And here I thought dealing with one President in a single hour on The BradCast was tough. Now we've got the previous one on trial after his second impeachment and a new one unveiling an ambitious new agenda to begin cleaning up the other guy's horrific mess, particularly on climate today...and not a moment too soon! [Audio link to full show is posted below summary.]

First up today, the Department of Homeland Security issues a new warning about ongoing threats of violence by domestic, home-grown terrorists in the U.S., many of whom have been radicalized by Donald Trump's many lies about the 2020 election having been stolen.

Then, It's been only three weeks since Trump encouraged his MAGA Mob to march down Pennsylvania Avenue and "fight like hell" to prevent the formal counting of Electoral College votes by the U.S. Congress. The attempted insurrectionists violently broke into the U.S. Capitol, called for the hanging of the Vice President, succeeded in shutting down the tally for several hours and sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives into secured locations. Five people were killed, including a Capitol Police officer, in the ensuing violence. One week later, then President Trump was impeached by the U.S. House for a second time, this time for "Incitement of Insurrection", though the Senate's then Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to convene a trial. One week after that, Joe Biden was successfully sworn in as President. And today, just three weeks to the day since the Trump-incited mob's murderous attack on the Capitol, with Democrats now officially in the Senate majority, Trump's second Impeachment Trial has officially begun.

While the arguments in the trial will not be presented in full for another two weeks, Republican Senator and pretend Constitutionalist Rand Paul forced a vote on Tuesday, just after Senators were sworn in as "impartial jurors", to try and dismiss the entire matter by falsely claiming that an Impeachment trial after a President is out of office is "unconstitutional". (Though he repeatedly argued that "private citizens" cannot be impeached and that "If the accused is no longer President - where is the constitutional power to impeach him?")

Joining us today to answer to the clearly false and almost-certainly disingenuous argument proffered by Paul --- and, incredibly, supported by 45 of the Senate's 50 Republicans who voted in favor of his resolution on Tuesday --  is Constitutional law expert RON FEIN of the non-partisan government accountability group Free Speech for People. Fein, with John Bonifaz and Ben Clements, authored the 2018 book, The Constitution Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump. 

"The obvious flaw," in Paul's argument, Fein explains, is that Trump WAS impeached while he was President, and then McConnell stalled the process of the Senate trial by refusing to allow it to be held until Trump was already out of office." But on the broader issue, as he tells us, impeachment trials may absolutely be held after an official is out of office. "Congress has done it before and explicitly considered that exact question."

"If their argument was allowed to go forth, then what it would say is that any President can do whatever they want in the last couple of weeks of their term, because by the time they would get impeached, and by the time the Senate could convene for a trial, they'd be out of office already," he persuasively argues. "Disqualification from future office is an important remedy and penalty for impeachment. It is important to have that hanging over the head of a President even in their last couple of weeks in office."

We also discuss whether the votes of 45 GOP Senators --- including McConnell, who just last week conceded that Trump "provoked" the riot at the Capitol --- to dismiss the trial, signals that it will be impossible to win over the 17 Republicans needed to win the two-thirds vote necessary for a conviction; whether a vote can be held to prevent Trump from holding future office even without conviction; whether a second failure to win a conviction in a second impeachment would redound to Trump's benefit; and whether a resolution to censure the disgraced former President would serve as any kind of deterrent for similar behavior in the future (by Trump or other future Presidents), in the event that he is not convicted once again.

Fein also rings in with his thoughts in response to the GOP's stolen and packed U.S. Supreme Court which, on Monday, dismissed two cases regarding Trump's alleged violation of the Constitution's Emoluments Clause as "moot" since he is no longer in office and why it took so long for the cases to even reach the high court. We also discuss whether Fein believes that Trump actually did pardon himself, but is keeping that pardon a secret, somehow, until he's actually charged with a federal crime.

Finally, in far less maddening news, it was "Climate Day" in Joe Biden's new White House on Wednesday! And the new President unveiled an historically ambitious climate agenda that will, among many other things, if successful, result in carbon emissions-free power, nationally, by 2035. Declaring that "we can't wait any longer" to address our worsening climate crisis, Biden detailed his new Executive Orders and Directives to "supercharge" the United States' efforts to combat global warming by pausing new oil and gas leases on federal lands, ending fossil fuel industry subsidies, and creating millions of new jobs in the electric car market and renewable energy industry, and by capping and closing old, unused mines and wells across the nation. His new Climate Envoy, former Sec. of State John Kerry and new White House National Climate Advisor, former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, also responded to media questions (naturally framed by rightwing talking points) during a White House briefing. We share some of their remarks, and the entirety of Biden's historic announcement during today's very busy BradCast...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President Biden moves to undo even more of Trump's attacks on the environment; Biden will use the power of the government purse to boost electric vehicles made in the U.S.; PLUS: Court strikes fatal blow to Trump's polluting power plant rule... 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): Earth Is Now Losing 1.2 Trillion Tons Of Ice Each Year; Climate Scientist Michael Mann: Deniers Are Shifting Tactics; Jair Bolsonaro Could Face Charges In The Hague Over Amazon Rainforest; Officials Hail 'Encouraging' Number Of N Atlantic Right Whale Births; Eminent Domain Lets Pipeline Developers Take Land From Black Owners... PLUS: Planting Crops — And Carbon, Too... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Now that the new Administration is actually inside the White House, the extent of the unspeakable mess left behind by the previous occupants are only just now beginning to come to light. [Audio link to show follows summary below.]

