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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Drastic cuts to National Weather Service endanger public safety, former weather chiefs warn; Trump Justice Department sues four states to block climate laws and lawsuits; PLUS: Trump moves to open up the sea floor to mining and shrink national monuments... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): 75 percent of North America’s bird species are in decline, study says; Rural communities were promised millions in disaster funds. Trump says no; Scientists map where orphan wells pose threats to aquifers; Trump admin. plans to shut down money-saving Energy Star program soon, sources say; Park Service suspends air-quality monitoring at all national parks; 150+ Nobel-Prize winning scientists warn of imminent global famine... PLUS: Treated Like Dirt: Uncovering the toxic soil lurking in L.A.'s burn zones... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: His various attempts to undermine the Constitution and American civil rights law continue to be blocked by judges in the courts. But that isn't stopping the President and his lackeys from gutting civil rights protections and environmental justice enforcement at key federal agencies...for the moment. Nor is it stopping our guest today, a 30-year EPA veteran, from continuing the good fight at her agency. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... Donald Trump proved to be a loser again on Thursday in three different federal courtrooms, in three different civil rights-related law suits, as determined by three different federal district judges (one of whom was appointed by him.) Two of the judges, one in New Hampshire, the other in Maryland, blocked his Dept. of Education's attempt to cut funding to K-12 schools with anti-discrimination or DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs.

The third civil rights-related court loss for Trump today was in D.C., where a federal judge blocked his attempt to mandate proof of citizenship when registering to vote, as per his recent attempted power grab via an Executive Order meant to undermine democracy, U.S. elections and the right to vote.

In the meantime, Harmeet Dhillon --- a rightwing culture warrior clown and former Trump 2020 "Stop the Steal" attorney --- has been appointed to oversee the Dept. of Justice's Civil Rights Division, where she has reportedly unleashed a "bloodbath" among senior officials at the office which oversees, among other things, voting rights. Current and former employees at the division charge that Dhillon is turning civil rights law upside down, by using it, as one former department employee familiar with the new changes said, to "victimize the very people it was created to protect."

THEN... In related-ish news, we reported earlier this week that Trump's new EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, sent letters to some 450 staffers at the Agency's Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights office, notifying them that they are being fired or reassigned as the office is being shut down. The firing letters to longtime staffers --- including scientists, researches and attorneys --- were sent on Monday night, Earth Day eve.

The EPA's Environmental Justice office, created during the Administration of Republican President George H.W. Bush, is tasked with protecting minority communities who are often most vulnerable to toxic emissions from chemical plants and oil refineries. Down in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley", for instance, there are about 150 plants and refineries concentrated along a stretch of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The population in the area is mostly Black, and multiple studies have found that nearly every census tract in the area ranks in the top 5% nationally for cancer risk.

Since taking office, however, Team Trump have pledged to "end the use of 'environmental justice' as a tool for advancing ideological priorities" and have been unwinding the unit's work under previous Presidents. For example, under Joe Biden's Administration, the EPA sued the owner of a Cancer Alley chemical plant where cancer cases were found to be 44% higher for those who lived within one mile of the plant than the national rate. The Biden Administration sued the company to clean up their act. The Trump EPA recently withdrew the lawsuit.

Amidst those horrors, we're delighted to be joined today by JOYCE HOWELL, 30-year veteran EPA senior attorney and Executive Vice President of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE)'s Council 238, representing some 8,400 EPA workers nationwide.

"'Environmental justice' is just another extension of the fundamental American right to equal protection under the law," she tells me when I ask her to explain what the phrase actually means. "To ensure that, no matter where you live, the laws that protect human health and the environment will apply to you. Environmental justice gives people the avenue for their voices to be heard when determinations are made about where to put a factory that spews so much pollution, relative to where they live. Or, if they are already living there, and there's someplace nearby that impacts them, that they would be able to, as members of the public, have their voice heard with regard to the permitting of that plant, to the number of inspections that take place [and] the oversight of programs that are delegated from EPA to the state."

