We're old enough at The BradCast to remember when Republicans used to at least pretend to believe in things like "personal freedoms." But, now that Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis is preparing a run for President in 2024, things are getting mighty early 20th-century German-y these days down in the Sunshine State. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

The recently re-elected Governor is on a roll. Most notably, over the past year or so, he has adopted a "Don't Say Gay" law, threatening school teachers with dismissal for referencing LGBTQ issues in public schools, and, more recently, his "Stop W.O.K.E. Act" to prevent discussion of race issues and other things that the all-mighty State decides may make the parents of a white, straight child uncomfortable. Also known (ironically enough) as the "Individual Freedom Act," a federal judge recently cited George Orwell's 1984 in describing the law as "positively dystopian" as it has resulted in the state-ordered banning of library books.

But DeSantis isn't cowed by courts of law or even public opprobrium. Last Friday, his State Department of Business and Professional Regulation (apparently, Republicans now love state regulations too?) filed a 27-page complaint against The Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation, seeking to revoke their liquor license. Why? Well, last December, for the eighth year in a row, they featured a performance of the popular Drag Queen Christmas national tour and "violated Florida statutes" by allowing parents to bring their children, according to the state's complaint. (So much for "parental choice," which GOPers also used to pretend to believe in.)

Perhaps all of that wouldn't be so bad, if Floridians knew they could hold elected officials accountable at the ballot box. Sadly --- and predictably --- the Governor and his henchmen in the state legislator in Tallahassee are working to make that more difficult as well. Last year, DeSantis signed Senate Bill 524. In addition to giving him a personal special "elections crimes" police force (which he immediately abused by ordering the round-up of former felons at gunpoint and on camera for "voter fraud" even though most had been told by the state they were allowed to vote in 2020), the measure also mimics a law recently adopted by Texas that resulted in a huge percentage of vote-by-mail ballots being rejected in 2022.

The new provision mandates that vote-by-mail voters include a drivers license or social security number on their absentee envelope when casting their vote. However, there's no easy way for voters to know which one of those two numbers will match the number on their registration record and ballots will be rejected without a perfect match. The Texas version of the same law --- being pushed as "model legislation" by the far-right Heritage Foundation in several GOP-controlled states --- resulted in preliminary ballot rejection rates as high as 38% in several counties during last year's primaries.

Now, the bipartisan Florida Supervisors of Elections Association, comprised of elected county elections chiefs, are pushing back against the new law. They argue unanimously in a new report [PDF] that it will result in disenfranchised voters, as well as increased costs to counties and security issues for elections.

We're joined today by ION SANCHO, Florida's legendary, former Leon County Supervisor of Elections who served in the elected position for nearly 30 years before resigning in 2016. He explains the many concerns about the new measure and why it is that election officials around the state are so unanimously troubled by it.

"Even though a majority of the Supervisors of Elections are Republicans, they cannot stomach what they see the Florida legislature doing, because it's real simple --- it's not fair," Sancho tells me. "Every Supervisor of Elections in the state can see that this is simply a partisan attack on voters that the Governor is trying to suppress. That offends them."

The new law, he fears, will be "a logistical nightmare" for election officials. "This whole process --- that we carefully spent a decade building to ensure that legal voters could cast and have that ballot counted --- is under direct threat, and by individuals who haven't a clue about how Florida elections work. Because these recommendations came from Heritage Action, the political arm for the Heritage Foundation."

Sancho is hopeful that some of the Republicans in Tallahassee will listen to the elections officials. "Because where this will blow up, the first election under these new rules," will be the state's March 2024 Presidential Preference Primary, "where you've got to two apex Republicans, possibly, on the ballot. And you don't want that election to melt down. These rules could destroy the Presidential primary in Florida. And wouldn't that put some egg on DeSantis' face."

So well respected by his peers that he was selected by them to oversee the ultimately-aborted 2000 Presidential recount in the state, Sancho charges that "Governor DeSantis has really declared war on any human being that has a different political ideology than himself. It's shocking."

Nonetheless, DeSantis, after winning in 2018 by less than half a percentage point, was re-elected to a second term by a landslide last November, even as Republicans elsewhere in the nation had a very difficult election. Why did he do so well last year? Sancho offers his thoughts on that as well today. And, yes, it has to do with the "tremendous impact" of the Governor's new special election crimes police force and a resulting "complete collapse of African-American voting" last year in the state. But that, Sancho seems confident, is likely to turn around in 2024...at least if their votes are allowed to be tallied.

Please tune in for another very clarifying and compelling conversation/warning with the great Ion Sancho today!

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with news on a disturbing chemical train derailment in Ohio; catastrophic heat and wildfires in Chile; EU's successful move away from Russian fossil fuels; and some good news about this year's global investments in clean energy sources versus those in dirty, deadly fossil fuels...

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Late last year, by of way a blistering 139-page order [PDF], Chief U.S. District Court Judge Mark E. Walker agreed that a provision of Florida's totalitarian "Stop W.O.K.E. Act" pertaining to university professors and students should be blocked.

The acronym in the title of the bill --- also referred to, without apparent irony, as the Individual Freedom Act (IFA) --- stands for "Wrong to our Kids and Employees". But, turning to Judge Walker's decision in Pernell v. Fl. Bd. of Governors, it may be useful to understand the intended usage of the word "woke" in Act's title. As defined by Merriam-Webster, it means to be "aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)."

In pressing for passage and in signing this Act, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a current front-runner for the 2024 GOP Presidential nomination, vowed "to fight the woke" in our schools, businesses and government agencies. He and other Republican thought police have perniciously conflated the mere mention of historical truths about societal facts and issues relating to race or social justice with "indoctrination".

Last year, Judge Walker's order in response to the Stop W.O.K.E., aka Individual Freedom Act (IFA), hauntingly cited George Orwell's 1984...

There's a reason I always warn, when reporting election results on The BradCast, that they have only been tallied by computers to date, and that errors in results often do not come to light until days, weeks or even months after elections...if ever. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST UP TODAY... Some thoughts on the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' 'Doomsday Clock' which was, this week, ticked forward from '100 Seconds until Midnight' to just '90 Seconds until Midnight.' The main reason for the move, the first since 2020, as explained by The Bulletin, whose esteemed scientists, diplomats and Nobel Laureates take such decisions quite seriously, is thanks to "Russia's war on Ukraine," its "thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons," and for "violating international protocols and risking widespread release of radioactive materials" in bringing "its war to the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor sites."

In response to the metaphorical clock --- first unveiled at the dawn of the Cold War in 1947 --- being moved closer than ever to a proverbial 'midnight', when humanity destroys itself, a Kremlin spokesperson said Wednesday that the move was "really alarming." (Really? You were "alarmed" by this, Russia? Really?!)

That, on the same day that the U.S. and nearly a dozen European countries finally agreed to send modern battle tanks to Ukraine so the sovereign former Soviet nation can better defend itself from the grotesque, ongoing, hostile invasion by it's empirical neighbor.

We take the opportunity today to explain why --- amid our years of (continuing) anti-war advocacy --- we, nonetheless, support Ukraine's right to defend itself against Russia's war crimes; agree with critical support being supplied by fellow democratic nations against an autocratic invader; and how we see many of those on the supposed Left in the U.S. that are echoing Kremlin propaganda by, among other things, demanding Ukraine declare a ceasefire and negotiate with their invaders, have been unhelpfully (and wildly) misled.

