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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Canada wildfires expand, threaten oil industry town of Fort McMurray, again; Climate change made extreme heat in Asia significantly worse; PLUS: Broadcast media ignored Donald Trump's blatant, billion-dollar quid pro quo offer to Big Oil... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): DeSantis signs law deleting climate change from Florida policy; A Trump win puts $1 Trillion in US energy investments at risk; How Alabama turned to restrictive deed covenants to ward off flooding claims from black residents; Oakland is now first in the US to have a 100% electric school bus fleet - and it's V2G; Impunity and pollution abound in DRC mining of critical minerals; Persistent Brazil floods raise specter of climate migration... PLUS: Don't fall for 'climate-friendly' beef... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Extreme heat and storms grip Asia; New study reveals the 56 major brands responsible for half of global plastic pollution; Negotiations for international plastic pollution treaty end with no limit on production; PLUS: Congressional probe finds Big Oil still trying to deceive the public about the impacts of climate change... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): A bit closer to holding Big Oil accountable; Asia's relentless heat wave is a warning; Increasingly frequent ocean heat waves trigger mass die-offs of sea life; Biden to expand 2 national monuments; Congress needs to stop trying to revive Yucca Mountain; Florida says no to federal funding aimed at greenhouse gas emissions; Minnesota's biggest solar project will help replace a huge coal plant; California's reneable energy roll rolls on... PLUS: Video: Inside the Icelandic plant turning CO2 into rocks ... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've got a grab bag of items on today's BradCast, as the critical midterm elections loom and a potentially catastrophic storm threatens the Sunshine State. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Among the potpourri of news on today's program...

• Some listener mail in response to yesterday's lively call-in show focused on expansion of the Supreme Court and the necessity of electing Democrats this November in hopes of saving American democracy.

• NASA scientists successfully fired a vending machine sized projectile last November toward a 560-foot wide moonlet orbiting around an asteroid traveling at thousands of miles per hour nearly 7 million miles away. They hit it on their first try. But, other than that, when it comes to things like our climate crisis and fighting infectious diseases here on Earth, scientists don't anything about anything and should be completely ignored, right?

• Texas' top law enforcement official, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, was indicted for securities fraud felonies seven years ago. He has been dodging a trial for those crimes ever since. In the meantime, he's facing a whistleblower lawsuit from former top deputies charging he abused his office and a criminal probe by the FBI regarding similar allegations. On Monday, his state Senator wife Angela (the one he was cheating on with a girlfriend who was given a job by one of his wealthy donors), served as a getaway driver for Paxton after he ran out of the house and fled by to dodge a process server attempting to serve the state's top attorney with two subpoenas. Cause that's what "the rule of law" looks like in the Lone Star State. Paxton will face Democratic A.G. nominee Rochelle Garza during his reelection contest this November.

• False claims of fraud in the 2020 election and threats against poll workers by Donald Trump and his flying MAGA monkey are resulting in a surprising number of folks signing up to be poll workers on both the Left and the Right. That's actually a very good thing! But many more poll workers are still needed to help protect democracy this year! Please contact your local elections office to consider becoming one!

• And, speaking of protecting democracy, last week, the House passed a bipartisan bill to update the Electoral Count Act of 1887. That is the arcane and confusingly written law that Trump and the MAGA monkeys tried to exploit in hopes of stealing the 2020 Presidential election on January 6, 2021. A similar bipartisan bill to the one passed by the House with little GOP support is now quickly moving through the U.S. Senate. And today, republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell came out in support of it. That means the measure is likely to get the 10 Republican votes needed to overcome a filibuster in the undemocratic upper chamber. This much-needed reform to help prevent just one of the ways that Republicans could steal the 2024 Presidential election may see passage in the full Senate before the end of this year.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for both our latest Green News Report and the latest worrying news on Hurricane Ian, a storm that is currently on a potentially catastrophic path toward Tampa Bay, Florida...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Ian takes dead aim at Florida; Hurricane Fiona was strongest storm on record to hit Canada; Super Typhoon Noru pummels The Philippines; Americans to pay even more for fossil gas this winter; PLUS: Pacific Island nations call for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Sabotage suspected as Russian natural gas leaks from ruptured Nord Stream Pipelines; As irreversible 'tipping points' loom, scientists are trying to figure out how to communicate the risks; Many in Puerto Rico remain without power, 9 days after Fiona hit; Bolsonaro election loss could cut Brazilian Amazon deforestation by 89 percent; Nigeria suffers widespread blackouts after electricity grid fails; Compared to oil and gas, offshore wind is 125 times better for taxpayers; Legal pot is causing a new plastic pollution problem ... PLUS: MIT’s new battery could shock industry ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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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Today on The BradCast: As the year grinds toward another bizarre, unbalanced close, America tries to pick up the pieces and keep moving forward. So do we. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

