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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Historic storm and flooding results in tragedy in Texas; Tropical Storm Chantal slams into North Carolina, triggering record-breaking floods; PLUS: Trump and Republicans narrowly pass massive budget bill gutting climate and clean energy investments... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Poisoned Water And Scarred Hills: the toll of China's dominance of rare earth market; Increasingly Acidic Seas Threaten Oyster Farming; Trump’s EPA Pulling Back on Promise to Crack Down on Forever Chemicals; Sewage Treatment Plants Channel ‘Forever Chemicals’ Into Waterways Nationwide; How Denver’s trash, recycling and compost system works: They’d rather teach you than fine you... PLUS: Underwater Turbine Spins For 6 Years Off Scotland’s Coast In Breakthrough... and much, MUCH more! ...

We're back live for today's BradCast after our 4th of July break last week. I wish we were back with better news. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

It was bad enough when we presumed we'd be covering last week's final passage and signing of the Trump/GOP Big Budget Boondoggle bill today. The law that will now strip health care and food assistance from tens of millions (including from the Obamacare exchange here in California; from rural hospitals already shutting down in Nebraska; and to MediCARE recipients across the country); super-size ICE into Trump's virtual private army; and gut landmark climate change initiatives and clean energy tax credits for consumers and businesses that had previously resulted in a U.S. manufacturing boom. All in order to help pay fore more than $4 trillion dollars in tax cuts mostly to the wealthiest Americans, at a cost of spiking the national debt by $3 trillion.

All of that would have been bad enough today. But the heartbreaking and completely predictable tragedy still unfolding in Texas is simply soul crushing. We know it was predictable, because, despite lies from officials to the contrary, it was predicted. Making it all the more horrific, the deadly flash flooding took place on the very same day that Trump and Republicans were high-fiving each other at the White House for their tax cuts to rich people and the gutting of landmark climate initiatives to help keep us safe by moving away from the burning of fossil fuels that has intensified and increased weather disasters like the one we are watching unfold in Texas Hill country today.

With more than 100 now confirmed dead as of airtime --- including dozens of little girls at a Christian summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River, where water rose 25 feet in less than an hour --- the blame game is already underway with Texas officials (and the chief of Trump's U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security), charging that the National Weather Service somehow failed to issue proper forecasts and warnings.

In fact, as we discuss in detail today, though the NWS is now dangerously under-staffed thanks to Trump's layoffs, early retirement buyouts and hiring freezes, agency meteorologists did, in fact, predict and warn about the flash flooding emergency. Multiple times. But many of the NWS positions which, prior to the second Trump Administration, would have prepped with and communicated warnings to local officials are now vacant.

Of course, all of that can be added to the years of warnings from climate science experts about exactly the type of disaster that unfolded on Friday night in Texas, where Republican officials --- like Trump in D.C. --- continue to ignore the lessons of our climate crisis and refuse to take action in response. In fact, they are actively working to make it worse.

Our own Desi Doyen spent much of the holiday weekend digging into all of this with academics and meteorological experts. She joins us today to clarify what we knew, what we didn't, and who is now lying about what in her old home state of Texas and beyond...

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WARNING: 'Sunday Toons', necessarily, takes a few dark turns this week. Get used to it...

It's our last BradCast before we head off for a 4th of July respite next week. Which means we're trying to fit in a whole bunch of stuff into one single show today before we go. Which means we call in two of our (and your) fave guests to help us out before hitting the road. [Audio link to full story follows this summary.]

Longtime OG blogger friends --- HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo and 'DRIFTGLASS' of his eponymous blog and the Professional Left Podcast --- are back with us today as we wrap up another absurdly overstuffed news week, on another absurdly busy news day.

The top story we tackle with Digby and Driftglass today is the remarkable news and various fallout following 33-year old Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's upset defeat of New York's disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo to win this week's Democratic Mayoral election in NYC.

Digby describes Mamdani, who ran a relentless campaign focused on affordability issues for New Yorkers, as "a real generational talent". Driftglass agrees, saying he represents "a generational change" for the party, even as older establishment Dems have issued bizarre broadsides since the Tuesday election, while Republicans have turned to outright ugly attacks, including on his Muslim background and a call from a member of Congress for the 33-year old Ugandan-born, naturalized citizen and likely next mayor of NYC to be stripped of his citizenship and deported!