THEN... Yes, we likely drive regular listeners crazy when reporting results after elections and offering the caveat, over and over again, that reported results in the immediate aftermath are wholly unverified and only tallied by computers --- either correctly or incorrectly --- and that there is no way to know for certain either way unless and until results of hand-marked paper ballots are examined by actual human beings.

Last week, more than two months since the November midterm elections, we finally learned that a computer tabulator mistallied some of the results in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The error appears to have resulted in at least one loser being named as the winner in a School Board race in Ocean Township. After a probe into "an unrelated issue" caused the County's Board of Elections to notice potential problems in the tallies, an investigation reportedly found errors in six voting districts across four municipalities.

One candidate named as a loser after November 8 last year appears to have won his race by a single vote after results were correctly re-tallied. But a bunch of races had been mistallied originally thanks to results from at least one precinct being uploaded more than once to the Election Management System's central tabulator from a USB memory stick.

While there is no evidence of nefariousness in the matter, a spokesperson from the County's private election vendor, ES&S (the nation's largest), attempted to downplay what happened as "a human procedural error". But the fact that it is even possible to upload the same results more than once without a system warning is disturbing. Longtime election and voting system experts have expressed horror at the problem, if not surprise, given the woeful state of NJ's post-election audit protocols and the nature of proprietary computerized voting system software.

Since the problem has come to light, one state lawmaker has called for passage of a measure that would mandate Open Source software on all voting and tabulation systems in the Garden State, along with the use of paper ballots at polling places. I explain today why Open Source systems (while a fine idea if we must tally ballots with computers) is no panacea, and why the state Senator's call for "paper ballots" --- as opposed to HAND-MARKED paper ballots --- will likely ensure that 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems, still shamefully used across most of the state at the polls on Election Day, will continue to undermine confidence in NJ elections.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with a spate of troubling new studies on the deteriorating state of our climate, but also with a number of stories detailing some good news, of late, in response to it!

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So, I've sorta been trying to avoid coverage on The BradCast of the idiocy underway at Twitter following Elon Musk's takeover of the social network for a ridiculous $44 billion six weeks ago. But today, as things are quickly turning much darker and dangerous, we're jumping down the rabbit hole. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

First up, however, two much more encouraging stories from elsewhere. In Oregon, outgoing Democratic Governor Kate Brown, who will be replaced by Democratic Gov.-elect Tina Kotek in January, has commuted the death sentences of every prisoner in the state on death row! There are 17 of them in all. They will now face life without the possibility of parole instead of being murdered by the government. Brown has also ordered the dismantling of the state's execution chamber in hopes of ending the practice for good there, describing the gruesome punishment (correctly) as "both dysfunctional and immoral."

In other encouraging news before decks are shuffled in January following this year's midterm elections, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has announced that the long-overdue Electoral Count Act reform measure (which we discussed on this program in detail back in February), as negotiated over the summer by a bipartisan group of Senators, will be included in the omnibus spending bill that lawmakers are scrambling to adopt this week before the deadline for a government shutdown.

The ECA reform measure, a version of which already passed in the House, would clarify the poorly-written 1887 law regarding procedures for certifying Electoral College votes following Presidential elections. In addition to making clear that a Vice President does not have the power to unilaterally toss out Electoral votes during the joint session of Congress to confirm Electoral College results, the bill would also raise the requirements for lawmakers to challenge slates of Electors and make it more difficult for a state Legislature to simply select different Electors than those chosen by state voters. All of that in response to Donald Trump's various attempts to exploit the original ECA on January 6th, 2021 to steal the 2020 Presidential election.

Hopefully there are enough Republican votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, and House Democrats will find the Senate version acceptable during this lame duck period. Otherwise, it'll be next to impossible to adopt ECA reform in advance of the 2024 Presidential election after the GOP takes over the House majority in January.

Then, it's down the Elon Musk Twitter Rabbit Hole, but with an eye toward potential solutions to the increasingly dark chaos he's unleashed since taking over the once-popular social network. While we've largely been trying to ignore the idiocy and hard-right political turn by Musk in his six weeks since taking over Twitter, what has largely been dumb has now arguably turned dangerous.

Over the past week or so, Musk has given a few journalists selective access to internal communications of former Twitter executives, resulting in online stories he refers to as "The Twitter Files". Rightwingers have pretended the published threads somehow confirm some sort of political bias against Donald Trump and fellow political travelers. Trump is pretending they prove that the 2020 election was stolen. They don't. In fact, they largely show Twitter execs wrestling in good faith with difficult internal decisions.

At the same time, Musk has restored previously suspended accounts to many on the far-right, including white supremacists, neo-Nazis, QAnon conspiracists, COVID deniers and 2020 election fraudsters.

More disturbing, however, are Musk's own recent tweets. They've grown darker and increasingly menacing, with attacks on transgender people, the revival of long-debunked COVID conspiracies and false accusations of pedophilia against named Twitter employees. One former top executive was reportedly forced to flee his home this week in response to growing threats. On the same day, Musk suddenly dissolved the company's volunteer Trust and Safety Council, an advisory group which AP describes as "around 100 independent civil, human rights and other organizations that the company formed in 2016 to address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other problems on the platform."

That's just a taste of how all of this is quickly devolving. We're joined today by longtime media activist and pseudonymous progressive blogger 'SPOCKO', who has some thoughts on how people can push back against all of this. As it turns out, Spocko, who has worked to organize campaigns against a number of Rightwing media outlets and personalities over the past two decades, actually worked directly with Musk before he became unspeakably wealthy with the creation of PayPal.

At the time, Spocko was helping to train high-tech execs on how to speak to media, customers and investors. He shares his thoughts today on what he learned about Musk even back in the 1990s, when he was called in because Musk wouldn't listen to the female communications experts initially hired to help him.

Now, Spocko explains, "the thing we are talking about with Musk is what do you do when somebody has so much money and so much power, and then he gets rid of the checks and balances?" That becomes dangerous, especially for someone like Musk who he describes as a liar who "makes promises that he doesn't keep."

We discuss a number of campaigns --- both potential and underway --- to hold Musk to account for his increasingly threatening behavior, including the use of "free speech" tools that the billionaire claims to believe in (despite evidence showing he actually doesn't) to target advertisers that Twitter relies on to survive as well as companies like Apple, whose app store is critical to that survival, and the potential filing of civil lawsuits to hold Musk to account for defamation. There are also international efforts underway in places like Europe where the EU has informed social media networks that, by law, they must have measures in place to reduce potential harm or face being cut off entirely.

There is lots to dig into on today's program, whether we're happy to dig into it or not...

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After a few quick words about the "Goldilocks" final jobs report to be released by the federal government before Tuesday's critical midterms on today's BradCast, we get right to what might be regarded as a closing argument for progressives. Of course, we're unlikely to change the minds of many brain-poisoned MAGA rightwingers at this late date, but there may still be some on the left who are reachable and could use some encouragement. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Last week, The BRAD BLOG's legal contributor, Ernie Canning, who served as a Senior Advisor to Vets for Bernie during his 2016 campaign, published his latest article. It's titled "To Save American Democracy: A long time Bernie Sanders supporter on why we must vote 'blue' in '22". Please give it a read if you haven't.

