Stand by for news --- some good-ish, some not-ish --- on today's BradCast! [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

First up today, some noteworthy results from yesterday's primary elections. Among a bunch of races covered today from four different states...

• Progressive New York "Squad" member Rep. Jamaal Bowman was soundly defeated in his 16th District U.S. House primary race by longtime local Democratic official George Latimer in what was, notoriously, the most expensive House primary ever run. The cost of the contest was largely due to the American Israeli Political Affairs Conference (AIPAC)'s investment of millions of dollars to defeat Bowman, who, among other sins, described Israel's war in Gaza as a genocide. That said, as many pointed out before Tuesday and as we detail today, Bowman, as a movement progressive, was likely to have lost this race anyway in a very diverse "normie Dem" district, even without the flood of AIPAC money.

• Far-right Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert's carpetbagging jump from her right-leaning, but swingy-ish 3rd District to the farther right 4th district --- after barely winning in the 3rd in 2022 by just a few hundred votes --- paid off as she managed to beat off three other Republicans to win the GOP nomination in the new district on Tuesday and, with it, most likely, another term in Congress this November.

• U.S. Rep. John Curtis, a not-insane, Mitt Romney-like, pro-climate action Republican from Utah, defeated a Trump-endorsed opponent to win the GOP nomination to fill the seat being vacated by the retiring Romney in the very red, but not completely Trumpy state this November.

• Another Trump-endorsed Republican lost, if narrowly, on Tuesday to Republican Sheri Biggs in South Carolina's primary runoff election for the U.S. House in the state's solidly red 3rd Congressional District.

And, some noteworthy news today from the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court, where a number of still-outstanding decisions remain, suggesting they may still be releasing opinions after the usual end of term in June, after we'll be on break over the Independence Day holiday week. Among the still-unreleased opinions are two that relate to criminal accountability for Donald Trump. It's up to you if you want to check out the (seemingly encouraging) abortion-related opinion that the Court appears to have accidentally released prematurely on their website for a few minutes on Wednesday morning. Beyond that, the two they meant to release today include...

• A seemingly absurd finding that federal law does not prevent payoffs by private parties to public officials after an official has done something --- such as award a multimillionaire contract --- to the private party. The case overturns a conviction against an Indiana Mayor who received $13,000 after fixing the bidding process to award a million-dollar contract to a local trucking company. A payoff, or an agreement for one before such the contract was awarded, in a direct quid pro quo, would be considered unlawful bribery. But a payoff after the action in question, no matter how much, is considered a "gratuity" that, the Court ruled [PDF] in a 6 to 3 partisan decision today, is not barred by federal law. State and local jurisdictions may still prosecute such payoffs under their own laws, however, if they wish.

• In a slightly more encouraging 6 to 3 ruling [PDF] today --- with three Republican-appointed Justices joining all three Liberals in the majority opinion --- the Court sided with the Biden Administration to reject claims by several Republican states and private plaintiffs that federal officials were unconstitutionally forcing social media sites to remove posts by so-called conservatives. The Court ruled that Plaintiffs had no standing here, since they all failed to demonstrate they faced any Constitutional harms by actions taken by federal officials --- in both the Trump and Biden Administrations --- to advise social media companies like Twitter and Facebook about potentially dangerous or misleading posts regarding COVID-19, election integrity and more.

And finally, on his HBO show last week, Bill Maher lauded Maryland's Democratic Governor Wes Moore for recently announced pardons to tens of thousands convicted over the years under state marijuana laws that have since been lifted. Maher then lamented how sad it was that Joe Biden wasn't smart enough to do the same thing at the federal level...even though Biden did exactly that two years ago when he also encouraged state Governors like Moore to do the same, as most marijuana convictions are at the state level. Of course, we covered both Biden and Moore's pardons as they happened. But, since Maher apparently never heard about it, I also want to make sure that at least you know about the new set of pardons issued today by the Biden White House...

• As the military news outlet Task & Purpose reports: "U.S. troops who were convicted under a now-defunct military law that targeted gay service members will receive formal pardons, the White House announced Wednesday." The pardons will apply to thousands of LGBTQI+ troops who were discharged, going back to 1951, for military rules that have since been removed and/or found unconstitutional. Said President Biden in a statement: "Today, I am righting an historic wrong by using my clemency authority to pardon many former service members who were convicted simply for being themselves." I hope someone tells Bill Maher before he misinforms millions yet again...

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From top to bottom, the Federal Judiciary, as evidenced several times this week alone and discussed in detail on today's BradCast, seems to be coming undone. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

But, first up today, a quick review of Tuesday's Primary and Special Election results in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Ohio and California. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have already won enough delegates to clinch their respective party's nomination, but there are still a several interesting data points of notes to be gleaned from Tuesday's results.

Among them, Trump is consistently losing a far larger share of Republican votes than Biden is losing on the Democratic side. On Tuesday, for example, Biden's reported margin of victory in the states where he was on the ballot was anywhere from 74 to 88 points, while Trump's margin never cracked even 70 points, ranging from 59 to 67. In short, Biden seems to be far more popular among Democratic primary voters than Trump is among Republicans.