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

• On the heels of Sen. Joe Manchin's stunning weekend announcement that he was breaking his promise to the President and his party to support the Build Back Better Act, which includes nearly $600 million to fight climate change and help coal miners in Manchin's home state, the nation's largest mining union is hoping that the West Virginia Senator will reconsider his decision. Among the funds in BBB is money earmarked for victims of black lung disease as well as tax incentives to help ex-miners from the dying industry and to protect its union workers. While Manchin makes millions from the coal industry via the coal brokerage firm he founded, which is now owned by his son, he doesn't appear to give a damn about the industry's actual miners.

• A few additional thoughts today on why the corrupt Democratic Senator from West Virginia --- who is killing the most progressive climate and social spending agenda in the nation's history (after every single Republican in Congress has refused to support it in anyway) --- is still needed in the Democratic caucus. For a start, without him, there would have been no American Rescue Plan (which sent $1,400 checks to Americans earlier this year, expanded the Child Tax Credit program to send $300 per child each month to parents, and helped get hundreds of millions vaccinated), nor would President Biden have been able to seat a record number of federal judges in the first year of his Presidency. Without Manchin as a Democrat --- love him or hate him --- Mitch McConnell and the Republicans would be in the Senate majority right now and none of Biden's many critical accomplishments to date would have happened.

• So, why did Manchin decide to break his promise to his party and the President on BBB? Steve Clemons reports that while negotiations between the two Joes had been moving forward, even if slowly, the thin-skinned Senator didn't like being singled out by name in a statement from the White House --- even though the statement was largely encouraging about the state of negotiations. Lame. But we think that even that explanation is likely little more than excuse for Manchin's betrayal. We explain why.

• Next, the remarkably transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus is spreading at an absolutely unfathomable speed in the U.S. just before the Christmas holiday, according to the latest CDC numbers out this week. In little over a week, it appears to have gone from just 3% of cases to 73% of cases nationwide, all but edging out Delta entirely. There are one or two possibly encouraging pieces of news about the new variant, but it will still be a matter of weeks before we know if those potentially reassuring points will come to pass. In the meantime, a whole bunch of people are going to get sick and many are likely to die. Almost all of those who get severely ill and face both hospitalization and death will be those who refused to (or couldn't, for legitimate reasons) get vaccinated, including with a critical booster shot.

• Among those who received a booster shot recently --- in secret --- is former President Donald Trump. That, after suggesting in September he was unlikely to get one. Turns out he's a liar. Who knew?

• Amidst the disturbing news of Omicron's lightning surge, and the hospitals that are likely to become overwhelmed very shortly across the nation (many already are), President Biden addressed the nation from the White House on Tuesday afternoon. He shared the Administration's plans to try and minimize the coming damage. Biden announced that the federal government will spend more than a billion dollars on free home COVID test kits; instructed the Pentagon to be prepared to deploy more than 1,000 National Guard troops to help overcrowded hospitals handle the coming testing, infection, and hospitalization surge; is activating FEMA to deploy additional hospital beds where hospitals are overrun, and to have ambulances on standby to help transport patients from one overrun hospital to another where a bed may be available. He reiterated the need for everyone to get vaccinated and explained what families should and shouldn't do over the coming holidays. We share his address in full today, and offer a few thoughts in response.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us with our latest Green News Report on climate fallout from Manchin's BBB announcement; a deadly December super-typhoon that slammed the Philippines; and some good news on mileage standards from the EPA and for the U.S. offshore wind industry...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Manchin's Build Back Better bombshell threatens to cancel Biden's climate agenda; Unusual deadly December super-typhoon slams Philippines; EPA issues stringent new mileage standards; PLUS: U.S. offshore wind industry wins key decision... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Can Reality Denial be Countered?; DOJ Charges 3 Companies For OC Pipeline Break; From the pandemic to climate change, Americans are still expected to work no matter what happens; EPA begins rolling out billions to clean up Superfund sites; U.S. fishing industry teams up with oil lobby to fight offshore wind; Black Communities Become "Sacrifice Zones" for Industrial Air Pollution; Unprecedented die-offs, melting ice: Climate change is wreaking havoc in the Arctic and beyond... PLUS: Walmart sued over huge illegal dumps of toxic waste in California landfills... and much, MUCH more! ...