Ernie updated his post the next day to note that former Green Party Presidential candidate Ralph Nader had also endorsed voting for Democrats this year on Democracy Now!, describing the GOP as a "dictatorship party" and "the most dangerous political movement since the Civil War."

As readers and listeners know, I too have broken from my nearly 20 years of remaining non-partisan when covering major elections, to specifically call on folks to vote this year for Democrats. As I have explained, that is not because I believe the Democratic Party is wonderful, but because I am really really concerned right now about the survival of American democracy itself. For reasons that I've detailed on both The BRAD BLOG and The BradCast for months (if not longer), the issue of its survival is quite literally on the line in the 2022 elections ahead of the 2024 Presidential election.

All of that, even as I've heard from too many folks on the so-called progressive left who still don't seem to fully appreciate what is at stake and believe that we still enjoy the luxury this year of voting for a third party or sitting out entirely. We don't.

Over the weekend, my guest today, ALAN MINSKY, a lifelong activist and Bernie Sanders supporter himself who now serves as the Executive Director of Progressive Democrats of America, published an article headlined "No Person of Conscience Can Sit Out this Midterm Election", wherein he makes the progressive case for voting for the Democratic Party this year. "Democracy and the very principle of a Society of Equals are on the ballot," the sub-title of his piece reads, adding, "and, yes, it's about the Economy too."

From the need to codify the rights and freedoms of Roe v. Wade, stolen by our corrupt Supreme Court, into federal law, to passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act and much more, Minsky makes the case that "The 2022 midterm election represents a unique and historic opportunity to protect our democracy and our right to equality before the law against an unrelenting offensive being waged by the reactionary right." That, amid a rising authoritarian movement here and around the world and "widespread Republican support for Trump's Big Lie and the embrace of Authoritarian despots like Hungary's Victor Orban by Republican elites."

Though we haven't spoken on air (or at all actually!) for a number of years, Alan is an old friend after his years of formerly serving as Program Director at Pacifica Radio's KPFK, our flagship station here in Los Angeles. Alan has always been passionately progressive and likely even farther to the left than me, so I took careful notice when I came across his new piece at the liberal Common Dreams website.

We discuss all of the above and the concerns we both share about those on the progressive left who have either been misled or simply have yet to grasp the historic nature of this moment and the need to push back against rising authoritarianism, even if it means voting for a decidedly imperfect Democratic Party right now.

"If American democracy is toppled, this whole era we've lived through, understanding that we are citizens of a democratic society, the notion of a society of equals will be in such peril," he tells me today. "The reactionary right, coming off of January 6, coming off of Donald Trump's refusal to accept the election, they are emboldened to take down American democracy in their efforts to create a permanent ruling party."

"Bernie Sanders himself is barnstorming around the country to lift up Democratic candidates," Minsky observes, "to make the economic justice components of American society real for the average person." He urges that "we can't just cede this territory. Not just to a very dangerous rightwing, but even to the neo-liberal centrist Democrats."

"What I would encourage people to do is to recognize by voting and preserving the democratic process and improving it, you are maintaining capacity for a real progressive movement to be vibrant in the United States," Minsky argues. "This midterm election opens a space --- that I really want to encourage everyone listening who is a progressive --- we can win this in the Democratic Party."

"We can change this country for the better. But we have to preserve our democracy to leave that opportunity open. And that's why this election cycle is so important."

"If young people get out and vote at the level they did in 2018, let alone 2020, Democrats will win this election," he notes. "But that doesn't look to be where it is. I think that does have a lot to do with the perception that the Democratic Party is not a welcoming institution. But again, for those folks, you have allies on the inside of the party. We will fight this fight together, we will win this together. But right now it is essential that people DO vote in this election to preserve the democratic process that will be the instrument to allow us to win those victories in the near future. So, if we can preserve democracy, there's a bright future ahead."

"We have to preserve democracy now and strengthen it," Minsky concludes near the end of our broad conversation on a whole bunch of related topics. "We can do that with a victory in this election. So I encourage everybody, yes, to vote Democratic on Tuesday, or before Tuesday if you're in a state you can do that, and let's win this thing."

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It's a grab bag on today's BradCast, as we cover a ton of stuff from around the world and here at home, just over two weeks before another critical Election Day. [Audio link to today's show follows below.]

Among our many stories covered today...

• With one disgraced, failed Conservative Party Prime Minister after another in Britain since they fell for that whole rightwing BREXIT scam, perhaps the good citizens of the UK might want to consider leadership from amongst the liberal Labour Party instead? Just a thought, but surely they couldn't perform any worse than the Torries, could they Lizz Truss, the third Tory PM to resign amid financial chaos and disgrace in as many years (she lasted just 44 days!) exited stage right today as the financial markets look to downgrade the the UK's credit rating amid continuing fiscal havoc and political uncertainty.

  It's all "self-immolation" and it echoes financial and political chaos repeatedly sown by our own "conservative" party here in the U.S. And yet, for some reason, a majority of the American public reportedly remain disinformed enough to believe, somehow, that Republicans are better on economic issues than Democrats. It's yet another sign of a failed corporate U.S. media, frankly. More thoughts and details in today's actual show, of course.

• There was better than expected news on global CO2 emissions this week! Despite a temporary return to coal, oil and gas by some in the EU in response to Russia's horrific war on Ukraine, the growth in fossil fuel emissions this year is far lower than previously predicted. This year, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), growth in emissions from fossil fuels was just 300 million metric tons, compared to nearly 2 billion tons last year. New renewable energy coming on line from wind and solar and other sources of clean energy, along with the world's move to Electric Vehicles, is helping to counter a temporary return to fossil fuels in some parts of the world. Much of this is attributed to the acceleration of major clean energy policy plans around the world, some in response to Russia's war, but also to nations' effort to meet goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. That would include efforts here at home by Democrats and President Biden who enacted the world's largest single investment in climate --- nearly $400 billion --- in the Inflation Reduction Act, adopted without one Republican vote.

• With just over two weeks until the critical midterm elections with so much on the ballot, from democracy itself to all manner of Constitutional rights and freedoms, Democrats, progressives and other anti-authoritarians are pushing hard to win over voters. VoteVets, the nation's largest progressive veterans support group, released a blistering ad this week targeting Wisconsin's Republican Senator and insurrection enthusiast Ron Johnson, as a "traitor". And California's Rep. Eric Swalwell released a bone-chilling ad illustrating a dystopian future where police are knocking on doors to round women who've had an illegal abortion.

• Swalwell's fictional ad is hauntingly echoed by actual video footage obtained and published this week by the Tampa Bay Times in Florida, revealing law enforcement officials rounding up and arresting residents for what even the confused officers describe as "some sort of voter fraud thing". In August, GOP Governor and Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis --- who is on this year's ballot against Democrat and former Gov. Charlie Crist --- held a dramatic news conference announcing 20 arrests by his new "Office of Election Crimes and Security". As we have since learned, those arrested were former felons who believed their voting rights had been restored after the landslide 65 to 35% passage of a statewide ballot initiative in 2018. But, the initiative had a few exceptions that the former felons weren't told about when they registered and when those registrations were approved by DeSantis' own State Department.