We've got other noteworthy tales of the tape today, along with Senate Primary results out of Ohio, where both Democrats and Donald Trump appear to be very happy that Trump-backed Bernie Moreno will be the GOP's nominee running against three-term progressive Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown in November. And, in California, Democrats are no doubt happy to see that nobody won more than 50% of the vote in the Special Election to fill the seat left vacant by ousted Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday. That means his seat in the closely divided U.S. House, which will almost certainly go to a Republican eventually, will remain empty until at least the Special Election runoff in May.

Also of note today, what the Washington Post is describing as the Biden Administration's "biggest climate move yet". Desi Doyen joins us to explain the EPA's new final rule that is set to increase the speed of the nation's transition to cleaner Electric and Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles; how rightwing media are already lying about the EPA's new rule; and how Republican states and the fossil fuel industry will soon be seeking out friendly judges in the federal judiciary to try and undermine the new rule and its billions of dollars in life-saving new vehicle emissions standards for the American people and the planet.

Then, speaking of friendly rightwing judges, two cases that came before the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court this week --- when, in fact, neither of them should have --- serve to highlight our increasingly brittle judicial system and how it is being gamed by the far-right.

We're joined today by Slate's great legal journalist, MARK JOSEPH STERN to discuss both cases and what they might tell us about a court system, and perhaps a U.S. Supreme Court, nearing a breaking point.

We originally invited Stern for today's show to discuss Monday's absurd case brought by Republican-run states falsely claiming the Biden Administration is somehow violating First Amendment free speech rights by forcing social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to take down posts they don't like regarding COVID, election fraud and more. Of course, the government is not doing that at all. Stern describes the case at Slate --- Murthy v. Missouri (originally Missouri v. Biden) --- as "brain-meltingly dumb", "asinine", and "what happens when a lawless judge and a terrible appeals court embrace the dopiest First Amendment claim you’ve ever heard out of pure spite toward a Democratic president."

The case should never have even made it out of the lowest District Court, but for a Trump-appointed judge who "completely butchered the record and, I think, willfully misrepresented a huge amount of communications between federal officials and social media companies," Stern tells me. "He would pluck individual little clauses from those emails, rearrange them to make it sound like coercion, and then use that to develop what is frankly a conspiracy theory that the federal government strong-armed these companies into silencing their users and censoring speech. It's just not true." (See this article for just some of the gobsmacking examples of ways in which U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty "butchered the record" by falsely representing the evidence record in his ruling.)

Making matters worse, the nation's most extreme appellate court, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, further butchered the record to accomplish what corrupt Supreme Court Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch laughably described when the case came up to SCOTUS as "extensive findings of fact" that "showed the existence of ‘a coordinated campaign’ of unprecedented ‘magnitude orchestrated by federal officials that jeopardized a fundamental aspect of American life.'"

Monday's Oral Argument at SCOTUS, however, pulled the rug out from under pretty much all of that, as the phony allegations met skepticism from even the bulk of the Court's rightwingers. But before we could get to that case today, as previously planned, we had to get through the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals' other recent clown show (which the rightwingers on SCOTUS were happy to play along with last night): their attempt to allow Texas' new law that overturns a century of legal precedent and the U.S. Constitution itself to grant powers to state and local police that override federal immigration law, allowing them to arrest and deport suspected undocumented immigrants.

Stern unpacks the bizarre twists and turns the case has seen over the past 24 hours, and charges that the procedural nonsense from the 5th Circuit and subsequent acquiescence by SCOTUS simply "boggles the mind."

So, what might we learn from all of this --- and all that has come before it --- regarding corrupt Trump-appointed judges, a corrupt 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, a corrupt and increasingly volatile SCOTUS, and the rightwing judge shopping that exploits all of it? We discuss all of that and more with Stern who details "a kind of terrifying intramural war within the judiciary," as some of the courts are pushing back against an attempt by the U.S. Judicial Conference (headed up by Chief Justice Roberts) to rein in judge shopping, and, ultimately, how restoring confidence in the High Court itself may "all come down to what Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett want to do with the courts and want their legacy to be."

"Until they take a harder line here, it's going to remain just as broken as it looks," Stern asserts. "It's going to be even worse behind the scenes, based on what I'm hearing about how these judges' relationships are breaking down over this stuff --- and we're going to have different factions within the judiciary that are fighting for power, not unlike the Kremlin at the height of Soviet-era madness"...

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On today's BradCast: Given all of the ongoing madness, this story has not yet broken through all of the noise. But there is a concerted effort by several large corporations underway right now to undermine nearly 100 years of labor law in these United States. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

After some news headlines from today and the past several, we're joined by longtime, award-winning labor journalist STEVEN GREENHOUSE, formerly of the New York Times, now at The Guardian, and author of the new book, Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present and Future of American Labor.

