of Trump and Republican Lawlessness and Disorder in America...

• In violation of U.S. and international law, Trump has now ordered at least seven explosive attacks by the U.S. Military on small boats off the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean, said (without evidence) to be ferrying drugs and "narco-terrorists" to the U.S. After one of those attacks last week, two people survived. They were pulled out of the water by a U.S. war ship and rendered aid. But, rather than trying them for whatever offense Trump is claiming they carried out, the Administration is sending them back to their home countries in Ecuador and Colombia. Now why would they do that? We discuss.

• Here at home, Trump's respect for the Rule of Law is no greater. A bunch of the more than 1,500 January 6th insurrectionists pardoned by Trump on the first day of his second term of office have since been found to have committed additional, separate crimes. Today, CBS News reports on a Trump-pardoned rioter who, according to New York state law enforcement officials, was planning to assassinate Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. The man, Christopher Moynihan, one of the first to break into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, allegedly said in text messages that he planned to "eliminate" Jeffries, who he described as a "terrorist" that he "cannot allow" to live. "He must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future," said the man, detailing a plan to do so during a NY speaking engagement this week by the Democratic leader. Remind me again how it is Democrats carrying out political violence?!

• In other wildly corrupt Trump pardon news, he granted clemency last Friday to disgraced former Rep. George Santos, the wildly corrupt Republican New York fabulist and expelled U.S. Congressman. Santos pleaded guilty earlier this year to fraud and identify theft, in which he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from supporters of his own campaign, including family members. He was sentenced to seven years in federal prison after pleading guilty just before trial. Santos served just two and a half months of that sentence in a "Club Fed" facility before he was sprung last week by the fraud and theft enthusiast currently residing in our White House.

• While Trump's favored Republican criminals run free, his weaponized Dept. of Justice is running down his list of political foes, finding something, anything to criminally charge them with. One of those indicted on particularly ridiculous charges is Trump's former FBI Director James Comey, who he fired for not blocking DOJ probes into Russian interference, on Trump's behalf, in the 2016 election. Describing the indictment as an "egregious abuse of power," Comey's attorneys on Monday filed motions for immediate dismissal of the case, which they characterize as an unlawful "vindictive" prosecution, and one that was brought by Trump's personal lawyer who, Comey alleges, is not legally serving as U.S. Attorney in VA.

• But, according to a Reuters exclusive today, it's not just the Dept. of Justice that has been weaponized against Trump's perceived enemies. Agencies across the entirety of the Executive Branch, including U.S. intelligence officers, have been meeting in what is being described as the "Interagency Weaponization Working Group". It reportedly includes officials from the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Justice and Defense Departments, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Communications Commission, among other agencies. All banding together in what Reuters describes as revealing "the administration's push to deploy government power against Trump's perceived foes is broader and more systematic than previously reported."

• All of that not horrific enough for ya? New York Times reports late today that Trump is demanding the DOJ pay him $230 million for investigating him for the many crimes he has committed over the year. Any such payment, according to DOJ guidelines, would have to be approved first by the Deputy A.G. in charge of the Department's Civil Division. That Deputy A.G. is currently Todd Blanche, Trump's lead criminal defense attorney. Think he'll agree to the payout? It's good to be king, right?

• In other news related to King Donald's abuse of power to try and stay in power, Republican state lawmakers in North Carolina have approved a new U.S. House map that will allow them to steal another Congressional seat from Democrats next year, in a state where gerrymandering has already allowed them to hold 10 out of 14 seats. Earlier corrupt legislation by Republican state lawmakers prevents the Democratic Governor, in the very closely divided state, from vetoing a newly redistricted map. This one is designed to unseat a Black Democratic Congressman in the eastern part of NC.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us with some of the only good news of the day in our latest Green News Report. (Though even that news is somewhat tempered by the rest of her six-minute report.)

Enjoy!

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There are a lot of ongoing --- even worsening --- nightmares right now. But, before this past remarkable weekend recedes into the annals of history, let's at least offer one BradCast over to celebrating the joy of Saturday's coast-to-coast protest rallies seeking to make America good again. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Even prior to 7 million turning out for last weekend's "No Kings" rallies in some 2,700 cities and towns, instances of individual folks standing up to make America good again abounded.

