On today's BradCast, Donald Trump's Administration is now barreling the nation towards one or more unprecedented Constitutional crises as he panics about the possibility of impeachment. But the fruits of the GOP's labor in violating Constitutional norms to steal a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court may now finally be set to pay off for them for at least the next decade. [Audio link to show is posted at end of article.]

First up today, however, some quick election results following a few contests around the country on Tuesday. In a Special Election for a vacated state Senate seat in Tennessee, Republican Bill Powers reportedly defeated Democrat Juanita Charles. The result wasn't a surprise in a state where the GOP now enjoys a supermajority in both chambers of the General Assembly. But Powers is said to have won by just under 10 points. That's a 13-point swing towards the Democrats in a very Republican district from what would normally be expected.

In Tampa, Florida former police Chief Jane Castor was elected by a 73% landslide to become the city's first openly gay Mayor, the first to lead a major city in the U.S. Southeast. The victory comes less than one month after the openly gay Lori Lightfoot was elected Mayor in Chicago. Castor was outspent 2 to 1 by her opponent, David Straz, a 76-year old banker who wasted $5 million of his own money on the race and also outspent the other seven candidates combined in last month's primary.

Back in D.C., the U.S. House General Counsel filed a motion in federal court seeking to block Trump's re-appropriation of some $6 billion from the Defense Department to build his wall on the Southern border. The House --- which voted, along with the Senate, to block Trump's "national emergency" declaration and his re-allocated spending, only to be vetoed by the President --- argues that Trump's actions are unconstitutional as contracts are being awarded and money spent to build and repair border barriers with funding that "Congress did not appropriate for that purpose."

But federal judges who actually believe in following the Constitution may be in shorter supply these days, as Trump and the GOP have packed the courts with "conservatives" of convenience --- jurists who claim to believe in one set of principles but follow a radically different path when it suits their political whims. Trump is counting on such activist judges as he announces his Administration is now blocking all White House and other executive agency officials from responding to lawful document demands and subpoenas issued by Congress. In just the past 24 hours, the Administration has directed several current and former officials to not respond to lawful Congressional subpoenas for testimony and has denied statutory requests for financial documents of Trump and a number of his companies. Trump also, on another Twitter tear today, vowed to seek help from his stolen SCOTUS in the event that he is impeached.

Our guest today, MARK JOSEPH STERN, legal reporter for Slate, offers insight on all of the above, before we focus on the even more disturbing news regarding Tuesday's oral arguments at the Supreme Court regarding the Commerce Department's attempt to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 Census.

Stern, who was present at the Court for argument on Tuesday, suggests the outlook is not encouraging. He tells me he counted five rightwing Justices who appear eager to overturn three lower court rulings which found Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross lied about his reasons for unlawfully directing the Census Bureau to add the question despite objections from career Census professionals who advise that the question would result in a massive under-count of Hispanic and immigrant populations.

The decennial count of all "persons" in the U.S., (as the Constitution requires), may be off by as many 6.5 million people if the question is added, largely in areas that tend to vote Democratic, according to the experts. The result would be felt for the next decade --- particularly in Democratic-leaning cities and states --- as the Census is used to allocate hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending, as well as how Congressional and state legislative districts are mapped and residents represented, and even how electoral votes are to be allocated.

"This was just a real bloodbath for the plaintiffs here," Stern tells me about Tuesday's oral argument. "This case should have been so simple. Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce lied about his reason for including a citizenship question on the Census. He lied, and he got found out. He is the one who asked the Justice Department to create some pretext for the citizenship question. And beyond that, Ross busted through a bunch of statutory roadblocks that are supposed to prevent the inclusion of gratuitous questions on the Census."

"The lower court in this case said, 'I count Wilbur Ross violating the law in at least six separate ways.' The Supreme Court only has to find one of those ways to be compelling to stop the citizenship question and say no," Stern laments. "But I don't think a majority of the court is willing to step in and stand up for the law. And I fear the reason is because they know exactly why the Trump Administration wants the citizenship question on the Census."

Stern details what he describes as hypocrisy displayed by the Court's five Republican Justices during argument, as they cited everything from the Voting Rights Act (which they voted to gut) to international law (which they have dismissed as having no basis in U.S. law) to deference to federal agencies (which they have famously undermined in recent years when it comes to environmental regulations and other disputes where courts had traditionally deferred to executive agency expertise) in posing questions that indicate they plan to approve the new question meant to rig the Census. "It was a very bad day for truth at the Supreme Court," Stern reports.

"Hypocrisy doesn't even begin to capture what this is," he argues. "I can only hope that Kavanaugh and Gorsuch begin to apply international law in death penalty cases, as well. But something tells me this is a ticket good for one ride only."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report (after we ran out of time for it yesterday) with another troubling mix of both good news and bad for the nation and the planet...

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Among the many stories we cover, before getting to our guest on today's BradCast --- as one institution after another feels as if they are burning to the ground, either literally or metaphorically [Audio link to full show is posted below]...

• The historic, 850-year old Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was engulfed in flames today during renovations, with its famous spire and two-thirds of its roof collapsed, but its famous bell towers and Rose Windows hopefully spared;

• The Dept. of Justice confirmed that, almost a month after Special Counsel Robert Mueller turned over his report on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, the Trump Campaign's coordination with the effort, and obstruction of justice by Donald Trump himself, a redacted version of the 400-page report would be given to both Congress and the public this Thursday;

• Congressional Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee have agreed, for some reason, to extend their deadline for the IRS to turn over six years of Trump's tax returns until April 23, as the Administration continues to blatantly flaunt the decades-old federal law requiring the requested materials be given to Congress;

• Death threats continued against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) after the President of the United States posted a video on his Twitter feed which repeatedly used an out-of-context remark from the Somali-American Muslim Congresswoman to tie her, incredibly enough, to the 9/11 attacks, even after a Trump supporter last month was charged for calling her office to describe her as an "fucking terrorist" and vowing to "put a bullet in her fucking skull";

• The 21-year old son of a white sheriff's deputy in Louisiana was officially charged with hate crimes after an arson spree which recently burned down three African-American churches in the state over 10 days;

• And, on a far more more hopeful note, the 37-year old, openly gay, Afghanistan war vet and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg officially announced his run for the Democratic nomination for President over the weekend.