At The Guardian last week, Greenhouse reported on the disturbing effort now under way by a number of major corporations, including Amazon, Starbucks, Trader Joe's and Elon Musk's SpaceX, to have the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) --- established as part of the 89-yeard old National Labor Relations Act --- declared unconstitutional by the federal courts.

The NLRB is critical to the survival of workers' rights and the unionization of workplaces. "The NLRB functions, essentially, as a referee, as an umpire, when workers seek to unionize. It tries to get workers, unions and companies to follow certain rules," Greenhouse explains today. "It's illegal, for instance, for companies to fire workers for supporting a union. Starbucks is accused of this. Companies fire the leaders of unionization efforts to decapitate, to kill the effort. The NLRB comes in as the empire and blows the whistle, saying, 'You can't do that. You can't fire people for supporting a union.'"

That said, the Board and its team of Administrative Judges who make determinations about violations of labor law, don't have the power to do much more than make findings. "It doesn't have the power to fine companies one penny for firing ten or twenty or thirty workers for supporting a union." Thus, companies like Starbucks have been in violation of the law more than a hundreds times over the past year, but clearly see the largely non-existent "penalties" for doing so, worth the crime.

The NLRB tends to side with management when Republicans are in the White House and control the Board, and with labor when a Democrat occupies the Oval Office. Greenhouse explains that Democrats have made efforts over the years to give more muscle to the NLRB, but have been blocked, for decades, by Republicans.

Still, as weak as the NLRB is, it plays a vital role in American labor law and workers right to collectively bargain for better pay and working conditions. "Corporations have long gloated at how weak the NRLB is. But what's really different now is that corporations, instead of just shrugging when they're slapped on the wrist, they're really taking a bazooka and going to court trying to have the NLRB declared unconstitutional," Greenhouse tells me.

Even though the NLRB has "been found constitutional time and again" over the past century, now that the federal court system --- including the Supreme Court --- has been so thoroughly captured by rightwing judges, these companies appear to be trying to gut the entire apparatus. And they may get away with it. Unions "fear that the Supreme Court and many judges have moved so far to the right that they are ready to blow up the system of federal agencies that generally has worked very well, over the past 90 years, protecting workers, protecting consumers, protecting investors."

But, Greenhouse warns, these companies "should be careful what they wish for." Finding the NLRB or the Act itself unconstitutional could return labor law to "the law of the jungle", as one labor expert cited in Greenhouse's report suggests. It could also work out much worse for the companies themselves than they may be realizing.

Tune in today for much more on all of the above.

Then, we dive into a bit more detail on some of the news of note since last week, including dictator Vladimir Putin's illegitimate reelection over the weekend to a third term --- and third decade --- of rule in Russia, and Donald Trump's claim that he is unable to come up with a bond to cover the $464 million fine he, his company, and his top execs (including his two eldest sons) now owe in New York after being found liable for years of massive bank, tax and insurance fraud...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority appears ready to gut federal agency authority on environmental regulations and more; Social media sites profiting off of a new breed of climate denial, new study finds; PLUS: Frigid Arctic air strands drivers of both electric and gasoline vehicles... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): An unprecedented flu strain is attacking hundreds of animal species. Humans could be next; 'Control the narrative': Alabama utility wields influence by financing news; EU bans 'misleading' environmental claims that rely on offsetting; Bird populations are declining. Some are in your neighborhood; Dr. Michael Mann’s defamation case over online attacks finally comes to trial... PLUS: These startups are teaming up to decarbonize cement and concrete... and much, MUCH more! ...

On the heels of last weekend's Hamas attack on Israel and Israel's subsequent retaliation against Gaza, there has been a flood of disinformation about the conflict allowed to circulate on social media. Also on today's BradCast, we take some time to focus on a major victory back home in the ongoing strike by auto workers against Detroit's Big Three. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

FIRST UP, a quick word or two on the landfall of Hurricane Lidia last night on the Pacific Coast of Mexico near the resort of Puerta Vallarta. When we got off air yesterday, the storm had quickly spun up to a Category 3 before ultimately making landfall as a Category 4, with windspeeds topping 140 mph. Happily, it hit in a sparsely populated area, so damage and loss of life, so far, has reportedly been minimal. But the rapid intensification of the storm, and its gaining of strength as it got closer to land is both remarkable and something we have seen much more of in recent years as our climate crisis worsens. Also, the fact that Lidia made landfall on the Pacific Coast of Mexico just one day after another storm, Max, did as well, should similarly be ringing alarm bells.

NEXT, the relentless military response by Israel against Gaza continues in the wake of the unspeakably horrific attack by Hamas on Israel over the weekend. So does a flood of misinformation, disinformation and propaganda on social media sites. Elon Musk's Twitter/X site is particularly horrible in this regard, following his firing of most of the company's content moderation team and its replacement by community volunteers who are, according to an NBC report today, largely being ignored by the company as false and inflammatory content runs wild. AP is helpful today in offering independently verifiable facts to correct the record on a number of viral social media videos and photos purposely doctored to mislead. One, for example, showed a manipulated "order" from President Biden, claiming to send $8 billion in aid to Israel. Another purports to show videos of Russian President Vladimir Putin warning the U.S. to "stay away" from the Israel-Hamas conflict. Both assertions were completely false, but were allowed to remain on Twitter for hours without correction to be seen by millions of users.