But, it's the calls coming from inside the house that may be the most peculiar. "Dudes, he did what you're telling everyone to do. 'It's the economy, stupid,'" Parton pushes back at the establishment types now wringing hands and clutching pearls since Mamdani's victory. "He talked about that incessantly. And now you're saying that was the wrong message for America? Give me a break. Make up your mind."

Driftglass concurs. "He ran an exemplary campaign. He checks every box that all of these worrywart centrists say you have to check. He did exactly what people asked and they are terrified of him," he explains today. "He won by coalition-building. By being smart, articulate and naming his enemies. The next hurdle is going to to be your own party."

That's just a taste. We've got much more today on that and what Mamdani's Primary win means for the party going forward into next year and beyond. But, we've also got more today with Digby and Driftglass on Donald Trump's weekend bombing of Iran and his twisted behavior since; his terrorizing the U.S. with ICE assaults on migrants across the country; and whether Republicans will actually be able to pass their "One Big Beautiful Bill" --- which steals trillions from the poor to give tax cuts to the rich --- before (or even after!) July 4, as Trump has demanded.

Also, Desi Doyen closes with our latest Green News Report with both good and bad news for forests and other public lands amid a record sweltering week for the much of the nation, as we considering skipping the fireworks this year, given how many we have to deal with every day just to produce The BradCast during the ongoing, nightmarish, seemingly unending Trump Era...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Heat dome shatters records, with a side of worsening air pollution; Senate parliamentarian blocks Republicans' massive fire sale of the public's lands; PLUS: Trump Administration moves to repeal landmark 'Roadless Rule' to open 58 million acres of your national forests to logging and development... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Heat waves are getting more dangerous with climate change, and we may be underestimating them; Senate Republicans’ climate-wrecking corn ethanol payout; Cities lose hope for restarting disaster projects killed by Trump; Trump’s OSHA nominee has a history of opposing workplace heat protections; Study tracks pollution disparities between Latino and White communities in Los Angeles; Remote Alaska village turns to solar and biomass to cut diesel and save money... PLUS: The climate is broken. Have you tried turning it off and then on?... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: Out with the old, in with the new? We'll see. That's what seems to be suggested by the apparently remarkable results of New York City's Democratic Mayoral primary election on Tuesday. And we've got a lot to discuss about it with our guest today. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST, however, a bit of news on an issue that has been somewhat sidelined in recent days, thanks to the various and unrelenting idiocy of you-know-who. His second-term legislative agenda, wrapped into a single Republican bill known as the "One Big Beautiful Big Act", remains wildly unpopular as it works its way through the U.S. Senate, following House passage last month. But that doesn't seem to be stopping Republicans from attempting to pass it out of the upper chamber before the July 4th holiday next week.

The Senate draft of the bill currently slashes more than a trillion dollars from Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and the SNAP food nutrition program. It guts most of Joe Biden's landmark renewable energy credits and adds about $3 trillion to our national debt. All to help pay for some $4 trillion in tax cuts that go disproportionately to the wealthy and corporations. "If enacted," writes former White House budget advisor Bobby Kogan this week, "this bill would be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in U.S. history."

But, where it was approved by Republicans by a single vote in the House, the so-called Budget Reconciliation measure must meet strict requirements to be passed by a simple majority in the Senate, where otherwise 60 votes are needed for passage in the 100-seat chamber. This week, the Senate Parliamentarian offered her verdict on a host of measures tucked into the bill which, she says, do not pass muster under Senate rules for inclusion in a Reconciliation bill.

Among the provisions that must be struck (unless Senate Repubs decide to break the rules again), are draconian cuts to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that would cost American consumers hundreds of billions; a scheme to shift costs of SNAP food nutrition for low-income Americans to states; the gutting of a number of Biden-era emissions reductions rules and EV incentives; and a plan to sell off anywhere from 3 to 250 million acres of public lands, just to name a few of the (thankfully) nixed provisions.

Of course, Republicans are looking for ways around the Parliamentarian's judgements and the Trump Administration, meanwhile, is already moving ahead with its own plan to open up nearly 60 million acres of national forest land to road construction and development for its friends in the extraction industry.