  “Voter fraud?," said one perplexed man as he was told he was being hauled off to jail for voting illegally years earlier. "Y’all said anybody with a felony could vote, man." Other arrestees, nabbed out of the blue at their homes just hours before DeSantis' news conference, were similarly stunned. Local law enforcement officials participating in the arrests also seemed unable to explain exactly why any of this was happening. The majority of the arrestees, according to the paper, were black and/or Democrats, "a throwback to the worst images of the Jim Crow South and a preview of a dystopian future under GOP authoritarianism," writes the Philly Inquirer's Will Bunch today.

  Yes, the authoritarian dystopian future envisioned by Swalwell's fictional video of cops rounding up a woman who had an abortion is shockingly similar to the videos published this week by Tampa Bay Times.

• Speaking of Florida and dystopia, GOP Sen. Marco Rubio and his Democratic challenger for reelection, Rep. Val Demings, squared off in a debate this week. Among the embarrassing moments for the two-term Republican Senator: his claim that absentee ballot drop-boxes shouldn't be used because someone could "put some explosives in it and blow it up and burn all of those ballots' and his explanation for why he previously claimed, after the 2018 Parkland high school massacre that killed 17, to support a ban on the sale of semi-automatic assault weapons to those under the age of 21 --- but he no longer does. "You've done nothing, nothing to help address gun violence," charged Demings, the former Police Chief of Orland in response. "How long will you watch people being gunned down in first grade, fourth grade, high school, college, church, synagogue, a grocery store, a movie theater, a mall and a night club and do nothing?!”

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the President releases more oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve; New Jersey sues Big Oil for decades of climate lies; and as the November 8 midterm elections are set to determine the course of climate action for decades to come...

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With unspeakable devastation from Florida to Ukraine, the stakes couldn't be higher for our upcoming midterm elections. We cover all of that on today's BradCast, even while tending to some long overdue accountability and grotesque conflicts of interest in Congress. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

The horrifying death toll from last week's climate change-fueled Hurricane Ian continues to rise. More than 100 were confirmed dead in Florida alone as of airtime. That number is likely to keep growing, along with the growing questions about why state officials did not call for evacuations before they finally did. Put those questions into the same file that may explain the state's years of climate crisis denial and its now collapsing insurance industry.

At the same time, corrupt authoritarian regimes elsewhere are similarly ill-serving their citizens. We get caught up a bit today on Russia's sham referendums and unlawful annexation of four regions in eastern Ukraine last week. That, as Russia's military offensive continues to collapse and lose ground to Ukrainians defending their sovereign homeland; as Vladimir Putin faces growing unrest after announcing the forced draft of hundreds of thousands of Russians; and as he continues to threaten the use of nuclear weapons as his political and military fortunes devolve.

Then, we move to Brazil, where far-right President Jair Bolsonaro lost in the first round of voting on Sunday to the nation's former leftist President known to the people simply as "Lula". While Lula defeated Bolsonaro over the weekend, neither candidate received the votes necessary to avoid a run-off later this month. Lula's victory was much narrower than expected based on pre-election polling showing that he was likely to defeat Bolsonaro by about 14 points. He won by just less than 6 points in what should serve as another object lesson for U.S. voters before our own critical midterm elections in just 35 days.

Next, we're joined by longtime government affairs and ethics lobbyist CRAIG HOLMAN of Public Citizen to discuss the Combatting Financial Conflicts of Interest Act that he had hoped to see passed in the House before next month's midterms. Holman helped shepherd passage of 2012's STOCK Act. It was hoped that the decade old measure --- requiring immediate disclosure of stock trades by members of Congress and ending their exemption from insider trading laws --- would shame members into avoid conflicts of interest when trading stocks in companies which they also oversaw in Congressional committees.

As Holman details today, the STOCK Act failed in that regard for several reasons. As a New York Times analysis found last month, at least 97 members of the House and Senate, of both parties, continue to hold stocks in companies that they oversee on Congressional committees. But it is hoped that the new measure will end that as well. It would bar members and their direct family (spouses and children) from buying and selling stocks at all, and require them to divest their portfolio entirely or place such assets into blind trusts.

"Prior to the STOCK Act in 2012," Holman explains, "insider trading was illegal for you and I and Martha Stewart, but it was perfectly legal for members of Congress. And they were making use of it. There was one economist who came out with a study that showed members of Congress enjoy a 12% higher rate of return than the rest of us on the stock market. Which means either they're geniuses at trading in the stock market, or they know something that we don't know. Quite obviously, it's the latter."

While the STOCK Act did reduce members' trading in stocks by about two-thirds, he says, the other third "are still out there trading. They are sitting on the same committees and in their same official capacities overlooking the same businesses that they're buying and selling stocks in."

The new bill, however, would finally end those bipartisan conflicts of interest, and/or the appearance of same, once and for all. But, Holman also explains how the bill he had hoped to see passed by both chambers before this year's midterms was derailed last week He tells us whodunnit and how he hopes to see the measure adopted nonetheless in the lame duck session after the elections. Here's hoping!

Does Holman have any concerns that this new law would prevent qualified folks from running for Congress in the first place? "Not on my end," he responds. "That is one argument that you always run into. But, quite frankly, if you've got a huge financial conflict of interest with your official duties of serving in Congress, I don't want you here. If you're not going to get rid of that conflict of interest, you pose more of a threat to the integrity of our legislative process, no matter how competent you are."

Finally, President Biden visited Puerto Rico on Monday in the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Fiona (the storm that took out power across the island, yet again, just two weeks before Ian's devastation in Florida). He didn't throw paper towels at residents, as the former guy did following Hurricane Maria, though he did vow to help get their infrastructure back up and hardened to withstand many more of these storms that will be coming their way as the climate crisis worsens. We share some of Biden's remarks today...

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It was another lively call-in show today on The BradCast, even with one caller accusing me of "professional, managerial class gate-keeping for the Democrats." (Okay. But, if so, where do I pick up my managerial class paycheck?!) [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Before we get to the listener calls, however, some important news items today...

• Good news: Italy has just elected its first female Prime Minister! Bad news: She represents a far-right authoritarian party with its roots in Italian World War II neo-fascism.

• Warning: Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro is up for re-election this weekend and is likely to get trounced, according to pre-election polls. But, like the former far-right President of the United States, Bolsonaro has already declared that if he loses, it can only be due to massive fraud. Bolsonaro blames the nation's electronic voting system. Buckle up, Brazil!

• Last week began with three enormous climate change-fueled storms simultaneously slamming Puerto Rico (which is still largely without power or clean water), Alaska and Japan. This week begins similarly, with three huge storms. One (the same one that hit Puerto Rico) slamming eastern Canada and another super-typhoon that spun up from tropical storm to Cat 5 in 24 hours before ravaging The Philippines. The third storm, Hurricane Ian, is now building strength as it edges Cuba as a Cat 2. It's expected to make potentially catastrophic landfall somewhere in Florida in the next day or two, potentially as a Cat 4. Exact landfall location is still unknown, but Desi Doyen joins us to explain how insanely dangerous Ian could turn out to be, particularly for the city of Tampa Bay.

