On today's BradCast: It's no surprise that Fox 'News' deluded itself for months and even years about a "red wave" or "tsunami" coming for the 2022 midterm elections. It shouldn't be a surprise that the theoretically legitimate media got it wrong as well, given that they seem to make the same errors election after election. And yet, it's both surprising and disappointing, given that the data to counter their erroneous narrative was right there in front of their face the whole time...if they simply bothered to, or had the courage to, listen to it. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

"There was nothing magical about what I did," our guest today, TOM BONIER of the Democratic data research firm, TargetSmart, explains. "It was, as you say, seeing the numbers and reporting the numbers and, in the end, trying to stay away from predictions or projections, but to say, 'Look, this is what we're seeing'."

Bonier's well-documented Twitter threads on the data over the past many months spelled out what shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. In the face of extremism from the right and, in particular, the Supreme Court, there was a backlash against Republicans which served to boost Democrats across the board.

Prior to today, Bonier joined us twice in recent months to discuss his analysis of data and what he was seeing and tweeting about to anyone who might have wanted to listen. In late August, after voters in deep red Kansas decisively rejected a ballot initiative that would have rewritten the state constitution to allow abortion to be banned, he joined us to explain what he saw as a "jaw-dropping" spike in new voter registrations for young, Democratic women following the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision in late June, overturning Roe v. Wade. Bonier saw similar spikes in new registrations all over the map, in "red" and "blue" states alike, but particularly where reproductive rights were most threatened.

In late September he joined us again after analyzing specific voter data from that failed Kansas referendum. Hard evidence of an incredible spike in women voters that, he told us at the time, "just doesn't happen in elections." He posited that any suggestion that Democrats would be swamped in November, as the so-called Conventional Wisdom offered by pundits would have it, was simply ignoring the available data. He argued the election would be very close and almost certainly not a "wave" for the GOP.

He was right. Even though, over the past month in the run-up to Election Day, the corporate media were, largely in lock step, warning that Dems were done for, soon to be swamped by a red wave or even tsunami! How much of that erroneous punditry "blunted" the final results, Bonier laments, citing races like Mandela Barnes' in Wisconsin, where the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate fell just shy of unseating incumbent Republican Ron Johnson by a single point.

"I like to think of myself as an optimist, but it was difficult over the last few weeks and months," he tells me. "In reality, what we do at TargetSmart is we listen to the data. That's all we were doing. Along the way I was looking at the voter registration data, looking at the early vote data, looking at it in the context of the polls and trying to draw some conclusions. But mostly providing context and questioning the hard-set assumptions that were really leading everyone."

We discuss, among other things, the "flood of Republican polling" in the last few weeks of the campaign and how it warped forecasts from poll aggregation sites like FiveThirtyEight, and how his fellow traveler, Simon Rosenberg, who also had it right, was "mocked" when he highlighted how forecasts were being swamped by those bad GOP polls.

By itself, the media failure "doesn't happen. It took some level of complicit behavior from those who should be guards against it," Bonier insists. "People are mocking Fox News at this point. We know it is a very biased Republican media platform. But the bottom line is most of cable and these other outlets had a level of certainty about this outcome in a very similar way. I have to say, as I spoke with reporters in the closing weeks, I would be telling them 'Look, this is going to be a close election. I don't see a Republican wave. I don't see that in the numbers.' And I was just short of mocked by reporters."

But, why? Is it a lack of courage to stray from the pack journalism and group think? Or, as media critic Dan Froomkin argued today, a symptom of systemic "rot" in the political media? Bonier offers his frank thoughts on that and much more as we dig deep in today's discussion. I strongly urge you to tune in for it in full.

Also today, in addition to our own mocking of Fox "News", we've got plenty left over to mock folks like HBO's Bill Maher and Spotify's Joe Rogan and CNN's Fareed Zakaria and NYTimes' Maggie Haberman who all got it wrong as well --- and misled the American electorate in the bargain --- for many of the reasons discussed on today's program. And, we've also got the latest reported results out of still uncalled critical races for U.S. Senate, Governor, Sec. of State and Attorney General in Arizona and Nevada...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On January 6, 2021, then President Donald Trump wound up his supporters, who he knew to be armed, with lies about a stolen election, which he knew to be false, at a rally near the White House. He then pointed them toward the U.S. Capitol with the instruction to "fight like hell". They did. People died. And during the more than three hours of violent attack, as five people would lay dead, hundreds of law enforcement officials injured, and Trump's MAGA mob coming within feet of fleeing lawmakers --- including the Vice President --- the Commander-in-Chief holed up in the dining room near the Oval Office in White House, ordered that no photographs be taken, watched the carnage on TV, and did nothing to stop any of it.

In fact, as the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee investigating the insurrection and Trump's many other failed attempts to steal the 2020 Presidential election made clear on Thursday night's Day 8 --- and as we discuss on today's BradCast Special Coverage --- he wasn't bothered in the least by the carnage. It was all part of the plan. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

The then-President was informed that the riot was under way at the Capitol just minutes after returning to the White House after his speech to rile up the insurrectionists. He spent the next several hours ignoring his sworn duty and oath of office to defend the nation and Constitution, while rejecting scores of entreaties from advisers, friends, top staffers and legal aides, refusing to take any action to quell his angry, dangerous, armed and disinformed mob. But he did, as the Committee laid out in minute-by-minute detail, call friendly U.S. Senators (some of them, such as MO's Josh Hawley, who were fleeing for their lives after firing up the mob themselves) in hopes of encouraging them to further his plan to steal the election from its rightful victor, Joe Biden, during the joint session of Congress to confirm the Electoral College vote.

"Trump didn't fail to act," Republican Committee member and Iraq and Afghanistan combat vet Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) charged, "he chose not to act." That, after turning his supporters "love of country into a weapon," as Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) asserted, adding: "Donald Trump made a purposeful choice to violate his oath of office."

It was, according to the evidence presented, the greatest "dereliction of duty" ever committed by a sitting U.S. President. By far.

The hearing was incredibly information-dense. With compelling evidence and testimony --- both live and on video tape --- from dozens of former aides, military and national security officials, White House attorneys, staffers and family members, all detailing Trump's hours-long lack of action. No calls to the military or national security or law enforcement agencies. The violence was the plan all along. He did not want to stop it.

Even the next day, as seen in raw footage from the White House, the loser Trump could not declare that the election was over during a brief, scripted, video-taped address to the nation, in which his emotional instability and seething anger was, at times, laid bare for all to see. (Everyone but Fox "News" viewers anyway. Fox didn't show it to them, choosing to run Sean Hannity's show instead, making fun of Joe Biden for having COVID, even as the Committee was revealing Hannity's own texts to Trump's Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, begging him to get the President to take action to stop the attack on the Capitol.)