Next, speaking of elections, and before we are joined by our guest today, University of Kentucky College of Law election Professor JOSHUA A. DOUGLAS, a story of GOPers making it more difficult to register voters in Tennessee, and another on Republican state lawmakers working to make it next to impossible for progressives in Arkansas to place citizen initiatives on the ballot, after the state voted to increase the minimum wage via a ballot measure in 2018.

Douglas, author of the brand new book Vote for US: How to Take Back Our Elections and Change the Future of Voting, details a few of the stories from his book revealing how regular citizens in recent years have succeeded in pushing for local and state measures that have resulted in the expansion of the franchise, even in the face of the dark forces hoping to restrict access to the voting booth.

He shares, for example, the story of the Kentucky man who lost his right to vote for life in the state for stealing a car as a teenager decades ago, who was able to encourage his state's legislature to change the law to re-enfranchise those who have completed their sentences. And the story of the woman in Michigan whose anti-gerrymandering ballot initiative was adopted by voters last November. Both stories are told in more detail in his book. With so many stories in the news (and our program!) of voting rights being taken away or otherwise restricted, its important for folks to understand they can actually change that equation without relying on Congress or even major civil rights groups, often by taking action themselves.

"What I like to focus on, in addition to the doom and gloom that seems to invade our psyche with respect to the right to vote, are the positive stories of progress and success," Douglas tells me. "There's power in these inspiring stories that I tell in the book about ways to make our voting process more convenient and inclusive. We can quibble about some of the details, but hopefully the overarching message that we need to take back our elections through local grassroots work can really take hold."

With those hopeful notes, Douglas offers a list of groups and initiatives in his book who readers can contact and be inspired by to take action in their own home towns and states. We also discuss several emerging initiatives to expand access to voting, such as restoring voting rights to the incarcerated and even lowering the voting age to 16 (which is already being done for local elections in several jurisdictions!), as well as a number of initiatives on which we do not agree. That, of course, underscores the beauty of democracy...when we can actually find it. (Oh, and here's the link to where you can buy the book and a ticket to Josh's June 20 appearance at The Last Bookstore appearance here in L.A., as mentioned on the show!)

All of that, and even a quick --- rhyming --- listener call on today's program!...

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On today's BradCast: Seriously, coal miners should have voted for Hillary, as we learn once again today. But those who voted for progressives in Congress are getting their money's worth already! [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Leading off today's rather lively show: The federal utility board known as the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), now dominated by Donald Trump appointees, voted today to shut down the last remaining coal-fired power plant in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, once the heart of "Coal Country" as the nation's top producer. The move is expected to save some $320 million dollars for 10 million rate-payers in the region, not to mention the resulting cleaner air and water and lower medical expenses in the bargain.

The decisive 6 to 1 vote (which includes 4 Trump appointees) to close the dirty, inefficient decades-old plant comes despite pleas to the board from Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, Trump himself and one of his top donors (Robert Murray of Murray Energy) who owns the nearby mine that supplies the plant. The TVA also voted to close another coal plant in Tennessee.

Several hundred of jobs will be lost in the bargain, which gives us the opportunity to remind listeners of Hillary Clinton's 2016 plan to invest $30 billion for support and retraining of miners and others effected by coal's inevitable end. It was while describing that plan when Clinton correctly, if infamously, noted that "we're gonna put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business". The phrase was then opportunistically taken out of context by Fox 'News', Republicans and Trump himself to endlessly blast her during the campaign, even though she had been explaining the need to help those effected Coal Country miners and families to survive. Those miners, most of whom fell for the dishonest Rightwing smears and voted for Trump, will soon be out of work without the help Clinton had tried to offer them.

In other news: The U.S. Senate confirmed William Barr, largely along party lines, as the next U.S. Attorney General at a crucial moment in the Robert Mueller Special Counsel probe.

The Senate also voted to approve a $330 billion compromise bill to fund the Government, including $23 billion for border security, but just $1.4 billion for Trump's border wall, less than he would have gotten had he accepted the deal offered last December. Instead, he shut down the federal government for a record 35 days. The House just approved it as well, though a small group of progressive freshman Congresswomen vowed to vote against the measure due to its increased funding for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The spending bill is expected to pass the House nonetheless and, Ann Coulter's ALL-CAPS Twitter threat notwithstanding, McConnell has said that Trump intends to both sign it and then declare a "National Emergency" in order to steal tax-payer funds from elsewhere to fund his border wall. That move, if it happens, will be vigorously challenged in court and is even opposed by many Republicans.

Also today, a few quick words about Daily Beast's report that DHS is allowing two teams created in 2016 to help protect elections from foreign influence wither away in advance of the 2020 President election, in favor of moving resources toward border and immigration efforts. (More on that matter, hopefully, at a later date.);

Then, we share a couple of killer Q&A's from recent Congressional hearings by two of the aforementioned freshman Congresswomen. The first is a colloquy in the House Foreign Affairs Committee between Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and disgraced diplomatic operative Elliot Abrams, who has been pulled out of mothballs to serve as Trump's Special Venezuela Envoy. That, despite his having pleaded guilty to withholding documents from Congress during the 1980's Iran-Contra Scandal probe and his subsequent pardoned by then President George H.W. Bush. Omar calls him out on that, noting that she "fail[ed] to understand why members of this committee of the American people should find any testimony that you give today to be truthful", and asking if he stood by his 1982 Senate testimony dismissing a massacre by U.S. backed troops in El Salvador.

Then, in another brilliant round of questioning, this time from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in the House Oversight Committee, the shameful lack of campaign finance laws and ethics rules for members of Congress accepting funding from corporate interests is laid bare. We share both rounds of Committee questioning in full today.

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on the hilariously panicked Fox "News"/GOP freak-out and lie-fest regarding AOC's Green New Deal proposal (in which, among other things, they charge that the legislation would result in banning cars, cows, ice cream and cheeseburgers), some very bad news about insects, and some very good news about the City of Los Angeles, which has already dumped coal-fired power plants, and is now moving to get rid of natural gas-powered electricity in favor of 100% renewable power....

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Nearing the final stretch, voters fight to overcome suppression; a few potential nightmare scenarios for Election Day voting preview themselves as Early Voting wraps up; and we look at a number of Secretary of State contests on Tuesday that could have big (and good!) consequences for voting rights before the 2020 Presidential election.

