On today's 'BradCast':  We're joined by OG bloggers HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo and 'DRIFTGLASS' of the Professional Left Podcast to analyze Tuesday's remarkable election day across the country, in which voters delivered a crystal clear rebuke to the failed first year of the second Donald Trump presidency. Pro-democracy ballot initiatives and Democratic candidates -- from the left to the center -- handily won in virtually every jurisdiction in about 30 states across the nation.  Digby and Driftglass delve into the election results and the fallout, what it means for the nation and the Democratic Party, and deliver context, history, and hilarity on major developments this week in politics, the courts, the media, the future of democracy and much more. Plus Desi Doyen has our new 'Green News Report.'

On today's 'BradCast':  In the 2025 off-year elections on Tuesday, Democrats won nearly every contest on the ballot in about 30 states. Voters issued a stinging rebuke to Donald Trump and Republicans in high-profile and under-the-radar down-ballot races, seizing the first opportunity they've had to register their opinions at the ballot box in several states at once. New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani delivered a barn-burner of a victory speech, among the most effective political speeches in US history. The Nation's JOHN NICHOLS analyzes the results, the remarkable near-clean sweep by Democrats in races across the country, why it happened and what message Dems should learn from it, and much, much more.

On today's 'BradCast':  It's Election Day for major contests in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia, California, with statewide and local races in about 30 other states.  Some polling places in New Jersey temporarily closed due to bomb threats. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has died at the age of 84. The Trump Administration fired the Inspector General of the Federal Housing and Finance Authority for following the law in bogus criminal investigations targeting Donald Trump's political foes. Attorney General Pam Bondi attempted to retroactively fix big problems with those weaponized political indictments. California's Sec. of State debunked Trump's false claims of election fraud. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) considers entering the Gerrymandering Wars started by Trump. Federal judges block Trump's dumb executive orders attempting to interfere in elections. Plus Desi Doyen has our new 'Green News Report.'

On today's 'BradCast':  It's Election Day tomorrow, in the first major elections since Trump's disastrous second term in office began ten hellishly long months ago. Voters will decide statewide elections for Governor and state legislature in Virginia and New Jersey; the New York City mayoral race; and the anti-gerrymandering Prop 50 ballot initiative in California, among other contests of note. Virginia Democrats in the state legislature cleared another critical step in their effort to counter the Gerrymandering Wars launched by Donald Trump and Republican-controlled states to rig the 2026 midterm elections and hold on to power. Ohio moved to further gerrymander its maps to benefit Republicans. Callers weigh in and make their case on the last day before Election Day.

Encore: original airdate 10-22-2025.  On today's 'BradCast':  Donald Trump is unlawfully demolishing the entire East Wing of the White House to make room for his enormous, garish, 90's-era Vegas casino-style ballroom, after lying that the new addition wouldn't interfere with the current building. A newly-formed company owned by the former Republican election director of St. Louis has purchased Dominion Voting, the nation's second largest voting machine vendor and the target of false 2020 election denier conspiracy theories. Very little information is available about who funded the surprise purchase, but the CEO also owns the nation's largest electronic pollbook vendor. What could go wrong? Election security expert SUSAN GREENHALGH delves into the many serious concerns over the purchase of Dominion by a self-declared partisan, the new company's plans for the 2026 election, the lack of oversight and transparency, our badly broken and opaque election system industry, and much more.

On today's 'BradCast':  Donald Trump desperately wants to be a strongman, but reveals he is incredibly weak with each passing day. Trump's approval numbers are crashing, even in states he won in the 2024 election. China played Trump in trade deal negotiations, while nuclear weapons experts debunked his lie-filled claims about resuming nuclear weapons testing. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-MI) called out the lies of the Trump Administration and Republicans and their use of 'food as a political weapon' in refusing to fund federal food assistance for millions of low-income Americans. Next Tuesday, voters will decide important contests and ballot issues in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and California, while Republicans hope to enact new voting restrictions in Maine and Texas, and take the majority on the critical Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Plus Desi Doyen has our new 'Green News Report.'

On today's 'BradCast':  Hurricane Melissa continues its record-shattering path of destruction across the Caribbean. Donald Trump fired everyone on the federal commission that would have reviewed plans for his $350 million ballroom and other proposed projects. In New York City, Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has proposed a popular 'affordability' agenda, funded in part by a small surcharge on millionaires. In California, a new proposal aiming for the 2026 ballot focuses on a one-time tax on the wealth of the state's billionaires, to fund the state's Medicaid program after Trump and Congressional Republicans gutted the federal program with a massive, trillion-dollar cut to pay for tax cuts for the richest Americans. The American Prospect's HAROLD MEYERSON discusses the California wealth tax, counters the many criticisms against such efforts, and much more.