THEN, in some brighter news, the United Auto Workers union struck a stunning deal late last week with GM that will allow workers who build batteries for electric vehicles to join the union's master agreement with the company. That, after many thought that an agreement to unionize workers at EV plants would be impossible.

Our guest today is DR. MARICK MASTERS, Professor of Business and Political Science at Wayne State University in Detroit, where he also served as Director of the Labor@Wayne program. He joins us to discuss the big news for workers at battery plants and other successes, so far, by the UAW and its President Shawn Fain during the ongoing, unprecedented strike against all three major U.S. automakers.

Late last week, Masters published an article at The Conversation on "Why the UAW union's tough bargaining strategy is working". He joins us today to discuss the new tactics and strategies employed by union leaders in the growing work stoppage and how it might both lead to success and ultimately be adopted by other union organizers.

On the landmark agreement with GM to include workers making parts for battery electric vehicles in the master union contract, Masters describes the deal as "a monumental achievement on the part of the UAW," adding: "I don't think that anyone, including myself, thought that this was doable. I didn't think that was something that the companies would concede, but GM did."

He cautions, however, that "it remains to be seen whether the two other companies [Ford and Stellantis] will accede to this demand of the union. But I don't think the UAW would sign a tentative agreement with them if they didn't."

Masters breaks down the UAW's so-far successful three-part strategy in the ongoing strike; explains why labor leader Fain is receiving so much support from the public both for his "audacious" demands and style of negotiations; and discusses whether the strategies employed by the auto workers might be applied elsewhere, at both non-union companies like Elon Musk's Tesla and in other industries where workers are finally standing up to management and demanding better pay, benefits and working conditions...

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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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These are dark days indeed when the rise of a new Omicron variant turns out to be one of the lighter moments on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

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

• Some real light amid the darkness. It's the one day of the year when we try to celebrate the one thing that Congress did when it was controlled by Republicans during the George W. Bush era that WASN'T terrible. It was actually good! (Though at least one caller today disagrees.) And, no, it wasn't the 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act in 2006 (which was great! But they, obviously, didn't actually mean it as anything more than a failed election year ploy.)

• Sorry! But don't throw those masks away yet! Yes, we're all tired of COVID. But, no, it doesn't not appear to be tired of us yet. A new variant of Omicron --- dubbed "BA.2" or "stealth Omicron" or "Deltacron" --- is potentially 30% more transmissible than the highly infectious original Omicron variant, and its rising right now, and quickly, in parts of Europe and Asia. Luckily, it could never get here, right? Oops. It already has. (HELPFUL REMINDER: Now is the perfect time to get boosted if you haven't bothered yet! Seriously.)

• Snark amid the horror. The chief of Ukraine's anti-corruption agency writes a letter to the head of Russia's Ministry of Defense, "thanking" him for his embezzlement of the Russian military. The result, as alleged in his pretty hilarious letter (with photos): Russian tanks with armor filled with cardboard egg cartons; Bright light blue military transport vehicles that make for easy target practice for Ukrainian forces; "Bullet-proof" vests filled with cardboard.

• Russian propaganda debunked by AP. A particularly dark episode, the bombing of a maternity hospital last week in Mariupol, was all a fake, according to Russian officials. AP journalist and photographers, who were first-hand witnesses, however, report otherwise. They also follow up to report that one of the pregnant women at the hospital, videotaped as she was carried away on a stretcher through the rubble after the attack, has now died along with her unborn child.

• Russia media propaganda ministry makes Tucker Carlson a star! Yes, the Fox "News" anchor is repeatedly referenced in leaked memos sent to Putin's state-controlled media, urging them to play more clips of his various monologues from the Republican news channel repeating Kremlin propaganda. He's the only Western media star so cited in the several communiques obtained Mother Jones.

• YouTube blocks Russian propaganda channels. But ends up blocking a whole bunch of stuff that isn't Russian propaganda, including a bunch of my own appearances on RT over the years, long before they became little more than a mouthpiece for Putin. Is the loss of access to those videos (many of them previously embedded at The BRAD BLOG) a price worth paying to fight autocracy during wartime? We discuss, and have a bit of time (though very little) for a few callers who ring in today...

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In what would be a dream world for our previous President, who declared the media to be "the enemy of the people" just before his infamous 2018 meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Russia has now criminalized pretty much any and all independent media. But our guests on today's BradCast have a really cool and, yes, retro idea about how to help counter Russia's media blackout. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among other restrictions, Putin's new censorship law, adopted just after his invasion of Ukraine, mandates harsh penalties, including jail time, for the crime of reporting on the invasion as an "invasion" or "war". Independent outlets have been forced to shutter or have stopped covering the war at all. Western media outlets have pulled their reporters and Russia has closed Internet access to websites of foreign state-run media outlets such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, the BBC and Deutsche Welle.