THERE IS BETTER NEWS today, however, for progressives out of New York City, after 33-year old progressive Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, an Assemblyman and Ugandan-born Muslim, stunned the establishment with what appears to be a crushing victory over disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo in yesterday's Democratic primary election for Mayor. Despite being wildly outspent by the well-funded former Democratic Governor, who had previously been seen as the front-runner, Mamdani's numbers after the first round of counting in the Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) election, featuring 11 candidates, resulted in Cuomo's concession early on election night.

Mamdani led a joyful, populist campaign, focused on cost of living issues and calling for, among other things, an immediate rent freeze for all of the city's rent-stabilized tenants, the creation of a network of city-owned grocery stores focused not on profits but on "keeping prices low," free childcare, free buses, a higher minimum wage and more, to be paid for by new taxes on the wealthy.

As counting continues (though it looks pretty clear that Mamdani will win after all the rounds of RCV tallying are completed next week), establishment centrist Democrats are now deciding whether they will join with a new generation of progressives, such as the Bernie Sanders and AOC-endorsed Mamdani, or attempt to push back against inevitable and much-needed progress for their Party. Mamdani will still need to win this November against the current, unpopular and wildly corrupt Mayor Eric Adams, who vows to run as an independent, Republican nominee and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, and a potential independent run by Cuomo.

So, there is a lot to discuss about all of this on today's show, and no one better to discuss it with than our friend and longtime progressive author and journalist JOHN NICHOLS, National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation and co-author, with Sanders, of It's Okay to be Angry About Capitalism.

"If there was anybody who was out there as sort of the face of the establishment wing, this was it," says Nichols about Cuomo today, to whom he gives "credit" for seeing the writing on the wall early after returns were coming in last night. He also observes that "he did it in a way that clearly acknowledged he got beat, but left a little bit of a window that he could continue his campaign as an independent candidate" in November. He believes "he'll be pressured to do it by some of the establishment."

Nichols spent time in the days prior to the election with Mamdani and NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, a Jewish progressive Democrat seeking the same office. They cross-endorsed each other in the RCV election and campaigned together in its closing days. Nichols lauded both of them and explains why he believes Mamdani had the edge in the end.

"Mamdani ran a campaign that got to the heart of what people are worried about --- not just their own experience, but actually for the big city --- how can the city survive? So he went straight for the affordability issues." While Nichols recognizes the coming attempt to undercut the candidate from many sides (citing both NYC billionaire Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump sharpening their knives, along with the corporate media), he argues that Mamdani, if he wins this Fall and has a successful run as Mayor, may "create a model for the Democratic Party for how to go forward. And it isn't just about opposing Trump. It's also about an agenda."

This could be "a powerful lesson for Democrats," he tells me. "The message from New York is very, very simple. Go bold. Be confident. Get above the chatter of cable TV, the insiders and everything like that. Speak directly to the people about what you want to do for them. Donald Trump figured that out a long time ago. Now you have a Democrat in New York City, the largest city in the country who, by all evidence, has figured it out also."

"If you go soft, if you go empty, if you wait for the memo from the consultants, then you haven't learned a thing," he warns.

There is, of course, much more you'll want to tune in for in my conversation with John today!...

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Today's BradCast is best understood --- and felt --- by listening to it. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

But, in short, here are some of the topics we cover along the way...

• 27-year old White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who told Fox "News" yesterday that Trump "came up with" the "motto and foreign policy doctrine" known as "Peace Through Strength", is a living breathing monument to how much Donald Trump disrespects Americans, American values, and the Free Press.

• Trump's unlawful, unconstitutional bombing of Iran's nuclear cites over the weekend did not "completely and totally obliterate" them, as he lied to the American people on Saturday night. But it did set the use of those facilities back "a few months" according to an early, classified U.S. assessment reported on by several outlets today.

• Trump's self-declared "cease-fire" between Israel and Iran yesterday apparently never happened. So, he went "absolutely berserk" used the "f-bomb" to the media today instead.

• "Heatwave Shell", as veteran meteorologist Guy Walton has named it (he names heatwaves after Big Oil companies whose products have made heatwaves more and more deadly each and every passing year) is causing misery, and danger, across much of the eastern half of the nation this week.

