In an unusual late Sunday night court order [PDF], a federal judge declared Florida's rules for validating absentee ballots to be "illogical" and bizarre" and ordered that thousands of voters receive the option to correct a problem that might otherwise have resulted in thousands of unnecessarily and inappropriately rejected vote-by-mail ballots in the key battleground state.

U.S. District Court Judge Mark E. Walker granted a preliminary injunction sought by the Florida Democratic Party to a GOP-enacted statute that allows election workers who lack training in handwriting analysis to reject absentee ballots on the basis of mismatched-signatures without first providing voters with the opportunity to cure the perceived defect.

Notice and a right to cure under Florida's irrational vote-by-mail system is afforded to those voters who fail to include any signature at all on their absentee ballots, but not to those judged to have submitted a signature that does match the one on file with their registration record.

As AP notes, "Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature in 2004 passed a law that said all vote-by-mail ballots that had mismatched signatures or did not contain a signature were to be tossed out. But then in 2013 legislators changed the law to allow people who turned in a ballot without a signature to fix the mistake prior to the election." That statutory change did not offer the same option to cure signatures believed to be mismatches.

"It is illogical, irrational, and patently bizarre for the state of Florida to withhold the opportunity to cure from mismatched-signature voters while providing that same opportunity to no-signature voters," Judge Walker wrote. "And in doing so, the state of Florida has categorically disenfranchised thousands of voters for no reason other than they have poor handwriting or their handwriting has changed over time"...

Brad Friedman was no doubt correct when he described the insanity that passed for a Second "Presidential Debate" as "one of the darkest chapters in modern U.S. Presidential history." That unfortunate event, however, led to a moment of extraordinary candor. Former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt told NBC's Chuck Todd that Donald Trump's candidacy had "exposed the intellectual rot in the Republican Party."

Schmidt's point is well taken, but there are also systemic sources for our current political malaise. These center upon (1) a privately-owned media system that elevates its own commercial interests over the public interest,, and (2) the euphemistically self-described "non-partisan" Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) --- the undemocratic guardians of the status quo who, in conjunction with the two major political parties (which its commissioners represent) and the mainstream media, tirelessly strive to prevent Presidential debates from achieving their true function --- the facilitation of an informed electoral decision...

On today's BradCast, we peer into the rancid dark heart of the Republican Party meltdown and the trauma all Americans are being forced through to get there. [Audio link posted below.]

As detailed today, the ongoing meltdown began long before the campaign of Donald Trump, whose angry, dangerous, paranoid speech in West Palm Beach, FL on Thursday offered only a glimpse into the party's decades-long lurch towards the fact-free 'reality' they've worked to create for all of us. No longer tethered to facts or truth, but to a nominee who embodies and reflects the very xenophobic, nativist, racist, and misogynistic tactics employed for political gain over at least the last two Presidential Administrations, the beginning of a reckoning may finally be in sight.

Yet, even those GOPers who finally understand some of this --- and many in the corporate media who've enabled it for so long --- still fail to grasp the gravity of the moment, their own culpability, and the traumatic stress the nation faces in the bargain.

Nonetheless, our message today: We're going to be okay, there is a way out.

All of that and what you can do to help us get there --- as illustrated with the news of the day, a bit of listener mail and even some South Park(!) --- on today's BradCast...

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On today's BradCast, "this is not normal, this is not politics as usual", Michelle Obama declared. But, at least in Palm Beach County, FL, after last week's hurricane, the top election official says she's ready for whatever storm may be coming. [Audio to the complete show is linked below.]

I'm joined today by Susan Bucher, Palm Beach County, FL Supervisor of Elections, to discuss preparations for late voter registrations following Hurricane Matthew and what she suspects may be record turnout in Early and Election Day voting. She describes yesterday's court order to extend the registration period until October 18th as "a victory for all Floridians," and says that, despite the tight deadlines now before early voting begins on October 24th, her county is ready.

"We're a tough state, we're a tough county --- and we've been working overtime for a month to make sure we're ready for the big push. We opened our doors on the holiday on Monday. We were just slammed with lots of people all day. We opened early, we stayed late. All of our employees have been working overtime. We will get it done before early voting starts," she vows.

"Millennials now outnumber senior citizens and nearly half the voters under 30 are Latino or African-American," Bucher explains. "And, especially after the last debate, we saw a very large push of citizens out there. There are young people registering voters and bringing us stacks [of registrations] that are a foot deep. People are very anxious about this election. We have 880,000 voters and, let me tell you, I have never seen it so supercharged as I see it now. The last Presidential turnout was 70 percent. We're setting up for about 80-85 and maybe more."