Perhaps the most chilling moment of the night was the video-taped testimony from an unidentified national security official, his or her voice disguised, detailing how members of VP Mike Pence's Secret Service detail were calling family members, as the mob attacked, to say goodbye, as the officials believed they may not live through the day.

We're joined today by two excellent guest panelists, both old friends and old school bloggers. One, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, has been with us for every one of the Committee's summer series of hearings. (They now promise more in September.) And the other is RICHARD "RJ" ESKOW, longtime columnist and host of The Zero Hour on radio and TV.

The conversation, as always with these two, was spirited and insightful. Eskow has some complaints about the Committee, Parton thinks they are doing a superb job. Both have smart thoughts about what we've learned from the hearings so far, including last night, what we still need to learn much more about in the weeks ahead, and what it all may mean going forward.

And, oh yeah, on Friday, just before airtime, a federal jury found Trump's former aide and campaign chair, Steve Bannon, guilty on both criminal counts of Contempt of Congress, for having ignored lawful subpoenas from the J6 Committee for testimony and documents regarding what he knew about Trump's insurrection. He now faces anywhere from 60 days to 2 years in prison, presuming he isn't able to squirm out on appeal between now and his sentencing in October. Parton explains why she thinks today's verdict may actually become a win for Bannon, who she describes as "MAGA Mandela." We'll see if she's right about that.

Lots to cover on today's lively Special Coverage. Please tune in!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast, we kick off our special coverage of the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee's public hearings on Donald Trump's unprecedented attempt to steal the 2020 Presidential election via not only the deadly January 6, 2021 insurrection he incited, but via a well-coordinated (by Trump standards) 7-point scheme. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

During Thursday night's gripping and, at times, emotional first prime time hearing, the Committee began to lay out their case, placing the disgraced former President firmly at the center of "an attempted coup". It was a plot to prevent the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in our nation's history. The panel detailed what we will learn over a series of at least five more hearings over the next two weeks.

Last night, they employed disturbing, never before seen footage of the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, and snippets of stunning video-taped testimony from a number of Trump's top officials and his own family members.

The pieces of evidence laid out on Thursday already make clear that Trump was told time and again, for weeks before the assault, that there was no evidence to support his claim that he lost the election due to fraud. His own Attorney General Bill Barr told him on several occasions that the claim was "bullshit." His own daughter, Ivanka Trump agreed with Barr. Both were seen testifying to that end on video last night.

Meanwhile, after Trump incited his supporters --- including extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers --- to attack the Capitol and threaten the life of Vice President Mike Pence, Trump did nothing to stop them for hours. His top general, Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified that Pence contacted the military several times on January 6 to put down the insurrection, while the former President took no action at all. His Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, however, did contact Milley in an attempt to "kill the narrative that the Vice President was making all the decisions" and to "establish the narrative that the President is still in charge."

The damning evidence was presented before two live witnesses took the stand. One was documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, who was embedded with the Proud Boys on the night before the insurrection and the day of, capturing both their chilling assault on January 6 and a secret meeting between the heads of both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers on the night before. U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, reportedly the first of more than 100 law enforcement officials to be critically injured that day, testified how she had been knocked unconscious by the Trump supporters, before awaking to continue the fight among "carnage" and "chaos" while slipping on the blood of her fellow law enforcement officers and being attacked with pepper spray from the violent mob.

There was much more presented by Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY), suggesting several of Trump's top allies in Congress sought pardons after January 6, and that, as his supporters were chanting "Hang Mike Pence!", Trump was following along via television in the Oval Office; became irate at aides urging him to take action to quell the violence; and even declared, "maybe our supporters have the right idea, Mike Pence deserves it."

We're joined today for analysis by Salon's award-winning opinion journalist HEATHER DIGBY PARTON and former U.S. Army Captain and now-retired attorney KEITH BARBER (who was also a lifelong Republican, until Trump.) He had long been a contributor at Daily Kos on legal and constitutional matters, and now writes at Medium.

Among the many questions discussed today...

• What did they learn Thursday night that they hadn't known previously?
• Who are these hearings meant to reach?
• Why was Fox "News" the only major broadcast or cable news network too terrified to allow their viewers to watch the proceedings?
• Why is the Committee so focused on the violent, seditious conspiracy carried out by the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, and is there evidence they conspired directly with the Trump Administration?
• What are the seven points in Trump's failed plot to steal the election that the Committee will detail in the days ahead?
• How do the claims by Trump supporters that they support law enforcement square with the MAGA mob's brutal assault of Capitol Police?
• What do both of our guests hope to see from the hearings in the days ahead?
• And will the hearings continue to grab the attention of the American people?

Both Parton and Barber offer insight and analysis for us today on all of the above and much more!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

One year after the former President's attempt to steal the 2020 election by hurling the bodies of his supporters at the U.S. Capitol, we're more convinced than ever on The BradCast that, as the New York Times Editorial Board declared on New Years Day, "Every Day is Jan. 6 Now". [Audio link to full show is posted at end of this summary.]

We will soon be entering our 19th year at The BRAD BLOG of trying to warn about the ongoing and worsening threats facing American democracy. But the rising tide of authoritarianism in this nation is now more of a threat than at any time in modern decades. If American democracy falls, so does virtually every other pressing demand, like the need to save humanity from the ravages of climate change. So, yeah. It's kind of important, and we will continue to stay on this beat as long as necessary, as long as we can.

Toward that end today, the despicable, disgraced, twice-impeached, failed, loser of a former President, Donald Trump, who lied about voter and election fraud in order to try and steal a Presidential election, cancelled his planned press conference at Mar-a-Lago on the first anniversary of his pathetic, desperate and deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. As it turns out, he's both a coward and didn't actually have anything to say that hasn't already been heard and/or debunked as bullshit.

His ridiculously (but not surprisingly) childish statement announcing he was calling off the presser came just hours after his pal, Sean Hannity of Fox 'News', was politely invited to answer questions from the U.S. House Select Committee investigating the Capitol assault and Trump's attempt to steal the election which lead up to it. The Committee makes clear in its letter [PDF] that they have already obtained many documents from others regarding Hannity's insider status and direct conversations with Trump in the days before, during and after the attack. While the Committee explained their efforts to go out of their way to avoid any First Amendment press freedom issues with Hannity, and even tried to appeal to his (pretend) patriotism, its unclear whether the Fox propagandist will cooperate.

Next, buttressing the persuasive argument made by Marcy Wheeler with Nicole Sandler on The BradCast last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland, facing pressure from the left to bring accountability to Trump and his cronies, addressed DoJ officials on Wednesday on the occasion of the first anniversary of last year's Capitol attack. After detailing the more than 700 arrests made to date, and at least 250 perpetrators who are still being sought for assaulting law enforcement officials that day, Garland promised the probe was far from complete and was following the facts of the case from the bottom up.

