Oddly enough, covering good old fashion primary special election results for the U.S. House feels like a palate cleanser today on The BradCast, with all of the other ongoing nightmares around us. Even a scrappy one between Democrats in Ohio. [Audio link to full show is posted at end of this summary.]

Two vacant U.S. House seats are up for grabs in the Buckeye State. One in a very "red" district (the 15th), vacated by GOP Rep. Steve Stiver for a gig at the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. It will almost certainly stay in Republican hands this November. The other, in the very "blue" 11th Congressional District, comprised of Cleveland and Akron, was vacated by Rep. Marcia Fudge, who became Joe Biden's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. That one will almost certainly stay in Democratic control this Fall. So, all the action in both races was to win their respective party's nomination on Tuesday.

In the 15th, the Donald Trump-endorsed coal lobbyist Mike Carey, who vows to vote like Ohio's Rep. Jim Jordan, easily topped an 11-candidate field to keep "draining the swamp" in D.C., by filling it up with Republican lobbyists in elected positions. And in the 11th, Cuyahoga County Council member Shontel Brown appears victorious over former Ohio legislator turned Bernie Sanders' backer Nina Turner, in a race that seemed to be Turner's to lose until things got very ugly in the final weeks.

Brown, the centrist, was supported nationally by Hillary Clinton, SC's kingmaker Rep. James Clyburn, and, in the final weeks, both the Israel lobby and the Congressional Black Caucus, which usually doesn't become involved in primary races, particularly between two African-American candidates. Both groups dumped millions into the race on behalf of Brown in the weeks before Election Day. Turner, for her part, was supported nationally by Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other well-known progressives, including many in the CBC. But, according to Turner in her concession speech Tuesday night, it was "evil money" from outside groups that turned the tide against her. To be fair, Turner's own words and actions were turned against her in TV ads, highlighting some pretty ugly attacks she had made against the Democratic Party and even its standard bearer Joe Biden during the 2020 primaries. Nonetheless, it does appear to have been establishment money that ultimately tipped the scales against Turner.

We're joined today once again by longtime progressive champion and journalist JOHN NICHOLS, Washington Correspondent at The Nation, to break down what the results on Tuesday night mean --- or don't --- for Democrats and the feisty progressive movement hoping to challenge the Party establishment.

Nichols sees the local party machine as having made the ultimate difference for Brown, who chaired the Cuyahoga County Dems. He says the local party has "real strength," adding: "I do think that there was a tremendous amount of pressure brought on that race that focused a lot of attention on things that Nina Turner had said in the past about Joe Biden, about some other Democrats, and she was portrayed as being somebody who wouldn't be loyal enough to the Democratic Party or to Democratic organization."

But "there are always battles for the soul of political parties," he observers. "This goes back 75-80 years, this battle between progressives and centrists, between those who want the party to be transformational, and those who want it to be managerial.  Similarly, there have been such battles in the Republican Party over the years, going back definitely to the days of Joe McCarthy, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, a fight between the further right and moderates."

"What I'm telling you is, this is politics," he says.

We also discuss the big money in the 11th District race and the pathetically low voter turnout --- less than 17%, which both media and the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections described as "higher than expected"(!) --- as factors in Tuesday's primary and what all of it means, if anything, for the Party moving forward.

Also today, in a second segment with Nichols, we discuss the "Death Cult" that is now the GOP, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis --- even as his state is https://www.reuters.com/...rnor-2021-08-02/smashing all-time pandemic records for both infections and hospitalizations --- actually issued an Executive Order just last week barring schools from requiring face coverings as the school year begins in a matter of weeks. That, even while GOP denialism and the Delta variant of the coronavirus have helped the Sunshine State to lead the nation right now in per capita COVID infections.

As Nichols reports at The Nation this week, DeSantis is hardly the only one in his party putting constituents at risk with mad, anti-science positioning in hopes of becoming the next Donald Trump, or even his 2024 running-mate. But, Nichols explains, while "DeSantis has fully taken in this authoritarian rightwing approach," there are signs that his "really destructive approach" to governing may be backfiring as he faces re-election in 2022. He cites new statewide polling showing that potential Democratic opponents to the Governor "are suddenly either ahead of him or essentially tied with him." Apparently independent voters in the state aren't all that keen on "death by DeSantis".

We also discuss the potentially "transformational" infrastructure, jobs and health care package that Biden and the Democrats are --- against all odds --- still on track to pass this year via a $1 trillion bipartisan bill and a $3.5 trillion Democratic-only bill paired with it, that both establishment and progressive Dems hope to hammer out and push through with a simple majority vote. Does Nichols believe this remarkable achievement will be possible in the end? Tune in to find out.