Her county was, before she arrived eight years ago, made infamous for its Butterfly Ballot disaster during Florida's 2000 Presidential election debacle, one of the "original sins" leading us directly to the poisonous politics of the 2016 Presidential Election, as I detail once again on today's show. But Bucher says she ready, as we revisit more recent disasters in her county and state, such as Republican Governor Rick Scott's failed attempt to unlawfully purge thousands of legitimate voters from the rolls in 2012; the 6-hour long lines to vote that same year, after Scott cut the number of Early Voting days in half; and the paper ballot computer tabulators which incorrectly reported the results of three races in Palm Beach, declaring losing candidates to be "winners" back in 2010.

(Bucher tells me the software failures in those Sequoia tabulators have now been corrected in her county, but says she has many checks and balances in place, and is ready to go to court to get approval once again for hand-counting, if necessary, as she did in 2010 when she happened to notice the strange results. The state does not allow a hand-count of paper ballots without a court order. "It's unfortunate that it always takes court action with this Governor and this Secretary [of State] but if that's what works, then that's what we need to do," she tells me, going on to describe the recent conference call with the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security regarding concerns of hacks to voting and registration systems in the Sunshine State and elsewhere around the country.)

Meanwhile, in Georgia, as in Florida, voting rights groups filed suit to extend the voter registration deadline there as well, following mandatory evacuations over the final weekend of voter registration.

Also today, hear them roar: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) excoriates Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf for a lack of accountability, despite the announcement of his resignation after admitting fraudulent practices at the nation's largest bank. Then, Michelle Obama delivers a blistering speech condemning sexual harassment in the wake of Hurricane Trump, as an avalanche of women come forward to detail disturbing allegations against the Republican Presidential nominee. We offer an extended excerpt from her remarks at a New Hampshire rally today.

Finally: Desi Doyen, who also has a thought or two on Michelle's remarks and the allegations against Trump, brings us the latest, very busy, Green News Report...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Al Gore and Hillary Clinton rally Millennial voters to #VoteClimate; Federal appeals court allows construction to resume at Dakota Access pipeline; North Carolina grapples with Hurricane Matthew's toxic aftermath; PLUS: Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin calls for a day of prayer - for oil... 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 Warmth Helps Shrink U.S. Carbon Emissions; Elon Musk hits back at coal baron who called him a 'fraud' over green subsidies; Upward revision of global fossil fuel methane emissions based on isotope database; Efficiency saves developed countries $540 billion a year, IEA reports; New Jersey Transit, a Cautionary Tale of Neglect; Historic Climate Agreement Will Make Air Travel Carbon Neutral By 2020; Why the difference between taxing and trading carbon matters; The biggest climate change story in the world this week is quietly playing out in Rwanda; Solar Power Is About to Hit Texas Generators Where It Hurts Most... PLUS: A Trump presidency is a clean energy nightmare... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, WikiLeaks releases transcripts from Hillary Clinton's paid speeches to Wall Street bankers (and more) as America's long national nightmare known as Election 2016 grinds towards the finish line. [Audio link to show posted below.]

But first, some encouraging breaking news at the top of the show: A federal judge today has ordered swing-state Florida's voter registration deadline to be extended by one week (until Oct 18th), after Republican Gov. Rick Scott refused to issue any extension, even as he ordered the evacuation of 1.5 million residents last week, over what had been planned as the big final weekend for voter registration drives, as Hurricane Matthew bore down on the Sunshine State. (We discussed why that was a huge problem on yesterday's BradCast with FL election expert Daniel Smith.) Also, as we went to air today, embattled Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf finally announced he was stepping down.

Then...WikiLeaks has been releasing thousands of hacked, private emails to and from Hillary Clinton campaign chief John Podesta. Included among them are partial transcripts of Clinton's paid speeches given to groups like Goldman Sachs and other bankers and Wall Streeters before she became a candidate. One of those transcripts was cited by Donald Trump during the 2nd Presidential debate. But did he tell the truth about it? Did she? She has refused to release the speeches during both the primary with Bernie Sanders and the general campaign with Trump. So, would they have helped or hurt her had she done so? They do reveal her, after all, lauding single payer health care and opposing both the TPP and KeystoneXL long before she did so publicly. But what else do tell us that we hadn't known previously?

Does anything in the transcripts released to date live up to the 'outrage' that corporate media and Clinton opponents have suggested? David Atkins of the generally-Clinton-supporting Washington Monthly described the hacked and leaked partial transcripts over the weekend as "problematic" and joins me today to explain why he thinks so.