• Then, new polling from the Marquette University Law School, considered the "gold standard" for polling on the U.S. Supreme Court, finds, for the first time, that a majority of Americans are either "strongly" or "somewhat" in favor of expanding the the number of Justices on the Court. As you'll recall, the Republican majority Senate during the Trump Administration, packed and stole the Court majority, first by holding a vacant seat open for a full year (effectively, changing the number of seats from 9 to 8 in 2016); then by a blowing up the Senate filibuster rule requiring 60 votes to seat Justices for lifetime positions on the bench. They did that for three controversial far-right Justices who have since helped the corrupted Republican majority on the Court turn the Constitution and nation upside down by ignoring precedent, making up new "doctrines" from thin air, and overturning critical Constitutional rights established by half-century old SCOTUS opinions like Roe v. Wade.

  For many of the reasons discussed on today's show, expansion of the Court is --- at least in my opinion --- the number one reason for voting for Democrats in this November's critical midterm elections. Everything else --- codifying Roe's protection of reproductive rights into federal law, protecting democracy and the planet itself --- are all ultimately subordinate to the High Court. As corrupted as it currently is, expanding the Court to rebalance it is a must...even if many Democrats in Congress and the White House don't yet seem to understand that. Happily, a majority of Americans, across virtually every demographic sector, now agree.

• Then, we open up the phones to callers on all of the above and more. With, as usual, a bunch of folks calling in to disagree with me, and at least one who correctly identifies the "Big Lie of the Left," that "both parties" are equally bad. They aren't. Not by a demonstrable long shot, as we discuss. Which, apparently, is proof enough that I'm a "professional, managerial class gate-keep[er] for the Democrats!" Who knew? But check please!)

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Like it or not, we're back on today's BradCast after a much-needed week off! And, as it turns out, we've got plenty to talk about. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Among the huge number of stories covered on today's show, as we try to get caught up with both what we missed and what's still unraveling today...

• It's hot here in Los Angeles. Really hot. A record heat wave (in both intensity and duration) now stretches from Southern California all the way up into Canada. And, no, it is not normal. (Or at least it didn't used to be.)

• It's also not normal for Mississippi's capital city of Jackson to have no water for drinking, bathing, flushing or even fighting fires. But it was predictable. That's what happens when you lower taxes and defer maintenance on critical infrastructure for decades before a warming climate dumps tons of rain to knock your water systems offline entirely. Now the state's Republican Governor (who has been instrumental in deferring that maintenance), is discussing privatizing the water system. As of Sunday, in any event, water pressure is finally returning to residents after a full week without, and about a month of boil water notices prior to the outage.

• Some good news following Labor Day: Public approval of labor unions, at 71% of the American people, is now the highest it has been since 1965, according to Gallup. That's a 7-point spike in their pre-Labor Day survey since the pandemic began and a more than 21-point jump since 2009. And, as we discuss, that's all good news for both union workers and non-union workers alike!

• A judge in New Mexico has ordered Cuoy Griffin, co-founder of Cowboys for Trump and an elected Otero County Commissioner, immediately removed from his post for violation of the U.S. Constitution's "Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause". Griffin, who was convicted of participating in Trump's January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, is the first public official to be removed from office since 1869 under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

• There is new evidence out of Coffee County, Georgia today --- including security camera surveillance video gathered via a federal lawsuit against Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger to block use of his unverifiable touchscreen voting systems --- revealing that rightwing MAGA Trump supporters lied about unlawfully breaching and making copies of the County's voting system software after the 2020 election. The long-running lawsuit was filed by Coalition for Good Governance founder Marilyn Marks, a regular guest on this program. She originally broke the Coffee County voting system software breach story on this show some months ago, along with detailing Raffensperger's clumsy, months-long efforts to cover-up of the entire boondoggle. More details on that story coming soon!

• In the second-to-last primary day of the midterm election season, voters in Massachusetts are selecting party nominees for the contest to succeed the state's popular, outgoing Republican Governor in the otherwise liberal-leaning state. As in Maryland in July, the choice on the GOP side in MA is between a Trump-backed election denier and an otherwise normal-ish Republican candidate. In MD, the Trump-backed loon won, likely handing Governor's mansion to the Democrats this fall. Will the same thing happen in MA? Tune in tomorrow!

• While we were out, Alaska's embarrassing former Republican Governor Sarah Palin, did not win the Special Election for the state's only U.S. House seat. After a Ranked Choice Voting election featuring two Republicans and one Democrat, the Democrat, Mary Peltola was elected to fill the seat occupied for nearly 50 years by the late Republican Rep. Don Young. She'll serve the rest of Young's term through the end of the year and becomes the first Alaska Native elected to Congress. The same three candidates, and one other, will square off in another RCV election in November for a full term beginning in January. Hopefully Palin will continue her losing streak.

• Also, while we were out, the President of the United States found it necessary to offer a prime-time address to warn of the rising menace posed to democracy itself by Donald Trump and his supporters. Joe Biden was, of course, both correct and accurate in his remarks outside of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, highlighting the fact that democracy itself will be on the ballot this fall and the threat that demagogues from the right now pose to our nation. "What’s happening in our country today is not normal," he said, though corporate media outlets seemed to have a tremendously difficult time simply pointing out how Biden's assertions were demonstrably true. By way of just one example, after a Trump rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend, in which an invited speaker discussed support for January 6 insurrectionists, including her nephew, who is literally a Hitler fan, USA Today's Francesca Chambers actually said: "President Biden and former President Trump are having some difficulties when it comes to optical issues both could have avoided." (!!!)

• Finally today, some thoughts on the Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida who, on Monday, issued an absurd ruling ordering a Special Master to review thousands of pages of highly classified and other stolen government documents obtained by the FBI during its federal court-ordered search of Donald Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago last month. The ruling by Judge Aileen Cannon --- to appoint a Special Master to examine the documents for both executive privilege (which hasn't been claimed by Trump, and can only be asserted by Biden) and for attorney-client privilege --- was ridiculous and absurd on several counts and yet still somewhat less of an outrage than many have characterized it to be over the past 24 hours. We explain why.

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Longtime listeners of The BradCast know that we see democracy as pretty much the number one issue that makes pretty much everything else possible. Even the climate crisis comes second for that reason. Congressional Democrats, on the other hand, have yet to make the threat that democracy itself now faces in America, thanks to Donald Trump and his GOP, much of a campaign issue. That's both curious and troubling, particularly following a new poll out today finding that democracy is "the most important issue facing the country for a plurality of registered voters." [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the many stories covered on today's show --- followed by some great callers in the second half today...

• On Sunday, a federal appeals court gave Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) a short reprieve from his scheduled testimony before the special grand jury in Georgia investigating the Trump-led criminal conspiracy to try and steal Georgia's 2020 election. Graham, who reportedly called the GA Sec. of State to see if it might be possible to toss thousands of lawfully cast votes, claims he was just doing his job as a Senator...from South Carolina...and has absolute immunity under the Constitution's "speech and debate" clause. His reprieve [PDF] from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' probe is unlikely to last for long.

• A different federal appeals court ruled on Friday that the Justice Department must release a memo written by its Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) during the Trump Administration, regarding then-Attorney General Bill Barr's decision to not charge the former President for some ten instances of obstruction of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. The DoJ claimed the memo, sought by a good government watchdog group under FOIA laws, was exempt from disclosure because it was part of the deliberative process in deciding whether or not to charge Trump. In fact, as a lower court previously determined, the memo was written after the DoJ had already determined they would not charge Trump.