• Among the locations hardest hit by Heatwave Shell today is New York City, which is also holding its Democratic Mayoral Primary today. Normally, such contests might very well determine who will become the City's next Mayor in the very Democratic city. This year, the politics --- a corrupt incumbent Mayor who plans to run as an independent in November, a disgraced former Governor who may do the same if he loses today, and two very progressive candidates who could win, but would cause freakouts from the Right and maybe even the supposed center --- could shake things up. Beyond the politics, however, we focus today on the voting method now used in NYC's Mayoral elections, specifically Ranked Choice Voting, how it works (and/or doesn't), its dangers (as I see them) to American democracy, and an alternative form of voting (Approval Voting) that solves many of the concerns that RCV proponents care about, without risking disenfranchisement and loss public oversight of election results. Tune in for this one, if you ever wondered what RCV was all about, liked the idea, or hated it.

• The corrupt Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court demonstrated their corruption and Republican activism again on Monday, by issuing an obnoxiously terse ruling --- without comment or explanation --- that not only allows the Trump Administration to endanger migrants by deporting them to countries from which they did not come, and which the State Dept. advises against traveling to, but also fails to mention a word about the Trump DOJ's repeated, lawless, intentional violation of lower federal district court orders in this and related cases. The three liberal Justices issued a blistering, 20-page dissent, while the corrupt majority couldn't be bothered to write a word to explain their full approval of "legalistic noncompliance" in yet another "disastrous" decision that undermines the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution itself.

• And with that corrupt ruling on the Court's emergency docket --- the so-called "Shadow Docket" --- nearly full-blown Authoritarianism arrives in the U.S. But I carefully use the word "nearly" because --- guess what? --- we in the media are still here, for now, and are still reporting on what the authoritarian tyrants are doing. Today's latest example...

• A hard-working migrant landscaper here in Southern California was descended upon by a bunch of masked and armed ICE and/or CPB goons on Saturday while trimming weeds outside of an IHOP. Narciso Barranco, as the viral video of his arrest revealed, was then pepper-sprayed, thrown to the ground, repeatedly punched in the shoulder and face, before being shoved into an unmarked van for detention and, presumably, deportation after some 25 or 30 years in the U.S. Barranco has no criminal history and is the proud father of three sons, all U.S. Marines. And no, as the video shows, he did not "assault" federal agents with his weed-whacker, as DHS lied in response to their shame after the video of his violent arrest went viral. He did, however, when he was finally able to speak from detention more than 24 hours later to his eldest son (who served in Afghanistan), ask him to go finish the landscaping job at the IHOP that he was unable to complete himself on Saturday.

• And finally today, speaking of the dangers to all of us by the tyrannical Right and their corporate sponsors, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with more on this week's heatwave; dangers now posed to the food supply, thanks to climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels; and the window for us to forestall the worst of our climate crisis quickly closing...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Summer heat wave broils most of the U.S.; Climate change will hammer the food supply, new study warns; Spain's nationwide blackout caused by aging grid equipment, not renewables; PLUS: The window for limiting warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius is closing... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): US Forest Service to repeal roadless rule to promote logging; Bees are collapsing in the U.S. as Trump closes the bee-focused federal science office; Intense weather means rethinking your home construction — and insurance; Extreme heat is exacerbating air pollution, a 'double whammy' for health; Judge rules EPA termination of environmental justice grants was unlawful... PLUS: National park visitors are not impressed with Trump's revisionism... and much, MUCH more! ...

It all sounds a bit too familiar to those of us on The BradCast who covered the last time a Republican President forced the U.S. into a "Forever War" in the Middle East based on known lies regarding "Weapons of Mass Destruction" which they never had. Here we go again? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Of course, part of the irony this time around is that Donald Trump ran for President on the false claim that he opposed the war in Iraq. And, despite his expansion of every inherited U.S. war, his unlawful targeted assassination of Iran's top military commander, and extreme expansion of the use of killer drones in all sorts of country during his first term in office, his supporters (and the corporate media) were dumb or duplicitous enough to characterize him as an "anti-war" President.

Trump's unconstitutional and unlawful attacks on three nuclear facilities in Iran over the weekend --- after Israel had cleared the field for him --- should put an end to the "anti-war" fairy tale once and for all. But we'll see.