When it comes to the still-worsening COVID crisis --- just one of the several crises left for President Biden to clean up in the wake of the unprecedented failures of the Trump Administration --- apparently it's all much worse than feared. There was, reportedly, no coordinated effort in place at all to deal with national distribution of vaccines, nor to deal with the difficult task of safely reopening schools and businesses in hopes of reviving the still-worsening economic crisis that Trump and Congressional Republicans also left behind for the new Democratic Administration to clean up as well.

After yet another Democratic President is left to clean up yet another economic disaster following yet another Republican Administration, one might wonder why it is that Americans and many in the media continue to falsely suggest the GOP is the party of fiscal responsibility, when they are clearly the complete opposite. I've got a thought or two today on how that scam continues, year after year after year, despite actual facts to the contrary.

Among the many stories covered on today's program, as the "clean up on aisle 45" gets under way on the first full day of the new Biden Administration...

• Biden signs at least 10 Executive Orders to begin a "full-scale, wartime" effort to deal with the utter failure of the previous administration to have any national plan at all to get folks vaccinated or even tested, much less to get schools reopened. His new 200-page national plan is here [PDF]. He also vowed that America will be hearing more about the COVID crisis from their scientists, from here on out, rather than their President;

• The new, weekly jobless claim numbers from the final week of Trump's Presidency are out today, and they are horrendous. Since the crisis began last March, for the 44th week in a row, they once again are hundreds of thousands of applications higher than the worst-ever week during the Great Recession. (Ya know...the last time a Dem Prez had to save the economy after a Republican Administration destroyed it.);

• Perhaps you can take some comfort in the fact that at least Trump's own businesses are tanking as well, thanks to his fatally horrific decision to pretend the coronavirus was a hoax and to do nothing about it --- other than to make it far worse than it should have been;

• Biden's first full day clean-up also included firing a number of wingnut Trumpers who had burrowed in at several Executive Branch agencies. One of them is the top lawyer at the National Labor Relations Board who is decidedly anti-labor!;

• Meanwhile, in the nether-reaches of the Internet, there is much sadness, confusion and despondency. Adherents of the ridiculous QAnon conspiracy theory --- who believe that Democrats and "deep-staters" are secretly baby-eating, satanic, pedophiles (oh, like they're not!) and that Trump, as a super-genius, had a secret plan to round them all up, arrest them in mass and execute them at the Inauguration, before reclaiming his rightful second term --- are disappointed today for some odd reason and have reportedly "lost all hope". Turns out that, after none of that actually happened, as promised by "Q" for years, the QAnon dupes and stooges are only now beginning to realize they may have been played for suckers all along;

• Also newly disappointed of late by their former hero, Donald Trump, is the rightwing racist street gang Proud Boys. Following Trump selling them out after the January 6th U.S. Capitol riots, many in the extremist hate-group seem to have decided the former President is a "shill", "extraordinarily weak" and "a total failure". (SAD!);

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with more news on Biden's efforts to clean up and reverse scores of anti-environmental regulations and actions taken by the previous Administration, and on renewed hopes for the revival of real climate action by the U.S. Government...if a few questionable Dems in the Senate play along...

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It's our final BradCast with Donald Trump still serving as President of the United States! Though it's likely to take a while before the stink fully dissipates. [Audio link to the show follows below the summary.]

The soon-to-be-former President is said to have been in a foul mood all weekend (SAD!) as he prepares, reportedly, to announce as many as 100 or more last minute Presidential Pardons. Reporting today suggests he will not issue pardons for either his family or himself (or even for the under-indictment Steve Bannon or the reportedly under-federal investigation Rudy Giuliani). Color us dubious about that, however.

The failed President's mood was undoubtedly not brightened by Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, who --- while convening the Senate for what is likely his last full day as Majority Leader --- declared that Trump "provoked" the violent attack and riots at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. That may not be a good sign for the disgraced man who will face an Impeachment Trial in that same Senate in coming days, as the first ever twice-Impeached President.

The fact that few wish to show up to send Trump off from Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday morning, or that tons of A-List stars are showing up for Joe Biden's inauguration, probably hasn't made Trump any less bitter. So at least America can be happy about that. Trump did release a video today in which he bid "farewell" to the nation (promises, promises), and --- without mentioning Joe Biden's name --- said out loud that there would be a "new administration" as of Wednesday.