Howell finds it "disconcerting" that EPA Administrator Zeldin has shut down the Environmental Justice office, removing its history from the Agency's website, dismissing the work of the office as ineffective and "an excuse to fund left-wing activist groups". That, as Zeldin vows to slash the EPA budget by 65%.

She tells me that while work is continuing at the EPA nonetheless, its "enforcement program has slowed down tremendously." More than even "under Trump 1," when she also served. Explaining how she, and her colleagues at the Agency, survived his first term, Howell says, "We do what we always do: we put our heads down and we did our work. That's what carried us through."

Her union, AFGE, may have plans to challenge the recent layoffs and reassignments in court, though she did not yet want to give away their thinking on that. But, when I asked why she was willing to speak on the record on these matters, --- while many of her current and former EPA colleagues have been speaking to the media under condition of anonymity due to concerns of retaliation --- Howell notes that, since she speaks on behalf of the union, she may have some protections under federal labor law that others may not, protecting her "speech on behalf of workers."

But, she adds, she recently "attended an organizing meeting and someone said, 'Cowardice is contagious. So is courage.' And I thought to myself, yeah, that's true. For me, it's important. I haven't been at EPA for all these years just to get a salary. I am there because I believe in the mission. I will tell you every single person there feels strongly the same way. We don't do it on behalf of ourselves. We do it on behalf of the American people."

I hope you'll turn in for a very interesting conversation today.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen helps us close today's show with our latest Green News Report, at the end of a very green --- and sometimes all too toxic --- Earth Day week!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: While we were out...The Trump Administration halted construction of major offshore wind farm; Trump EPA exempted U.S. coal plants from new mercury pollution rules; PLUS: Pope Francis, champion of climate action and environmental justice, has left the building... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Exxon presses Supreme Court to rescind your rights; Restarting coal plants after Trump's executive orders makes no economic sense, report says; Trump opens a huge marine protected zone to industrial fishing; Trump touts 'clean coal' but cuts programs that protect miners; Appeals court halts federal judge's order mandating EPA disburse billions to climate groups... PLUS: Texas oilfield company and executive plead guilty in hydrogen sulfide deaths... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've got a few explainers on today's BradCast. But I thought you might find it useful to be armed with some facts, truth and understanding right about now. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our explainer coverage today...

• Not long after we got off air today, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer signaled he would allow Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans to adopt a bad six-month spending bill rather than fight them, because that fight would results in a government shutdown as of midnight on Friday. It's certainly a dilemma for the Dems, many of whom seemed to come around to the decision to fight rather than fold today. Even the nation's largest federal workers union --- whose members would arguably be first and most directly effected by a shutdown --- persuasively called on Dems to do just that, arguing: "With thousands of federal workers either fired, placed on administrative leave, or at immediate risk of losing their jobs, AFGE members have concluded that a widespread government shutdown has been underway since January 20 and will continue to spread whether senators vote yes or no on H.R. 1968." Schumer's announcement that he will vote with Republicans to end debate on the Continuing Resolution Friday, suggests the GOP is likely to get the support of at least eight Democrats Senators that will be needed to overcome a filibuster tomorrow. But, we'll see if a few more Dems find the spine to stand up against Trump and stand up for Americans before then.

• Speaking of AFGE, they and a few other unions won a big victory today. They had sued the federal government to restore the jobs of thousands of "probationary" federal workers unlawfully fired by the Trump Administration. Today, a federal judge ordered those workers, at the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury to be rehired "immediately". U.S. District Judge William Alsup excoriated the Trump Justice Department's legal justification for the layoffs and their refusal to present evidence to support their case. "It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie," railed Judge Alsup from the bench. "That should not have been done in our country. It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements."

• Yesterday, you may have seen headlines about Trump's EPA chief Lee Zeldin declaring a rollback of more than 30 important health, safety and environmental regulations. (Eg: "Trump takes an ax to more than a dozen pollution rules in rapid-fire deregulation".) In fact, none of those regulations have actually been rolled back. Yet. "Today I'm pleased to make the largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history," the new EPA Administrator dramatically declared in a two-minute video filled with one lie after another, falsely describing "suffocating rules that restrict nearly every sector of our economy and cost Americans trillions of dollars." The video was released to accompany Zeldin's Wednesday essay in the Wall Street Journal offering more false and misleading details on those lies.