"The Justice Department remains committed to holding all Jan. 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law --- whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy," the AG vowed, adding: "We will follow the facts wherever they lead."

He also highlighted how the U.S. Supreme Court has radically gutted the Voting Rights Act twice over the past decade, and called again for new federal legislation to give the DoJ tools they need to assure the right to vote and to combat state legislatures institutionalizing the ability to subvert election results on a partisan whim.

Finally, we're joined again today by WILL BUNCH, longtime national correspondent and columnist at Philadelphia Inquirer. Bunch was with us on January 6th last year for a wild ride of a broadcast that day as the Capitol was still under assault during the official confirmation of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory as we went to air. At the time, it was particularly unclear what exactly the MAGA Mob was doing and how they might be stopped.

Among the topics of our conversation one year later with Bunch (who just tested positive for COVID!): Lessons learned since Jan. 6 and the many questions still unknown; The many, still confusing reasons and explanations as to why it took so long for law enforcement to respond to the worse attack on the Capitol in two centuries (he suggests part of that was due to "a dog that didn't bark"); Whether or not there should have been more accountability brought by the Justice Department by now (he notes that the Watergate probe took much longer); And his thoughts on Garland's comments at the DoJ today...among much more!

"Honestly, it's taken a full year and it's taken really diligent, praise-worthy work from the January 6th Committee in the House to bring into focus some of what we saw happening that day, that we didn't fully understand in real time," Bunch observes. "What the goals were, who was behind what and why. We've learned so much in the last twelve months."

We've got a lot to discuss on today's program...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate change is changing Western U.S. forests, and altering mountain snowpack; December heat wave breaks records, sparks unusual late-season fires; Climate change is coming for Christmas trees; PLUS: Oil giant Shell ditches controversial Cambo drilling project in Scotland... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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): A fraught and rocky energy transition pathway; CO2 tax at Europe's border: Revolution or protectionism?; One U.S. state consumes half the oil from the Amazon rainforest; Gambling 'America’s Amazon': toxic coal ash waste pit in one of America’s most biodiverse river systems; How state and local governments can leverage landfill solar; Norway rules out 2022 oil licenses in unexplored areas... PLUS: Desertification: How to stop the shifting sands... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Dozens of top, bi-partisan experts in government, national security and media predicted this moment last Summer, as they gamed out the various scenarios that might occur after Election Day. At the same time today, it's wildly amusing to watch Republicans continue to pick up on so many of our reports on election integrity at The BRAD BLOG over the years and suddenly pretend to be concerned about it, after years of scoffing at such "libtard, sore loser conspiracy theories" regarding the dangers of computerized vote tallies and private voting system vendors in control of our public elections. [Audio link to today's show is posted below summary.]

First up, the experts who predicted this moment. Most of the scenarios that the Transition Integrity Project (TIP) gamed out, they feared, would result in at least some level of violence and a potential Constitutional crisis. Donald Trump is largely proceeding as they'd predicted. But the co-founder of TIP, which organized the exercises to examine what Trump might do in the wake of a Joe Biden victory, tells me today that while "it's like poison into the veins of the body politic...they're not going to be able to get away with actually stealing the election."

Dr. NILS GILMAN is an historian, Vice President of Programs at the Berggruen Institute and TIP co-founder and joins me again on today's show. Earlier this year, in table-top exercises he helped to organize, the TIP group gamed out the various ways that Election 2020 might play out [PDF]. When we spoke with Gilman in August he cautioned that "all signs appeared to be flashing red," as the experts found that all potential scenarios other than a "Biden landslide" could result in "both street-level violence and political impasse".

So, with Trump's continuing unwillingness to concede the election two weeks later; his false claims of massive "voter fraud" in at least half a dozen states failing to include any actual evidence; at least two dozen lawsuits challenging the election being tossed out of court or withdrawn by plaintiffs; along with the Administration's refusal to work with the Biden Transition team, it seemed a good time to check back in with Gilman to see if the current scenario was predicted and, if so, how experts believed it would play out from here.

"We looked at four different scenarios" last summer, Gilman explains. But now, he says, "the world we ended up in was somewhere between the 'Biden landslide' and the 'Biden clear-but-close-victory'. So you see the moves that Trump is trying to do that we anticipated when we ran these exercises last Summer. They are very similar to the ones we saw. He's trying to convince people that there was cheating going on in the election, that there was electoral fraud. He's trying to get state legislatures to potentially consider throwing out the results of the popular vote and instead putting in place a slate of Republican electors even though the people voted for Democratic electors."

"I don't think any of that is going to end up working," says Gilman. "We're not quite in 'Biden landslide' territory, but we're not in a close election either. That's why I don't think Trump is going to be able to pull off what he was probably scheming to do."

While he says "there's a lot of crazy stuff happening in the fever swamps" and, indeed, there was some violence after Trump supporters and counter-protesters clashed over the weekend, Gilman believes that the conditions that would lead to worst of the scenarios examined have yet to materialize. And that's a very good thing. So far. He explains why that is and what is, so far, missing from one of those worst case scenarios examined by his project.

Also today, Republicans --- yes, even Sean Hannity! --- is suddenly very troubled by secret software made by private voting system vendors like Dominion Voting, a company that we've been reporting on (along with all of the other equally shitty vendors) for years. In the past, the folks at Fox "News" like Hannity and now dead Breitbart "News" founder Andrew Breitbart, scoffed at our reporting. Breitbart took particular glee in attacking me personally over my reporting on the now defunct Diebold Elections Systems, Inc. (It seems unlikely that Breitbart "News", with their "reporting" on Dominion today, even realize that the company now owns many of Diebold's assets!)

But, over the past week or two, our traffic here has gone through the roof as the Rightwingers have suddenly become concerned about these issues for some odd reason, after years of dismissing them. Thanks, Rightwingers! (Yes, for example, if you are hearing misleading murmurs from the fever swamps --- including from Hannity and Trump himself --- tying Dominion to Venezuela in order to claim the company secretly stole the election for Biden, it's due to this exclusive BRAD BLOG story that we broke more then 10 year ago! Glad ya'll have finally decided to notice and become alarmed about our reporting! Just wait until you hear what George W. Bush did in Iraq!)

Then, we open up the phone lines to answer some more questions about all of this, including one caller who wonders what's up with what she's been seeing all over YouTube about Venezuela and Dominion?! And another who picked up on part of my conversation with Gilman about whether the Biden Administration intends to hold the criminal Trumpers accountable or whether, like the Obama Administration with the Bushies, they will make the mistake of "looking forward, not back."