We're back live on today's BradCast after a week off for travel and downtime over the holiday --- and the need to set the record straight on a few things that have been misreported in our otherwise blissful absence. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

There's plenty to worry about right now in this country and on this planet. Just not necessarily the stuff the corporate media (and GOP) are telling us (or hoaxing us) to worry about. So, after a week away, we ease our way back in, beginning with the process of trying to help reset what Americans should be worried about, should not be worried about, or should otherwise be thankful for. And we also open up the phones to callers to help us do all of the above.

Among some of the source material for stories covered and/or records set straight on today's program...

• No, as we discussed just before we left for Thanksgiving break, post-pandemic inflation is not the disaster that Republicans (and the nation's corporate media) have a stake in pretending that it is. Especially not with the recent, under-reported statistics regarding the lowest number of new weekly jobless claims filed since 1969 (a story that both the media and the GOP haven't spent nearly as much time telling you about, even as Republicans are describing Americans suffering from inflation and high gas prices as a "gold mine" for their party.)

• The corporate media have spent most of the weekend freaking out about the scary-sounding new COVID variant called Omicron. It might be scary. It might not be. Frankly, health officials just don't know enough to know either way. But, if you're already vaccinated (especially with a booster!) and wear a mask when indoors in public places, you are likely to be just fine. That, before the mRNA vaccines get quickly updated to handle the Omicron variant in a remarkable 100 days or less, as both Pfizer and Moderna are now working toward. As President Biden correctly noted at the White House today, "This variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic." From what little we know, at least to date, no, this isn't worth being overly worried about...at least not yet --- unless you're unable to or are dumb enough or hoaxed enough to not have gotten vaccinated by now.

• Very much worth being worried about? What is now going on --- potentially --- in both the South China Sea and Ukraine. With the pandemic, the economy and, most appallingly, the Republican Party working to destabilize the U.S. right now, China and Russia are far greater threats in both regions than they might otherwise be.

• There is much more to be either worried or not worried about as we detail on today's program, along with a bunch of callers who help along those lines...or don't...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Catastrophic flooding the latest disaster to pummel Australia; Climate-related disasters now produce the most refugees in the world; Judge rules bankrupt coal company can leave mine cleanup obligations to the tax-payers; PLUS: Biden White House prepares massive infrastructure jobs bill... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Indigenous Anti-Dam Activist Killed In Honduras; Trump’s Parting Gift to St. Croix: One of America’s Largest Refineries; Germany dismisses Australia's claims that planned EU carbon border tax is 'protectionism'; Coal Markets Roiled as Australia’s Flood Crisis Worsens; Interior Reverses Course On Tribal Ownership Of Portion Of Missouri River... PLUS: If your flood insurance bill is $30,000 it's sending a message --- don't live there... and much, MUCH more! ...

Well, as detailed on today's BradCast, we've been trying, for a long time to get answers about the new, unverifiable touchscreen voting systems set to replace Los Angeles County's verifiable hand-marked paper ballot system for the first time in the 2020 Presidential elections. Disappointingly, however, the L.A. County Clerk/Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan, who had been very responsive and helpful in previous years, no longer answers simple questions about the new voting system called "Voting Solutions for All People" (VSAP), which he has been developing for more than a decade. That is very troubling, as we explain in detail today. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

The new VSAP system is a touchscreen Ballot Marking Device or BMD, which prints out a computer-marked paper ballot summary of votes selected via the touchscreen, before using another computer, an optical-scanner, to read the non-human readable QR Code that is also printed on the ballot summary. The QR Codes are used to tally votes. While the QR Code (a type of barcode) cannot be verified for accuracy by voters, it is also impossible with such systems to know if any voter has even verified the human-readable portion of the ballot summary at all, much less correctly, after an election. Studies reveal that most do not verify computer-marked ballots at all, and that of the minority who do, most don't recall the details or selections on the ballot they voted just moments earlier. That's just one of the many reasons why most cybersecurity and voting systems experts warn against the use of such systems which are now proliferating --- and sometimes replacing verifiable hand-marked paper ballot systems --- in many states and counties across the country before 2020. (The list of states where counties or the entire state are moving to BMD systems include a number of key battleground states. Such systems are planned for use next year, or are already being used, in OH, WI, PA, TX, WV, KY, NY, NJ, KS, TN, IN, SC, NC and, yes, CA, unless the public prevents these plans.)