  Today, we step through the key lies, explain the truth about them, and what Zeldin's announcement really amounts to. No, there is no "EV mandate" and the U.S. is already "energy dominant" as it was when Trump took office after America long ago became the world's leading producer of oil, gas, coal and renewable energy under President Biden, who also adopted a number of landmark climate initiatives that increased manufacturing, boosted the economy, produced clean energy and made America safer for everyone.

  It will be a long and difficult path for Trump's EPA to overturn dozens of health and safety rules long in place, as well as the agency's landmark 2009 scientific "endangerment finding" on the adverse health effects of planet warming carbon pollution on which a number of those regulations, adopted under the Clean Air Act, are based.

  Bottom line: the Trump Administration plan, as detailed by Zeldin, will increase pollution, worsen the climate crisis, allow more deadly cancer-causing toxins into our air and water, and force Americans to pay the bill for all of it through what Desi Doyen describes as a "pollution tax". You may support Zeldin and Trump's scheme to do all of those things, but let's be clear about what their announcement yesterday is calling for.

  The fossil fuel industry --- already the most profitable industry in the history of civilization --- immediately declared their support for the effort. Few others have done so and many have vowed to challenge it in court. Now it's up to all of us to fight against these unpopular plans. Tune in today for more details that may help to give you the ammunition to do so.

• Finally, Desi Doyen has a bit more on the Trump EPA's vow to Make America Polluted Again, and much more in our latest Green News Report...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump EPA announces plans to Make America Polluted Again; Trump Energy Secretary vows to reverse U.S. climate progress; PLUS: Climate whiplash is hammering major cities around the world, study finds... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The Arctic is in trouble. The consequences will be felt around the world; Microplastics are messing with photosynthesis in plants; EPA eliminating environmental justice jobs; Birds face weakened protections under Trump move; Trump cuts target world-leading greenhouse gas observatory in Hawaii... PLUS: Water officials knew that opening dams to meet Trump’s wishes was ill-advised. Here’s why it happened anyway... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate action champion Mark Carney elected as Canada's new Prime Minister; Oil tanker collision spills jet fuel into England's North Sea; Trump orders vast increase in logging of the public's national forests; PLUS: 1 in 5 butterflies in the U.S. have disappeared in the last 20 years... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): As Trump attacks US science agencies, ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred ushers in a fresh wave of climate denial in Australia; Climate change made South Sudan’s heat wave 10 times as likely, study finds; How one controversial pipeline in Africa reveals the state of the global fight over oil; Supreme Court rejects red states' bid to quash climate cases... PLUS: DOJ says ending Louisiana petrochemical case helps 'dismantle radical DEI programs'... and much, MUCH more! ...

We can't fight every stupid, idiotic, dangerous or perilous thing during the Trump Era, can we? I know I can't, personally. But I don't speak for everyone else. And one person's stupid or idiotic may be another's dangerous or perilous. An interesting debate over picking battles and who gets to decide which ones should be waged is at the heart of today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... however, speaking of dangerous, Donald Trump lackey and MAGA merchandiser (or "sycophantic suck-up" as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse accurately described him today), Kash Patel was confirmed for a ten-year term as FBI Director by cowardly, sycophantic suck-up Republicans in the U.S. Senate today. All Democrats voted against him. Just two Republicans (Collins and Murkowski) joined them.

Aside from being wildly unqualified and publishing an "enemies list" of so-called "members of the Executive Branch deep state” that he vows to target, Patel also pleaded the Fifth to avoid implicating himself in crimes during grand jury testimony regarding his role in Trump's theft of thousands of pages of highly classified national security documents; was paid $25,000 by Russian propagandists to appear in an anti-FBI documentary series; appears to have millions of dollars linked to Chinese interests through shell corporations in the Cayman Islands; and, according to whistleblower allegations cited by the Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, appears to have committed perjury during his Senate confirmation hearing.