Among the stories covered on today's BradCast [Audio link to show posted below]...

Internet outages across Wisconsin are causing problems for voters hoping to get information on candidates and polling places from the state website. And voters in Rutherford County, Tennessee were unable to vote for an hour on the final day of Early Voting, due to the reported failure of a "primary data storage system" in the county that left polling places unable to verify registrations on electronic-pollbook systems which access voter files across the Internet. These situations, including reliance on the Internet voting at the polls, would result in havoc if they occur next Tuesday. What could possibly go wrong?

A federal judge in North Dakota denies an emergency motion filed by Native American voting rights groups to lift the state's new law requiring street addresses on IDs. Thousands of Native Americans living on reservations do not have such addresses. The George W. Bush-appointed judge claims federal precedent bars most last minute changes to election laws in order to avoid chaos, though the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the new GOP law to stand just weeks ago, despite it having been stayed during the state's primary in June (by the same judge). Chaos has reigned ever since, as tribes scramble to assign addresses and print new IDs, and the GOP Secretary of State refuses to say whether those new addresses will be accepted for voting purposes on Tuesday;

Georgia's Republican Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp loses again in court, as a judge rules he may not bar thousands of voters wrongly flagged by the state as non-citizens from voting on a normal, non-provisional ballot, when they present documents proving their citizenship at the polls.

Then, we're joined by Mother Jones' voting rights journalist ARI BERMAN to discuss his recent New York Times article on the extraordinary voter suppression playing out across the country in several GOP-controlled states, and a potentially available antidote for some of those problems before 2020: electing Secretaries of State who will expand the right to vote rather than restrict it.

Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, details a number of Democratic candidates who could pick up SoS offices next week in several key states, including Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia and others where Republicans currently enforce (and abuse) voting laws. Of course, voters will have to overcome voting roll purges and other suppression methods at the polls on Tuesday in order to see those important changes before 2020.

He suggests the scope of the suppression we're seeing this year is broader, because "it's happening in so many states," in no small part because there are "a lot of elections in states that normally aren't competitive." Add to that bad laws in many of those states which have "created a really toxic combination for suppression."

Much of it, Berman explains, would have been blocked from ever happening, had the U.S. Supreme Court not gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. "Texas, Georgia, a bunch of these Southern states, basically they kind of feel like they can do whatever they want. You can try to stop them if you want, but they don't have to worry about the federal government or the Voting Rights Act anymore" when it comes to federal preclearance for racially discriminatory laws.

"If Democrats are able to take back Governor's seats and Secretary of State races, and all of these other important down-ballot offices in key states, they can do the reverse. They can start passing things to expand voting rights, and that sort of takes the Supreme Court out of the ballgame somewhat," he tells me, before we wade through some of the currently held GOP Secretary of State seats that may see Dem takeovers this year, and in some surprising places. "I hope all this focus on voter suppression --- because it's been getting a lot more coverage in 2018 than 2016 --- will actually lead to some changes in policy, especially if some of these key states flip."

We also discuss some of the initiatives on the ballot next week in several states that could dramatically help to expand the electorate, make registration easier, and end partisan gerrymanders entirely in some states.

Finally today, third-party candidates pull out of two different closely watched and very tight U.S. Senate races in Arizona and Montana. That's likely good news for Democrats in one state, good news for Republicans in the other. But, in both cases, those former candidates will remain on Tuesday's actual ballot, since they dropped out so late in the game...

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Among the many stories covered on today's BradCast, a bit more than one week from the crucial midterm Election Day. [Audio link follows below.]...

• A 56-year old white man from Florida, suspected of sending mail bombs to about a dozen perceived enemies of Donald Trump, is arrested and charged with federal crimes. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the alleged MAGABomber, Cesar Sayoc, Jr. turns out to be a huge fan of Donald Trump. Attorney General Jeff Sessions fails to call it terrorism;

• In Tennessee, a state court rules in favor of voting rights advocates who sued to require Shelby County (Memphis) election officials to allow thousands of new registrants to cure any alleged omissions or errors on their voter registration applications through Election Day, and to allow those voters to vote on normal, not provisional, ballots. The Republican-majority commission in the very Democratic-leaning county, has said they would appeal the ruling. The matter could be crucial to the tight race for U.S. Senate between popular former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen and Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn in the contest to fill the seat of retiring GOP Sen. Bob Corker;

• In Georgia, massive attempted voter suppression overseen by Republican Sec. of State and gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp, should qualify the entire state as a crime scene, at this point. More troubling news along those lines today, as the DeKalb County Election Commission appears to have lost nearly 5,000 vote-by-mail applications. The Democratic Party claims they turned in 4,700 requests, but the County tells the NYTimes they only received 48! The potential disenfranchisement of thousands of voters could effect the tight gubernatorial race between Kemp and African-American Democrat Stacey Abrams. Given the massive suppression attempts in the state, I don't see how a Kemp victory could possibly be seen as legitimate;

• In Texas, amid the very tight U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and his Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke, many of the 100% unverifiable electronic voting machines used across the state are reportedly selecting Cruz during some attempts at straight ticket Democratic votes. State and county election officials confirm the problem with their voting systems made by Hart-Intercivic of Austin has existed for years. Nonetheless, they are blaming voters, rather than themselves or Hart, their private election vendor, for the failure. That, despite conceding that it is those systems, used in many TX counties, that are at the root of the problem for voters;

• Finally, we're joined by energy and politics writer DAVID ROBERTS of Vox.com, to discuss a very important initiative on the ballot in Washington state this year. Roberts explains Initiative 1631, which, if adopted on November 6th, would create a price for carbon pollution by creating a fee for the use of fossil fuels that cause global warming. The revenue raised by the measure would be used to fund key initiatives to improve the environment and help middle and lower income Americans. Roberts describes, as he recently wrote in much more detail, how the new initiative differs from the revenue-neutral carbon tax which failed at WA polls in 2016, and how the fossil fuel industry is spending tens of millions to crush this effort (just as they did in 2016).

  All of this on a week, which we also discuss, when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has staked his 2019 re-election chances on a new national carbon tax and dividend policy. The politically courageous effort was announced this week, despite what is predicted to be a neck-and-neck contest next year with his Conservative Party opponent. The scheme would tax the use of fossil fuels and send all revenue from the measure straight back to Canadians each year in the form of a check.