Following Saturday's U.S. bombing run --- which, according to the Administration, has "obliterated" the three targeted nuclear production cites (something about which you should remain skeptical) --- Iran has responded with a fairly limp attack on a U.S. air base in Qatar and perhaps another in Iraq; the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a terrorism advisory warning of potential Iran-sponsored cyberattacks and the possibility of new attacks in the U.S.; Trump's failing social media cite seems to have fallen victim to one of those cyberattacks over the weekend; and Russia suggests "a number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads."

Meanwhile, the Administration has been unable to proffer any actual evidence to suggest that Iran was anywhere near building a nuclear weapon --- the pretext for Saturday's attack --- much less posing a threat, imminent or otherwise, to the U.S.

According to sources in the U.S. intel community who spoke to our guest today, Rolling Stone's Senior Political Reporter, ANDREW PEREZ, "there is no intel" to suggest anything has changed regarding an Iranian nuclear program since Trump's own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in March that "the IC [U.S. Intelligence Community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003."

While the White House attacked Perez and his co-author, Asawin Suebsaeng for "false and lazy 'reporting' designed to undermine President Trump's highly successful operation to dismantle Iran's nuclear capabilities," subsequent statements from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Sec. of State Marco Rubio confirm that, in fact, "there is no intel" to suggest anything has changed in Iran's nuclear program between Gabbard's March 25th testimony in Congress and Trump's Saturday night B-2 stealth bomber assault on Iran.

Perez was not impressed by the White House attack on his reporting. "What we've been hearing from the Administration is that there has been no new intelligence to justify any sort of immediate actions against Iran," he says today. "What we're hearing is the White House is looking at the same intel it was looking at months ago."

To what does Perez attribute Trump's sudden decision to join Israel's war after spending months trying to negotiate a deal with Iran (like the one Obama struck in 2015)? "One of the major factors in the President's different posture, as it pertained to Iran, was watching Fox News coverage the last couple of weeks." On Fox, of course, they've been covering Israel's attack on Iran and calling for the U.S. to join in. Trump, according to Perez, thought "it looked very cool."

"What the President did this weekend definitely constitutes several acts of war," Perez argues. "It does look possible that this doesn't blow up into a broader conflict, but it still could."

None of this, it should be noted, should have even been necessary in the first place, but for Trump having unilaterally reneged on Obama's 2015 anti-nuclear deal with Iran. By all assessments (perhaps other than Israel's) the agreement worked, observably preventing Iran from enriching uranium above levels required for civilian use --- at least until Trump ripped it up upon taking office because HE wasn't the one to have made it.

Hilariously, that agreement was struck after Trump, in both 2011 and again in 2013 declared: "Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly - not skilled!"

Then, with a few minutes left on today's program, we open up the phone to callers, including one who claims to have voted for Trump three times but now concedes he feels like he was completely duped. "I am so disappointed," he tells me. "I feel stabbed in the back." Tune in to find out why!...

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On today's BradCast: It's getting worse, not better --- and more deadly --- in the U.S. Senate. That, even though the House version is already wildly unpopular. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Over the past week, Republicans in the U.S. Senate have been releasing their updates to the budget bill passed by Republicans by just one vote last month in the U.S. House. Donald Trump's so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," is so named because he couldn't wait to adopt his second-term legislative agenda over several bills. It's all jammed into this one big, brutally cruel bill. That's the plan, anyway.

You may recall the House version slashed more than a trillion dollars from Medicaid and SNAP food assistance, likely to leave some 15 million low-income and disabled men, women, and children without access to health care and millions more without a measly $6 a day in nutrition assistance. In addition to gutting clean, renewable energy incentives for American families and companies --- adopted under Joe Biden, resulting in a manufacturing boom in the U.S. --- the House version of the bill increases the national debt by nearly $3 trillion dollars. All to help pay for $4 trillion in tax cuts that will disproportionately benefit the wealthy and corporations.

Recent polling finds the American public rejects the House bill by a nearly 2 to 1 margin, including large numbers of Republicans and independents. So, what has the U.S. Senate done to improve on the bill? It seems they have made most of it far worse, not better, beginning with the cuts to health care.

We're joined again today by BOBBY KOGAN, former Biden-Harris White House budget advisor and chief budget analyst in the U.S. Senate Budget Committee prior to that. We spoke with him a month or so ago, following passage of the House version. He is back with us today to discuss what has changed, improved or worsened with the GOP Senate's proposed version of the bill.