• Then, we move from the 2016 and 2020 elections back to the current one, now just 78 days away, when political pundits had long been telling us that Democrats would take a shellacking in Congress this November. But, as we've long noted, that Conventional Wisdom is by no means a certainty during these decidedly UNconventional times. Among the latest examples from 2022's UNconventional Times files, emotional remarks last week from a Republican South Carolina lawmaker who regrets his vote --- just weeks after casting it --- to restrict abortion in the state. He relates a disturbing story of a pregnant 19-year old woman whose water broke at 15 weeks, making the pregnancy unviable. But thanks to the state's new "fetal heartbeat" law, attorneys advised her doctors they could not extract the fetus until its heart stopped beating...two weeks later. She could have lost her uterus or even died during the interim. We share some of the state Rep's emotional response and his reasons for refusing to vote in favor of an even more draconian restriction on reproductive freedom now moving through the SC state legislature.

• Still more today from the UNconventional Times file: Signs that inflation appears to be coming down on tons of products whose prices had surged last year. And signs, along with it, that pandemic supply chain snarls appear to finally be easing up as well.

• Of course, all of that good news for American consumers is bad news for Republicans who have been hoping for a terrible economy to help them win back majorities in Congress this November. A new forecast from Fox "News" out today, however, finds that to be less and less likely as polling and other conditions continue to trend back in favor of Democrats. It's still an uphill climb for them in the gerrymandered House, but the GOP is clearly getting nervous. We discuss.

• At the same time, in a lengthy deep-dive, Politico Magazine reported over the weekend that a number of old school Dems from the Carter Administration are concerned that Congressional Democrats are not making enough of a campaign issue out of the threat that Republicans now pose to American democracy itself. That, following Trump's January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection and the boatload of bat-crap insane, Trump-endorsed 2020 election deniers who have been nominated for key positions to help decide the 2024 election in swing-states and non-swing-states alike this year. While Congressional Dems offer a reasonable argument for why they have been sticking with other issues this year --- "from energy and the environment to education, roads and infrastructure, abortion, health care, Trump and guns" --- rather than the threat posed by Republicans to democracy itself....

• ...new polling out today from NBC News finds the GOP threat to democracy is now the top concern among registered voters, followed by the cost of living and other economy-related issues.

• So, what do our listeners care most about this November? What issues are leading them to vote (or not vote)? We open the phones to find out and get some very good callers in response including a fun one from a confused Republican...

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We really do have (at least) two Americas at this point. One America, led by President Joe Biden and his Democratic party in Congress, who have now triumphantly signed into law the largest climate bill in U.S. history, which also includes landmark measures to make healthcare cheaper for tens of millions of Americans. And another America, which is calling for violence, mayhem and murder of American law enforcement officials, and they are led there by the disgraced former President of the United States. We discuss both Americas on today's BradCast. Apologies in advance for the whiplash. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

On Tuesday, Joe Biden signed the historic, if somewhat misleadingly named, Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a trimmed down version of his Build Back Better Act which was blocked by all 50 Senate Republicans and two Democrat last year. The IRA, however, includes some $400 billion to finally begin tackling climate change and moving the nation from dirty fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy; institutes a $2,000 annual cap on prescription drug costs for seniors; allows Medicare to negotiate for cheaper prices with drug companies for the first time ever; and increases taxes on hugely profitable corporations that currently pay no taxes at all. It also helps pays down the deficit and a bunch of other things.

It was passed in both chambers of Congress, where Democrats hold the thinnest of majorities in each, without one single Republican vote, as the President took pains to note during his White House signing ceremony today.

"Let’s be clear," Biden said, "In this historic moment, Democrats sided with the American people, and every single Republican in the Congress sided with the special interests in this vote — every single one. In fact, big drug companies spent nearly $100 million to defeat this bill. A hundred million dollars. And remember: Every single Republican in Congress voted against this bill."

"We’re delivering results for the American people," the President boasted. "We didn’t tear down; we built up. We didn’t look back; we looked forward. And today offers further proof that the soul of America is vibrant, the future of America is bright, and the promise of America is real and just beginning."

"I know there are those here today who hold a dark and despairing view of this country," Biden said. "I’m not one of them. I believe in the promise of America. I believe in the future of this country. I believe in the very soul of this nation. And most of all, I believe in you, the American people."

As to those who do "hold a dark and despairing view of this country," many of them have been showing their true, dark colors over the past week since the FBI obtained a lawful warrant to search Donald Trump's Florida compound for highly classified and sensitive national security documents that he stole from the White House upon leaving office last year.

After Trump revealed the search publicly last week, using rhetoric seemingly chosen to incite violence --- falsely citing "prosecutorial misconduct," "weaponization of the Justice System," describing the U.S. as a "broken, Third-World Country" --- there has been what the DHS and FBI described in a bulletin last week as an "unprecedented" number of "violent threats" against federal law enforcement, courts and government personnel and facilities.

"These threats are occurring primarily online and across multiple platforms, including social media sites, web forums, video sharing platforms, and image boards," the bulletin warns. It was published the day after a Donald Trump supporter was killed following his attempt to attack an FBI field office in Ohio with a nail gun and an AR-15, and as another Trump supporter was taken into custody and charged for issuing graphic calls to "slaughter" federal officers on several different social media cites.

And while threats on far-right, neo-Nazi Internet sites reportedly spiked following Trump's announcement of the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, it has also spiked on "mainstream" Rightwing media outlets like Fox "News", where the rhetoric --- from many of its prime time hosts and elected Republican officials alike --- has become hauntingly similar to that found on the darkest, far-right cesspools of the Internet.

We're joined today by STEPHANIE FOGGETT, a Research Fellow at The Soufan Center and Director of Global Communications at The Soufan Group, where her areas of expertise include terrorism, online extremism and the rise of white supremacy. She has a great deal of perspective to offer on this issue.

"This rhetoric is alarming, but it is not surprising, especially given the online spaces and activity that I watch every day," she tells me. "I monitor the darkest and most violent corners of this information ecosystem, and I really think, above all, it's important to know that these threats and attacks on law enforcement, they're not coming out of a vacuum."

Indeed, as Matt Gertz at Media Matters observed last week "Fox and other right-wing outlets describe the search as 'the worst attack on this republic in modern history,' part of a 'preemptive coup' to prevent Trump’s reelection, and a sign the country is now a 'tyranny.' They say the FBI is acting like 'the East German Stasi in the Cold War' and the Nazi 'Gestapo,' and call its agents part of a 'lawless criminal organization' that 'planted evidence,' bugged Trump’s bedroom, and may be planning his 'assassination.'"

"And they are quick to tell their viewers that they should fear their own persecution in the wake of the search," Gertz writes. "According to right-wing outlets, 'the real target of this investigation is you'." Just last night, Tucker Carlson, the most popular host on the nation's most popular cable "news" outlet, told viewers that President Biden is now "declar[ing] war on his own population."

"It's rinsing and repeating narratives and concerns that we saw with the Stop the Steal campaign and things like that," Foggett explains. "It's really tapping into this narrative on the far-right that if they can go after a President they will be able to come after you one day."

She worries even more "about what comes next," while offering both historical context for this current moment --- in which "every agency in America, from intelligence agencies to law enforcement agencies [have] come to the assessment that the far-right and domestic extremism is the greatest threat that America is facing today" --- and ways in which responsible Americans can respond in hopes of decreasing the threat.