"People have to look close at what created the mess we're in now," says our wise caller Kelwin. "Trump is a bed sore on a sick, cancer-ridden political body of the United States. And getting rid of Trump is going to be like fixing a bed sore on a dying body. I like to say that charging and going after these people, that IS looking forward. It's looking at stopping the pattern."

All of that and much much more on today's BradCast!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast: SLAP-SLAP! Wake up, people! Joe Biden is the next President of the United States! [Audio link to today's show follows below.]

But first, in not wholly unrelated news: Ya know that widespread systemic election fraud that Donald Trump has been lying about by falsely accusing Democrats of stealing the election from him by "casting votes after Election Day"? They aren't. But, as it turns out, we now have hard evidence that the Trump Campaign and Republican Party actually are doing exactly that! Or, at least trying to do so in Pennsylvania. We've got both the audio and email evidence to prove it today, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Beyond that: Hey, Media! Hey, Democrats! Wake up! Yes, Joe Biden should have already been declared the winner of Tuesday election!!! By the standards the corporate media usually apply to such things, the state of Pennsylvania should already have been called by the media, as of Friday morning, for Biden (if not sooner), based on the unofficial vote counts there, where the former Veep has now surpassed Trump and continues to increase his totals over the soon-to-be-former President at this point. Biden continues to do so today at a similar rate to that which we've seen in the Keystone State since the day after Election Day.

With Pennsylvania's 20 electors, that means --- very conservatively speaking, even without the other currently uncalled states where Biden is also leading, including Nevada, Arizona and Georgia (where Biden also overtook Trump in the vote count on Friday morning) --- the former Vice President now has 273 electoral college votes under his belt. Only 270 are needed to win the Presidency.

In any other Presidential election in any other year, all of the media would already have banner graphics up describing Joe Biden as the "PRESIDENT-ELECT" and characterizing him as the 46th President of the United States! We know why Fox "News" is not doing so (thanks to CNN's Brian Stelter), and while there may be (weak, pathetic) reasons for the media to pull their punches (because they are cowards who kowtow to fear of Republicans), what is the Democratic Party's excuse at the point?!

Hell, Donald Trump and the Minority Leader of the U.S. House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, have already declared that Trump "won", even though he absolutely hasn't! Meanwhile, all available evidence shows beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Biden actually has won. Dems should be dancing in the streets at this point, but they aren't. Lord knows, had the tables been turned, they would have conceded as of Friday morning.

(Note: As an election integrity advocate, I have historically objected to the media or any candidate declaring victory --- or even conceding a loss --- before all votes are counted and, where possible, votes counts are verified as accurate. But, the cowardly double-standard being displayed by the media in this case and the political malpractice being exercised by Dems right now is a separate matter.)

So, what's actually going on here and why? Well, for answers on that we turn first to a few words of wisdom from Josh Marshall at TPM and, for many more such words, to our guest today, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo, who --- at least since the day Trump descended that escalator at Trump Tower to call Mexicans rapists and announce his candidacy for President --- we have been checking in with at landmark moments during his Presidency. Today, as Trump should be declared a loser by everyone, is certainly such a moment.

Is it still PTSD from 2016 that is keeping Democrats in their stupor today? Is it because Trump has some completely unknown, but super-genius scheme to overturn the Electoral College somehow? Or is it because, no matter the results of the Presidential race, Dems appear to have under-performed expectations when it comes to both U.S. Senate and House races this year?

Beyond all of that, we also discuss with Digby what all Democrats should be spending their time working on and discussing right now, including how Dems and Joe Biden will have to figure out how to govern even if they are unable to win a still-possible longshot bid to pick up enough Senate seats to win back a majority there. And how best to begin processing whatever lessons, so far, can be gleaned from what happened on Tuesday and from the last four years of the Trump Era.

Lots to talk about today! But, hey people! You WON! Start acting like it! Cause you know Republicans certainly would be in the exact same scenario and, in fact, they LOST, but are still acting like they won anyway! Snap out of it, people!!!

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast: Things are going to get far worse before they finally get better. In this case, "worse" means far more deadly and "better" means an election this fall that somewhat accurately reflects the intent of the electorate. Donald Trump has now get the killing Americans part down, but he and his fixer/Attorney General are still feeling their way around how best to undermine the election. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Just weeks ago, in late May, the Trump Death Cultists on Fox "News" and those entrusted to govern states like Florida, were railing against media, demanding apologies by those who warned that opening up for business prematurely amid a deadly viral pandemic was a terrible idea. Republican Governors like Florida's Ron DeSantis and hackish clowns like Sean Hannity of Fox "News" aren't asking for apologies anymore, it seems, as at least 56 Florida hospital ICUs across the state have now hit capacity, with dozens more nearly full as well. Florida is just one such GOP-led state whose political decisions in advance of the November election have had deadly consequences as 31 states are now seeing infections and hospitalizations rise.

The conservative projected death estimates put out by the infectious disease modelers at University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) have once again been revised in the bargain. IHME now forecasts more than 208,000 deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19 by November 1, while noting that some 45,000 lives could be saved over that same period if we all simply wore masks in public. Other experts believe the mortality number could be as high as 500,000 by the end of this year.

So, again, we ask: At what point does it become a CRIMINAL act when DeSantis and Donald Trump and Vice President Pence command schoolchildren, amid this out-of-control surging pandemic, back to in-person classes next month, under thread of financial penalty, and in defiance of CDC guidelines? At least the CDC guidelines based on science and health data, versus Pence's newly promised revised CDC guidelines that the Administration ordered to be cooked up after Trump found the real ones to be too "tough" and "expensive". When do these people become liable for criminal deadly negligence or even mass murder?

This scheming is nothing short of sick and twisted. We will soon look back on these days with ghastly horror at what they have done in short-sighted and ill-considered hopes of winning re-election this November.

Speaking of which, while Trump and his corrupt A.G. Bill Barr have been out lying about absentee voting amid the pandemic, it seems Republican strategists and candidates are becoming quite concerned that their voters may be actually be listening to them. Many GOP voters new believe that vote-by-mail ballots are all fraudulent, which could end up costing the GOP dearly this year.

At the same time, folks like EDDIE PEREZ, Global Director of Technology and Standards at the OSET (Open Source Election Technology) Institute, has been doing his level best to debunk many of the lies about mail-in voting being infectiously spread by Trump and his Attorney General who, for example, recently declared that "a foreign country could print up tens of thousands of counterfeit ballots" and use them to undermine our elections somehow. Perez explains (and here's a shorter Twitter version of his explanation) why such claims are largely nonsense, even if there are, in fact, some concerns about fraud in absentee voting --- just not the ones that Trump and Barr are mostly trumpeting.