That may still come as a shock to many of those gullible supporters of his to whom he's spent the last several months lying about that fact. But since he's been banned from Twitter, according to new research, misinformation about the election has plummeted on social media sites, along with hate speech and calls for violence. Go figure.

Still, as Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris held a moving memorial service for the more than 400,000 Americans killed by COVID-19 thanks to Trump's delinquent response, the streets of D.C. are otherwise locked down tight today in advance of Wednesday's inauguration.

We're joined from D.C. today by progressive columnist and broadcaster RICHARD 'RJ' ESKOW of The Zero Hour to discuss a whole bunch of related stuff. Our conversation ranges from the on-edge mood in the nation's capitol on the eve of an unprecedented Inauguration Day lockdown to Eskow's concerns about Big Tech's muzzling of political viewpoints (even Trump's) to questions of accountability for the outgoing President and to what the former health insurance executive and senior writer for Bernie Sanders' 2016 campaign thinks of Biden's cabinet selections and stated agenda to date.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our last Green News Report of the Trump Presidency, with some good news on Biden's economic recovery plan and his intention to reverse a host of environmental rollbacks by the previous Administration; some good news on the zombie Keystone XL pipeline, and; some very good news from the courts, late today, regarding the Trump EPA's failed attempt to allow coal-fired power plants to continue to pollute and contribute to deadly global warming.

Yes, it's the end of an error...with a lot of cleaning up to do in the days, weeks, months and, sadly, years ahead. But at least we will soon have all of that to look forward to, with the nation's worst ever President, hopefully, becoming nothing more than a terrible terrible memory...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Biden unveils economic recovery plan with focus on climate; Also plans blitz of actions to undo Trump's environmental rollbacks; Trump unleashes last last-minute spree of rollbacks and polluter giveaways; PLUS: It may finally be the end of the line for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline... 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): Toyota to Pay a Record Fine for a Decade of Clean Air Act Violations; Climate scientists sound the alarm on a climate 'tipping point'; 'Cautious optimism' about fighting climate change: Dr. Michael Mann; Weakened 'forever chemical' assessment sets hurdle for Biden; 'Unrig the data.' How utilities embellish carbon cuts; PNW: A Thin Green Line with Global Impact; Los Angeles Lifts Air-Quality Limits For Cremations As Covid Deaths Double... PLUS: The Capitol Riot and Climate Disinformation... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Donald Trump's Big Lie(s) continue to pose a terror threat, even as his world is crumbling. [Audio link to show follows summary below.]

On Wednesday, during the debate in the U.S. House over Donald Trump's second impeachment, a number of GOPers argued that the bipartisan call for accountability in response to the President of the United States inciting a terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol last week would only serve to make matters worse. A number of Trump's defenders charged that if the Congress that was attacked by his MAGA Mob attempted to hold him to account it would be too "divisive" and anger his supporters at a time that the nation needed "unity" and "healing".

At the very same time, according to Greg Sargent at Washington Post today, a number of U.S. intelligence agencies, including DHS and DoJ, issued a memo warning that Trump's Big Lie about a "stolen election" was serving as the driving force for "Domestic Violence Extremists" (DVEs) who pose a serious threat of further violence in coming days.

Nonetheless, few of those Republicans in the House pretending to be concerned about dividing the nation further were willing to say the one thing that might actually "lower the temperature": That Joe Biden won the election fair and square according to all available evidence and that Donald Trump lost it in the same fashion.

Phony GOP concerns about "divisiveness" not withstanding, their refusal to do the right thing by debunking Trump's ridiculous claims that the election was stolen, rather than play along with them, has resulted in news that the National Mall in D.C. will now reportedly be closed entirely for the first time during a Presidential Inauguration due to the threat of domestic terrorism.

Trump's Big Lie about the election is not the only one. Some of the House Republicans on Wednesday were attempting to rewrite reality by claiming that Trump, at his MAGA Mob rally before the insurrection at the Capitol, did little more than "urged attendees to, quote, unquote, peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. There was no mention of violence, let alone calls to action." That was the claim made by Pennsylvania's lying Rep. Guy Reschenthaler. Reality --- and actual evidence --- prove otherwise, as we do as well on today's program. Given that Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate on this very matter awaits, it seems wise to get a jump on this newest Big Lie.

But, as dark as this moment may be for the safety of Americans and future of American democracy, there is still plenty of Trump Schadenfreude News to be enjoyed today. Including the fact that Trump is reportedly "isolated and angry at aides for failing to defend him" during his second impeachment; his approval ratings have plummeted 11 points since December; and New York City is joining a growing list of those cutting ties to the disgraced Trump. As his Trump Organization empire begins to crumble, he is already losing millions of dollars worth of business from those who regard his brand as too toxic to get anywhere near at this point. And things are likely to get much much worse for him in the days ahead.