For instance, our judicial system --- at least below the U.S. Supreme Court level --- continues to hold, by and large, as we saw in last week's ruling blocking Donald Trump (for now) from unlawfully firing some 4,000 federal workers during the ongoing federal government shutdown. U.S. District Judge Susan Yvonne Illston called out the Trump Administration, charging that they have "taken advantage of the lapse in government spending and government functioning to assume that all bets are off, the laws don't apply to them anymore." But, as the Judge made clear, "The activities that are being undertaken here are contrary to the laws. You can't do this in a nation of laws."

We also saw the grand jury and regular jury system holding firm last week, as Trump's U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, former Fox "News" host Jeanine Pirro, was unable to attain even a misdemeanor conviction after three different federal grand juries had rejected her attempt to indict a D.C. protester which the Administration falsely claimed had assaulted federal officers. After defendant Sydney Reid's acquittal last week, she declared in a statement: "This verdict shows that this administration and their peons are not able to invoke fear in all citizens. Correctly describing Trump as "a crazy person who's in charge of the most powerful nation," Reid added: "Knowing that I can stand in front of 12 of my fellow citizens and be found not guilty for standing up for basic human rights makes me feel like, despite the scary times we live in, we have hope for the future."

That "hope" was on display across the nation over the weekend, in cities and towns, large and small, "red" and "blue", by joyous, peaceful protesters, young and old, black, brown, white and everything in between. Even one of our grumpiest listeners and occasional callers, Ron, rang in to today's show to note that attending a protest rally in Venice over the weekend, here in Southern California, "really changed my head."

"I have felt like a voice in the wind," he told me. "I know other people feel like I do. I had no idea it would be this much of a wave." Fighting back emotions, he notes: "It just completely knocked me out. It gives me a whole lot of hope. It's like these bastards aren't gonna get away with it. And I feel really good about that."

It wasn't "the left" which proved to be angry and dangerous on Saturday. There were virtually zero arrests despite the enormous crowds that turned out. These weren't "Hate America" rallies as House Speaker Mike Johnson and fellow Republicans falsely characterized them with lies in advance last week. As callers attest on today's program, they were attended by happy, patriotic warriors, banding together to fight like hell to save our country and Constitution from a tyrant and his enablers. Exactly like the nation's first No Kings protest, on July 4, 1776.

The President of the United States, however, was busy shitting on the nation on Saturday --- almost literally, albeit via AI --- and its peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment rights to speak out against being ruled by a monarch. Trump published a particularly childish (even by his standards) and disgusting artificial intelligence video showing himself as the pilot of a fighter jet, wearing a crown, and dumping tons of excrement on thousands of peaceful protesters in Times Square. The President of the United States actually posted that video to social media on Saturday night. I am told that none of the major Sunday network news shows mentioned it. Other than that, this wildly unpopular President wasn't bothered at all by the massive protests against him, as he claims...right?

Tune in for today's program. I think you'll enjoy it. It is, as you'll note from the very opening, a joyous and defiant celebration of democracy, free speech and all that is good, from a nation of people just like you and me who are standing up to declare that we're not gonna take it anymore.

And, unlike Trump's federal immigration goons, we're not afraid to show our faces in public when declaring as much in thousands of cities across this still-great land...

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I was hoping for at least some optimism from my guests on today's BradCast regarding the future of the landmark Voting Right Act of 1965. I'm sorry to say, I didn't get much in that regard. But I learned a lot. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The corrupted U.S. Supreme Court held a nearly three-hour Oral Argument this week after the activist Republican Supremes actually asked plaintiffs from a case last year in Louisiana to come back this term and argue something else entirely: Essentially, whether one of the last standing sections of the Act barring discriminatory election practices, Section 2, somehow violates the Constitution itself.

The case is Louisiana v. Callais. Its origins are complicated, though one of our guests explains it quite simply today. Basically, following the 2020 Census, the Republican legislature in Louisiana drew a U.S. House Map that all but ensured no less than 5 Republican Congressional Districts and just one that might be won by Democrats, because it has been packed with a large majority of the state's Black voters. But Louisiana's voting population is more than 30% Black. So voting rights advocates sued for a second majority-minority district under Section 2 of the VRA. They won. But now a group of White voters in the state (several of whom didn't even know they were listed as plaintiffs!) are attempting to turn the VRA on its head, arguing --- as Mark Joseph Stern summarizes it, that "it's racist to remedy racism" --- by claiming that minority voting opportunity districts amount to an unlawful racial gerrymander violating the rights of the white voters under the 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution.