  Expect to see many more such efforts both in North America and across the world, to place a price on carbon pollution, as the globe continues to warm while fossil fuel companies continue to pollute the atmosphere for free. As Roberts notes: "Civilization is on the line."

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It was a dark day on Wednesday, but there were a few rays of light that managed to shine through anyway on today's BradCast. [Audio link to show follows below.]

We'll start here with the grim news. Pipe bombs were discovered to have been sent to perceived political enemies targeted by Donald Trump, including former President Obama, Hillary Clinton, former CIA Director John Brennan, former Attorney General Eric Holder, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and CNN. The explosive devices each appear to have been sent by the same person and follow on a similar one sent to Democratic Party funder George Soros earlier this week. All the intended targets have been widely derided for months, if not years, by Trump, Fox "News" and their many Republican followers.

Thankfully, nobody was hurt. But, as discussed today, the biggest surprise may be how long it has taken for something like this to happen, given the President of the United States --- and his fellow Republicans --- targeting their opponents and the corporate media as the "enemy of the people" with increasingly vitriolic attacks as the midterms approach.

Next up: Tens of thousands of voter registrations were recently rejected by Shelby County (Memphis), Tennessee election officials, with thousands more not yet even processed, even as Early Voting began in the state last week, and the November 6th midterms are now less than two weeks away. Moreover, many of those rejected voters haven't been notified and given a chance to cure the problem, in the very Democratic-leaning, majority-minority county.

The non-partisan Tennessee Black Voter Project, which submitted some 36,000 registration applications in recent months, has threatened the County with legal action. In turn, the County's Republican-led Board of Elections has blamed the Project for turning in a "staggering" number of registrations, many allegedly with what they claim to be errors or missing information. (The group is required to turn in ALL registration forms collected, whether or not they contain either major or minor errors when filled in by prospective voters.)

We're joined today by Shelby County Democratic Party Chair COREY STRONG to explain the hurdles that voting rights advocates there are now actively attempting to overcome, and the history of voter suppression that, he explains, African-American voters in Memphis continue to face this year.

He charges that local officials are disenfranchising minority voters. "We have a history of our Election Commission in Shelby County not necessarily taking it upon themselves to really uphold the values of fair and just elections," he tells me. "If all of the issues end up affecting one side --- the Democratic, urban, poor, minority voters --- then you have to start asking questions, and somebody's got to be held accountable."

The battle on behalf of Shelby County voters comes amidst a reportedly very tight U.S. Senate race between popular Democratic former Governor Phil Bredesen and Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, in the contest to fill the U.S. Senate of retiring GOP Sen. Bob Corker. The strongly "blue" county (which went to Clinton by 30 points in 2016 in a state that went to Trump by 25 points) is "very pivotal to statewide elections," Strong explains. In this case, it's central to the state's Senate race as well as Democratic hopes of gaining control of the upper chamber and Republican efforts to hold on to their thin majority.

Strong also discusses concerns about problems during Early Voting, the failure and dangers of electronic pollbooks used across state, and the 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems that voters in Memphis are still forced to use to cast their votes at the polling place

But, as noted, we do have a few rays of encouraging news on today's show as well!

On Wednesday, a federal judge ordered an injunction on Georgia's rejection of absentee ballots from disproportionately African-American voters. The rejections are said to be based on ballot signatures that allegedly do not match ones voters' signatures on file. The court found [PDF] voters were being disenfranchised by the scheme that allowed partisan, non-handwriting expert election officials to discard ballots without allowing voters an opportunity to cure any suspected problems on their mail-in ballot envelopes. According to several voting rights groups who sued Republican Sec. of State and gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp, today's ruling is a big victory amid Kemp's tight race for Governor against African-American Democrat Stacey Abrams.

And, in a bit more good news today, the New York Attorney General, following a three-year investigation, has filed suit against ExxonMobil for an alleged "longstanding fraudulent scheme" to defraud shareholders by publicly downplaying --- and spending millions to deny and confuse the public about --- the serious risks that climate change poses to the company's bottom line. The suit could cost the company hundreds of millions, if not more, and expose Exxon to additional litigation elsewhere. According to the complaint, while publicly claiming concern about global warming as caused by their products in recent years, the company “employed internal practices that were inconsistent with its representations, were undisclosed to investors, and exposed the company to greater risk from climate change regulation than investors were led to believe"...

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On today's BradCast, the religious left fights back! [Audio link to show follows below.]

But first: It's little wonder Fox 'News' doesn't like it when celebrities on the left speak out about politics. Sure, it's fine when a Republican actor or TV celebrity with zero political background runs for and becomes President of the United States. But if a singer or comedian sports hero on the left dares have an opinion, they need to "shut up and dribble". Vote.org reports a huge spike in voter registrations nationwide and in Tennessee this week, following pop star Taylor Swift's Instagram endorsement of the state's Democratic candidate, former Gov. Phil Bredesen, for the U.S. Senate in his race against Rep. Marsha Blackburn. Yes, bravely speaking out about politics helps. No wonder the right would like folks like Swift to shut up, especially as voter registration deadlines hit across the country this week and next.

At the same time, as a Category 3 hurricane barrels toward the Florida Gulf Coast, Democrats are forced to sue the state again, as they did in 2016, to force the Governor to extend voter registration, which officially ended on Tuesday night in the Sunshine State.

Also today, up in Washington, D.C., U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, one of the few top officials in the Trump Cabinet not considered to be a complete wingnut (a very low bar), announced her plan to resign at year's end for reasons that remain shrouded in much speculation. As she announced her planned exit today at the White House with Donald Trump, she managed to argue that since Trump --- who was laughed at, out loud, in the U.N. General Assembly just two weeks ago --- took office, "now, the United States is respected." As we discuss, that claim flies in the face of demonstrable facts supported by actual recent polling around the world.

Next up today, after Republicans ignored a statement last week from the National Coalition of Churches --- the nation's largest such group representing 38 denominations, 100,000 congregations and 40 million Americans --- to withdraw the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh "immediately", a group of evangelicals are now hitting the road for a national bus tour to "Flip Congress for the common good."

We're joined today by Vote Common Good founder and executive director, Pastor DOUG PAGITT, to explain his group's attempted outreach to white evangelicals who may have previously supported Trump and his Republican Party. The non-profit, non-partisan organization's cross-country tour began in Pennsylvania last week and is set to hit Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Texas, and New Mexico before wrapping up in California before the November 6th election.