All of that and much more, with gusto, on today's program, before we close with some accountability news when Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder criminally charged in Flint Water Crisis; Trump EPA's parting gift to polluters --- severe restrictions on all future pollution regulations; U.S. annual emissions plummet, due to coronavirus; PLUS: World's biggest battery farm now online in California... 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): Record Ocean Heat In 2020 Supercharged Extreme Weather; Trump Admin Slashes Critical Habitat For Northern Spotted Owl; >How Trump Admin's Climate Denial Left Its Mark on The Arctic Council; A Late Burst of Climate Denial Extends the Era of Trump Disinformation; Wildfire Smoke Causes Up To Half Fine-Particle Pollution in Western U.S.... PLUS: House Poor, Pollution Rich: Thousands of public housing residents live near the most polluted places in the nation - and the government has done little to protect them... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: 2020 tied with 2016 for the hottest year ever recorded; 2020 also shattered the record for billion-dollar weather disasters in the U.S.; PLUS: Fossil fuel industry shutting revolving door on Trump energy staffers... 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 Climate Crisis Will Be Steroids for Fascism; EPA rule exempts many polluting industries from future air regulations; Biden Climate Plan Looks For Buy-in From Farmers Who Are Often Skeptical About Global Warming; Scientists unveil battery breakthrough for energy storage... PLUS: Africa's Great Green Wall receives over $14 billion to stop desertification... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: The last vote of the '2020' election has now been cast with Georgia's two U.S. Senate runoffs now over. The voting part anyway. Now the counting, fighting and complaining begin. [Audio link to full show follows below summary.]

We received mixed reports from on the ground in Georgia today. The state's voting systems manager, Gabriel Sterling, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Election Day in the contests that will determine partisan control of the U.S. Senate went very smoothly on the state's 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems made by Dominion and forced on in-person voters in the state for the first time in 2020 by their Republican Sec. of State, Brad Raffensperger. Lines to vote, according to Sterling were short in most places, though as long as 30 minutes at some Atlanta metro area voting stations. Other sources on the ground in the Peach State told us that lines in some places that were longer than for the Presidential general election back in November. Given there were just three races on the ballot (two for U.S. Senator, one for a Public Service Commissioner), there shouldn't have been any lines at all to speak of. Nonetheless, the 'Rube Goldberg' touchscreen computer ballot marking devices and the computerized pollbooks and computerized scanners that are used with them --- instead of a much simpler, verifiable, reliable hand-marked paper ballot system --- always take longer to cast a vote. They also, as usual, created problems for voters in several counties, with misprogrammed access cards and other reported failures. Emergency hand-marked paper ballots were said to have been deployed in some cases, as needed.

We try to read some of the tea leaves from today's reports, as to what it all may mean, while we wait for results that could come tonight....or over the next several days.

We're joined today from on the ground in Georgia by LAUREN WINDSOR, journalist, Executive Director of American Family Voices, producer of the grassroots political web-show, The Undercurrent, and, apparently, "operative", according to a report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Windsor has been in the state for the past month with her producer, bird-dogging incumbent Republican millionaires and Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, regarding their respective stock market windfalls amid the COVID epidemic. They are running against Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively.

She's been there as Trump has made a mess out of the runoffs, which he described over the weekend as "illegal", before showing up at a rally in the state, supposedly for Loeffler and Perdue on Monday night, not long after he confused matters further by calling for $2,000 COVID checks for Americans after Republicans (including the two GA incumbents) had insisted on $600 checks.

Windsor has broken a number of stories over that time, including last month when, as AJC documented, Perdue lied to her by claiming he planned to challenge Joe Biden's electoral vote count in the Senate tomorrow --- even though his term ended on January 3 and won't begin again until this year's election is decided and certified. Trump retweeted her tweet reporting Perdue's lie and his campaign then retweeted the President's tweet. There is apparently nobody left in the Republican Party who cares about telling the truth.

Both Perdue and Loeffer, she tells me, are "trying to have it both ways with regards to supporting the Electoral College challenge. Now they're trying to have it both ways with supporting the $2000 relief checks. They're saying, 'We'll tell you that's what we want, but we're actually going to work with McConnell to make sure it won't happen.'"

She shares of number of stories from her adventures over the past month covering both millionaires Perdue ("this guy owns a home within a gated community that's within a gated community.") and Loeffler ("It wasn't exactly a 'rag to riches story' for Kelly Loeffler. It was more of a 'riches to riches' story.) And Windsor also has some thoughts on the failure of Republican hoaxster James O'Keefe --- who she has also been bird-dogging for years now --- to deliver his promised "bombshells" on Democratic "voter fraud" in the 2020 cycle. Windsor also offers her careful prediction for how today's critical contests will ultimately shake out.

Also today, we enjoy a rare bit of speculation on Donald Trump's future, following a curious story out of Scotland Monday reporting that the tiny airport near Trump's failing Turnberry Golf Resort is set to "expect the arrival of a US military Boeing 757 aircraft" on January 19th, the day before Biden is to be inaugurated. Hmmm....