Also today: Trump misinforms his own supporters about the date of the election (it's November 8th, not 28th) and GOP Veep nominee Mike Pence does something not horrible for a brief moment and we laud him for it, even though he can't help but lie to his supporters about "voter fraud" at the same time.

Finally, has Election 2016 hit 'rock bottom' yet? Evidence suggests we may not yet even be close...

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On today's BradCast, Al Gore returns to the scene of the 2000 crime in Florida, and so do we, as the fight to vote in the Sunshine State starts all over again. Because of course it does. [Audio link to show posted below.]

Hillary Clinton appears to have opened up a strong lead in national polls following the release of Donald Trump's 2005 'hot mic' tape lewdly boasting about sexually assaulting women. But the Presidential Debate on Sunday may have staunched some of the bleeding for now, as RNC Chair Reince Priebus announces they are standing by their man. Either way, if Trump is to win the White House, he must first take the state of Florida, where his ally, Republican Governor Rick Scott ordered the evacuation of millions last Thursday before Hurricane Matthew tore up the state's east coast.

In the bargain, voter registration drives were canceled on what had been set as the final weekend before the state's deadline to register. Scott --- with a very long and very unfriendly history towards voters --- refused to extend that deadline. Democrats sued [PDF], and a federal judge, who described the state's "irrational" reasons for not extending as "poppycock", has pushed today's deadline to Wednesday, pending a hearing scheduled for tomorrow when he may take further measures.

Election expert Dr. Daniel A. Smith, PhD, President and founder of ElectionSmith, Inc and University of Florida Research Foundation Professor of Political Science joins us to explain why extending the state's "arbitrary deadline" is so important, and to detail some of the empirical numbers and many concerns facing voters and would-be voters in the Sunshine State. For example, in 2012, as he notes, during roughly the same period in which this year's storm sent Floridians scrambling for safety, more than 116,000 new (and disproportionately Democratic-leaning) voters signed up to vote. That, even as many are just now returning home and dealing with flooding and other more pressing concerns in the aftermath of the Matthew.

"We looked at the last five or six days of voter registration prior to that cutoff [in 2012] and the numbers actually jumped out at me. On the last day of voter registration back in 2012 there were at least 64,000 people who registered to vote. On the last day!," he says. President Obama ending up winning Florida that year by just 73,000 votes.

And what of those who did manage to register and get their form into a mailbox mail before evacuating? "Who knows what happened to that mailbox?," Smith observes. Those forms "might not even be processed at all, because it's lost. We don't know. These individuals will have no recourse if they finally get back online and see that they're not registered, if that registration application doesn't get to the Supervisor's office."

We cover quite a bit in the conversation, including Gov. Scott's sorry history of taking extraordinary measures to make both voting and registration more difficult in Florida (remember those ridiculous 6-hour lines for Early Voting in 2012?), the fact that just 117 new voter registration forms have been turned in by the state GOP in the past month, as well as Smith's take on voter fraud and the likelihood of inappropriately purged voting rolls in Florida and other states around the nation. "When we talk about voter fraud in this country, it's really not at the retail level of individuals coming into the polls and falsifying their identity and voting twice or maybe three times. That rarely, if ever happens," he says. "Where we actually do have some concerns is that on the wholesale level, in which it's usually someone in a Supervisor's office, a clerk, or someone is --- it can be malicious, it can be just accidental - cleaning the records in a way that is not permissible under federal law . We certainly had that in 2012, when it was the directive of the [Florida] Sec. of State's office to the Supervisors of Elections. First, some 180,000 individuals who they suspected as being 'non-citizens', and then ultimately 2,625 individuals who they flagged as being potential non-citizens. Most of those were actually citizens."

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, on the environmental issues raised (barely) during Sunday's Presidential Debate and a fact-check on the energy-related remarks by the two candidates at the bizarre, town-hall face-off in St. Louis.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate change shows up at the 2nd Presidential Debate --- but not for long; PLUS: Global warming-fueled Hurricane Matthew leaves death and destruction in its wake... 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): VIDEO: Environmental Disaster Feared From NC Floods; Coke and Pepsi Give Millions to Public Health, Then Lobby Against It; World needs $90tn infrastructure overhaul to avoid climate disaster, study finds; World moves to offset airplane emissions in landmark deal; Climate Change Blamed for Half of Increased Forest Fire Danger; Federal Court Denies Tribe's Request to Halt Dakota Access Pipeline; SF Bay Ecosystem Collapsing As Rivers Diverted, Scientists Report... PLUS: Convicted coal baron: ‘I am an American political prisoner’... and much, MUCH more! ...

The insane 2016 Presidential campaign took a decidedly dark turn on Sunday night. We cover all of that darkness and more on today's BradCast. [Link to audio posted below.]