Pagitt, the founding pastor of Solomon's Porch Christian Comuninity in Minneapolis (and who also hosts an afternoon drive time show on our Minneapolis/St. Paul affiliate, am950 KTNF!) tells me that there is a need for liberal and progressive religious community leaders on the left to speak out for Christian values in the dangerous era of Trump, even if it risks their tax-exempt status and even as white evangelicals have institutionalized their support of the Republican Party with millions of dollars over the past several decades.

"What we are saying is the Republican Congress has lost its ability, lost its moral compass, lost its spine, when it comes to standing up to the Trump Administration. Our need to flip Congress now is a bipartisan, non-partisan civic duty to put restraints on the Trump Administration," he says. "I think pastors and churches all over the country should be willing to risk their non-profit status in order to speak out about the Trump Administration because the Trump Administration is that dangerous. The idea that the thing that makes a Christian community a Christian community is that people don't have to pay taxes on the money they give to you, is the lowest possible level that a Christian community could be proud of. It's almost like the government is saying is 'if you speak up against us, we're going to make that a financial burden upon you'. And I think Christian churches should take on that burden. If you lose that 501c3 non-profit contribution status? Fair enough. Be like every other business that has to function in this society."

Pagitt details how he believes that many Christian voters have been conned into giving up their values and otherwise intimidated and frightened into voting against biblical teachings. He calls for the Christian left to build a political coalition to counter the long-entrenched, so-called Religious Right.

"We are trying to call the bluff on the evangelicals who, out of one side of their mouth, want to say that they follow the teachings of Jesus, and out of the other side of their mouth, are not just endorsing Donald Trump but seem to be wanting to move into a full embrace of Trumpism," Pagitt tells me, explaining why many evangelicals who know Trump represents the opposite of their beliefs, may still be afraid of voting for Democrats. "People confuse their identity with their tactic. Voting is a tactic to bring about the common good. Voting ought not be seen as our identity, but a lot of religious people have merged their religious and civic identity with the political Republican Party...and [it's difficult] to start to separate out your identities from your tactics. When someone realizes in their life that they have a misplaced identity, that takes awhile for them to get their heads around."

It's a fascinating (and long overdue) national conversation that I recommend you tune in for.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, as Hurricane Michael threatens Florida with catastrophic, global warming-fueled destruction and as the United Nations issues an alarming scientific report finding the worst impacts of climate change will arrive much sooner than predicted unless massive and immediate changes are made by the nations of the world...

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On today's BradCast: It's kind of amazing that Trump's wildly corrupt Interior Dept. Secretary Ryan Zinke is still in office. Now that the EPA's Scott Pruitt is gone, and Interior just accidentally released a whole bunch of revealing information, maybe Zinke is a bit closer to the exit door. [Audio link to show follows below.]

But first up today, results from Tennessee's primary elections on Thursday, and the outlook for November in the key U.S. Senate race to replace the state's outgoing Republican Sen. Bob Corker. Popular former Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen is now set to face off against the very Trumpy GOP nominee Rep. Marsha Blackburn in a race is central to Democrats' chances of winning back a majority in the upper chamber of Congress in this year's midterms.

Following up our preview yesterday of next week's important U.S. House Special Election in Ohio's 12th Congressional District --- where Democratic candidate Danny O'Connor could very well flip that seat from "red" to "blue" on Tuesday --- our stable genius President tweeted out an endorsement yesterday for a Republican who is not even running in the race.

Also today, some encouraging news out of Texas, where the corporate owners and manager of the Arkema Chemical plant near Houston were indicted on Friday, following the "reckless" release of toxins into the air during an explosion at the plant amid Hurricane Harvey flooding last year.

Then, we're joined by AARON WEISS, Media Director of the Center for Western Priorities (and host of its Go West, Young Podcast), to explain the "monumental" screw-up last month when the U.S. Department of Interior accidentally released unredacted documents regarding the agency's deliberations over the unprecedented lifting of federal protections for a huge portion of the Grand Staircase-Escalante monument in Utah.

"We'd always suspected that the outcome was preordained. But this really makes it crystal clear that the fix was in from the beginning," Weiss tells me, detailing the Department's subsequent redactions in the documents, revealing what Zinke's agency hoped the public wouldn't find out. Namely, that priceless archaeological treasures, native American relics, and a huge tourist and recreational industry benefiting the local economies, are now endangered by the unprecedented closure of nearly half of the Grand Staircase and some 85% of Bears Ears monument (also in Utah). The two monuments are the first to be scaled back in response to Donald Trump's executive order calling for the review of some 27 national monuments established by previous Presidents.

Weiss explains the how the screw-up came about in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests: "Under the Freedom of Information Act, you're allowed to redact certain things. But then you also have this very broad exception, it's called the 'B-5 deliberative process exemption.' And it's supposed to be so that officials can discuss policy options candidly. But oftentimes we see that B5 redaction being used as what's called the 'because I want to' redaction. And that's exactly what happened here, because they wanted to redact stuff that didn't look good for them, they called that stuff 'deliberative'. even though many of these sections were not discussing policy options, they were just basic facts."

"If you look at what got mistakenly unredacted in just this one document, and think about the tens of thousands of other pages already released and yet to be released, it does raise huge questions about the way they're abusing that B5 deliberative exemption."

He goes on to offer an update on the several legal challenges facing the unprecedented closures by the Trump Administration, and how the unredacted revelations underscore Team Trump's pretty clear aim of aiding their friends in the fossil fuel extraction industry at the expense of all others. Weiss also highlights a newly emerging scandal regarding what appears to be a wildly corrupt development deal in Zinke's hometown of Whitefish, Montana, involving the Secretary, his wife, and the CEO of oil services giant Halliburton.

Finally today, we share a portion of a short video rant unleashed yesterday by Ring of Fire co-host Farron Cousins, regarding concerns about election system security and hacking in the upcoming election. In the clip, he argues that these worries might have been avoided entirely had both Democrats and Republicans listened "to people like Brad Friedman at The BRAD BLOG" who have been warning about these concerns "for more than 14 years". "If we would have listened to them years ago," Cousins argues, "we wouldn't even be having this conversation today." [Fact-check: Mostly true!]