By way of reminder, those Amendments, in brief, bar discrimination against voters on the basis of race, and allow for Congress to adopt laws enforcing the Amendments by protecting all voters. Almost a century after the Amendments were ratified, Congress finally passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to do exactly that. Republicans, including now Chief Justice John Roberts, have spent the better part of the last five decades or so trying to roll back the protections for minority voters afforded by the VRA and the post-Civil War Amendments.

After working for the Reagan Administration in the early 80s (unsuccessfully) to try and weaken the Act, in 2013, John Roberts, as Chief Justice, wrote the Shelby County v. Holder Opinion that gutted Section 5 of the VRA. That Section mandated that jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination at the polling place must preclear all new election-related laws before they went into effect to make sure they were not discriminatory. In 2019, in a case known as Rucho v. Common Cause, Roberts' Opinion for the Court's majority held that gerrymandering for partisan purposes was perfectly legal under federal law, leaving only racial gerrymanders protected against. Now, he and the rest of the far-right activists on the High Court are gunning for Section 2, which is meant to protect voters in all 50 states, including from racial gerrymanders of the kind that Louisiana was found to have engaged in after the 2020 Census.

We're joined today by two experts in election law and redistricting, from both the legal and political sides to try and make sense of all of this. Professor JOSHUA A. DOUGLAS teaches election law at the University of Kentucky College of Law. His latest book is, appropriately enough, THE COURT v. THE VOTERS: The Troubling Story of How the Supreme Court Has Undermined Voting Rights. DAVID DALEY is a Senior Fellow at FairVote.org, whose latest book, appropriately enough, is ANTIDEMOCRATIC: Inside the Right's 50 Year Plan to Control American Elections.

In addition to breaking down Wednesday's oral argument, we discuss why this case is being heard again the first place; how it demonstrates how much Section 2 of the VRA is still very much needed; why there is no specific time-limit after which legally-mandated, race-based solutions to discriminatory violations of the law and Constitution must be ended (as Justice Kavanaugh and others suggested); what is likely to happen if Section 2 is killed or merely eviscerated (at least a dozen minority members of Congress will almost certainly lose their seats in short order); and both if and, crucially, when the Court may issue its Opinion in this matter.

We dig into a lot of details and angles on all of this, so I'm not even going to try to summarize our conversation here. Please tune in for that. You'll be much smarter in the bargain. But, suffice to say for now, Daley, who has written several books on Rightwing gerrymandering, notes that, if Section 2 is struck down, it "would be an electoral bonanza for the Republican Party." He characterizes what will follow as an "unprecedented Gerrymander Armageddon".

Douglas, who also has a podcast and newsletter titled "Democracy Optimist", is not much more optimistic. "I think we are going to see a lot more states engage in this so-called mid-decade redistricting. We're already seeing some states do this in response to President Trump trying to make sure that he doesn't lose the House in the midterm elections," Douglas explains. "I think you're going to see a lot more states, Louisiana included, redraw their maps. And what this is going to mean is that you're going to have a much more partisan skew. It is going to be even that much harder for Democrats to take back the House in 2026, just because race and party are so closely aligned in many states, particularly in the South."

Daley believes a ruling is likely to come as early as January, in time for states largely in the old Confederate South, to rewrite maps before the 2026 primaries begin to prevent Black voters from being able to elect a candidate of their choosing next year.

Douglas, a self-described "glass-half-full kind of person" sees the potential for a bit of wiggle room on both the release date of an Opinion, and how it might be tempered by the ongoing Gerrymandering Wars already underway, thanks to Trump's desperation to avoid a humiliating loss of Congress next year.

FINALLY TODAY... Breaking news, mid-show, as Trump's former National Security Advisor turned Trump critic John Bolton is indicted on 18 federal charges related to his alleged retention of classified documents after being fired by Trump in 2019. And Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the cost of Trump's cuts to the National Weather Service begin to turn deadly...