As no fan of absentee voting myself --- other than in cases where voters literally cannot vote at the polls on Election Day, or are forced to use 100% unverifiable electronic voting systems at the polling place, or when we find ourselves in the middle of an out-of-control deadly global pandemic --- I've got a few pointed questions for Perez on the reality of absentee ballot fraud.

Among the issues he speaks to: Whether ballots can really be counterfeited (by foreign or domestic actors alike); What security measures are in place to prevent someone from casting a ballot in someone else's name?; Should voters have confidence in signature matching by election officials who are not hand-writing experts? And more. "If nothing else," Perez tells me, "the country needs to realize --- and particularly election officials and Get Out The Vote organizations --- there are really, really good reasons to protect public health to make by-mail voting available to people, as one of several options. That's really critical. For November, you've got to have a balance. We need to pay attention to educating voters about what it's going to take to ensure that their ballot is accepted and counted."

Also, as Perez, before joining the non-profit OSET Institute, was a 15 year veteran of Hart-Intercivic, one of the nation's three major private voting system vendors (about whom we've reported a great deal of less than flattering things over the years), we take a few minutes today to discuss why private, for-profit vendors are ill-equipped to meet the critical needs of transparent, overseeable elections in support of American democracy. "I'll say that the one thing we can agree on," Perez notes, "is transparency in the voting process is what helps to build trust with the public. Transparency is what is going to produce confidence. And that's what we need in our democracy."

I didn't have the heart or time to respond that "trust" has nothing to do with Americans elections. But, other than that, on the need for transparent oversight to build confidence among the electorate, he is spot on.

Finally, two objectionable SCOTUS opinions were handed down today, allowing religious organizations to, among other things, ignore any and all state or federal anti-discrimination laws, because "freedom of religion", apparently, also now includes the freedom to take actual freedoms away from everyone else...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

As life in the U.S. continues to get grimmer, we find a few much-needed points of light during today's BradCast! [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

First up, the GOP-controlled Mississippi state legislature finally voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to remove the offensive Confederate flag symbol from their own state flag. Both the Governor and Lt. Governor support the move and the bill will be signed. Yes, the ongoing uprising against systemic racism in the U.S. continues to bring about long-overdue positive change! Also, there was (mostly) good news in a long-awaited abortion case at the U.S. Supreme Court today, but we'll get there in a second.

Before that, we've been arguing in recent days that Donald Trump should eventually be brought up on charges for what amounts to mass murder in his purposefully and criminally delinquent and negligent handling of the COVID crisis. More evidence of that affirmative endangerment of the public was reported over the weekend by the Washington Post, which obtained video evidence that the Trump Campaign, just hours before his June 20 campaign rally in Oklahoma, removed thousands of social distancing stickers placed on seats at Tulsa's BOK Center venue by its management. As the city's health director pleaded with the campaign to postpone the rally amid spiking infections rates, and local residents and business owners went all the way to the state's Supreme Court to try and block it, the Trump Campaign was purposely making it less safe for rally attendees. The infection rate in Tulsa has continued to spike since Trump's under-attended Death Rally (where he had falsely bragged in advance that there wouldn't be "an empty seat"), as infection rates now continue to rise in at least 36 states after the largest single day increase across the nation on Friday.

Florida, Texas and Arizona, with Republican Governors who were among the first to reopen, are now seeing among the largest growth in infections and hospitalizations in the country. That, despite Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' hubris-filled attacks on the media just weeks ago following an initial lack of new confirmed cases after reopening for Memorial Day and a now-embarrassing rant from Sean Hannity on Fox 'News' claiming that FL and NY "got it right", states like NY got it wrong (NY's infection rate was just 6% of Florida's on Friday) and that "the mob and the media....owe Gov. DeSantis a huge apology." Well, that didn't age well.

Then back to a bit more good(ish) news as the U.S. Supreme Court's Chief Justice John Roberts, for the third time in as many weeks, joined the Court's liberal wing on yet another major case --- well, mostly. It was enough, at least, to strike down an extremist anti-abortion measure in Louisiana, in any case. Had the attempt by state Republicans to insert Big Government in-between a woman and her doctor been upheld by the Court, it would have left the entire state of 4.6 million with just one single doctor legally allowed to perform the still-Constitutionally protected medical procedure.

We're joined today by one of our favorite SCOTUS corespondents, MARK JOSEPH STERN of Slate, to explain today's 4 to 1 to 4 opinion which resulted in the end of the state law requiring abortion doctors to unnecessarily obtain difficult-to-receive hospital admitting privileges. While abortion rights activists are breathing a sign of relief today, Stern explains, they likely won't have long to enjoy it. The Court with a stolen Republican Majority still appears hell bent on rolling back Roe v. Wade, he says.

While Roberts, in his own concurring opinion [PDF], effectively joined the liberals again today in striking down the Louisiana law --- again, maddening the right-wingers in the bargain --- he "is a very canny legal strategist, who still quite obviously opposes the Constitutional right to an abortion," Stern warns. In fact, what Roberts opinion today did was "leave us with a state of abortion jurisprudence that sort of rewinds the clock back to maybe 1992. Whereas, for the past four years, at least in theory, we have had a more robust protection of Constitutional rights."

With Roberts' new opinion, Stern reports, abortion rights proponents have actually lost some ground, even while the second "admitting privileges" law to find its way to the Court in four years was again struck down --- just like the previous virtually identical one out of Texas in 2016 (which Roberts then voted to uphold.)

The Chief Justice also voted recently with the Court's Democratic appointees to ban LGBTQ employment discrimination and in striking down Trump's rollback of DACA protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrant children who were brought here by their parents. So, why has Roberts seemingly become a "liberal squish" on three important landmark cases this session? Stern argues that he hasn't at all. Another ruling today regarding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in which the Court's rightwing 5 to 4 majority dreamed up new (non-existent) Constitutional powers for the Presidency, and a SCOTUS decision over the weekend to block absentee voting for all voters --- not just those 65 and older --- in Texas, in the middle of a pandemic, and in clear violation of the 26th Amendment, is just more evidence that the Republicans' stolen SCOTUS majority is still anything but "liberal", even after these three recent surprise opinions on LGBTQ rights, DACA and abortion.

Stern also offers his thoughts on whether Roberts would be voting as he has been of late if Justice Anthony Kennedy was still on the Court as its swing vote, and whether all of this suggests that the Court should now be expanded in response to theft of what should have been an actual liberal majority by now...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast: Desperate to salvage Donald Trump's re-election chances, the White House and several GOP Governors are apparently now set on putting hundreds of thousands of Americans in their own states at grave risk. But, hey, this year's critical Presidential election ain't gonna just win itself, ya know! [Audio link to show is posted below summary.]