Kremlin-approved propaganda is now all that many Russians have access to, where they are being told that Russia's barbaric military assault on its sovereign neighbor --- including its civilian population --- is little more than a minor, "special military operation" meant to "demilitarize and denazify" Ukraine. Civilians are not being harmed, and anyone who says otherwise is reporting "fake news," the Kremlin insists.

Of late, however, as Julia Davis reported yesterday at The Daily Beast, some cracks are beginning to appear, even on Kremlin-approved television, including one of Moscow's most popular evening news programs, whose Putin-friendly host has been sanctioned by the EU and where nightly broadcasts frequently end with clips of monologues by Fox 'News' star Tucker Carlson.

For most Russians, however, there is very little access to independent, outside reporting to counter the official state media narrative. Our guests today, attorney KATE NEISWENDER and former longtime Voice of America employee and shortwave radio enthusiast KIM ANDREW ELLIOTT are part of a small, grassroots effort aiming to revive a Cold War technology in hopes of helping counter the information desert inside of Putin's new Iron Curtain.

Dubbed #ShortwavesForFreedom on social media, the new project has begun raising money to fund re-broadcasts of Voice of America (VOA) programming into Ukraine and Russia via shortwave frequencies. While the BBC World Service announced this week they were reviving their old shortwave broadcasts into the former Soviet Union, the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty --- both managed by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) --- have declined to do so, at least so far.

Neiswender, Elliott and a number of other VOA veterans and supporters aim to fill that gap with a crowd-funded effort. The group has already raised enough over just the past week or so to get up and running --- rebroadcasting some of VOA's programming (which is all public domain) --- into Europe via shortwave transmission from Florida station, WRMI Radio Miami International.

They both join us today to explain, among other things: How this effort came together in just over a week's time; how they hope to expand from English-language programming to broadcasts in both Ukrainian and Russian; why they believe VOA (actually, USAGM) has yet to take this step themselves; and how a very small amount of money can go a very long way in this project, as they seek additional broadcasters to help transmit shortwave programming from both the U.S. and Europe.

Does anyone in Russia still even have access to the equipment needed to listen to the broadcasts? "Well, nowadays for sure, fewer people will be listening to shortwave and fewer people have shortwave radios," Elliott explains. "But, when the Internet is cut, squeezed, blocked, and at some point maybe even with lines into the country cut off, radio will be the only way to get in to the country. And then, the people in those countries will have to try to find their old Soviet-era shortwave radios." He believes "that audience can pass the information on to the larger audience in those countries."

Will Russian audiences have any more confidence that what they are hearing from Western state-run outlets like VOA is any more reliable than what their own state-approved outlets are telling them? "VOA and RFE (Radio Free Europe) have a government-imposed, in-the-code-written-by-Congress, can't-get-around-it mandate to be fair," Neiswender argues. She's referring to USAGM's Charter, adopted during the Ford Administration, which one VOA journalist has explained to me, means that, "We're probably the only news organization in the world that is mandated to be fair, objective and unbiased."

Whether VOA and RFE's reports are perceived as such by listeners inside of Russia and Ukraine is another matter, but their broadcasts did serve as an information lifeline to many behind the old Iron Curtain for many decades of the Cold War.

For now, the effort is already working. Elliott, who spent more than 30 years as a broadcaster and audience analyst at VOA tells us that "the signal is getting through to a very large extent, and sometimes with really good reception quality. Direct feedback from the audience, that will take some days and weeks as the word gets around that these transmissions are available. Already, WRMI received a note from a diplomat in Egypt who heard the Russian transmission. It is getting through."

Neiswender says that the project's success is only a matter of raising funds to keep going and expand their reach. The effort is crowdsourced with a fund raiser at Fundrazr.com/RadioWaves. A very small amount of money goes a long way here, she insists. They are already up and broadcasting after raising just over $6,000.

All of the money, "goes directly to the stations. No one is getting a dime from this that is organizing it or running it. Every cent of the money that is coming in is going directly back out to fund these transmissions," she notes.

It's a fascinating conversation about a fascinating project that I believe is well worth your time today, even as these are very strange days indeed.

Finally, we close with one more fascinating story, and a song. The story comes, ironically enough, courtesy of Fox "News", regarding Marina Baronova, the now-former Managing Editor of Russia's state-owned media outlet Russia Today (RT). She resigned her post last week in protest of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. She now fears for her life, though not necessarily for the reasons you may assume. And her interview with Fox concludes with this message: "Russians love their children, too."

As it happens, Grammy-winner Sting, last weekend, posted an Instagram video singing his 1985 tune called "Russians" which, he says, he has rarely sung since the end of the Cold War. Now, as you'll hear, it has new relevance. Apparently even for Baronova...

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It's one of those dark days on The BradCast. But we don't make the news, we just cover it. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

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

• NY Attorney General Letitia James releases a report finding Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed as many as 11 staffers and retaliated against one of them, in violation of both federal and state law. The third-term Democratic Governor continues to deny the charges compiled over 5 months by the AG and refuses to step down. President Biden joins the chorus of calls for Cuomo's resignation. The NY State legislature announces they will soon conclude their impeachment inquiry.