Finally, while many elected Republicans are falling over themselves to kill their own constituents as quickly as possible by pushing against mask and vaccine mandates and science itself, one Republican Governor --- who had played along for a while, earlier this year --- now has regrets...

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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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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Looks like Infrastructure Week is finally happening; Major U.S. interstate in Colorado shut down indefinitely by wildfire-related mudslide; County in Washington State passes America's first-ever ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure; PLUS: Massive new wildfires force evacuations in Greece, Turkey and Italy... 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): The Bipartisan Bill Enters The Amendment Process, Length TBD; Big banks, financial firms hatch plan for Asian coal-fired closures; Western Wildfires Are Sending Carbon Offsets Up in Smoke; Tokyo Olympics may be hottest ever; Biden mileage rule to exceed Obama climate goal; Shell sponsored a museum exhibit on climate solutions, with strings attached; A Geothermal Energy Boom May Be Coming, and Ex-Oil Workers Are Leading the Way; Google is quietly trying to find out if hard drives are recyclable... PLUS: DHL Express buys electric cargo planes for U.S. package delivery... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, we open the phones to talk vaccination again, though for a different reason than we've done so in the past. [Audio link to full show follows the summary below.]

Among the stories discuss today...

• The third highest Republican in the U.S. House, Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY) lauds Medicare and Medicaid and the "the critical role these programs have played to protect the healthcare of millions of families," but warns --- in the very same gobsmacking tweet(!) --- "To safeguard our future, we must reject Socialist healthcare schemes." Seriously. That's who now serves in the GOP leadership seat previously occupied by Rep. Liz Cheney, until she was tossed out of it by the Republican House caucus for telling the truth about Trump and replaced by Stefanik.

• Nonetheless, as clueless as Congressional Republicans are, somehow Democrats are managing to move enough of them forward, for now, on a landmark, bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill with some really good and important stuff in it. We break down the key details, released over the weekend, for the package that is to be paired with a much larger, $3.5 trillion Democrats-only bill that can be passed in the Senate with a simple majority vote. But both bills must be passed in the Senate before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will allow either to come to the floor for a vote in the lower chamber. For now, the smaller bipartisan package is on track for passage before the Senate takes its August recess at the end of this week. But, there's still a long way to go and a lot of potential landmines to be avoided from both the Right and the Left. If Biden and Dems can pull both packages off, it would be a remarkable achievement, and the largest investment in America since FDR's New Deal.

• At the same time, the Delta variant of the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc across the nation, almost entirely on the unvaccinated, even though the vaccinated are paying a shamefully high price for the idiocy of the unvaxxed. Nowhere in the U.s. more so at the moment than in Gov. Ron DeSantis' Florida, where he's blocked the ability for local officials to issue mask mandates and signed a law preventing private companies from requiring vaccination for customers or employees. On Friday, however, the Sunshine State registered more new COVID cases than at anytime during the pandemic --- including back before there were safe, plentiful, effective, free vaccines to help people avoid it! Now, as infections rage out of control, the state's hospitals have filled up as they reach record capacity and non-COVID-related treatments and surgeries are being cancelled because of it.

• Several weeks ago we opened the phone lines to hear from unvaccinated listeners as to why (the hell) they were refusing to protect themselves and/or their friends, families, neighbors and co-workers. Today, we opened the phones for a related reason. Since the rise of the highly transmissible and dangerous Delta variant, and its horrifying surge across the country --- most markedly in Trump-supporting states and counties --- almost 5 million longtime holdouts finally decided to get their shots, with those Trump states leading the way in increased uptake. (Sadly, the decision to get vaccinated continues to come too late for many, including this Las Vegas family discussed today.) So, we were curious what it was, specifically, that has led some longtime vaccine holdouts to finally decide to get inoculated. We were also curious what folks thought about the idea of compulsory vaccinations, for which legal analyst Ernie Canning made the legal case today at The BRAD BLOG. We opened up the phone lines to listeners on all of the above --- including the still, stubbornly, foolishly, idiotically, dangerously, voluntarily unvaccinated...

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In the short term, the U.S. government can and should compel all citizens, other than those for whom the COVID vaccines may be medically contraindicated, to be vaccinated at the government's expense. It should also insist that the major U.S. pharmaceutical companies contractually waive their right to enforce their COVID vaccine intellectual property rights before a World Trade Organization (WTO) tribunal.

Long term, if we place a greater value on human life than we now do with respect to obscene levels of wealth accumulation by a privileged few, both the U.S. and other governments should renegotiate the TRIPS agreement so as to eliminate intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical companies over life-saving vaccines developed with the aid of public monies.

Alternatively, the U.S. and other governments should take a hard look at whether their respective pharmaceutical industries should be nationalized...