We start today with some very smart "math and reality" from BradCast commenter "ComputerGeek" at DailyKos. Last Friday, he or she, posted a lengthy comment in response to our show on the emerging Death Cult that the GOP --- the formerly self-proclaimed "pro-life" party --- has now clearly become, in their latest twisted efforts to retain power at all costs.

ComputerGeek broke down the number of daily tests for coronavirus in the U.S. that would be needed, according to health experts, to re-open the economy safely. He/she put the number at anywhere from 11.6 million tests per day, to a much more conservative 1.1 million tests per day, depending on if you wanted to test the entire population every two weeks or just 10% of it. Either way, the numbers are insanely higher than the average 150,000 tests per day currently being carried out across the country, and bragged about by the President and Vice President alike. As they claimed during a briefing last week --- in defiance of reality-based health experts --- those testing numbers are now sufficient to allow states to begin gradually reopening once they reach a decline in documented cases over two weeks.

But "ComputerGeek" is just an anonymous Internet commenter. We can safely ignore his/her numbers asserting that anywhere from 1 to 12 million tests are needed daily, right? Wrong. A new study [PDF] out on Monday from a Harvard University panel of more than 45 experts in health, science and economics warns that 5 million tests per day by early June are necessary to ensure a safe reopening of portions of the economy, and that number "will need to increase over time (ideally by late July) to 20 million a day to fully remobilize the economy," according to the authors. Even then, they warn, it might not be enough to "protect public health".

The Director of Harvard's Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, which released the report, argues "This Roadmap is the only approach to BOTH contain the virus and ramp back up to vibrant economic life." Of course, we are nowhere near those kind of testing numbers in the U.S., as we have barely checked 4 million people in total since the pandemic began several months ago. Moreover, most of the nation's Governors reject the absurd advocacy from Trump and Pence, which contradicts their own health and science experts.

But not all of the Governors favor math and reality! Following a weekend of small protests by Trump supporters --- egged on by Rightwing astroturf groups, Fox "News" and the President himself --- objecting to continuing stay-at-home restrictions issued by Democratic Governors, a number of Republican Governors have decided its time to put their state's residents at increased risk of death by opening back up for business before virtually anybody believes it is safe to do so. Leading that list is Georgia's illegitimate, dumb-as-dirt Republican Governor Brian Kemp. After insisting just last week that it was too early to determine whether restrictions should be relaxed, Kemp announced on Monday that he is throwing the doors open for gyms, hair and nail salons and bowling alleys on Friday of this week and restaurants, movie theaters and churches by Monday! Moreover, he declared when making his surprise announcement yesterday --- without having bothered to consult with either of the Mayors of his state's two largest cities first --- that he "don't give a damn about politics right now." Sure ya don't, Guv.

But, speaking of politics in Georgia, voters soon to be at risk anew from the coronavirus under Kemp's dangerous new political scheme, are figuring out how to (literally) survive the state's upcoming primary elections now rescheduled for June 9th. That, after troubling (if predictable) data has begun to emerge from the state of Wisconsin, which held in-person elections two weeks ago after being forced to do so by the Republicans in their state legislature and on both the state and U.S. Supreme Courts. According to Milwaukee's Health Commissioner, at least 7 new coronavirus cases have been confirmed as having been tied to the state's April 7th election, with only 30% of the data so far reviewed following the two week incubation period for the virus. Six voters and one poll worker, to date, are known to have become infected after voters were forced to wait on hours-long lines and crowd into just 5 polling places in the city which usually offers 182 locations.

Late on Monday, our guest today, MARILYN MARKS of the Coalition for Good Governance, announced the filing of a 132-page federal lawsuit [PDF] against Georgia's Secretary of State which, she quips, could have been filed as just one page reading: "Don't be Wisconsin!"

In fact, the complaint includes more than 30 demands sought by the group to help ensure safety for the Peach State's voters during the primary. The complaint seeks to move the election from its currently scheduled June 9th date to June 30th in order to buy three more weeks of time in hopes of seeing the state's infection numbers come down. "Given the foolishness and recklessness that [Kemp] engaged in yesterday," she tells me, "it is probably now even more important to get that additional time to get more preparations." The June 9th date was already a replacement date after the state's initially-planned vote on April 28 was postponed due to the crisis.

The suit also seeks to force Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger to send absentee ballot request forms to 625,000 registered voters to whom he previously sent them to the wrong addresses, and to allow counties to use hand-marked paper ballots if they choose in order to avoid dangerous new touchscreen voting systems mandated across the state, despite the devices having become a vector for spreading disease during a pandemic. "It really doesn't take an epidemiologist to tell us that viruses are going to travel on those machines," Marks argues. It's not only the voting machines themselves, when using touchscreens, that presents a health hazard, as this graphic she posted last night on Twitter makes very clear.

Other changes sought by the Coalition --- which has successfully sued the state in the past to decertify touchscreen voting systems and prevent the rejection of absentee ballots, among other things --- include curbside voting for all ("Think of it as a kind of Sonic Drive-In form of voting"), personal protective equipment for poll workers, masks for voters and other demands which, remarkably, have not yet already been enacted by the state. The list of changes sought in the complaint also provides a useful template for voters in other states who may wish to hold officials accountable for doing the right thing, as more than 20 states still have upcoming primaries and all 50 will somehow have to figure out a way to hold safe elections this November.

"Look at Wisconsin," Marks reminds us. "They didn't start getting serious until it was too late. We're not seeing these kind of changes take place in other states as fast as we should. States should be enacting these things now."

(By the way, keep an eye out for Marilyn in HBO's disturbing new documentary Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America's Elections! You can watch it for free on HBO's YouTube channel through the end of May right here. And listen to my recent interview with the filmmakers right here.)

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report in which oil prices have now crashed so low --- actually into negative territory! --- that some companies are literally paying people to take oil off their hands! Also, the Trump EPA is setting new standards for poisoning Americans, even during a pandemic, and Earth Day celebrants are trying to figure out how to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the annual event tomorrow amid stay-at-home orders, a global pandemic, and a still-worsening climate crisis...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast, it's unclear if Donald Trump's hope for making America great again is to see foreign countries warn their citizenry against traveling here due to the risk of gun massacres and racist hate crimes, but that's now how "great" we are. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Uruguay and Venezuela issued alerts to travelers following recent mass shooting in the U.S., and Mexico is considering legal action following the murder of seven of their citizens in the shooting at the El Paso Walmart on Saturday which took the lives of 22 in all.