• New York City's outgoing Mayor, Bill de Blasio, announces that patrons of indoor leisure venues such as restaurants, gyms and shows will soon be required to show proof of vaccination. It's the first major U.S. city to require vaccination for use of businesses as the deadly and highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus wreaks havoc, even in places like NYC where a higher-than-average percentage of the population has been smart enough to become vaccinated.

• We continue to share heartbreaking stories of those who waited to too long --- for any number of usually terrible reasons --- to get vaccinated. Today's story features a husband and wife in Texas who didn't trust the vaccine, but now wish they had. They've both been "very, very, very, very sick" in the ICU and on ventilators for weeks. They are now begging relatives to make sure their four children get their shots, as it was too late for both parents to do so.

• Florida is leading the nation of late in infections, hospitalizations and deaths, breaking their own pandemic records on the first two data points over the past several days. President Biden today noted that the states of FL and TX now account for one-third of all cases in the U.S. and called on their GOP Governors to stop making things worse by blocking local health mandates. But, Louisiana is also breaking its own pandemic hospitalization record, leading Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) to reinstate indoor masking mandates and Dr. Catherine O'Neal, Chief Medical Officer of the state's largest hospital, to issue a dire statement on Monday. She calls these the "darkest days" of the pandemic in her state, and is begging residents to mask up and get vaccinated. ERs in the state, she explains, are now unable to treat non-COVID patients, such as those having heart attacks or suffering from vehicle injuries.

• Whether the CDC will say it out loud or not, Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter Laurie Garrett argues that the "science says" a third mRNA shot is going to be needed for all Americans --- and that those over 60 should already be getting them.

• And, yup, as TPM's Josh Marshall recently argued, citing the damage that mixed-messages from public health officials is causing, including to their own authority, while trying to coddle the voluntarily unvaccinated, "we need more blame": "We need to be placing the burdens on non-vaccination on the unvaccinated. And we need to be clear with the public that the problem is the non-vaccinated. They’re at fault. They’re to blame. And even more, the public influencers, celebrities and political actors who’ve driven resistance to vaccination are to blame."

• In lighter news, the month-old pro-Trump "free speech" social media network (just the newest of many) called GETTR --- created by Trump spokesperson Jason Miller and funded by one of Steve Bannon's Chinese benefactors --- is reportedly being flooded with pro-ISIS propaganda, including "reams of jihadi-related material...graphic videos of beheadings, viral memes that promote violence against the West and even memes of a militant executing Trump in an orange jumpsuit similar to those used in Guantanamo Bay." MAGA!

• Finally, as climate change hastens world collapse faster each day, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report! Told you we had a dark show for you today!...

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Last week, New York prosecutors filed multiple criminal indictments against the Trump Organization and its CFO Allen Weisselberg in response to an alleged "sweeping and audacious" 15-year tax fraud scheme. Today, Donald Trump himself filed a lawsuit against social media companies for banning him after he used his accounts to incite an attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Today on The BradCast, we discuss both issues and more, including our conversation with a former Asst. U.S. Attorney who is dubious about the legal expert consensus that NY prosecutors plan to file additional charges against other "senior executives" at the Trump Organization. [Audio link to full show is posted below summary.]

First up, Trump's new lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were announced on Wednesday, with the disgraced former President claiming that his First Amendment rights are being violated by the private companies who no longer allow him to use their platforms to lie about last year's election and to incite violence. The First Amendment, however, does not apply to private companies. It applies to the Government. In fact, as one legal expert notes today, "Trump has the First Amendment argument exactly wrong. In fact, Facebook and Twitter themselves have a First Amendment free speech right to determine what speech their platforms project and amplify --- and that right includes excluding speakers who incite violence."

It was next to impossible to find coverage of the lawsuit today which quoted any legal expert unrelated to the suit or the disgraced former President, who supported Trump's legal theory. Even Fox "News" quoted a libertarian lawyer describing the complaint as "asinine".

While it's unclear who is footing the legal bill for Trump's latest legal folly, seemingly meant to further hoax his gullible "conservative" supporters into believing they are all "victims" of political censorship by "radical left" giant social media companies, we're almost certain that Rudy Giuliani will no longer be lending his efforts. A new book by Michael Wolff documents Trump's rage over losing to Joe Biden last year, and claims that he is now unwilling to pay Giuliani for his legal work in criss-crossing the country to claim, without evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. That, as Rudy has now had his law license suspended in New York for his false legal claims about the election; is facing a federal investigation for his foreign lobbying work on behalf of Trump; and is named in billion dollar lawsuits by the Dominion Voting System [PDF] company for myriad lies about their products.