We have been trying to get simple answers from Logan about the VSAP project before voters are forced to use it next year in the nation's largest voting jurisdiction, but Logan has both repeatedly refused to answer many such questions and has declined repeated invitations to appear on the program, including today's. That, after he has joined us on a number of occasions over the years (the last time he joined us was in April 2013 to announce that the new system would be an unverifiable touchscreen system) and he used to be quite responsive to voter questions and concerns on Twitter and elsewhere.

Among the simple questions Logan refuses to answer of late:

• Will voters at the polls in Los Angeles still be allowed to vote on hand-marked paper ballots as previously mandated by the CA Sec. of State? (The office of Democratic SoS Alex Padilla, a supporter of the new system in L.A., has also not yet responded to that question.);
• Will there be paper backups of the new electronic pollbook systems used with VSAP at the new Voting Centers which will be replacing community precincts this year? (1,000 such Voting Centers will allow voters to vote from any of them, versus the 4,000 local precincts L.A. voters have used in the past);
• Will independent cybersecurity and voting systems experts like Harri Hursti, who has hacked many voting machines over the past decade or more, be allowed to carry out security and penetration tests on the system before it's used in the 2020 Presidential election? (Hursti has agreed to do so, but Logan has not responded, at least publicly, to take him up on his generous offer);
• Where is the public documentation for whatever certification and security testing that Logan claims to have already carried out?
• Why was a private, foreign-based voting systems vendor named Smartmatic given the nearly $300 million contract to build and program the systems, despite their disturbing record of mysterious foreign ownership and failed past elections?;
• Why does Los Angeles and the California Sec. of State characterize the new VSAP system as "open source", while refusing to disclose the so-called "open source" to the public and responding to public records request to review it (even from other elections officials!) by claiming the system's code is "propriety information", "trade secrets" and that disclosure would "reveal vulnerabilities to attack or would otherwise increase the potential for an attack on the public agency's information technology system"?

We would have preferred Logan joined us on air today to answer such questions, and many more from callers. However, as he declined, we were forced to do our best to answer them ourselves.

Moreover, it would also be helpful if corporate media bothered to cover any of these important issues to the public. The Los Angeles Times ran two stories on VSAP last week, one a fawning 1,900 feature article on Logan and his years-long development process for the system. Neither story by the Times' Matt Stiles --- including the one headlined "Ready for the voting overhaul in L.A. County? Here’s what you need to know" --- mentioned anything about the many security and verifiability concerns of the new system. Following my public complaints to that end over the past week, Stiles has told me he is considering a story on those concerns. I hope so! Voters need to corporate to step up to this stuff, even a tenth as much as they cover the horse race --- while ignoring the track conditions on which the horses will be running!

Arguably, as bad or worse, Washington Post has a page up on their website headlined "How Ballot-Marking Devices Work". There is no story or text on the WaPo page, remarkably enough, just an embedded version of a two-and-a-half minute promotional video for the VSAP project created by the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's office. Seriously! Nonetheless, out of an abundance of fairness, we aired the full promotional video for the system on the program.

We take a deep (and often harrowing) dive into all of the above and much more --- along with listener calls, many of them furious, as they hear about this for the first time --- on today's BradCast...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Officials warn Hurricane Florence could knock out power and other essential services for weeks; 10 million people are also in the path of Super Typhoon Mangkhut; Trump Administration diverted $10 million from FEMA and gave it to ICE; Trump EPA moves to make it easier for oil and gas companies to release methane into the air; PLUS: U.N. chief warns of dangerous tipping point on climate change... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Climate change wrought this freak of nature called Hurricane Florence; Administration announces plan to streamline oil and gas extraction in national forests; Top green group to spend an unprecedented $60 million on 2018 races; US 'likely' has taken over as the world's top oil producer; Rush Limbaugh spreads disinformation on Hurricane Florence, climate change; Former EPA chief Pruitt in talks for his next job: coal consultant; Miss Michigan denounces Flint Water Crisis in Miss America intro; Heat killed a record number of people in Phoenix last year as days, nights grow warmer... PLUS: Category 6? Climate change may cause more hurricanes to rapidly intensify... and much, MUCH more! ...