At the same time, the U.S. cities which endured mass shootings by domestic terrorists over the weekend don't really wish to have a visit from the man who has inspired so much hatred and death. But the White House says that Trump will be going to El Paso and Dayton on Wednesday anyway. That, despite locally elected officials who wish he wouldn't, as they mourn their dead and protest the racist hate-mongering President who continues to sow the ground for even more rightwing violence. (And as El Paso waits for Trump's campaign to pay them the more than $400k for security that they are still owed following his last campaign rally there months ago.)

While the El Paso shooter is being investigated on Domestic Terrorism charges after echoing Trump's "Hispanic invasion" language prior to the massacre, the FBI announced on Tuesday that the mass shooting at the Gilroy, California, Garlic Festival just over a week ago is now also being probed as a Domestic Terror incident. So why is it so difficult to bring Domestic Terror charges against white male American citizens who committed these acts of terror and others like them? Federal statutes make prosecution of foreign terror charges easy, but domestic charges have a much higher bar and fewer options for law enforcement to choose from.

So, there are now calls to beef up federal Domestic Terrorism statutes, but do they stand any better chance of changing than the very-low-hanging-fruit gun safety laws that Ohio's GOP Gov. Mike DeWine is now calling for in the Buckeye State? (Laws that Dems have been calling for for years? And that even Donald Trump is now pretending to call for at the federal level?) Don't hold your breath. Fox News Presidential adviser Sean Hannity's breathtakingly stupid idea for protecting schools and malls from gun violence may have a better chance of actually become reality.

But at least one former GOP U.S. House Member, Rep. David Jolly, who quit the party last year over Trump, predicts his former Republican colleagues will not change any laws even after the recent string of gun massacres. He is now calling for every Republican in the U.S. House and Senate to be voted out of office next year. "Beat 'em. Beat every single one of them," he now says.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, as Greenland experiences historic ice melt raising world sea levels; we all just lived through the hottest month ever recorded on Planet Earth; and CNN actually gave substantial time for 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates to discuss their ideas for saving the planet at last week's debate in Detroit...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast, I'm in for Brad and Des, dropping by from my own show, In Deep with Angie Coiro.

Today's Rose Garden press conference was drenched in irony: a faltering, incoherent, angry man declaring a "national emergency", even as he demonstrated that he's the crisis. Donald Trump yelled at reporters to sit down, fell into sing-song whimsy, showed off his version of a Chinese accent, repeated phrases when he lost his train of thought, wielding terrifyingly grown-up powers with the gravitas of a toddler in a man's suit.

Fortunately, enough roadblocks will be thrown down --- by Reps AOC and Castro, by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, by the ACLU, and presumably by property owners along the proposed wall sites --- that he should be kept busy and irritated for some time. The taxpayer money wasted will be appalling.

Republican former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld appears willing to throw himself atop the bomb: he says he may primary Donald Trump. He minced no words -– I mean, he was stunningly straightforward -– in criticizing his fellow GOPers, who he said exhibit all the signs of Stockholm Syndrome(!). Someone needs to step up, he says. He even hints that he's willing to act as a spoiler to damage Trump in the general.

Plus the latest on Facebook, Amazon, and what tech campuses have to offer their neighbors.

Finally, my guest JOEL SIMON of the Committee to Protect Journalists. His new book, We Want To Negotiate, makes a compelling case that both the US and Britain need to re-examine their "we don't negotiate with terrorists" policies. His research puts the lie to a lot of assumptions, for example, that to pay ransoms will encourage more kidnappings. It makes sense on the face of it, but --- wrong.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

As my guest details on today's BradCast, it's not immigrants who are currently posing a threat to those living on our southern border, it's lawless federal agents encroaching on private lands to build an unnecessary and dangerous border wall. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

But, first up: the Department of Justice rounded up dozens of gang members and indicted them on Tuesday as part of a criminal conspiracy for "attempted murder, kidnapping, maiming, and conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine." No, they weren't "violent inner-city thugs" or "murderous MS-13 immigrant gangsters", they were white supremacist members of the Arkansas-based New Aryan Empire. Oddly enough, Donald Trump hasn't mentioned them during any of his false, anti-immigrant rants at campaign rallies and State of the Union addresses.

Meanwhile, it appears that Trump will most likely sign the compromise deal struck between Congressional Democrats and Republicans this week to fund the federal government and avoid another shutdown, even though he will get less than he could have had if he'd accepted the deal he backed out of last year before shutting down the federal government over his new demand for $5.7 billion to build a border wall. Sean Hannity of Fox "News" and wingnut talk radio fame has now backed off his earlier charge that "any Republican that supports this garbage compromise" would have to explain themselves. He now appears to be supporting the compromise, while calling for the President to declare a "national emergency" to steal more tax-payer money for a wall. With that permission from his Fox "News" handlers, Trump will almost certainly sign the agreement.

In all, as Trump points out, the deal allocates $23 billion for border security --- a lot of money for Democrats to agree to if, as Trump lies, they favor "open borders". It's also a lot of money period. But, record national debt and annual deficit spending do not appear to be a problem for pretend "fiscally conservative" Republicans in Congress. The Treasury Department announced yesterday that the national debt has now topped $22 trillion for the first time in history, after increasing more than $2 trillion since Trump took office under GOP leadership in Congress. The landmark comes thanks, in no small part, to the Trump/GOP's unpaid-for $1.5 trillion tax cuts.

And while both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are hoping that Trump signs their compromise border security agreement to keep the government open, Trump's U.S. Customs and Border (CPB) agents are busy breaking into private property and threatening to seize private lands owned by Americans who have lived and worked on the banks of the Rio Grande at the U.S. southern border for generations.

Bulldozers and other heavy machinery is now reportedly rolling into wildlife sanctuaries in South Texas' Rio Grande Valley and the National Butterfly Center in Mission, TX has filed a restraining order this week to stop them after, the Center charges, CPB broke into a fence on its private property, cut the lock, and replaced it with its own.

We're joined today by the Center's Director MARIANNA TREVINO-WRIGHT to explain the federal government's intrusions on their 100-acre butterfly refuge, wildlife center and native species botanical garden. The Center, part of the North American Butterfly Association (NABA), regards CPB's behavior as unlawful and unconstitutional according to a lawsuit "filed in December of 2017 as the result of the government's actions on our property in July of 2017, more than nine months before a Congressional vote, or any funding appropriation for 'border wall'," Trevino-Wright emphasizes.