On today's 'BradCast':  Record-shattering Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica as a catastrophic, slow moving Category 5 storm. Israel resumed its attacks on Gaza, claiming Hamas violated the recent peace agreement. So-called 'Peace President' Donald Trump continued his unlawful killing spree in international waters, murdering another 14 alleged 'narco-terrorists' in the Pacific, while deploying warships to Venezuela. Twenty-three Democratic states sued the Trump USDA to restore food assistance to 42 million low-income Americans via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). California announced it will dispatch its own election monitors to watch the corrupted Justice Department's election monitors during next week's critical election. The Gerrymandering Wars expand with new Republican-controlled states moving to steal U.S. House seats from minority voters as Democratic states move to counter them. Plus our new 'Green News Report.'

On today's 'BradCast':  Hurricane Melissa is a deadly Category 5 storm bearing down on Jamaica in what forecasters call 'a worst-case scenario,' fueled in part by climate change.  The Trump Administration will halt funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for some 40 million low-income Americans on Nov. 1, using the ongoing government shutdown as an excuse even though SNAP has a dedicated contingency fund to be used in such circumstances. The Trump Justice Department will send federal monitors to next week's state elections in California and New Jersey, which California Gov. Gavin Newsom warns may be a trial run for interfering in the 2026 midterm elections. The Trump Administration has revised the U.S. citizenship test to make it much more difficult. We play 'Who Wants to be a U.S. Citizen?' with callers to see if they can pass the new, more difficult test.

Encore: original airdate 10-14-2025. On today's 'BradCast':  Republican-controlled North Carolina is obeying Donald Trump's orders to rig the 2026 midterm election by launching an unprecedented mid-decade redistricting effort to further gerrymander their already heavily gerrymandered state, to flip 'blue' US House seats to 'red'. But in Missouri, voters and pro-democracy groups are fighting back against the GOP state legislature's anti-democratic gerrymandering effort. Director RICHARD VON GLAHN of People Not Politicians explains their campaign underway to enact a ballot referendum to stop the gerrymander from moving forward in 2026, expose the specious effort by top state GOP officials to stymie their efforts, and much more. The fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire shows signs of fraying. The Fairbanks, AK mayoral election is another instance of a huge shift in the electorate toward Democrats. Plus Desi Doyen has our new 'Green News Report.'

On today's 'BradCast':  The first six months of 2025, featured the costliest weather and climate-related disasters on record for the U.S.  We know about it because former NOAA scientists have resurrected the world-leading climate/weather science agency's Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters Database, after it was shut down by the climate science deniers of the Trump Administration, and brought their skills to the non-profit climate research organization Climate Central. Former NOAA climate scientist TOM DI LIBERTO explains the vital importance of the database and NOAA's climate research, why Team Trump wants to dismantle and privatize NOAA, whether it can be rebuilt, and much more. Virginia state Democratic lawmakers launch ingenious plan to counter the unprecedented Trump/Republican mid-decade gerrymandering efforts in multiple states to rig the 2026 midterm elections. Plus Desi Doyen has our new 'Green News Report.'

On today's 'BradCast': Donald Trump is unlawfully demolishing the entire East Wing of the White House to make room for his enormous, garish, 90's-era Vegas casino-style ballroom, after lying that the new addition wouldn't interfere with the current building. A newly-formed company owned by the former Republican election director of St. Louis has purchased Dominion Voting, the nation's second largest voting machine vendor and the target of false 2020 election denier conspiracy theories. Very little information is available about who funded the surprise purchase, but the CEO also owns the nation's largest electronic pollbook vendor. What could go wrong? Election security expert SUSAN GREENHALGH delves into the concerns over the purchase of Dominion by a self-declared partisan, the new company's plans for the 2026 election, the lack of oversight and transparency, our badly broken and opaque election system industry, and much more.

On today's 'BradCast':  Felon Donald Trump's ongoing crime spree, violating civil and criminal law, is unprecedented in US history. The corrupted Republican-controlled Congress and the stolen and packed rightwing U.S. Supreme Court supermajority are ensuring he is not held accountable for his lawlessness. A January 6 rioter pardoned by Trump was arrested this week for threatening to assassinate Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Trump granted clemency to disgraced conman, former GOP Rep. George Santos. Trump's administration created an interagency group to weaponize the entire federal government against his political enemies. Trump demanded the Justice Department pay him $230 million in taxpayer money as restitution for investigating his wrongdoing. North Carolina Republican state legislature is poised to further gerrymander the already-heavily gerrymandered state. Plus Desi Doyen has our new 'Green News Report.'

On today's 'BradCast':  An estimated 7-8 million Americans turned out for Saturday's massive, joyful, peaceful 'No Kings' demonstrations in more than 2,700 cities and towns across the country, rallying to defend constitutional rights and the rule of law against Donald Trump's authoritarianism and his threats to democracy, and seeking to make America GOOD again. Federal courts blocked the administration's unlawful mass firing of federal workers during the ongoing government shutdown and rejected the Trump Justice Department's efforts to prosecute protesters. Trump posted to social media a grotesque A.I.-generated video showing himself as the pilot of a fighter jet, wearing a crown and dumping tons of excrement on protesters. Callers share their moving stories of what they experienced at No Kings rallies in their towns.