Other than that, he sounds like the perfect choice for FBI Director! Donald Trump has done it again! Did I mention Patel also publicly vowed, as recently as last December, to "come after" journalists "who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig Presidential elections"? (So much for the First Amendment, even if Patel remains a fan of the Fifth.)

THEN... Speaking of the First Amendment and protection of the free press, we recently reported on the Trump White House's attempt to violate the First Amendment by barring the Associated Press from White House events unless and until the 178-year old international media organization agreed to change its Style Guide to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America".

On the surface, it seems like a pretty minor fight, given everything else the Constitutional order is up against. But, upon closer examination, it really is fight over basic Constitutional rights. As NYTimes' opinion writer Jamelle Bouie accurately characterized it at Bluesky, "your willingness to accept this gulf of america nonsense is an indication of your willingness to accept much worse things coming from this administration."

Meanwhile, over The Atlantic, Senior Editor Gilad Edelman doesn't have any such concerns, and even appears to be victim-blaming by suggesting the fight is one that "the AP probably should never have picked in the first place."

That brief article by Edelman recently touched off our guest today, longtime media critic, political strategist and writer, JAMISON FOSER, who wonders, in a recent article, who Edelman thinks he is to decide which fights are worth waging in the Trump Era and which are not.

"I think the nature of the situation that we're in," Foser tells me today, "and the breadth and depth of the ways that we are in trouble, and things are stacked against us --- an autocratic movement has control of our entire government, much of the news media, much of the ways that people get information online --- things are really stacked against us."

"We are not in a situation in which there are obvious, clear, easily discernible, winnable fights we can choose. So this idea that people should only choose fights that they can win --- I think people should choose the fights that feel right to them. We should all be doing a little less trying to police what fights other people are choosing to engage in, and more finding a place where we can stand up and pick a fight where we can," he argues.

"We will probably lose it," he concedes, "because we will probably lose most of them. But sometimes in the loss there is some value. In this one [AP's defense of First Amendment freedoms] there is some value. There's value in saying, 'We can't stop Donald Trump from ordering his government to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. But we can say we are not going along with that. It is racist, and dumb, and he can't make us say it. There's value in saying that to ourselves, in not giving in to his attempt to control the English language. And there's value in showing our fellow Americans that we are not going along with that."

In AP's case, all they were doing was following the Style Guide they have used for decades. And Edelman still characterized it as a "fight" they "should never have picked."

We've got much more to discuss along those lines today with Foser --- including how elected Democrats might wage more productive fights --- in what I think is a really interesting conversation. Please give it a listen.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, covering the heroic senior DoJ official who quit this week rather than violate the law by following Trump Admin orders to claw back money lawfully granted to clean energy initiatives under Biden; climate change now tripling the price of coffee and cocoa; and Trump declaring himself 'King' to cancel New York City's very successful, first-in-the-nation congestion pricing...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Top federal prosecutor resigns over improper Trump order to claw back EPA grants for clean energy; Fossil-fueled extreme weather has tripled the price of cocoa and coffee; PLUS: 'King' Trump cancels New York City's successful, first-in-the-nation congestion pricing... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump moves to claw back almost 50 years of NEPA regulations; Electricity demand surges for the world’s two biggest polluters; New EV batteries are making electric cars cheaper and safer; We may be able to trap climate pollution in ordinary rocks; Trump clamps down on independent agencies' power... PLUS: Hurricane Helene’s profound impact on N.C. farms is only now coming into clearer focus... and much, MUCH more! ...

Before it disappears amid Trump's never-ending chaos, a bit more insight on today's BradCast regarding last week's "Thursday Afternoon Massacre", when at least seven longtime veteran prosecutors at DoJ chose to resign rather than enact improper orders from Trump's hand-picked, acting political apparatchiks installed to head up his weaponized Dept. of Justice. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... We take a few minutes today to rebut several blatant lies that Donald Trump has been telling over the past 24 hours about Ukraine, its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russia's three-year old invasion of its sovereign neighbor, and the money spent by the U.S. to date to help the war-torn democratic nation retain that sovereignty.

Trump now appears to be switching the official U.S. position in the conflict, siding with the invaders --- Russia and its corrupt President Vladimir Putin --- against Ukraine and our stalwart, longtime European allies in the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.