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On today's BradCast, if you're waiting for the government to save us by protecting elections --- or anything else --- that's not going to happen. But you can save us, as I explain today. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up today, voters in Tennessee head to the polls for their midterm primaries (yes, on a Thursday! --- perhaps that's one of the reasons the state has among the lowest turnout rates in the country?), as voters elsewhere are preparing for next Tuesday's primaries in Kansas, Missouri, Michigan and Washington.

Also next Tuesday will be the final major U.S. House Special Election of the year before the midterms. The race is in Ohio's 12th Congressional District, a normally very "red" district centered in Columbus, where Republican Troy Balderson had, as recently as last month, been favored by some 10 points over Democrat Danny O'Connor. The race, however, has now become a dead heat, according to new polling from Monmouth and others. So, we have a few very specific and important thoughts for our friends and listeners in Columbus (on WGRN 94.1FM!) today regarding that contest. In short, as I explain: this long-held Republican seat --- in a district which both Romney and Trump reportedly won by some 10 points --- is now flippable, but it will require all hands on deck to do it next week (yes, including independent and Green Party voters!)

In the meantime, Donald Trump's White House paraded out a bunch of their top intelligence community officials to try and convince us all that they give a damn about election security before the November midterms. Don't believe them for a second. I explain why. Similarly, do not believe the Republicans in Congress who now pretend that they give a damn about election security, since, on Wednesday, they proved once again they do not. Every Republican Senator present, with the exception of TN's Bob Corker, voted against an appropriations amendment to give $250 million for additional election security to states. All Democrats voted in favor of the amendment, which received a majority 50-47 vote. But that wasn't enough to overcome the 60 vote filibuster threshold (which Republicans could have waived). That, on the same day the GOP-majority Senate easily approved a $717 billion defense authorization package --- in case you're wondering where their priorities really are.

As explained in an impassioned rant today, in response to all of the above, it's unclear that more money thrown at our computerized election systems would even result in more secure elections or those that Americans can have confidence in. When it comes to our elections and our democracy, and so much more, one thing is clear: "We are not going to be protected by Congress, or the White House, no matter who is in charge of either. The government is not going to save us here. We are going to save us here. We are the only chance that we have."

I offer a number of ways for folks to do exactly that on today's show, which I hope you'll share loudly and broadly. [Update: Desi has transcribed a bit of today's rant for easier sharing right here.]

Speaking of, as we warned on a recent BradCast, the Trump Administration has now formally announced their new scheme today to roll back automobile fuel-efficiency standards that had previously been worked out in an agreement between the Obama Administration, automakers and states like California who have stricter air quality standards than the federal government's. Trump's EPA, however, is hoping to block those new standards --- which experts say will save 40,000 lives per year thanks to cleaner air --- in favor of dirtier air more costly gas mileage for consumers. The Administration justifies the change with a dubious assertion that 1,000 lives per year will be saved, because it will be cheaper for Americans to purchase newer, safer cars --- never mind the higher fuel costs (approximately $170 billion over all) they'll have to pay.

The Administration which pretends to believe in "states' rights" is also moving with their newly proposed regulation to block California's legal right under the federal Clean Air Act to determine their own air quality and mileage standards. The state, and 16 others, have already filed suit against the proposed regulation. A public comment period is now open in response to the measure at this Regulations.gov docket page.

Our own Desi Doyen has a few words about all of that. And then she joins us for our latest Green News Report, with 2017 now officially found to have smashed global heat records, deadly global warming-fueled wildfires continuing to devastate Northern California, and the U.S. Supreme Court (surprisingly) giving their unanimous go-ahead for a landmark climate change lawsuit against the federal government, as filed by children, to move ahead!...

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On today's BradCast, Desi and I are back! But you should tune in anyway! [Audio link to show follows below.]

My great thanks to Angie Coiro of In Deep Radio for filling in for us last week!

Among the stories covered on today's program, as we try to get back up to speed...

• More than 2,000 were reportedly wounded and over 50 killed as Israel opened fire on protesters in Gaza today during the "festive" opening ceremony for the controversial U.S. embassy Donald Trump moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Much of the Muslim and Arab world condemned the attacks on the unarmed Palestinian protesters, but so so did the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and many others.

• Back in the U.S., a new analysis from Washington Post finds that an administrative error led to at least 26 Democratic leaning voters being assigned to the wrong legislative district during last November's House of Delegates election in Virginia. The race in Newport News between Democrat Shelly Simonds and Republican David Yancey in HD-94, was judged to be a tie after a "recount", which was subsequently broken by a random drawing giving the seat to Yancey and allowing the GOP to retain control of the House. That failure, and similarly mis-assigned voters in yet another highly gerrymandered district in Fredericksburg, prevented what should, in retrospect, have been a Democratic takeover of the state's House in 2017 amidst a "Blue Wave" that otherwise managed to flip 15 seats from R to D.

• Also today, a new report on what was reportedly a foreign-sourced cyberattack on Election Night two weeks ago in Knox County, Tennessee is troubling on a number of levels, though not necessary the one being reported by some media outlets citing a Ukrainian IP address used in the denial of service attack which was also sourced to countries on every continent except for Antarctica. We discuss what is known and still isn't, following the attack which took down the web-based election night results page for an hour after the close of polls two weeks ago, including one race said to have been decided by just 17 votes on the county's 100% unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic voting systems...

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On today's BradCast: Another reminder that the nation's elections officials remain woefully unprepared for and under-informed about threats to this year's crucial mid-term elections, and clear examples of where our governmental institutions currently work to combat blatant corruption by top officials (Missouri) and where they don't (D.C.).

First up, an election night cyberattack in Knox County, Tennessee's local primaries on Tuesday should have officials there (and elsewhere) far more concerned than they appear to be. We discuss why this latest attack echoes similar incidents we've seen previously (including at the end of election night during the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio), why such attacks are likely to become more frequent, and how election and cyber-security officials continue to woefully underestimate and misunderstand the very real dangers to our elections when they (falsely) tell the public, as they are doing in Knox County this week, that their computerized voting, registration and tabulation systems are "never connected to the Internet, so can't be hacked." They are wrong.

