BROADCASTS.com

b"We're back today after a brief New Year holiday break -- but it wasn't much of a break, as Alabama's Secretary of State John Merrill decided to get into a bizarre Twitter exchange with Brad. The state's chief election official repeatedly (and inaccurately) insisted Alabama's paper ballot computer scanners do not capture scanned ballot images that can be retained and then reviewed by the public after an election. He is wrong, as Brad politely noted during the conversation, and eventually Merrill blocked Brad on Twitter after being questioned the inaccurate information he was giving to the public. It isn't the first time Merrill has blocked journalists, election law experts, and even his own constituents on social media. We're joined today by JOSHUA A. DOUGLAS, professor of election and constitutional law at the University of Kentucky School of Law, who was also blocked on Twitter by Alabama's Republican Sec. of State, on why all of this matters and whether it's a violation of the Constitution for folks like Merrill and the President of the United States to block citizens from being able to read their social media comments. All of which makes what we do -- as journalists, legal professionals and, yes, voters -- more difficult and even constitutionally problematic in a number of ways. Also today:\\xa0 Donald Trump threatens nuclear war again with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and social media has a huge laugh at\\xa0 Trump's comments about having a "much bigger" nuclear button than Kim. But is any of it -- including the threat of war between two nuclear-armed nations -- really all that funny?"