Among the many lies Trump has told about it all over the past 24 hours:

• Ukraine "started" the war. (False.)
• The U.S. has spent $350 billion in support of Ukraine's defense. (False.)
• Zelenskyy is a "dictator" with an approval rating of 4%. (False and false.)

Tune in for specific rebuttals on each of those points and more. But, on that last one, in fact, Zelenskyy's popularity in his country, at 52% as of December, outpaces Trump's in the U.S. where our President (who actually aspires to be a dictator!) has seen his approval ratings slip and his disapproval ratings spike (by 10 points in just four weeks since taking office!), according to new Reuters/Ipsos polling out today.

THEN... At least nine senior Dept. of Justice prosecutors --- many of them Republicans tapped for acting positions by the Trump Administration --- have resigned since last week in response to inappropriate orders from Trump's hand-picked acting Deputy Attorney General, Emil Bove. Seven of them chose to leave rather than sign on to a motion to drop criminal charges against NYC's Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted by DoJ last year on a series of corruption charges related to alleged favors to Turkish interests in exchange for air travel, luxury hotel stays and campaign contributions.

In recent months, however, the Democratic Mayor has been cozying up to Trump, offering to help with his deportation of immigrants in NYC. In exchange, Trump has ordered the DoJ to drop all charges against him, claiming Adams' indictment was constraining deportation efforts and was merely an effort by the Biden Administration to interfere with the unpopular Adams' reelection changes later this year. Bove has absurdly asserted, on behalf of the Trump Administration, that the indictment of a Democratic NYC Mayor by a Democratic U.S. Attorney last year, following a three-year probe, was evidence of "election interference" and the DoJ's "weaponization" under Biden.

The astonishing events of late last week, as all of this unfolded at both the DoJ office in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and Public Integrity unit at Main Justice in D.C. --- where five top prosecutors quit rather than sign on, and Bove threatened to fire every single prosecutor if nobody volunteered to sign the paperwork to drop the charges against Adams within an hour --- were so dramatic and disturbing, we needed to call in a ringer to help us try to make sense of it all.

We're joined today by our friend and veteran federal prosecutor, RANDALL D. ELIASON, formerly Chief of the DoJ's Public Corruption and Government Fraud section at the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C., now professor at George Washington University Law School, newsletter author at the Sidebars Blog and "Great Courses" lecturer on White Collar Criminal Law.

"One of the many remarkable things about this case is the memo from Bove [which] is just so blatant in its rationale that it's startling --- mind-blowing --- to think that you would even put this in writing," explains Eliason, referring to the clearly unlawful "quid pro quo" described by Trump's Acting Dep. A.G. in his memo to Danielle Sassoon, Trump's Acting U.S. Attorney at SDNY until she resigned after refusing the order. Bove made clear that charges against Adams were being dropped in exchange for his help on mass deportations.

Bove was Trump's personal defense attorney before being named as Acting Deputy A.G., was formerly a federal prosecutor at SDNY himself. In his memo to Sasoon, he charges, remarkably, that she was failing to "uphold the Constitution by disobeying direct orders implementing the policy of a duly elected President" and had "lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the Department of Justice.”

"He has got it exactly backwards," Eliason argues. "All prosecutors know that they swear an oath to the Constitution, not the President. You can't just disregard that oath."

"We don't swear an oath to the President or the President's policies," he continues. "The principled thing to do for a person in Sassoon's position is exactly what she did. If you give me an order that I can't in good faith follow, that is going to require me to violate my obligations, I can't carry out that order."

Eliason has much more insight to offer here, including why he disagrees with those who suggest Sassoon might have better served justice by staying at her post to push back against excesses of the Trumpers; whether he personally experienced anything like this during his lengthy career at DoJ; and what "the willingness to use the justice system for political ends" forebodes for the agency going forward in the Trump Regime.

"I was telling my students today that this is something I think they'll be talking about in fifty years, like the Saturday Night Massacre. This is such an earth-shattering event inside Justice," he tells me. Tune in for much more!...