"The Medicaid cuts in the Senate version are more extreme than the cuts in the House version," he explains. "Simply more people kicked off, more states losing more money, and harsher work requirements" which, he details, have a proven record of not working.

It's not just Medicaid. Cuts to the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) "will kick 4.2 million people off of their health insurance. And then they are also going beyond the pre-Biden status quo, and that's another few million people kicked off."

Rather than fix all of that, the Senate bill simply makes things worse, he says. All told, the loss of health care, according to a recent analysis of the House version by the Yale School of Public Health, finds more than 51,000 people are likely to die annually that otherwise would not, but for these cuts.

"It's really basic logic," Kogan argues, even as he says Republicans become "indignant" when this is pointed out. "If you cut a trillion dollars of funding that is all about providing health coverage to people, then you better believe that with a trillion dollars less there will be fewer people covered. Some of those people will get really sick. Some of them won't be able to afford it. Some of them of won't get better, where they would have otherwise gotten better if they'd had coverage. This is basic logic. But, basically, Republicans are too afraid to admit that they don't think the money is worth it."

"Obviously this is bad on the merits," he continues. "But it's also wild that this bill would disproportionately hit a lot of people who voted for Trump. A lot of Trump supporters are on Medicaid. Those folks are going to be hurting."

But, it's not just folks on Medicaid or the ACA Exchanges who will be affected. The measure will result in a "double hit to the hospitals" which rely on payments from Medicaid to survive. Many of them are in rural areas, which disproportionately vote Republican as well. Many of them are likely to face closure for lack of funding, punishing everyone, no matter where they get coverage, in those areas.

So, why are Republicans in the Senate doubling down on this mess? Tune in for Kogan's thoughts.

He tells me that there has never been another bill like this in U.S. history, "where it is large cuts for low-income people at the same time they are doing tax cuts for the rich." He cites the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analysis that "shows it would make the poorest Americans poorer while making the richest Americans richer, in the same bill. And when you incorporate the tariffs, it's only the richest who are winning." To be exactly, it is only the richest 10% of Americans who will gain. Every other American will lose.

"It's just a crazy bill," says Kogan, who is now Senior Director of Federal Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress. "It's a crazy thing to go to your constituents and say, 'You elected me to take from the poor to give to the rich, while increasing the deficit by trillions of dollars.' That's a crazy thing."

Crazy or not, it may very well pass out of the Senate, though Kogan says it can still be stopped. And, even if it does pass through the Senate, it will have to get through the House again, where it only passed by a single vote the last time.

He's got much more to say on all of this today. Please tune in. But, perhaps his most important message, once again, is to contact your Senators, no matter where you live, and let them know how you feel about this bill! Miracles happen, as Kogan illustrates today with his story of that night in the Senate in 2017, when he served on the Senate Budget Committee during Trump's first term, when Republicans were trying to kill the Affordable Care Act entirely. Dems thought it was done for. Until the moment when a sickly John McCain showed up to vote it down, saving health care for millions. It's why you never stop fighting.

ALSO TODAY...

• We don't have to wait for passage (or failure) of Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" before his policies undermine health care. His recent travel ban from 19 countries and visa restrictions are already preventing sick children from coming to this country for life-saving surgery and blocking thousands of new medical residents from overseas, relied upon by hundreds of hospitals across the country, from taking their post on July 1.

• And finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the Pacific hurricane season is off to an unusually early and ferocious start, with Hurricane Erick making landfall today as a Cat 3 in Mexico; Trump budget cuts and layoffs are already undermining our National Parks as tourist season begins; And more on the Republican budget bill that will increase energy prices for Americans, while selling off our public lands to the private sector...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Pacific hurricane season off to an unusually early and ferocious start; Trump Admin's mass layoffs and budget cuts seriously impacting national parks; PLUS: Congressional Republicans' big budget bill would increase energy prices and sell off public lands... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Scientists warn that greenhouse gas accumulation is accelerating and more extreme weather will come; The $1 trillion climate problem Republicans are ingnoring Trump USGS touts potential oil and gas resources beneath public lands in updated survey; Global climate talks resumed this week in Germany, for the first time in 30 years without the United States; Children born now may live in a world where the US can only produce half as much of its key food crops; EV batteries can easily outlast a typical gas car's lifespan: study... PLUS: Losing homes in 'climate havens'... and much, MUCH more! ...