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, one of the most amazing candidate meltdowns ever seen (or, in this case, heard) and how the Speaker of the House hopes to look the other way in the event that he wins anyway. But that's just the tip of today's news iceberg(s). [Audio link to show posted below.]

In one of the most remarkable Election Eve unravelings ever by a U.S. candidate for...pretty much anything, Republican U.S. House candidate Greg Gianforte melted down on the eve of what should have been an easy victory in his statewide Special Election for Montana's only U.S. House seat against Democratic candidate Rob Quist. Instead, in an incident caught on stunning audio tape and witnessed by Fox "News" reporters, Gianforte "body slammed" a Guardian reporter, has been charged with assault, and saw his newspaper endorsements rescinded on the night before voters went to the polls on Thursday.

But many voters already cast their vote by absentee ballot by time of the Wednesday incident, and House Speaker Paul Ryan suggests he'll accept whatever results are reported from the election. That, as I explain today, conveniently ignores Congress's Article 1, Section 5 Constitutional right (and duty) to determine who is actually seated in the House of Representatives. It's a right they have exercised on a number of other controversial elections in the past, so surely Ryan is familiar with that. But, of course, we'll soon see (hopefully) who voters in Montana have decided they want for their only Representative in the U.S. House.

At the same time, it was another enormous news day in which Donald Trump's second attempted travel ban Executive Order was blocked, yet again, this time by the full U.S. 4th Circuit of Appeals. His Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced he will appeal the case to the GOP's stolen U.S. Supreme Court.

Also today, yet another embarrassment for the Trump Administration, which was publicly taken to task by British Prime Minister Theresa May for leaking British intelligence to media regarding the UK's Manchester Bombing investigation. The leaks not only invoked the wrath of (and temporarily stopped intelligence sharing from) the United States' closest ally, but it was hardly the only highly sensitive information recently and inappropriately disclosed to friend and foe alike by Trump and/or his Administration in recent days.

And, in a (related) news item we didn't get to yesterday, after disclosing the whereabouts of two U.S. nuclear submarines, it appears Trump actually praised Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte during a recent phone call for the "unbelievable...great job" he has done on that nation's drug epidemic --- in which thousands of people have been murdered in a brutal extrajudicial campaign carried out by Duterte's police force.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us with a jam-packed Green News Report, before still more news breaks at the buzzer, reportedly finding Trump's top adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner 'under FBI scrutiny' in the Bureau's ongoing Trump/Russia probe...

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On today's BradCast, Donald Trump is well on his way to becoming the most corrupt U.S. President in history. And he's not even in office yet. For that matter, he's not even the officially winner of the election yet, as ballots are still be tallied and we're keeping an eye on three key battleground states (Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania) where less than 50,000 votes total (out of more than 13 million cast) remain the difference between a President Trump or a President Clinton. We continue to call for full hand-counts in those states and others to determine who actually won them. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

Then, after Trump agreed to pay $25 million in a massive fraud settlement concerning his 'Trump University' scam late last week, the U.S. corporate media became immediately distracted by a his tweets about Mike Pence being booed at a Broadway play over the weekend.

We discuss today how the media --- and GOP politicians --- would have reacted differently if it was Hillary Clinton who had agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars to settle multiple fraud cases after the election. At the same time, word comes in from the foreign press that Trump has been cashing in since the election, on business deals in India, the Philippines and Argentina, while unconstitutionally receiving payoffs from foreign diplomats via his new Washington D.C. hotel.

So, what explains, if anything, the U.S. media's deferential treatment of Trump? Author Eric Boehlert of Media Matters joins us to discuss the extraordinary disparities between how the media cover Republicans versus Democrats and how they utterly failed the nation in the lead-up to the election.

Also today: Police unleash water cannons and tear gas in North Dakota overnight, against Native American protesters gathered to try and stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and climate scientists are freaking out (for very good reason) as the Arctic is now an "insane 36 degrees" warmer than usual for this time of year and as global sea ice area is now way lower than it has ever been in recorded history. It is, in fact, off the charts from even previous record low years.

This is all very not good...

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