Encore: original airdate 10-9-2025. On today's 'BradCast':  Donald Trump's tariff trade war is backfiring badly, and now he needs a deadlocked Congress to approve a multi-billion dollar bailout to rescue the US agriculture sector from the consequences. Trump's Labor Department, in an official filing, asserted that Trump's immigration enforcement is causing a farmworker crisis and may lead to food shortages. But is it actually true?  Financial journalist and Executive Editor of The American Prospect, DAVID DAYEN, discusses what these two major stories mean, how the Trump Administration is using the self-induced crises to slash farmworker wages, and much more. Israel and Hamas apparently agreed to a pause in their war. Trump Justice Department indicted NY Attorney General Letitia James as Trump ordered. Author Michael Wolff explains what he saw of Jeffrey Epstein's salacious photos of Trump. Plus Desi Doyen has our new 'Green News Report.'

On today's 'BradCast': The corrupted rightwing supermajority on the US Supreme Court appears poised to kill off Section 2 of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, which barred racially discriminatory election practices. Election law expert JOSHUA A. DOUGLAS, of the University of Kentucky, and redistricting expert DAVID DALEY of FairVote explain the twisted history of a case heard by the court this week, Louisiana v. Callais, in which White voters in the state allege that a voting map allowing for a second Black-majority voting district -- reflecting the state's Black population – amounts to unconstitutional racial discrimination against Whites. Douglas and Daley discuss the stakes, why Sec. 2 is still necessary, what happens next, and much more. Plus Desi Doyen has our new 'Green News Report.'

On today's 'BradCast':  As the government shutdown drags on, it is becoming the Epstein Shutdown. Cracks are beginning to appear between Congressional Republicans. Speaker Mike Johnson is doing Trump's bidding to prevent a vote on releasing the Epstein Files. Congressional Democrats remain united in their effort to block Donald Trump and Republicans' radical health care cuts, and in their demand for guarantees that Trump won't renege on any deal. HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo and 'DRIFTGLASS' of the 'Professional Left Podcast' join us for a reality check-in, bringing analysis, context, insight and hilarity on the politics and impacts of the shutdown, Trump's outlandish, delusional statements, his corrupt retribution campaign against his perceived political foes, Republicans' panic about the upcoming No Kings rally on October 18, and much more.

On today's 'BradCast':  Republican-controlled North Carolina is the latest state to obey Donald Trump's orders to steal the 2026 midterm election from voters by launching an unprecedented mid-decade effort to gerrymander their already heavily-gerrymandered state, and flip 'blue' US House seats to 'red'. But in Missouri, voters and pro-democracy groups are fighting back against the GOP state legislature's anti-democratic gerrymandering effort. Director RICHARD VON GLAHN of People Not Politicians explains their campaign for a ballot referendum to stop the gerrymander from moving forward in 2026, the specious efforts by top state GOP officials' to stymie their efforts, and much more. The fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire shows signs of fraying. The Fairbanks, AK mayoral election is another instance of a huge shift in the electorate toward Democrats. Plus Desi Doyen has our new 'Green News Report.'

Encore: original airdate 10-1-2025. On today's 'BradCast':  The federal government is now shut down because Republicans, who control the White House and both chambers of Congress (and who could keep the government open all by themselves), chose to shut it down rather than negotiate with Democrats trying to prevent Republicans from spiking healthcare costs. The Trump Administration is using the shutdown to hurt as many Americans as possible. Trump's US Attorney in Nevada was caught asking the Justice Department to help her spread propaganda about 'vote fraud', even as a judge ruled her appointment was unlawful. Federal court rules that MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell defamed the election technology company Smartmatic. Mother Jones' voting rights journalist ARI BERMAN explains the Trump Justice Department's newest attack on voters, including demanding states turn over sensitive voter data, and the GOP's broader voter- and election-interference agenda.

Encore: Original airdate 10-2-2025. On today's 'BradCast': The federal government is shut down, as Congressional Democrats go the mat to prevent an explosion of healthcare costs for tens of millions of Americans. Donald Trump vowed to use the shutdown as cover for illegal mass firings of federal workers and to dismantle what he called 'Democrat' agencies. In a lively conversation, BOBBY KOGAN of the Center for American Progress, a former senior adviser in the Biden-Harris White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), explains the stakes of the government shutdown, how we got here, the Trump Administration's blatantly illegal actions, why he believes must hold the line, and much more. Federal agents carried out an extremely violent raid in Chicago, terrorizing residents. Plus Desi Doyen has our latest 'Green News Report.'