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Incredibly, many Trump-supporting MAGA dupes still believe any of this is being done in the name cutting government "waste, fraud and abuse" --- much less "efficiency" in the federal government. As discussed on today's BradCast, I guess there are still millions who won't give a damn about any of it unless --- more likely, until --- it effects them directly. And it will. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

As David Dayen helpfully reported last month at The American Prospect, if you fired every single federal worker in existence --- all 2.3 million of them --- you'd save about $271 billion per year. While that may sound like a lot, it's just 4% of the annual budget. Of course, we'd lose much more in uncollected tax revenue, unprosecuted fraud in the private sector, lives lost, just to name a few big points. And, of course, Americans, such as Social Security recipients would lose a lot on a personal level when there was nobody left in government to send out their monthly checks.

But, as Republicans have been telling us (lying to us about) for decades now, the federal government has just become too bloated. It must be cut down to size, even if it's randomly done through mass firings at every federal agency, of anybody viewed as legally fireable (whether they are or aren't doesn't matter.) But here's another fun fact from Dayen: in 1960, amid the Golden Age of America's middle class, the federal government comprised 4.3% of all workers. Today, that number is just 1.4%.

Other than that, our government is huge, bloated and out of control! Who needs all that air traffic safety, security of nuclear weapons, food inspections, safe drinking water, disease tracking, cancer cures, law and order, disaster response, medical care, education, Social Security checks or life-saving weather reports and climate data? The federal government is just too "big". Let's gut it all! Legally or otherwise!

Much more on all of this --- and some of the heroes (even Trump-appointed ones!) trying to block and/or call attention to the worst of it --- on today's program, as culled from, among others, some of the following source material...

• AP: Delta jet flips upside down on a snowy Toronto runway and all 80 aboard survive
• Rolling Stone: FAA Employees Say Trump and Musk's Firings Are Dangerous
• AP: Trump fires FAA air traffic control staff, just weeks after DC crash
• NYT: Adams's Lead Prosecutor Quits Defiantly: 'It Was Never Going to Be Me'
• WaPo: Mass resignation marks a new kind of defiance in the second Trump era
• WaPo: High-ranking D.C. federal prosecutor resigns in protest
• WaPo: Musk's DOGE seeks access to personal taxpayer data, raising alarm at IRS
• WaPo: Top Social Security official exits after clash with Musk's DOGE over data
• NBC: Department of Homeland Security preparing to fire hundreds of senior leaders this week
• Bloomberg: US Health Department Layoffs Expand to Medicare, FDA
• NBC: CDC 'disease detectors' among hundreds fired as Trump administration ramps up agency cuts
• Politico: Mass firings continue across nation's health agencies
• Guardian: NOAA imposes limits on scientists, sparking concerns over global forecasts
• The Hill: EPA fires nearly 400 workers after OPM order
• The Hill: EPA puts employees who tackle pollution in overburdened communities on leave
• The Hill: National Science Foundation cuts 10 percent of staff
• Wired: National Science Foundation Fires 168 Workers as Federal Purge Continues
• AP: Trump's firing of 1,000 national park workers raises concerns about maintenance and operating hours
• SF Chronicle: Yosemite halts camping reservations, with no timetable for their return
• Fox 13 Utah: 'Crisis' at Zion as mandated job cuts hit popular national park
• Reuters: USDA probationary staff fired at three agencies, sources say
• NBC: USDA says it accidentally fired officials working on bird flu and is trying to rehire them
• The Oregonian: At least 600 workers to leave Bonneville Power Administration, spurring concerns about transmission grid
• CNN: Hundreds of FAA probationary workers fired by Trump administration, union says
• AP: Trump wants states to 'clean up forests' to stop wildfires but he cuts funds

Other than that, slow news day.

Also, on similar notes, we close today with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, as the costs of our climate crisis continue to mount in from coast to coast in recent days; Trump's FEMA is already denying critical disaster aid; and the Administration is desperately trying to find fired Dept. of Energy workers after figuring out that they were the ones who safeguarded the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile...