"It is tricky, and there is no silver bullet. There's no one single thing that can be done to address this," Foggett asserts, before describing how individuals can be mindful of what they share online --- stuff that is meant to go viral with misleading messages --- and how "it's really about individuals in positions of power to be much more careful about the things that they say, and how they interact with the violence that this movement promises."

In short, solving this problem won't be easy, and things may get much worse before they get better. But there are ways to educate Americans about these now main-streamed extremists and ways to "isolate them by rejecting them, by ignoring them, and by denouncing them."

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with more on the Democrats' historic climate bill and several alarming new reports underscoring how the measure has finally become law not a moment too soon...

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We have a very serious warning for voters about elections and American democracy and the corrupt U.S. Supreme Court on today's BradCast. Please tune in and listen! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

To quickly summarize my half-hour or so long rant at the top of today show...On Thursday, as discussed on our previous show with legal expert Mark Joseph Stern, the corrupt, radical, illegitimate, not-conservative-in-the-least U.S. Supreme Court used a made-up, phony legal doctrine --- the "Major Questions" doctrine --- to justify gutting the Environmental Protection Agency's statutory mandate to protect the environment by regulating climate warming carbon emissions. The so-called doctrine, not found anywhere in the Constitution or historic case law, was made up for use by the Court's rightwing extremists. They are now about to do something very similar in order to gut federal elections and American democracy as we know it in advance of the 2024 Presidential election.

In their last order of business, before the end of this past year's term on Thursday, the Court announced that next term they would take up the North Carolina case of Moore v. Harper. The case involves a voter challenge to the state GOP's newly-drawn U.S. House maps. The NC state Supreme Court agreed the map was an unlawful gerrymander under the state constitution and drew up a fairer map. But North Carolina Republicans sued, charging that state Supreme Court was not allowed, according to the U.S. Constitution, to nix the GOP gerrymander due to the so-called "Independent State Legislature" theory. In short, it's a made up "doctrine" --- not unlike the "Major Questions" doctrine used to justify gutting the EPA --- that has been pushed for a number of years by fringe Republicans.

The ISL doctrine cites some lines from the U.S. Constitution to argue that state legislatures and only state legislatures --- not Boards of Elections or Secretaries of State or Governors or even state courts or Constitutions or popular ballot initiatives adopted by voters --- may dictate how federal elections are run. That is a job solely granted to state legislatures, according to this previously-fringe theory.

It was one of the failed arguments under which Donald Trump supporters tried to claim that emergency pandemic voting rules adopted by state officials (other than the state legislature) were unlawful in 2020. It was also one of the arguments pushed by rightwingers that state legislatures could have simply voted to name Trump electors in states where the voters actually chose Joe Biden's electors.

The "Independent State Legislature" doctrine has never been granted legitimacy by a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. But, earlier this year, four of the Court's six radical Republicans --- Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh --- called for the Court to examine the issue more closely. They now need just one more vote to recognize this controversial Constitutional claim as "legitimate", which is why so many in the election law world are freaking out today after SCOTUS announced yesterday that they will hear 'Moore v. Harper' next term.

Usually, quite staid UC Irvine law professor Rick Hasen's argues "It's hard to overstate the danger" of this case. Vox's Ian Millhiser describes the "grave threat to US democracy" it presents. You --- and elected Democrats(!) --- should be freaking out at this point as well. Or, at least, understanding what is about to happen to what is left of our representative "democracy" if this switch gets thrown by the newly emboldened and radicalized Court.

Given the many radical, not-conservative-in-least rulings over the past several weeks by the six far-right extremists on this stolen and packed Court --- overturning Roe v. Wade, blocking the ability for states to well-regulate firearms, eroding the separation of church and state, all but gutting Miranda rights, further gutting the Voting Rights Act, and torching the EPA's ability to regulate deadly carbon pollution --- we should all be very concerned about what this Court is likely to do regarding Moore in 2023...in advance of the 2024 Presidential election.

We put the case in full context on today's BradCast, and detail why its so important to elect enough Democrats this November --- love them or hate them --- to hold the majority in the House and add enough Democrats to the Senate to finally reform or end the filibuster in order to codify Roe and respond to many of the other matters mentioned above, as well as finally expand SCOTUS to re-legitimize the de-legitimized Trump/McConnell/Roberts Court before they unleash every manner of electoral chaos --- and outright "legalized" stolen elections --- in advance of 2024.

PLEASE. PAY. ATTENTION. TO. THIS. CASE!

Beyond that red flag warning at the top of today's show, and before standing down for a few much-needed days off next week, we also catch up on several other news items of note that we've had to put off over the past week or so due to Congressional hearings, primary elections, and wholly corrupt Supreme Court opinions. Among them...

• After rightwing activist Ginni Thomas, wife of rightwing activist Justice Clarence Thomas, was revealed to have been deeply involved in Trump's effort to steal the 2020 election, she was invited to testify to the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection. She received much coverage when she announced she would be happy to do so, declaring, "I can’t wait to clear up misconceptions. I look forward to talking to them.” You'll be shocked to learn that Ginni was lying. This week, her attorney said she will not testify because there is "not...a sufficient basis" for the Committee to interview her under oath.

• A judge in Delaware has found that Dominion Voting Systems has presented sufficient evidence to determine that Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan of Fox "News" may have acted with "actual malice" when causing their Republican propaganda station to broadcast false claims that the voting system vendor helped steal the election for Joe Biden. The judge ruled that the billion dollar defamation suit against Fox may now proceed toward trial.

• Here in California, where we recently reported on the attempt by some Democrats in the state legislature to adopt an insane Internet Voting scheme, we've got some good news. After passage in the state Senate, the matter was killed in the state Assembly following critical work by grassroots voting system and cybersecurity experts in opposition and a letter from the Sec. of State opposing the measure as well. But CA Dems keep trying to this, year after year, so watch out for another attempt in future sessions.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on the heels of SCOTUS gutting the EPA's ability to regulate carbon emissions amid our deadly climate crisis and much more...

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Today on The BradCast we try to reach out to so many of those Republicans and Trump dead-enders that we hear from usually only after the show. That, before Tuesday primaries and runoffs in in Virginia, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia and Washington D.C., and amid the short pause before hearings in the House J6 Committee return (tomorrow), and as the number of those who believe Trump should be charged with a crime for his attempt to steal the 2020 election continues to grow.

If we are going to save American democracy from the minority autocratic rule now sought by the bulk of the Republican Party, we need to try, at least, to speak to each other again. Even to those who have been so thoroughly groomed, for so many years --- by Fox "News", by rightwing talk radio, by elected Republican officials --- to actually believe the GOP lies that have convinced those Americans to vote against their own best interests in election after election. We must reach out, somehow, to those that still buy into Donald Trump's evidence-free claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him (as he, himself, had tried to steal it) or who were duped into sending part of the quarter of a billion bucks to his "Official Election Defense Fund" even though, as we recently learned thanks to the bipartisan J6 Committee, doesn't even exist.

So, today, in hopes of at least trying to reach some of those voters, we thought we'd share the thoughts of some longtime conservative Republican voices. Among them, the very conservative former federal appeals court judge, J. Michael Luttig who, for years, had been compared to Justices Scalia and Thomas, who 33 of Luttig's former clerks would eventually clerk for. Last week, Luttig testified to the House Select Committee, warning that Donald Trump and the Republican party remain a "clear and present danger" to American democracy, not only because of the January 6th insurrection or due to Trump's attempt to, as Luttig wrote [PDF], "steal the 2020 presidential election from the American people," but because "the former President, his allies and supporters pledged that they would attempt to overthrow that 2024 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020." He is now calling on Republican leaders to step up to end their "war on democracy."