Next, Missouri's Republican governor Eric Greitens is now facing three different felony charges, two separate court trials, and the GOP-majority state legislature has now overwhelmingly decided to call a special session to consider impeachment. Greitens maintains his innocence in both a sexual blackmail scandal and campaign finance scandal. We explain why the extraordinary historical moment --- despite the Show-Me State's Governor refusal to resign, echoing Donald Trump in calling the well-documented evidence against him the result of a "witch hunt" by prosecutors (and his own party?) --- is actually, at least so far, an example of how the system is supposed to work.

Contrast that to the quickly devolving mess in D.C. today, where Republicans in the House and Senate who ought to be demanding accountability from a corrupt President, are looking the other way and/or undermining prosecutors, and where prosecutors seem to (falsely) suggest they cannot indict a sitting President, no matter the evidence of serious crimes. That, even as whatever credibility this Administration may have once had, has now disintegrated so much amidst Trump's latest flip-flops on a number of scandals, that even one top Fox "News" anchor unloaded on the President on Thursday, with an astonishing smack down of Trump lies, which ends: "I guess you’re too busy draining the swamp to ever stop and smell the stink you’re creating. That’s your stink. Mr. President, that’s your swamp." When you've lost Neil Cavuto...

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us with an update on the evacuations, earthquakes and new eruptions near Hawaii's Kilauea volcano and on the state's recent deluge (50 inches in 24 hours!) of global warming-related rain. As well as another explosion, massive fire and evacuations --- the third within the past month --- at a fossil fuel-related processing plant, this time in Louisiana...

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: Desi and I are standing down for a much-needed week off, but In Deep Radio's Angie Coiro will be filling in for us on The BradCast next week! Be nice to her! And please click here to help us fill up our Prius tank! Thanks!

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At long last, we're beginning to see shades, shadows, clouds of accountability rolling in across D.C. and even elsewhere in the country. Many of those clouds seemed to roll in all at once today for some reason, but we cover as many as we can on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

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

• Huge explosions, a raging fire, and 10-mile evacuations at another oil refinery today, this time in Wisconsin;

• Bill Cosby is found guilty on three felony counts of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman and now faces the rest of his life in prison;

• Tens of thousands of teachers walked out in Arizona and Colorado on Thursday, demanding increased funding for education after years of slashed state budgets to help pay for tax cuts to the rich and corporations;

• A spate of new polling suggest Senate Republicans may face a storm of accountability this November, with encouraging numbers for Democratic candidates in at least three different states --- Arizona, Tennessee and Nevada --- where they hope to flip "red" seats to "blue" to regain majority control of the upper chamber of Congress this fall. (And also in a fourth state, if you include Texas, where Sen. Ted Cruz' challenger Rep. Beto O'Rourke is now within "too close to call" striking distance, according to new polling, even as the Democrat is refusing corporate and super PAC funding, even from billionaire Tom Steyer);

• No accountability to date, however, for the anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-environment, pro-war CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who was narrowly confirmed in the U.S. Senate today as Donald Trump's new Secretary of State;

• The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve a bi-partisan bill to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller from being fired by Trump, though obstructionism from GOP leadership in the full Senate and U.S. House will likely prevent the legislation from going any further;

• Admiral Ronny Jackson, Trump's personal White House physician and his nominee to head the Dept. of Veterans Affairs finally withdrew his name from consideration following a host of damning allegations from current and former White House and military co-workers unearthed by Sen. Jon Tester (MT), the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee;

• Trump's wildly corrupt and scandal-plagued EPA chief Scott Pruitt finally faced a bit of accountability, at least from Dems, as he testified before two separate House Committees on Thursday and refused to answer many direct questions, threw much of his staff under the bus, and denied responsibility for the mountain of personal corruption scandals he continues to face --- even as bi-partisan calls for his resignation continue;

• And, finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with more on Pruitt's anti-climate perfidy, French President Emmanuel Macron's blistering swipes at President Trump's environmental record during a joint session of Congress, and much more.

Yes, it was another insanely busy news day, but we gotcha covered, in one fast moving hour today. Buckle up!...

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P.S. We will be off tomorrow, but don't panic! We're back on Monday, as usual!

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We've got a lot of news to cover from over the weekend, and breaking today on today's BradCast, even as we try to focus on the continued undermining of our electoral system, and the lack of accountability for certain lawbreakers versus others. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

Among the stories we cover today, along with some great calls from listeners...

• As we predicted last week, Republican Senator Rand Paul (KY), who had been pretending to oppose the nomination of CIA Director Mike Pompeo as the next Secretary of State, has flipped his position (as usual), and is now voting in favor of Pompeo, virtually guaranteeing the pro-war, anti-gay, climate science denier as the nation's next top diplomat.

• The alleged shooter who killed 4 and injured several others at a Waffle House in Nashville on Sunday morning is finally apprehended and taken in peacefully by local officials. But why was the suspect, a 29-year old white guy with a long record of mental issues and run-ins with police, even in possession of four semi-automatic weapons that were taken from him, for a short time, following his arrest by Secret Service outside the White House, where he is said to have identified himself as a "sovereign citizen" (a rightwing domestic extremist movement, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and law enforcement officials.) The mass shooting was ended on Sunday morning, not by "a good guy with a gun" but, in fact, by a potential African-American victim without a gun. James Shaw Jr. burned his hand as he grabbed the muzzle of the shooters AR-15 and wrestled it away from him.

• Despite going to court to successfully stop Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein's attempted post-election "recount" in the state of Michigan after the 2016 election, state Republicans have now passed a number of bills in the state legislature to make it even more difficult for candidates and the public to oversee their own elections to ensure that computer-tallied results have been accurately reported. The measures heading to Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's desk follow Stein's attempted 2016 count, in a state which hadn't gone to a Republican Presidential candidate in nearly 30 years, where Trump is said to have won by just over 10,000 votes (out of more than 5,000,000 cast), and where terrible state "recount" laws prevented some 60,000 hand-marked paper ballots from even being considered for "recounting" in Detroit alone.