And, speaking of speculation, Politico has a few scoops on what House and Senate Republicans are planning for their challenges at Wednesday's joint session of Congress to the affirmation of Biden's Electoral College votes in at least three states (perhaps as many as six) during their desperate, last-ditch --- most likely futile, definitely sore-loser --- effort to overturn the 2020 Presidential election and/or make a name for themselves as 2024 Presidential contenders and/or ruin their chances all together in the bargain. We shall see. Suffice to say, Wednesday is likely to be a very long day, as we have long been warning.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our first Green News Report of 2021! With a whole bunch of stories we were unable to cover while off last week, including several new parting gifts from the Trump Administration, such as "bomb" trains and more asthma attacks for children, as well as some much better news for humanity and the planet out of Japan...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: On way out the door, Trump Transportation Dept. approves natural gas 'bomb' trains; Trump EPA's parting gifts include more asthma attacks and premature deaths from air pollution; MI's Gov. Whitmer signs $640 million settlement in Flint Water Crisis; PLUS: Japan unveils ambitious national plan to achieve net zero emissions by 2050... 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): Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to Zero; Trump auctions Arctic refuge to oil drillers in final major decision affecting US wilderness; Trump To Approve AZ Land Swap For Rio Tinto's Resolution Copper Project; Detroit business dumped liquid landfill waste in Flint system; How Trump Tried, but Largely Failed, to Derail Top U.S.Climate Report; Four U.S. Water Stories to Watch in 2021... PLUS: 117th Congress opens to new energy, environment fights... and much, MUCH more! ...

Well, the good news on today's BradCast, is that he won't be California's Secretary of State anymore. [Audio link to show follows below summary.]

Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced he is appointing his long time friend, CA Sec. of State Alex Padilla, to fill the seat being vacated in the U.S. Senate by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. The ambitious Padilla has risen up through the ranks of CA politics, from the Los Angeles City Council to the State Senate to becoming a twice-elected SoS, and now to his appointment to the U.S. Senate. He will serve out the rest of Harris' term through 2022 as the state's first Latino Senator.

In his official announcement today, the Governor detailed a long list of accomplishments by Padilla during his career in the Golden State. In turn, we share a number of Padilla's disturbing failures both before and during his tenure as SoS, as we have covered at The BRAD BLOG over the years. In 2013, for example, while he was still a state Senator, we highlighted Padilla's dishonest and misleading campaign for a major election reform bill (SB 360) which ended the long-standing requirement for federal testing and approval of new voting systems in the state and transferred sole power for certification testing and approval of new systems to the SoS. As it happens, Padilla was the leading candidate for the office at the time and eventually became SoS in 2014.

In selling the measure to the public and the media --- it was eventually passed along partisan lines in the CA legislature and signed by then-Governor Jerry Brown --- Padilla claimed the bill was needed to allow counties in the state to create and own their own voting systems. "Allowing counties to develop, own and operate voting systems will increase voter confidence in the integrity of our elections," he told the public. The remarks echoed his early announcement of the bill [PDF] in which he deceptively explained that "A public voting system will be more transparent, instill public trust and be more accountable than our current systems."

At the time, Los Angeles County had been developing a new, 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting system. It was finally implemented (disastrously) for the first time this year. What Padilla failed to make clear in his deceptive sale of SB 360 was that L.A. County had already owned its current voting system at the time, and didn't need the radical new measure to do so. While Padilla's office had initially asked for our input on SB 360, they stopped communicating with us entirely once we asked about his dishonest sales pitches.

Moreover, after 10 years in development, when L.A.'s new, $300+ million voting system was found to be in violation of more than 40 California Voting System Standards late last year, Padilla certified it for use anyway, rather than simply mandating verifiable hand-marked paper ballots for every voter in the nation's most-populous County. The first roll-out of L.A.'s Padilla-approved "Voting Solutions for all People" (VSAP) system was a disaster during this year's March 3rd Super Tuesday primaries. Problems cited by testers (but ignored by Padilla) contributed to long lines for voters that stretched, in some cases, until after midnight. The same failed systems were again re-certified for use in the general election, though they fared better overall with much less use after the Governor mandated absentee ballots to be sent to all registered voters in the state during the pandemic.

Those are just some of the concerns that Election Integrity advocates in the state have had about Padilla. But the good news is that he'll likely be a reliable Democratic place-holder vote in the U.S. Senate while, perhaps, a more competent Sec. of State can be named to replace him in the Golden State. We'll see.

Also today, Rita Hart, Iowa's Democratic former state Senator and 2020 U.S. House candidate in the state's 2nd Congressional District, filed an election challenge in the House under the Federal Contested Elections Act. Iowa certified Hart's Republican opponent, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, as the winner of the open seat by just 6 votes out of nearly 400,000 cast in the November election. Hart's contest, however, notes that at least 22 legally cast votes for her were wrongly excluded from the final tally, including many which state election officials agree were lawfully cast but excluded from the count because they were discovered after the initial canvass. State law bars the inclusion of such ballots in the final tallies. She also argues that the state recount which narrowed the margin from 47 votes to 6 --- and included a number of major counting errors along the way --- was unconstitutionally conducted, as the 24 counties of the District used disparate counting methods. Some used machines, others hand-counted, others used a combination of both. She is seeking a full, uniform hand-count by the Government Accountability Office and hopes to eventually be seated by the Democratic-majority U.S. House Administration Committee under the Act. The investigation is likely to take months.