Last night on BlueSky, "Driftglass", our OG blogger pal and semi-regular round-tabler on this program observed: "The BradCast is always a three course meal." Well, it may not always be tasty, but hopefully it's always filling. Either way, let's get cooking. [Audio link to full, delicious show follows this post.]

On today's menu...

• APPETIZER: Tucker Carlson hilariously destroys Ted Cruz over Donald Trump's apparent threats, plans, ponderings, whims, to fully join Israel's military attack on Iran. Aside from threatening to entangle the U.S. in another much larger "forever war" in the Middle East, which some of MAGA (Tucker, for instance) now pretend to oppose, the erupting civil war on the Trump right is now pitting folks like Carlson and Steve Bannon against Sean Hannity, Fox 'News', Lindsey Graham, etc. And it's all delicious! But it also offers yet another opportunity for us to help expose the myth --- the blatant, opportunistic lie --- that Trump was ever an "anti-war" candidate or President in the first place.

• MAIN COURSE: This one does not go down easily. But it does expose yet another series of longtime Republican lies. The corrupted, activist, Republican U.S. Supreme Court majority today upheld Tennessee's ban on medically prescribed gender-affirming care for trans minors. Aside from being unspeakably cruel, incoherent, Constitutionally flawed, the 6 to 3 opinion underscores at least three more longtime GOP lies: Republicans do not oppose Big Government coming between doctor and patient, as they pretended to argue, for example, during the original ObamaCare debates in 2010; Donald Trump (who appointed three of the majority Justices and argued in favor of the ban, which will now block health care for children in 26 other GOP-controlled states) was never "the most pro-LGBT Pres candidate ever nominated by either party," as some supporters falsely claimed back in 2016; And Republicans do not give a damn about "parental rights", as they first began arguing mostly loudly circa 2021. As the brilliant "Driftlgass" likes to say: No fair remembering stuff!

• SIDE DISH: More on the legislative details on this hopefully tomorrow, but Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans' so-called "Big Beautiful" budget bill --- currently moving through the Senate after passage by one vote in the House --- appears to be an absolute political disaster for them, according to a whole bunch of recent polling. Turns out Americans do not like more than a trillion dollars worth of cuts to their health care and food nutrition assistance programs, robbing health care entirely from millions in the bargain. They don't like killing Joe Biden's landmark, renewable energy incentives for families and businesses alike. And they really don't like increasing the national debt by about $3 trillion in order to help pay for about $4 trillion in tax cuts that go mostly to the wealthy and large corporations. All of it is apparently so unpopular that Hawaii's Democratic Gov. Brian Schatz believes that the Left --- if they can stick together --- may find the momentum to actually kill the bill. (I remain dubious, if hopeful!)

• JUST DESSERTS: Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, one day later than originally prepared, as we ran out of time for it yesterday. Still, it's just as disturbing warmed over for a second day...

Bon appétit!...

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Too much going on. So today we try to focus on at least one thing on today's BradCast that is disturbingly under-reported by the corporate media. Something that is right there in plain site, if you pay attention: The Trump Administration's increasing use of the word "remigration" and what it actually means. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

First up, however, a few quick news stories today that also deserve coverage...

• Donald Trump has said he will not even call Democratic Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, despite the political violence that stunned the state (and nation) over the weekend with the assassination of top Democratic state lawmaker, Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, along with the attempted assassination of Democratic State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife by a Trump supporter. If there has ever been a more pathetic and classless person elected to high office in this country --- much less someone who supposedly survived an assassination attempt himself --- I have no idea who it would be.

• Bedding impresario and world-class Trump dupe, Mike Lindell, was found liable by a jury in Denver on Monday on two counts of defamation against former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer. Lindell must pay Coomer $2.3 million for, among other things, defaming him as a "traitor" by citing evidence-free reports by rightwing conspiracy theorists that the former Dominion executive took part in an antifa phone call promising to use Dominion voting machines to steal the 2020 election from Trump. Lindell, who failed to proffer any evidence or experts during the trial to support his ongoing claims that the election was stolen from Trump, says he will appeal the jury verdict.

• In other 2020 Trump dupe news, the State Bar Court of California appeal division upheld a determination that Trump attorney John Eastman should lose his law license after his efforts to steal the 2020 Presidential election for Trump. Eastman, among other things, falsely instructed then Vice President Mike Pence that he could lawfully refuse to accept Electoral votes submitted by swing states when Congress convened to certify the election on January 6, 2021. Eastman says he will appeal the decision to the California Supreme Court.