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It's time for our monthly-ish reality check-in with two of our favorite BradCast guests. And we've got a lot to cover. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The great HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo and 'DRIFTGLASS' of the Professional Left Podcast are here once again to both freak us out AND, somehow, cheer us up all at the same time. Among today's topics of discussion...

SHUTDOWN POLITICS: Clearly this is becoming The Epstein Shutdown, at this point. Democrats are "very surprisingly united", says Digby, in their demands for reversing Donald Trump and the Republicans' radical health care cuts for tens of millions of Americans and for some sort of guarantee that Trump and his OMB Director Russ Vought won't simply double-cross any deal by rescinding it after Dems vote to reopen the government. Republicans, meanwhile, are revealing a number of cracks in their coalition, and appear to have no end game. That, even as House Speaker Mike Johnson continues to do Trump's bidding to prevent an almost certain vote on releasing the Epstein Files once he allows Arizona's Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva to be seated and the House to reopen for business. "It's clear that the government is being held hostage," observes Driftglass, "being shut down so that Russ Vought can gut it with impunity, and so that Mike Johnson can keep Trump's dirty secrets locked up."

TRUMP SEEKS VIOLENCE: Yesterday, our delusional President, referring to his deployment of the U.S. military against U.S. citizens here in Los Angeles, absurdly claimed that "had we not gone in at the beginning with a very strong powerful force, they would have lost L.A." That is, of course, a fantasy, as Digby and myself (both of us L.A. residents) are able to attest. She is careful to avoid any FCC language violations in her full, furious response: "It's BS. It is utter nonsense. It is like something from another planet." Meanwhile, Illinois resident Driftglass stands with his Gov. J.B. Pritzker who, he argues, is doing a good job of being both tough and funny in standing up to Trump's madness. As to the President's absurd claims of "war-ravaged" U.S. cities that he must save by unlawfully deploying the military: "It is an attempt to just keep escalating the lunatic rhetoric that they already believe. He is simply a vessel for the delivery of fascism by Russ Vought inside the government, and by Stephen Miller using armed forces...Their brain cannot accept that they are the bad guys."

TRUMP SEEKS VENGEANCE: His beauty queen pageant contestant turned insurance lawyer turned interim U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, has secured ridiculous indictments against Trump's former FBI Director James Comey and the sitting New York Attorney General Letitia James on direct orders from the White House. "It would be very surprising if they were able to get any conviction," says Digby, careful to avoid predictions, but adding: "It's very clear what this is. This is retribution."

'NO KINGS': But there are, apparently, plenty of hilarious inflatable frogs to go around. It should be a very colorful weekend, likely including the largest American protests in U.S. history on Saturday. Find a protest near you. George Soros will send you your paycheck, as usual. Maybe wear a colorful costume because, as Driftglass quips: "A bunch of people parading in inflatable animal suits and various other costumes, making noise and being goofy makes them look like the clowns they are"...

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On today's BradCast: The War in Gaza may be in the middle of a very fragile ceasefire, but the Wars both For and Against Democracy in America continue apace today. And, according to our guest, the effort underway in one otherwise very "red" state today is heartening. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... Some news following our brief respite yesterday...

• After the good news yesterday, regarding the release of all living Israeli hostages held by Hamas as part of a cessation of hostilities in Gaza brokered by the U.S. and a number of other countries, a few violent flair-ups and Israel pulling back on several elements of the deal offer worrisome signs for the nascent, fragile peace deal. Israel reportedly killed six Gazans on Tuesday, and Hamas reportedly murdered a number of fellow Palestinians as the military arm of the group began to retake control of the war-torn enclave amid Israel's partial retreat.

• Back here at home, Democrats saw another big (and, according to Newsweek, "shock") victory up in Fairbanks, Alaska, where Democratic Mayoral candidate Mindy O'Neall ousted Republican-backed Mayor David Pruhs. It is both the first Democratic mayoral victory and first time that a sitting Mayor has been unseated in about a decade in Fairbanks. And yet, it is another instance of a huge shift by the electorate toward Democrats in special and local elections since Donald Trump took office again, just nine long months ago.