But Trump, of course, is facing his own legal problems as well, including the 10 criminal indictments filed against his company last week, along with 15 counts against his longtime Chief Financial Officer, Allen Weisselberg. The indictments, which include charges such as Scheme to Defraud; Conspiracy; Grand Larceny; Criminal Tax Fraud; and Falsifying of Business Records, stem from what prosecutors describe as a tax fraud scheme that includes more than a million dollars in off-the-books compensation for apartments, cars, and school tuition for Weisselberg and others, "orchestrated by the most senior executives” at the Trump Organization from 2005 until this year.

In the wake of last week's charges, many legal experts have argued the indictments suggest more charges will be coming, as part of the ongoing two year investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance and NY Attorney General Letitia James --- perhaps even for "senior executives" named Trump. Our guest today, however, former Asst. U.S. Attorney RANDALL D. ELIASON of George Washington University Law School, disagrees. At least, he is dubious.

In the days both before and after last week's indictments, Eliason suggested on Twitter that if NY ended up charging Trump's company along with Weisselberg, that would be a signal that there is not, in fact, more charges to come, as many have speculated.

Eliason, an expert in White Collar Criminal Law and a frequent contributor to Washington Post and his own Sidebars Blog, describes the charges against Weisselberg --- who allegedly received more than $1.7 million in untaxed, off-the-books compensation and stiffed city, state and federal governments for at least $900,000 --- as a very "serious case" indeed. He explains why nobody should be fooled by "Attorneys for Weisselberg and the Trump Organization [who] have tried to downplay these as just a 'fringe benefits' case, to make it sound as though it's about the company maybe just failing to report something."

He notes, in particular, prosecutors claims that the company was "keeping two sets of books" to hide their "tax fraud scheme". Eliason says this suggests a "very deliberate" effort to defraud that "makes it pretty hard to claim that it was just a mistake or a misunderstanding about the complicated tax code," as Trump implied during a rally in Sarasota, Florida over the weekend. (That, by way of stark contrast with his boast at a 2016 rally when he declared: "I know more about taxes than human being that God ever created!")

Eliason offers a great deal of insight into what these charges mean and how serious they are. Still, he goes on to argue that, in his opinion, unless prosecutors manage to flip Weisselberg --- which he believes would have already happened if Weisselberg was flippable --- that it is unlikely there will be further charges against others in the case.

"Failing cooperation by Weisselberg," he tells me, "the fact that they included the company [in the indictments] makes me think, if he doesn't flip, that's all we're going to have. Because otherwise you hold off on the company, you isolate Weisselberg, and if you bring cases against other individuals, with or without Weisselberg, that just makes the case against the company stronger. Because the company is only liable vicariously through the actions of its agents. So you don't charge the company now if you think there's more to come."

I challenge Eliason on a number of these points today, in which each of us concede we are reading tea leaves. Of course, he's the expert attorney and I am anything but. Please tune in for this interesting discussion!

Finally, we close with what is best described as some "good-ish news" regarding Elsa, the first Atlantic storm to come ashore this year, in what is already a record setting storm season...

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There has been a battle between Elizabeth Warren v. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook since the social media giant started accepting incendiary paid advertisements from President Donald Trump in which his campaigns makes claims about former Vice President and Presidential candidate Joe Biden that are, to put it mildly, less than true.

Recently, Warren, in a gutsy move, shot back with an ad that willfully lied about Zuck and Trump so she could make a valid point about Facebook's recent policy of allowing candidates' ads to run on Facebook without any vetting of facts.

What is really at issue is whether laws developed for local broadcast licensees can --- or should --- apply to social media platforms and, really, whether any outlets should be allowed to make billions of dollars knowingly running ads that lie and purposely misinform the public.

In her ad, Warren first claims "Breaking news: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have endorsed Trump for re-election!" Then she writes, "you might be thinking, how could this possibly be true? Well, it's not. (sorry.)" Warren goes on to make the point that what the Facebook CEO is doing in avoiding responsibility for all fact-checking on the massive social media site is giving Trump permission to lie --- so long as he pays Facebook "gobs of money" to spread those lies to voters. She draws a distinction between the way TV networks and Facebook are handling the ads: "If Trump tries to lie in a TV ad, most networks will refuse to air it. But Facebook just cashes Trumps checks."

Facebook responded, ironically enough, in a tweet...

On today's BradCast, I'm in for Brad and Desi --- popping in here from my own show, In Deep with Angie Coiro.

So much for a budget compromise - although we really didn't expect one, did we? Ah well. The Dems are counting noses for January 3rd.

Hey, about that "discredited" dossier: not so fast. McClatchy has the tip that Michael Cohen was too in Prague, and that Robert Mueller knows it. Over at the Washington Post, Philip Bump explains exactly how heavy a domino this is - if it's true.

A bit more of the news roundup, then MARK KASTEL of Cornucopia explains a terrible trend --- why America's organic farmers are not only fleeing the business, but in some cases taking their own lives (more on that latter herefrom the Guardian).

Our conversation grew out of this column by his friend and colleague Jim Goodman, who's owned a family dairy farm for forty years. He knew the name of every one of his 45 cows. The reason he quit --- the reason so many are throwing in the towel --- is a complex tale of inadequate labeling, Big Ag masquerading as small producers of genuinely organic products, and the resulting glut of milk and produce that strangles the little guy.