In other elections-related news today, rightwing propaganda outlet Newsmax joined fellow rightwing propaganda outlet Fox "News" on Monday by attempting to walk back their false assertions regarding the private elections vendors Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems. The two competing vendors have been targeted with baseless, evidence-free claims by Team Trump attorneys and others from the MAGA Mob --- which have been shared and parroted by both outlets, as well as One America News (OAN). Last week, Smartmatic sent a legal threat, demanding retraction for the outlets' claims that Smartmatic was involved with Dominion in a worldwide conspiracy --- with Venezuela and its dead President Hugo Chavez, China, Cuba, the Clinton Foundation and George Soros, among others --- to flip the results of the election and steal it from Donald Trump in several swing-states. As we explained recently, the baseless allegations are taken, in part, from my own accurate investigative exclusives about the ownership of Dominion and Smartmatic from more than a decade ago.

In response to the possibility of facing a defamation lawsuit, over the weekend Fox "News" ran a bizarre, three-minute segment on shows hosted by rightwing conspiracists Lou Dobbs, Janine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo, featuring a disembodied voice asking questions of Eddie Perez of the Open Source Election Technology foundation. Perez, who has recently been a guest on our show, is seen denying largely all of the claims that the wingnut outlets have been making to advance Trump's false claims that he won the election.

On Monday, Newsmax joined Fox by running its own version of an attempted retraction, to "clarify" that, in fact, they have absolutely no evidence to support myriad claims the stations has aired regarding Smartmatic and Dominion during the weeks since Election Day. The "clarification" will supposedly run across all Newsmax shows, according to its CEO and longtime Trump supporter, Chris Ruddy. Given that Smartmatic has hired one of the nation's top defamation attorneys --- who won a case for $177 million in 2017 --- its little wonder that both outlets are now running very scared. We'll see if OAN buckles soon as well, in the face of someone attempting to hold them accountable for countless lies meant to undermine our democratic system in support of Trump's attempt to steal the election from Joe Biden and the American people.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our last Green News Report of 2020! As Biden-Harris round out their historic climate team nominations; long-overdue climate legislation is included along with Congress' long-overdue COVID emergency relief package; and as the Trump Administration triumphantly ends the tyranny of efficient showerheads....

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris make history in introducing their full climate team; Congressional COVID relief package includes climate and clean energy legislation; PLUS: Trump Administration ends the tyranny of efficient showerheads... 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): Changes caused by worsening wildfires in California forests will last centuries; Which Way to Solve Climate? 5 pathways; 'This is bad.' Hacking chaos engulfs FERC, DOE, Microsoft; A midnight regulation to end regulations; CDC Questioned EPA Rule Declining To Impose Tougher Soot Regulations ... PLUS: Demolition of the largest coal-fired power plant in the West brings hope to the Navajo Nation... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: His days left in office only seem like years, but for Donald Trump, they are quickly waning. Trumpism, however, among the completely captured and off-the-rails Republican Party, is doing anything but. Despite the very real danger that continues to pose to the nation --- measured by hundreds of thousands of lives lost when it comes to the worsening COVID crisis, and American democracy itself when it comes to the GOP's evidence-free claims of a "stolen" 2020 election --- the corporate media continue to downplay and "both sides" the root of the nation's massive problems, my guest argues today. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

But first up today, a few quick late breaking news items. Desi Doyen joins us for coverage of the massive snowstorm smashing records and wreaking havoc across a huge swath of the Northeast today, as well as two reported and very important climate-related Joe Biden cabinet nominations. The first is North Carolina's chief climate regulator Michael Regan, now reportedly tapped as the first African-American EPA Administrator. And the second is Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico, who would be the first native American Secretary of the Interior Department. Desi explains why the two landmark appointments appear to be very good news --- even if the latter cuts very close to the Democrats' dangerously thin majority in the new Congress.

Then, we're joined by longtime political media analyst and author ERIC BOEHLERT, publisher of Press Run, where he has been covering, of late, what he describes as the "media's defining failure of 2020". That includes its "bogus Both Sides narrative" on the Republican Party's utter failure to respond to the COVID crisis with a long-overdue emergency relief bill for struggling Americans and an economy on the brink of disaster, as well as madness displayed by the more than 100 Congressional GOPers who recently signed on to indicted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's failed SCOTUS attempt to throw out the votes of 20 million Americans in four states in order to steal the election for Donald Trump.

On those two issues of serious, existential denialism, as Boehlert detailed in a recent column, "the press has no idea how to cover it."