• And then they came for New York City's Comptroller and Mayoral candidate... Brad Lander, the city's Comptroller and a contestant in next week's Democratic Mayoral primary election, was roughed up and handcuffed by federal agents, some of them masked, inside a NYC federal courthouse on Tuesday. He was there attempting to help a migrant who ICE had descended upon to arrest and deport in the hallways. No charges, however, have been forthcoming from the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan so far. Lander's arrest follows the recent roughing up and handcuffing of California Sen. Alex Padilla last week at a Kristi Noem news conference in Los Angeles (no charges filed); the arrest of Newark, New Jersey's Mayor Ras Baraka outside of a federal detention facility (charges dropped); the indictment of NJ Rep. LaMonica McIver for allegedly assaulting federal agents at the same facility (charges still pending); and the arrest and indictment of Wisconsin state Judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly interfering with the arrest of a migrant in her courthouse (charges still pending). All of those elected officials targeted by Trump's weaponized DHS are Democrats.

NEXT... and in a disturbingly related vein, we're joined by WIRED journalist DAVID GILBERT, who recently reported on the State Department's plan to restructure hundreds of bureaus under something being called the "Office of Remigration".

On Sunday, following his flopped birthday parade and wildly successful "No Kings" protest against him around the country the day prior, Donald Trump issued a long, rambling tantrum of a social media post, vowing to "expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities," at "the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens." All of those claims, of course, are total rubbish. But Trump's post goes on to target "Radical Left Democrats" who "are sick of mind" and "hate our Country", before concluding with a vow that "Our Federal Government will continue to be focused on the REMIGRATION of Aliens to the places from where they came". (Those are his ALL CAPS...or whoever actually wrote the long, uncharacteristically, mostly-grammatically correct post.)

That post, however, was in stark contrast to statements by Trump himself just days earlier suggesting that he would be softening his ICE roundups, at least to avoid devastating military-style raids of farms, hotel and restaurants where, as he conceded last week, "they have very good workers, they've worked for them for 20 years, they're not citizens but they turned out to be great."

What to make of Trump's flip-flops amid the sinking popularity of his immigration and deportation policies? It's difficult to know, suggests Gilbert today during our discussion homing in on the Administration's growing threats of "remigration" policies. It's an otherwise innocuous sounding word, but with a very sinister, dark meaning and origin. It is, essentially, a codeword for "ethnic cleansing", according to experts, as used in recent years by far-right, neo-Nazi parties in Europe.

"It's a concept that was floated first by French identitarians in 2010, 2012, and it was couched or centered in the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, which posits that mass migration from 'third world countries' is happening to take over white people from Western countries," explains Gilbert. In an interview with a far-right Austrian activist and former neo-Nazi who is well known among Europe's racist communities, Gilbert was told that "this idea of 'remigration'...basically says that every single migrant, even if they are a citizen, needs to go back to their country of origin."

That, disturbingly, is what the Trump Administration and whoever is pulling its immigration policy strings (racist Stephen Miller, Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff is the best bet), now seem to be calling for.

Gilbert details the three-step process for remigration, as constructed by that Austrian activist. It's a thirty-year plan that the Administration seems to be "speed-running...to try and get done as quick as possible --- possibly within the four years of Trump's second term."

We've got a lot to discuss with Gilbert on this today, including why Sec. of State Marco Rubio seems to be fronting for this racist scheme; what it "clearly means" for "people who are not white, who are not Christian"; how the far-right in Europe is "jubilant" about what Trump has done already to effectuate remigration policy in the U.S.; and how this codeword for ethnic cleansing means that even naturalized citizens could soon be targeted for deportation to their home countries unless something or someone puts a stop to this twisted, rightwing madness.

"I think this has kind of passed people by, the idea of remigration, because the term seems so innocuous," Gilbert tells me, noting that even far-right groups in the U.S. haven't fully latched on, because "it doesn't initially stand out as something that's extreme. So far, people still don't really get it. But I think it will eventually creep in. It will become something that is just part of their core belief, that remigration is the only way that they can get their country back."

Tune in for much more today...

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Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)