Also, we share a critical, must-listen commentary from former young Republican James Killen (pictured above) hoping to reach current young Republicans to keep them from making the same mistakes he did by letting them know how they've been lied to by the GOP about...well, pretty much everything, from top to bottom over the past 40 years.

Then, after an invitation to the many rightwingers who do listen to The BradCast --- which we know, because they so frequently contact me right after the show via Email or Twitter --- we open the phone lines to at least one long time Republican who is still buying in to the lies....apparently all of them, as we discuss. If we don't at least try to have these conversations, we will never end this new American uncivil war.

And where will it go from here if we don't? Well, a new campaign ad from the disgraced former Missouri Governor turned GOP primary candidate for U.S. Senate, Eric Greitens --- in which he wields a firearm and calls on fellow Republicans to go "RINO (Republican in Name Only) hunting" --- should give you a pretty good, and chilling, idea...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Today on The BradCast: Sure, the supply chain was, and occasionally still is, a problem. So is Russia's war on Ukraine, obviously. But it's the greed of billionaires and the cowardice (or corruption) of public officials to do anything about that greed in this country that must be turned around in order to save the U.S. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

But, first, speaking of corruption...New numbers out today from the Labor Department suggest that inflation may have peaked before April. As the Times alerted today, "Inflation moderated slightly in April, though the 8.3% annual gain in U.S. consumer prices remained uncomfortably high." As AP trumpeted in its breaking news iPhone alert: "U.S. inflation slowed slightly last month, a tentative sign that prices may be peaking while still imposing a financial strain on American households." Reuters: "U.S. consumer price growth slowed sharply to 0.3% in April, suggesting that inflation may have peaked." They were all similar....Well, except for Fox "News": "Inflation higher than expected in April, holding near 40-year high."

And you wonder why Rightwingers are so angry? It's still the Fox "News", stupid.

And speaking of stupid...Midterm primaries were held in Nebraska and West Virginia on Tuesday. (Happily, unlike in Ohio last week, we saw no reports of voting problems or voting system breakdowns, so far.) As you may have noticed, pretty much every news report about Tuesday's results focused on what they mean for Donald Trump and his party and the candidates he endorsed. The incumbent U.S. House member that Trump endorsed in WV who ran for the GOP nomination against another incumbent U.S. House member who voted for Joe Biden's bipartisan infrastructure bill won on Tuesday. Kingmaker Trump's power over the party is still strong! But the 8-time accused sexual harasser that Trump endorsed and stumped for in NE's GOP Gubernatorial primary lost. Trump's influence may be faltering!

As we discuss today, that framing by the corporate media --- reporting on these critical elections through the lens of Trump --- is wildly unhelpful and ill-serves the public at a time when democracy itself is on the line this November (and in 2024). It's not about Trump. He's already captured and broken the party. And that is true if he drops dead tomorrow and Ron DeSantis --- or anyone else --- takes his place. The damage is done. So, how can we fix it? Much more on that on today's show.

And speaking of failures all around... as the nation's death toll from COVID hits a staggering 1 million... The nation's corporations and rich people are doing just fine, thanks.

Big Oil continues to raise prices at the pump for consumers by pretending that its caused by post-pandemic supply chain issues and the war in Ukraine, even as they continue to rake in record profits (not revenue, but profits) in recent months. The profiteering --- under the guise of supply chain-induced "inflation" --- is also seen in other industries, of course, including the food industry, as well as the apparel business. In their latest reports on the industry profiteering, Accountable.us President Kyle Herrig appropriately derides "the industries most unapologetic about charging their customers more during a fragile economic recovery, apparently just because they can." And they can, because we let them develop monopolies and near-monopolies so there is little or no price competition left in the "free market".

And then there are the the nation's 727 billionaires whose growth in net worth over the two-plus years of the pandemic --- while you were struggling to stay employed, housed and fed --- is up $1.71 trillion from March 2020 to May 2022. That's a gain of more than the entire annual GDP of Canada for just those 727 U.S. billionaires. The biggest winner seems to have been Elon Musk, whose personal wealth was valued at just under $25 billion in March of 2020. Now, after two years of a pandemic economy, his wealth is said to be $255 billion as of the beginning of this month.

How did that happen? Why did that happen? What can and should be done about it? And does anyone in D.C. --- any one, from any party --- have the courage and ability to lead the nation to do anything about it?

All of those questions and more are answered today by our guest, OMAR OCAMPO of the Institute for Policy Studies' Program on Inequality and the Common Good, who asks today, "What about the rest of us? The median income, comparing 2020 to 2021, for your average U.S. worker has actually decreased by $2,000. And our median household wealth, comparing 2019 to 2001, has actually decreased. So yes, when you look at it by income or wealth percentile, it has been the top 10%, but especially the top 1%, that have seen impressive gains."

Ocampo helps explain how it happened, and what steps can and must be made to reverse this obscene continuing trend. Among the policy ideas discussed --- several of which have long been pushed by members of the progressive caucus in Congress --- a wealth tax on the assets of the richest Americans; partial student loan forgiveness; establishing a federal Commission on Profiteering, empowered with the ability to claw back some of what has been robbed from American consumers; strengthening organized labor and democracy itself.

And, yes, he explains, that will mean voting for more Democrats in Congress and at all levels of government. Hopefully good ones. Or this is going to continue to get much, much worse.

"The Republicans, from an ideological perspective, they are not interested in having some type of government intervention in order to solve societal problems," Ocampo charges. "They normally pivot towards philanthropy. But now is not the time to pivot to philanthropy, mainly because philanthropy does not scale, and it also denies public accountability for social problems or things that have to deal with the public good. So issues that affect the public should involve public input, and it should be carried out by democratic institutions."

"Economic inequality translates into political inequality. And the greater your material resources, the greater your access to participate in the state," he tells me. "This is very detrimental to democracy, because it makes the democratic institutions unresponsive to what the majority wants. The majority wants increased taxes on the wealthy, but it never seems to happen. That's probably because of their influence they have on both political parties."

"Elections matter, and to alleviate, especially in the short term, it would be best to elect Democrats. Because there is a section of the Democratic Party, specifically those that self-identify as progressives, who care about wealth inequality and know that it has distorting effects across our whole society."

Finally today, speaking of things getting much worse... Democrats held a show vote in the U.S. Senate to codify abortion rights (the Constitutional freedoms about to be taken away by the stolen and packed U.S. Supreme Court) after the Women's Health Protect Act was already passed by Democrats in the House. As expected, all Republicans and Joe Manchin voted against it, so the measure failed to reach the 60 votes necessary to do almost anything in the undemocratic Senate.

And, also breaking during today's program, an insane, corrupted federal appeals court in California decided that the state's law restricting the purchase of semi-automatic firearms to those 21 or older is a violation of the Constitution's 2nd Amendment. So, yup, apparently 12-year olds in CA can now buy semi-automatic weapons! Have fun, kids!

Did I mention we need more democracy and fewer corrupted federal judges? Yeah, that also comes with voting. Please get busy. Thanks...

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