Hang on to these handy-dandy scorecards, telling you which producers of eggs, dairy, grains, and more are truly organic and responsibly produced.

Finally --- in light of the White House occupant preening and playing the hero on his campaign swing through Iraq --- I bring you a genuine hero telling his own tale: JAMES HATCH, author of "Touching the Dragon" --- a heartily-recommended read...

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On today's BradCast, I'm your host - Angie Coiro, host of In Deep with Angie Coiro.

Donald Trump's tweet fingers were a'twitchin', as he tried to keep up with the flow of Mueller investigation news while churning out headlines of his own. For starters, he made three key appointments/nominations:

• Army head General Mark Milley will move over to chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff;
• Former H.W. Bush Attorney General William Barr is up for confirmation as Trump's next A.G.;
• Former Fox 'News' talking head Heather Nauert is up to replace Nikki Haley as UN ambassador.

I've got the whys and wherefores on those for you. Also, Trump went into rage mode at word of his former Sec. of State Rex Tillerson's very frank discussion on Thursday at a public interview with CBS news veteran Bob Schieffer. Tillerson's explanation of Trump's incomprehension of basic issues, along with his trademark lack of discipline, provoked high-minded Trump tweets calling Tillerson "dumb as a rock" and "lazy as hell".

The BBC has a good basic rundown if you're trying to catch up with the case of Chinese telecom Huawei's alleged spying. I bring you the highlights plus updated news.

Meanwhile, a Swiss paper has published a conversation with Fox's Tucker Carlson who damned the White House occupant as "incapable" of fulfilling his promises. And he went further: "I don't think he's capable of sustained focus. I don't think he understands the system. I don't think the Congress is on his side. I don't think his own agencies support him."

Then, legal expert and journalist LARA BAZELON joins me to discuss her work on restorative justice for wrongly-convicted parolees. She's covered the topic for years for Slate.com, and has now released a book called Rectify. The full version of our conversation will be posted here over the weekend. Don't wait for that, though - I've brought you a big chunk of it right here on The BradCast!

Plus, so much more! It's a bellyful of news today. Check it out!...

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On today's BradCast, I'm sitting in for Brad and Desi. Nice to be back!

Today's news roundup includes this eternal riddle: is the tendency to be loathsome genetic? C.f. Trump, Trump Jr.: a deconstruction of yet another lying tweet, this time about market growth. Hint: again, TrumpCo trumpets financial news that only benefits the very few.

More news: Facebook's market drop sets a record – in fact, there’s so much going on with Facebook it's sprinkled throughout the show. A nod to an excellent Charles Pierce column in Esquire. And something small but wonderful on the medical marijuana front: a jury in Dublin Georgia solemnly listened to the case against Javonnie McCoy, who admitted he had marijuana for personal medical use. And yes, that's against the law. And the jurors shrugged and sent him home anyway. Seems they couldn’t get a head of steam up about a nice guy who wasn’t hurting anyone.

GARY FERGUSON, author of Land On Fire, joined me to tie the California conflagrations to global warming. This is a twofer: I include an earlier conversation I had with him on In Deep, explaining how the costs of a regional disaster become everyone's financial problem.

JOHN R. PLATT, editor of The Revelator, delves into a story that's too low-profile: shockingly high numbers of attacks on and Rewire News, tallies up what’s happening in legal and political realms on repro justice issues.

Lastly – it's Facebook again. Freedom from Facebook, a project of the Open Markets Institute, is one of a number of groups working to force Facebook to reform. BARRY LYNN, Executive Director of the Institute, explains how laws already in place can be used to make Facebook a better corporate citizen --- and help save news organizations at the same time.

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On today's BradCast, I'm sitting in for Brad and Desi, frantically sifting through news from every direction.

First it's a review of the headlines, including word that the FBI has turned twelve audio tapes seized from Michael Cohen over to federal prosecutors. Donald Trump screams at Iran in ALL CAPS on Twitter; Iran snarls back. The battle over the Carter Page FISA application release rages, but one thing the GOP can't really fight back on: the case made in those pages looks pretty bad for Team Trump.

A deep dive into an incredibly revealing portrait of Southern Baptist churchgoers in Luverne, Alabama. Stephanie McCrummen at the Washington Post did an amazing job on the story.

Then --- in honor of Adam Parkhomenko & Co's fantastic occupation of Lafayette Park outside the White House --- a conversation with attorney SHEILA THOMAS and Martin Luther King historian CLAYBORNE CARSON. We talk about effective protest, and how the art of protest has evolved since the civil rights revolution.

Finally --- did you spend money with Amazon on "Prime Day"? You and everybody else --- or at least enough of everybody else to jam up their system. JESSICA BRUDER'S Nomadland is her hands-on testament to nomadic Americans who've fallen out of the vanishing middle class, and are driving from job to job with Amazon, Walmart, amusement parks, state camping grounds, and more.

Download MP3 or listen online below...