We discuss, among other things, the 28 laws and environmental regulations --- "including the Solid Waste Disposal Act, the Clean air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act, and the Native American Religious Freedom Act" --- that the Department of Homeland Security has waived since Congress approved 33 miles of new border fencing in the area last year to allow construction of the barrier, and the federal government's use of Eminent Domain already underway to confiscate private lands for Trump's wall. Trevino-Wright details the devastation that awaits butterfly species, as well as other insects and native wildlife with the construction of the wall on the property of both the Center and the neighboring 91,000 acre Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

She says insects and animals will be "sentenced to death" thanks to flooding that will occur between the mighty Rio Grande River and the concrete base of the planned 30 foot wall where they will become trapped. Moreover, the accompanying LED "blitzkrieg all-night bright lighting every 150 feet on the wall, will result in catastrophe for sensitive nocturnal creatures and "lead to greater environmental damage". And, no, Trevino-Wright tells me, many butterflies and birds are not able to fly over a 36-foot concrete and steel barrier. She describes the wall as an "abomination", Trump's claims of an humanitarian and violent criminal "crisis" at the border to be nonsense, and why residents in the area are far more worried about criminals within law enforcement agencies than they are about those crossing the border unlawfully or ferrying drugs into the country. "Conflict or property damage or terrorist acts by those who support this agenda are actually what we're more concerned about," Trevino-Wright adds.

Please tune in for this full conversation.

Finally today, a surprise resignation in the Trump Administration as FEMA Director Brock Long calls it quits after facing two years of harassment from DHS chief Kirstjen Nielsen and unprecedented hurricanes, wildfires and other catastrophes, writing in his farewell letter to staffers that "no one could have ever predicted the challenges we would face." Our own Desi Doyen --- who has long been citing scientists predicting those very challenges for years, thanks to global warming --- offers a word or two in response...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: GNR Special Coverage: Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey introduce The Green New Deal. What's in it, what's not, and what happens next... 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): Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten collapse of nature'; Los Angeles ditches plan to invest billions in fossil fuels; The East Coast Is Going to Get Arkansas-ified; America's Energy Future: What the Government Misses in Its Energy Outlook and Why It Matters; 'Astounded': former fire chief unloads on politicians over climate change inaction; TVA proposes to close Paradise, Bull Run coal units despite Trump tweet; Keystone Pipeline Likely Cause of Oil Spill in Missouri... PLUS: Cashing In on a Warming Arctic: In Maine, some see the melting ice to the north as an opportunity.... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, thanks in no small part to a new progressive class of Congress members, general calls for a "Green News Deal" are finally beginning to take some shape, as an official proposal was introduced in Congress on Thursday. [Audio link to today's show is posted below.]

But, first up today, some of the remarkable testimony this afternoon from the nation's wildly unqualified top law enforcement official. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker answered and/or evaded questions in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Friday, as the new Democratic majority sought to learn whether he discussed Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe with the President before or after being appointed to temporarily replace former AG Jeff Sessions, and whether he has interfered in any way with the investigation he currently oversees as Acting AG. Whitaker's remarkably evasive and, at times, arrogantly obnoxious testimony included remarks that lit up the hearing room with laughter as he attempted to inform the Committee's Chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), that his five minutes of questioning had expired!

Then, we're joined by one of the nation's smartest climate and energy journalists, DAVID ROBERTS of Vox.com, to discuss Thursday's unveiling of a non-binding Green New Deal resolution [PDF] in Congress, as introduced by progressive freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and veteran Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), along with a host of Democratic co-sponsors.

Roberts breaks down the broad proposal for a "10-year national mobilization" to grow thousands, if not millions of jobs by transitioning the nation toward 100% "clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources". (That language, he notes, allows the debate between climate hawks on the left over nuclear energy to put off for a while.)

The measure --- modeled in scope after FDR's New Deal, LBJ's Great Society and even JFK's successful effort to send a man to the moon and back in less than a decade --- also includes a number of aspirational goals to help ensure "frontline and vulnerable communities" who face the worst impacts of climate change are also among the first beneficiaries of a national effort to tackle our increasingly dire global climate crisis.

Roberts details what the resolution --- the first to begin defining what a Green New Deal should actually look like --- calls for now and puts off until later (for example, how it will be paid for); how it places its focus on solving the problem while growing the economy, rather than on specific "markets and technologies" at the center of previous efforts to combat global warming; and how the introduction of the landmark resolution itself serves to force the issue to the top of matters to be litigated during the 2020 campaign. Already at least 6 current or potential Democratic Presidential candidates (Booker, Gillibrand, Harris, Warren, Sanders and Klobuchar) have indicated their support for the proposal.

"If you can solve the greatest challenge that's ever faced the species with a program that creates prosperity and creates jobs, and puts people to work, and gets the US back toward good-paying jobs, union-protected jobs, and does the same sort of middle-class creation that the original New Deal did, why wouldn't you do those together? Why wouldn't you do it all at once?," Roberts observes.

Rather than focus on schemes that might somehow bring so-called "conservatives" on board --- a tactic which has utterly failed in the past --- this new effort, he explains, appeals to voters to put pressure on their elected officials to support programs that a majority of Americans are behind.

"Dems, up until really recently, would have said, yes, you have to have some bipartisan support, there's no other way to get stuff passed," Roberts explains. But, he says, Trump has "stripped away all remaining pretense and made very clear [that] there just is no bipartisan cooperation to be had. It's getting farther away. Environmentalists have been begging, watering down policies, watering down their rhetoric, tiptoeing around, echoing this fiscal responsibility BS that they hear on the Washington Post editorial page, trying so hard to lure a few conservatives over. And it just isn't happening."

"So, the other take is, stop watering down your policies. Be up front and clear about the scale and severity of the problem, and the scale of the solutions, and offer a solution that engages people and that people can play a role in --- get a job from, make money from, be excited about --- then you give it political momentum. So instead of persuading Republicans into going on, you frighten them into coming along. You show that this is a giant political snowball that's rolling downhill, gathering weight, gathering momentum, and if you get in the way and push the other way, you'll get crushed. That's how you persuade a politician. Not through the sweet light of reason. It's fear. A movement that is strong enough that you will be scared to buck it."

Of course, this is about both policy and politics. So, we also discuss the amusing, over-the-top freak-out now on display from the Right, with Fox "News" and other fossil-fuel industry propagandists and apologists falling over themselves to both slam and completely misrepresent what is otherwise a series of very popular, populist, progressive and long-overdue ideas to help lift the economy, wages, the middle class and, yes, help save the world in the bargain.

"The full-on, 100% ranting, 'It's socialism!', red-faced BS --- that response is automatic to anything. So what Dems should take from this is not 'Oh no! There's going to be rightwing backlash!' Of course there is! There's rightwing backlash to literally anything you try. And it's always maximal. It's always pegged in the red. So why not, given that, be as ambitious as you want to be? You're going to get the same reaction no matter what you do, so just go for it."

There is, of course, lots more where that came from on today's program. Enjoy!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)