• Little wonder then that Trump has called on GOP-controlled states to gerrymander their U.S. House maps in hopes of flipping "blue" seats to "red" before a single vote is even cast in next year's critical midterms. Texas redrew their already-gerrymandered earlier this year in hopes of stealing five "blue" seats next year in majority-minority districts. And lawmakers in North Carolina announced plans on Monday for a mid-decade redistricting there as well, to take away yet another seat from Democratic voters in the closely divided state. NC had a fair, 7 to 7 court-drawn U.S. House map in 2022, only to see Republicans take control of the state Supreme Court, which allowed a redrawn, 10 to 4 gerrymander in 2024. On Monday, state Republicans announced plans to redraw the map again for 2026, to steal one more seat from Democrats. That, of course, rather than simply change their policies to ones actually supported by the majority of voters.

BUT AFTER... Texas and before North Carolina, it was my old home-state of Missouri whose Republican Governor and state Legislature last month moved to undermine voters with an unprecedented mid-decade gerrymander of the Show-Me State's U.S. House Map.

While Republicans already control 6 of 8 Congressional Districts in the state, with just two Democratic seats left --- one in St. Louis in the Eastern part of the state, the other in Kansas City in the West --- state lawmakers recently voted to split up the Kansas City district held for the past 20 years by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II.

Pro-democracy groups and voters, however, are pushing back. Several lawsuits have been filed challenging the new map as a violation of the state constitution. And a coalition of democracy advocates called People Not Politicians (PNP) is fighting back in another way: with a referendum that, if allowed on next year's statewide ballot, would immediately stop the gerrymander from moving forward in 2026, as a "citizens veto", until the entire state was able to ring in on the legislation at the ballot box.

Today, we're joined by PNP Policy Director RICHARD VON GLAHN, who has worked on 10 previous Missouri ballot initiatives, including the successful ballot campaign last year to raise the minimum wage and provide workers paid sick leave in the state. It was adopted with 58% of the vote. He seems very confident about the group's ability to get this referendum before voters next year.

"We can let the people decide if the legislation passed by the General Assembly should go into effect or if they should have to start over," he tells me. "We have done this 27 times in Missouri's history, and 25 of those 27 times that an issue has been put up for a vote, citizens have over-ridden what the legislature has done."

Von Glahn says the coalition is "not just on pace, we are ahead of pace" to qualify for the ballot, which would immediately restore the state's previous Congressional map for next year. "In the 72 hours after the legislature first passed this, we had over 2,000 Missourians volunteer, saying, 'Put a clipboard in my hands, I'm ready to go out and hit the streets and talk to my neighbors.'"

Of course, the state's Republican Attorney General and Sec. of State are already pushing back, attempting to disqualify about 25,000 signatures that were gathered even before the state's Republican Governor Mike Keyhoe signed the new law. Von Glahn explains today why he's confident that their objections will not stand. They are currently challenging the AG's determination in court. But, even if they lose that legal battle, he argues, they will qualify for the ballot anyway with well over the 110,000 or so signatures needed.

"It is a completely frivolous action by the Attorney General," he says, asserting that the AG "just made up words in the [state] constitution to try to thwart this." Nonetheless, the seasoned ballot initiative organizer vows: "We are also going to turn in such an overwhelming number of signatures, that whether the signatures from the first two weeks are counted or not is not going to be a factor."

He also notes that volunteers gathering signatures are not just Democrats in the otherwise supposedly "red" state where voters, just last year, voted for adding a right to abortion in the state's constitution after Republican state lawmakers adopted a near-total ban. "Voters don't ask us, 'Well, will this benefit Republicans or Democrats?' Because this is actually about centering VOTERS in our democracy. No one wants to feel like a political pawn or that our elections are manipulated behind our backs. That's why, as we are out working on this and talking to voters, it is not a PARTISAN message. It is really, like the name says, people, not politicians should be the center and focus of our democracy."

Please tune in for many more encouraging words about all of this from Von Glahn.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report, as at least three major storm systems from three different directions slam the U.S. at the same time from the East Coast to the West and all the way up to Alaska. Oh, and also, remember that National Weather Service meteorologist who Trump found to agree that a hurricane had been predicted to hit Alabama back in 2019? That guy, Trump's "Sharpiegate" dude, has just been confirmed by Republicans in the U.S. Senate to head up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which houses the National Weather Service...

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