After a weekend of seeming implosion by the GOP nominee and the Republican Party on the heels of the release of a 2005 'hot mic' video tape in which Donald Trump is seen and heard lewdly boasting about sexually assaulting married women and others, he lashed out at Hillary and Bill Clinton on Sunday night, with a press conference (of sorts) featuring women allegedly assaulted by the former President during the 80s and 90s.

All of that and more came up during the 2nd Presidential Debate held on Sunday night at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. I'm joined on today's show for coverage, analysis and insight on what is almost certainly one of the darkest chapters in modern U.S. Presidential political history by former CNN journalist and communications strategist Jacki Schechner and progressive policy advocate Dave Johnson, Senior Fellow at People's Action (formerly: Campaign for America's Future.)

"I feel like there's this feeling of that old story of the frog that's getting warmer and warmer and warmer. Well, we're boiling. And everybody is suddenly noticing that the water's boiling right now," Johnson says in response to my question about how America and the Republican Party have arrived at this point (which I'm more than happy to blame, in no small part, on the corporate media and its decades long failure to report what has been going on in our politics over the last several Presidential Administrations as anything much more than both-sides-do-it politics-as-usual). "This has been coming for a long time. Donald Trump is the Republican Party right now. He's nothing more than the manifestation of something that's been building up and building up, and now we're at a reckoning point," he says.

Schechner notes: "While we think, in the moment, that, 'this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back', the camel gets up again on Monday morning and keeps on trotting. I don't know if it's because of the nature of where we are societally, or if it's just that we've gotten so disgusted with politics, that we're so deep in the mud we can't even see where the mud begins, but we're totally desensitized to where this has gone and where the Republican Party has taken us."

As we struggle to try and make sense of Sunday's debate, Trump's behavior, and where all of this can possibly go from here, Schechner observes: "Trump has been this person his whole life. The Republican Party broke him, they bought him. Clinton herself is a flawed candidate, [but] she's not a sociopath. The problem is that she has to figure out a way to combat him and not get down in the dirt with him, and at the same time mitigate the damage that exists, based on her own somewhat flawed political past."

Yeesh. Lots to talk about and lots to cover on today's BradCast...

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On today's BradCast, with just one month to go before Election Day, the fight to vote continues in key swing states like Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida, where millions have been displaced due to Hurricane Matthew on the final weekend before the voter registration deadline.

As the deadly storm sweeps up the Florida coast, knocking out power and leading to evacuations across the state, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) refuses to extend the state's voter registration deadline, despite major registration drives planned for this weekend forced to be cancelled due to the state emergency and (perhaps because of) the fact that 50,000 voter registered during the same last minute time-frame in 2012. (Meanwhile, in GOP-leaning South Carolina, Republican Gov. Nikki Hailey has extended the deadline in her state.)

In Wisconsin, voter suppression continues as the state's lie to a federal court about the availability of Photo IDs at DMVs continues to disenfranchise 90-year old women and many others, and, thanks to a new law by state Republicans, thousands of absentee ballots are now at risk of being tossed altogether in the Badger State.

In Ohio, absentee ballots and provisionals are being tossed out for technical reasons in urban areas but not rural areas, and a federal appeals court has, once again, declined to take action. All of that while Trump and Republicans continue to lie about non-citizens voting and as the U.S. Dept. of Justice, for the first time in 50 years, will be unable to deploy hundreds of polling place monitors in states with a history of racial discrimination, thanks to the 2013 gutting of the federal Voting Rights Act by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Finally, in 2008, young Jewish voters worked to turn out their elderly Jewish grandparents for Barack Obama in Florida. In 2016, as a new video illustrates, the tables have somewhat turned...

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On today's BradCast: Hurricane Matthew has already wrought death and destruction in the Caribbean, is already breaking records as it bears down on the U.S. Southeastern seaboard, and is "not your grandfather's weather" thanks to global warming, according to my guest, a 40-year veteran broadcast meteorologist. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

With states of emergency declared in Florida and several other states, and millions of Americans scrambling to get out of harms way, I'm joined today by longtime weather forecaster, Star-Tribune blogger and self-identified "Ronald Reagan conservative" Paul Douglas, to discuss the deadly and extraordinarily dangerous Hurricane Matthew as it aims for the East Coast of Florida. (That's not a Halloween decoration, it's an actual infrared satellite photo of the storm in the logo above, as the eye passed over Cuba earlier this week.)

Douglas explains what makes this currently Category 4/5 storm and its path so unusual and how it could actually end up hitting some of the same places twice if it stays on its currently projected bizarre U-turn trajectory.