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As usual these days on The BradCast, thanks largely to the planned chaos of our Felon-in-Chief, there's more going on than we can cover. We try to stay focused on the most important and/or least covered stories. But late this afternoon, thanks to some remarkable politically thuggery at Trump's fully weaponized DoJ, and some remarkable courage in response to it, we've got a humdinger of a story to cover as well, as it broke just before airtime today. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Here are some of today's stories. (Though tune in for much more!)...

• A U.S. District judge in D.C. late last night, blocked the Trump Administration's termination of Hampton Dellinger, head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which helps federal employees avoid violations of the Hatch Act, and helps ensure whistleblower protections for them. Judge Amy Berman Jackson described Hampton's removal as "plainly" in violation of the law.

• Following up on a story that broke at the end of yesterday's program, more details today on a rare victory for Donald Trump in court these days, after a federal judge dismissed a challenge by several federal labor unions to Trump/Musk's so-called "buyout" offer that was sent to some 2 million federal employees. The Judge ruled the unions didn't have the standing to sue. With that obstacle out of the way, for now, and some 75,000 workers reportedly accepting the offer (we'll see if they ever get paid or if the scheme is found to be unlawful through a separate suit), the Administration has reportedly begun mass firings of hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

• Republicans in the U.S. Senate confirmed health menace Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, giving the longtime anti-vax conspiracist, oversight of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) among many others. All Dems voting against him. The only Republican to do so was Sen. Mitch McConnell, a polio victim as a child. That, as another "completely preventable" measles outbreak is now underway in west Texas, where all of the victims are said to be unvaccinated children. Kennedy's elevation as the nation's top health official also follows the head of Samoa's medical system charging that Kennedy lied during his Senate confirmation hearings regarding his involvement in a massive measles epidemic that killed 83 people on the island nation in 2019. Most of those killed were children under 5 years of age. All were unvaccinated for the most contagious infectious disease known to humans, one that is otherwise fully avoidable with the MMR vaccine, developed in 1971, which our new HHS Sec. has spent years advocating against.

• Then, the remarkable BREAKING NEWS out of New York and D.C. late this afternoon...

  Earlier this week, as we reported, Donald Trump ordered the DoJ to drop its felony indictment against NYC's Democrat-ish Mayor Eric Adams. He was charged last year with five criminal counts including bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations from Turkish interests. Most believe that prosecutors have him dead to rights, though he's pleaded not guilty, has refused to resign and is even running for reelection in November.

  He's also been buddying up to Trump since last year's election, and the 34-time convicted felon turned President has taken the unprecedented step of ordering his personal defense lawyer turned Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove (pictured above right), to make the corruption charges against Adams go away, as the wildly unpopular Mayor has vowed to help Trump with his immigrant deportation efforts in NYC.

  But the Acting U.S. Attorney in charge of the very independent Southern District of New York (SDNY), Danielle Sassoon --- a Republican former clerk to the late, far-right Justice Antonin Scalia and a member of the far-right Federalist Society --- refused to drop the charges against Adams. In a remarkable 8-page letter [PDF] to Trump's new Attorney General, Pam Bondi, requesting a meeting with her, Sassoon accused Bove of acceding to a "quid pro quo," said she was "confident" that Adams was guilty as charged, and that prosecutors were also preparing to charge him with destroying evidence. She said would resign, rather than drop the charges against Adams if that's what DoJ was insisting upon.

  In accepting her resignation, Bove wrote in his own extraordinary, Orwellian, 8-page letter to Sassoon, charging that she was somehow violating her oath of office by "disobeying direct orders implementing the policy of a duly elected President." In fact, her oath is to defend the Constitution and rule of law, not one of fealty to a President. Bove further alleged that the courageous Sassoon was insisting on "pursuing a politically motivated prosecution" (the charges against the Democrat Adams were brought last year by a Democratic U.S. Attorney appointed by Joe Biden) and that her refusal to dismiss the criminal charges --- for Bove's clearly stated political purpose! --- was "a disservice to the nature of this work and the public's perception of our efforts." He also promised that the DoJ would now investigate her.

  But, that's not all. After that, the case moved to the DoJ's public corruption unit in D.C., where two five more top officials, "The acting chief, three deputy chiefs and a deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division who oversaw the section" also refused to drop the charges against Adams, choosing to resign instead. Good for them as well!

