'BradCast' 10/30/2018: ('Trump's Reichstag Fire' and the Rising Cost of GOP Hate Mongering)
b"On today's show:\\xa0 Attorneys for a far-right militiaman, convicted in a bomb plot to kill Somali Muslim refugees in a Kansas apartment building, have cited Donald Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric in the 2016 campaign as justification for shortening his life sentence. Despite being told by Pittsburgh's mayor and Jewish community that he was not welcome, Trump visited a grief-stricken neighborhood, where 11 Jewish worshipers were gunned down during services at the Tree of Life synagogue, anyway because it reportedly fit in with his campaign schedule. Both the anti-Semitic, anti-immigration rightwinger charged in the Pittsburgh massacre and the Trump fan charged last week with mailing bombs to targets vilified by Trump had espoused anti-"globalist" rhetoric, and both had referenced the so-called Central American migrant "caravan" promoted by Trump, Republican candidates and media outlets. Although the group of refugees is still some 1,000 miles from the U.S. border, Trump has ordered 5,000 U.S. military troops to the border in advance of next week's election. Despite the increase in Rightwing violence, the White House and Rightwing media outlets are hyping the "caravan" as an existential threat. Former top Republican strategist Steve Schmidt has choice words for the GOP under Trump and Rightwing media propaganda, decrying "this whole caravan in the last week of the election" as "a giant lie" and "Trump's Reichstag Fire." He charges the "Rightwing propaganda machine industry" has "blood on their hands" after having "radicalized" those who are now committing violence against minorities and immigrants. In Texas, legal officials with the Beto O'Rourke (D) campaign tell Brad about their concerns regarding reports of votes flipping on voting machines. Threats of legal action have resulted in expansion of early voting on the campus of Texas State University. Plus, Desi Doyen has the latest 'Green News Report' with the serious environmental threat posed by Brazil's election of hard-right Jair Bolsonaro, and some important environment state ballot initiatives in the next Tuesday's midterm election..."