"Matthew is going to grind up the coast. There's going to be a long stretch of coastline that's impacted by this storm surge. Because much of the circulation is going to remain out over water, it isn't going to fizzle like a normal hurricane," he tells me, adding that it "went from a tropical storm to a Category 5 in 36 hours [because] water temperatures in the Caribbean are running several degrees above average. It's the old 'weather on steroids' analogy. We are super-sizing a lot of these storms."

Because of that, he says, the storm surge could be as much as 9 feet above normal tides. "This is what kills people. It's not the winds. It's not even as much the inland rain. It's the storm surge that can cut off escape routes." And, as to that currently projected U-turn for the storm after it's moved up the coast? "I don't want to overstate it, but this could be unprecedented in terms of the track, the intensity, the amount of real estate that's impacted by this storm surge, and the fact that it's taking this bizarre loop potentially."

I ask Douglas, who has just co-authored the new book Caring for Creation: The Evangelicals Guide to Climate Change and a Healthy Environment with minister and coal miner's son Rev. Mitch Hescox (also a previous guest on The BradCast), to respond to Rush Limbaugh's latest hurricane conspiracy theory, which Douglas dispatches with actual facts and science, explaining: "The atmosphere doesn't care what you believe. The atmosphere responds to physics and chemistry. We've been fiddling with the chemistry of the atmosphere. We've been poking at the climate system with a long, sharp carbon-tipped spike, and then acting surprised when the weather bites back."

I also ask the self-described "Ronald Reagan-Teddy Roosevelt conservative who believes that conservatives should actually conserve," about why he believes corporate media fail to connect climate change dots and, at least so far, to raise the issue of global warming in Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. We discuss that, and much more. I'd suggest that this is another must-listen conversation, no matter what comes of Matthew in the next several days.

Also today (and not unrelated): Donald Trump, who has a record of politicizing election-year hurricanes, has named a Koch Industries climate denying lobbyist to head up his Energy Transition Team. And, finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on Matthew, the VP debate, the Paris Agreement, and Canada's surprising announcement of a national carbon tax...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Matthew churns towards U.S.; Climate change shut out - again! - at the Vice Presidential debate; Canada to establish a national carbon tax; New study warns the world is rapidly using up its 'carbon budget'; PLUS: Global Paris Agreement surges over the finish line before the U.S. Presidential election... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): No country on Earth is taking the 2 degree climate target seriously; How the Earth will pay us back for our carbon emissions with … more carbon emissions; Hurricane Matthew is super strong — because of climate change; Activists Warn That Toxic PCBs Contaminate Thousands Of U.S. Schools; Dakota Access: Judges Appear Skeptical Of Freezing Pipeline; Invasive Insects Cause Tens Of Billions In Damage: Study... PLUS: China's $450 billion farm plan could determine our fate... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, coverage and analysis of this year's one and only (thank God!) Vice Presidential Debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia on Tuesday night between Hillary Clinton's centrist Democratic running mate Sen. Tim Kaine of VA and Donald Trump's religious right Republican running mate Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana. [Audio link is posted below.]

It was, in my opinion, as I noted on The Twitters last night, the worst Presidential or Vice Presidential debate in modern U.S. history, thanks in no small part to the disastrously horrible moderator, CBS News' Elaine Quijano. Her questions seem to come straight off of Fox "News" (where CBS News chief David Rhodes previously worked, coincidentally), failed to follow up any answers, failed to either keep decorum between the two candidates or at least get out of their way, and failed to raise real issues of note --- such as gun violence, race issues, health care, global warming, LGBT issues, campaign finance or voting rights, to name just a few --- effecting the actual everyday lives of Americans.

Mike Pence is a man who has argued smoking doesn't cause cancer, denies climate change, couldn't run for President himself in 2016 because he screwed up so badly on the anti-LGBT bill he signed in Indiana, in December of just last year tweeted "Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional" in response to Trump's call for same --- and, yet, Quijano couldn't muster up a single question on any of those incredibly disturbing things from Pence's career.

But it was also the remarkable avalanche of lies, as offered by the very impressive if astonishingly dishonest GOP Veep nominee, which made the evening simply jaw-dropping at times. Some of those lies were rebutted by a struggling, over-eager Kaine. Others have since been left to those in the media who care to sort such things out.

That's where we come in, I guess. I'm joined today to try and make sense of all of the above by Heather Digby Parton of Salon and the Hullabaloo blog, John Amato, founder of the Crooks and Liars blog and, of course, our own Desi Doyen.

Buckle up and tune in as we "whip out that Mexican thing again"...

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