• Meanwhile, down in Fort Worth, Texas, a Tarrant County Justice of the Peace, after submitting fraudulent signatures to appear on the Republican primary ballot last March, resigned from office after pleading guilty and receiving, essentially, five years probation. It appears disgraced Judge Russ Casey won't won't spend a day in a jail, despite his guilty plea and a previous record of an "improper sexual relationship" with a former clerk. We also contrast the gentle treatment of Casey, a white elected Republican judge, with that of Crystal Mason and Rosa Maria Ortega, both of them in Tarrant County. Mason is a 43-year old African-American mother sentenced to five years in prison just last month for voting in 2016 while on supervised release from her three-year sentence on a 2011 fraud conviction for helping tax clients receive larger refunds than they deserved. She was not told by her probation officer, or anyone else, that she was not allowed to vote while on probation in Texas. Ortega, a mother of four, voted unlawfully in both 2012 and 2014, thinking she was allowed to do so as a Green Card holder from Mexico. She received an eight-year prison sentence for her crime (and likely deportation after it), despite testifying that she believed she was allowed to vote as a permanent U.S. resident. Too bad for the black woman and the immigrant. But fantastic news for the white elected Republican Judge, who had received a $125,000/year salary since his initial election in 2007, before he knowingly committed his election fraud crimes!

• Also today, speaking of accountability --- or, perhaps, lack thereof --- for powerful white Republicans, Missouri's embattled GOP Governor Eric Greitens was charged with a second felony late Friday, though he refuses to step down, despite the two charges. One is related to tying up a woman with whom he was having an affair, photographing her naked, and threatening to blackmail her, and the second for unlawfully using a veterans charity mailing list during his 2016 run for Governor. Top GOP lawmakers and the state's Attorney General have called for Greitens' resignation. But he, just like President Donald Trump, describes the investigation of his alleged felony crimes as nothing more than a "witch hunt...by the liberal media and their allies".

We discuss all of that, and more breaking news on today's very lively and/or busy BradCast, and also take callers on all of the above in the bargain!...

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On today's BradCast: The fight for Election Integrity is often one step forward and two steps back. Don't be fooled by what many are deceptively describing as a move to "paper ballots", when those "paper ballots" aren't really what they are being sold as. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up today: A quick preview of the U.S. House Special Election in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District on Tuesday, where voters will, shamefully, once again cast their votes in the crucial race on 100% unverifiable touch-screen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems.

At the same time, lawmakers in the state of Georgia, which has disastrously used similarly unverifiable DREs for the past 15 years, are moving a deceptively described "paper ballot" bill forward in the legislature. However, what those lawmakers are not making clear (and some may not even understand) is that the bill would fund new computer-marked paper ballot systems, known as Ballot Marking Devices (BMD)s, across the state. Such systems also require voters to use a touch-screen device to vote and, like DREs, also cannot be verified after an election as reflecting the intent of any voter.

Worse still, rather than use the human-readable information printed out by the computers onto the "paper ballot" at the end of the process, BMDs use optical scanners which tally results read from barcodes or QR codes printed on the ballot that are NOT human readable!

And, it's not only Republican-leaning Georgia that is quickly hoping to move to such unverifiable systems. So is the largest voting jurisdiction in the nation, Los Angeles County! Also, counties in Texas and Tennessee are already using them and other states are looking to purchase them as well. Indeed, many supposedly progressive organizations and Democrats are actually recommending them, without understanding the very real dangers of BMDs!

We're joined today by attorney-turned-journalist JENNIFER COHN to discuss her well-researched and documented concerns, as detailed by voting system and computer security experts, regarding the nation's dangerous and disturbing lurch towards what she describes as expensive "electric pencils", otherwise known as BMDs. Cohn explained those concerns in simple, layman's language in a recent post at The BRAD BLOG.

As we discuss on the show: No, "paper ballots" are not enough! We need HAND-MARKED paper ballots that are known to have been verified by the voters, if we are going to even have a chance of restoring publicly verifiable democratic elections in the U.S.

Cohn details both in her article and on today's show, a number of academic studies finding that most voters do not check computer printouts and summaries at the end of the voting process, and of the minority who do, some 60% or more don't even notice when the computer has flipped their vote!

PLEASE tune in for this important conversation, because Americans must begin to understand the dangers presenting by these deceptively described "paper ballots", which are coming to a voting jurisdiction near you!

Then, we open up the phone lines today to callers on that issue, as well as some of my thoughts from last Friday's show regarding the supposed face-to-face meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and even crazier U.S. leader Donald Trump, regarding the North's nuclear weapons program...

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On today's BradCast: With the Thanksgiving holiday upon us, we take a short break from the grimmest of news on today's show to dig deep and find at least a few things to be thankful for this year. Sort of. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

With every bit of good news we find, there seems to be some less-than-good news to go along with it. Still, we do our best today to keep both your heads and mine from exploding for a change. Among the manystories covered on today's show...

Sign-ups for the Affordable Care Act ('ObamaCare') are actually up this year, despite the Trump Administration's work to undermine the federal law and keep Americans from knowing about the Open Enrollment period at all. (It runs through December 15 at Healthcare.gov). But, given the shortened Open Enrollment period, there would need to be a far higher number of signups to match last year's totals. Still, a surprising number of "free" policies are available this year and Trump supporters finally appear to be realizing that he is the one undermining their health care.

While temperatures are breaking records out here in Los Angeles (it hit a record 93 degrees today, and broke the century mark in a nearby coastal town), a new report presented at the recent U.N. climate talks in Bonn, Germany finds that the world could move to 100% renewable electricity with existing technologies by 2050, and it would be less expensive than continuing to generate power with fossil fuels and nuclear energy!

There's even some good-ish news regarding guns in the U.S. A bipartisan measure to improve background checks for gun purchases, following a number of recent mass shootings, has been introduced in the U.S. Senate. Also, new polling finds that an incredible record of 94% of gun owners support universal background checks for all gun sales (and a majority of them would also support a ban on the sale of assault weapons entirely!)

In Australia, a nationwide referendum results in overwhelming majority support for marriage equality. In Palm Springs, CA, voters have just elected the first all-LGBTQ City Council in U.S. history. And, in related-ish news, Sec. of State Rex Tillerson appears to disagree with his boss, Donald Trump, regarding rights for transgender people.

And, finally, a recent demonstration by Nazis and White Supremacists in Tennessee was met by a huge resistance of counter-protesters that effectively shut down the demonstration (and another one scheduled for later in the day) entirely. Documentary filmmaker David Earnhardt was on the scene in Shelbyville, TN, and spoke to counter-protesters who stood up to shut down the Nazis. We share some of his interviews on today's show. You can watch his entire short film here.

So, see? There are quite a few things to be thankful for this year after all...Sort of...

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