"In terms of election denialism, COVID fantasies, the Republican Party is a pro-pandemic party, the Republican Party is an anti-democratic party," he argues. He cites mainstream corporate media coverage which fails to clearly explain these points to the American people, as they refer instead to "Washington" being broken and "Congress" failing to do more. The result, he notes, can be found in a recent poll with a plurality of Americans blaming Nancy Pelosi for the failure to pass a new COVID relief bill, despite the Democrats passage of a $3 trillion bill in the House last Spring, and a Republican Senate led by Mitch McConnell who refused to even negotiate at all until very recently, much less allow it to come up for a vote.

"The corrupt, insane behavior, even if we just look at this election nonsense...Right after the election, I wrote about how Politico was saying, 'This is all just performance art. Republicans don't believe that Trump wants to steal the election, they're just letting him blow off some steam...everyone just calm down.' We've been told by the beltway press to calm down for four years, and the beltway press has been wrong every single time."

"CNN did a report saying, 'Republicans had no choice but to go along with Trump' as he tried to overturn election results 'because Trump controls the base,' says Boehlert. "It's all viewed as this game. No one was laughing last week when more than 100 members of Congress signed on to a lawsuit that wanted to throw out 20 million votes."

"Those 100-plus Republican members of Congress signing off on that obliterated, forever, this narrative that the press has held onto for four years that the Republican Party is privately very concerned about Trump," he argues. "They can't sleep at night because of his tweets, and gosh, they can't say it publicly. And when Trump leaves everything will be fine. Baloney! That is garbage. This is going to define the next four years. And how the press treats this radical, dangerous political party over the next four years is going to be a really big story."

He (and I) have much more to say on all of that, but before we finish up today, there is one more idea I wanted to get his thoughts on. Longtime conservative Republican strategist and John McCain's 2008 campaign manager Steve Schmidt this week announced he was joining the Democratic Party. Schmidt left the GOP some time ago, fed up with their increasing radicalism and Trump lunacy. He became an independent and helped to found The Lincoln Project which created killer videos attacking Trump and the GOP alike during the run-up to the November election (and beyond). But a number of Democrats and progressives have expressed concerns about longtime Republican "Never Trumpers" and their political influence on the party as they join forces with Democrats and what that might mean for the party's progressive future.

We share Schmidt's announcement on the show today, explaining some of the reasons for his decision to become a Democrat, and get Boehlert's take on whether this is a positive sign or troubling omen for the Democratic Party as the Biden Administration prepares to take office...

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On today's BradCast, some real facts on the real concerns about Dominion Voting Systems' unverifiable computerized voting machines in Georgia --- what we know (and don't) about what happened with them during the 2020 Presidential election in November; what concerns that voters of all parties should have about them before the two critical U.S. Senate runoffs in the Peach State in January which will determine partisan control of the U.S. Senate; and what all Americans can do about it. [Audio link to full show is posted beneath summary.]

But, first up today, a few quick --- and somewhat related --- news items today. On Wednesday, the U.S. tallied a heartbreaking record 3,124 COVID deaths, making it the fourth most deadly day in U.S. history after the Galveston Storm of 1900, and the Civil War battles of Antietam and Gettysburg. Wednesday saw more Americans die from COVID than those killed on September 11, 2001, which had previously been the nation's fourth most deadly day. The next most deadly single days in the U.S. thereafter are now, in order, last Thursday, last Wednesday, last Friday, last Tuesday and Pearl Harbor.

At the same time this week, Donald Trump has been throwing crowded, indoor, holiday parties at the White House, lying to guests, without a mask, that his election was stolen, and the Texas lawsuit filed this week would prove it to his stolen and packed U.S. Supreme Court, somehow. It's as if the worst pandemic in more than a hundred years doesn't even exist because, after all, there's an election to be stolen and several centuries of American democracy to be undermined during the holidays.

As to that absurd Texas case filed by the criminally indicted Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, (which we explained in great detail on yesterday's BradCast), 18 GOP controlled states have now joined the Lone Star State in support of tossing out the election results in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia, despite any evidence of fraud in those states that could possible overturn Joe Biden's certified win in each of them. But, much less reported today, is the fact that more than 20 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have joined those four targeted states in opposing the corrupt Paxton's transparent effort to win a pardon from the corrupt Trump, before the FBI drops new federal charges for bribery and abuse of power on the Texas AG.

Yes, the Texas case is absurd and offers an unprecedented, radical interpretation of the U.S. Constitution in hopes of stealing the election for Trump. As Pennsylvania's Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, has correctly argued, "The Court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process." But we also now have an unprecedented, radical bunch of Justices sitting on the bench at SCOTUS. Anyone who tells you they know how those Justices will rule on this case is simply making things up.

In the meantime, there remain very real concerns about Georgia's voting system, just not the phony ones that Team Trump and the MAGA Mob have decided to focus on (read: lie about.)

Today, for the first time since before the November 3rd election, we're joined by voting systems expert MARILYN MARKS, Executive Director of the nonpartisan, good government watchdog group, Coalition for Good Governance. As a plaintiff in the long-running federal lawsuit seeking to bar Dominion Voting Systems' new, unverifiable touchscreen systems from use in the state, Marks has been one of the longest and loudest critics of both the private Canadian-based voting system vendor and the state's Republican Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger who contracted them. (Her same federal suit already resulted in a federal judge, last year, banning the use of the state's 20-year old, unverifiable Diebold touchscreen systems.) Raffensperger defied both election integrity and cybersecurity experts by purchasing Dominion's unverifiable $100+ million systems instead of a hand-marked paper ballot system as recommended by the experts. And now, Team Trump is exploiting Raffensperger's ill-considered decision to make all sorts of unfounded claims about them.

That said, because these systems are unverifiable, it's next to impossible to know that they accurately recorded the intent of any of the voters who are forced to use them at polling places across the state --- something that Marks (and us) warned about long before Republicans decided to pretend they were concerned about "election integrity" and invented a ridiculous worldwide conspiracy led by Dominion to steal the election from Trump.

In addition to cribbing from and bastardizing some of The BRAD BLOG's decade-old, independently verifiable investigative reporting about Dominion to create their ridiculous conspiracy regarding Venezuela's dead President Hugo Chavez helping to steal the election from Trump, the same MAGA Mob has been stealing from and lying about Marks' long-running federal law suit to try and make their case in court.

"We have seen, in Sidney Powell's lawsuits, fabrication after fabrication," Marks tells me. "I sit there and read these documents, cringing at the lack of facts. They even take things from our documents, like experts' reports, then add craziness to them, literally change facts that were attested to by our experts and make them completely false."

In light of all of that, among the question Marks speaks to today: Is there any evidence that Dominion Voting Systems touchscreens or tabulators were, in fact, used to flip votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden in Georgia? Her answer may surprise you! If you've listened to The BradCast while we've covered this issue with Marks and others for years, it may not surprise you.

We have covered Georgia on this program and at BradBlog.com so long and in so much detail for a reason. The state, she notes "has been the poster-child for all that is wrong with US elections. It's all concentrated here. And now it's the center of the universe."

Marks also speaks to whether Americans and residents of Georgia should have confidence in the reported results from the November election, and what if anything, can be done to ensure confidence in the results of the critical January 5th U.S. Senate runoffs in the state.

For those with actual concerns about those runoff elections --- which doesn't actually seem to include many of the Republican sore losers complaining about the November results and an evidence-free "Dominion Conspiracy" --- Marks asks listeners to urgently, and politely, email both the Speaker of the GA House, David Ralston, and GA's Sec. of State Raffensperger to urge them to allow HAND-MARKED paper ballots for all voters at the polls in the upcoming runoffs. She argues that there is still time for that to happen in every county, even as Early Voting begins on Monday. "They can make a quick switch to hand-marked paper ballots. All they need are a few thousand black ballpoint pens. They just need to hear from the nation that this time we want a non-controversial election."

We also ask Marks (a now former Republican herself), whether or not there are at least a few Republicans who might end up finding legitimate interest in joining the fight for real Election Integrity after their current partisan interests in Trump's election eventually fade away. While a private company like Dominion should never have the type of control they now have over our public elections, neither should the much larger ES&S firm or the smaller Hart-Intercivic, just to mention the three largest corporations who have arguably been allowed to usurp our public elections with unsecure, poorly designed, easily manipulated, non-transparent, computerized voting and tabulation systems.

"I hope that maybe one piece of good is that the Republicans are now suddenly concerned about software, and they are concerned about transparency of other processes," she observers. "They're suddenly interested in election administration that before, they seemed to have assumed was just going to work for them. So, hopefully we will get better transparency out of this. But we're going to have to go through the crazy period first, I'm afraid."

Finally, we're joined by Desi Doyen for our latest Green News Report, with mostly disturbing news, as usual, on the state of our climate and environment, but some really really encouraging news at the end, that we'll use to make ourselves feel much better on another insane day like today...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Scientists warn of dramatic transformation in the Arctic; Trump EPA makes it even harder to enact new pollution rules; Another chemical plant explosion, this time in West Virginia; PLUS: New York State's giant pension fund is divesting from fossil fuels... 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): In Georgia, Hit by Hurricanes and Drought, Climate Change Is on Ballot; ‘Buy it or else’: Inside Monsanto and BASF’s moves to force dicamba on farmers; Global soils underpin life but future looks ‘bleak’, warns UN report; 'Everything is drying up': As springs on Hopi land decline, a sacred connection is threatened; Earth Still Sailing Into Climate Chaos, UN Says, But Course Could Shift; Trump kick-starts oil drilling license sales in Arctic refuge on Jan. 6; Abandoned Oil And Gas Wells Leave The Ocean Floor Spewing Methane... PLUS: The fate of Scotland's salmon depends on its forests ... and much, MUCH more! ...