  As of airtime, Adams remained indicted, six senior DoJ officials promoted by Trump have resigned in protest, and who knows where this all goes from here?!...

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the impact of climate change is reshaping U.S. real estate markets (bigly!); the Trump Admin is failing to hire thousands of seasonal firefighters before fire season; and Trump is rolling back money-, water- and energy-saving appliance standards again. And receiving a ridiculous "tongue bath" in the bargain from one of his top, most sycophantic cheerleaders at Fox "News"...

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Today on The BradCast: Congrats, America! Bribery, influence peddling, petty corruption, money laundering, fraud, conflicts of interest, even attempted cop-killing and much more is all, effectively, now legalized in these United States! At least if you're on the right team. [Audio link to today's show follows this summary.]

In his Inauguration speech, just three (looong) weeks ago, Donald Trump declared: "The golden age of America begins right now." Apparently he meant the Golden Age of Corruption. For him. And his chosen pals.

But, first up today, a correction to one point from yesterday's show (see the quick version of that correction at the bottom of yesterday's show posting).

Then, we step quickly through a few crime-related turns for Trump and his cronies today alone. Steve Bannon pleaded guilty to one New York state felony charge related to a fraudulent scheme in which he helped steal millions from hundreds of thousands of Trump supporters to supposedly build a wall on the U.S. southern border during Trump's first term. The plea agreement, if he behaves, will result in no jail time for Bannon who was previously charged [PDF] with related felony crimes at the federal level until preemptively pardoned for them by Trump on the last day of his first term. Repeat offender Bannon served four months in federal prison last year after being convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to answer subpoenas from the House January 6 Committee. After his sentencing today, he called on Trump's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to weaponize the DoJ against New York prosecutors Alvin Bragg and Letitia James.

Today, Trump also gave a full pardon today to Illinois' corrupt former Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted on felony charges related to trying to sell Barack Obama's U.S. Senate after he won the Presidency in 2008. Trump previously sprung Blago from his 14-year prison sentence with a commutation, six years early, during his first term.

Also today, Trump's personal defense attorney turned Acting Deputy A.G. corruptly ordered the DoJ to drop all charges against NYC's Democrat-ish Mayor Eric Adams on charges related to doing favors for Turkey in return for free airplane trips and hotel stays around the world.

Both Blago and Adams have each cozied up to Trump in recent months and today, they received their prize. The rest of us received the message that criming --- particularly public corruption --- is just fine as long as you say nice things about Donald Trump after getting caught.

But, if you didn't get the message, our quick summary of just some of Trump's most corrupt, pro-crime, anti-rule of law activities from just his first three weeks in office, from Day 1 right up until today, should help. Including...

• Pardoning all of the violent January 6 offenders on his first day in office;
• Firing Inspectors General from more than a dozen government agencies;
• Dropping DoJ prosecutions in progress for Republican elected officials (and even some Democratic ones that have cozied up to him);
• Firing scores of senior DoJ and FBI officials so far (he will be removing many more in the days ahead);
• Ordering all work at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) --- the folks who police Big Bank, Credit Card and Payday Lender fraud on behalf of American consumers --- immediately stopped over the weekend;
• Signing a new Executive Order on Monday halting all enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA), the law meant to prevent bribery by Americans and American Companies of foreign officials. (Trump's order describes the federal law as an "excessive barrier" to U.S. commerce!);
• Quietly removing the head of the Office of Special Counsel at the Justice Department last Friday, (That's the office in charge of overseeing whistleblower complaints against the government and enforcing laws meant to tamp down on undue political influence);
• And, the removal of the Director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) just last night. (That's the office that polices integrity and conflicts of interest of Executive Branch officials.)

There is much more, of course, including, I'm sure, much we don't even know about yet. But there's a starter. And, of course, many of the acts summarized above --- in addition to making Trump's personal criming much easier --- are also, themselves, unlawful, even if that may take some time for the courts to sort out. Whether Trump obeys court orders that he doesn't like, or chooses to trigger a full blown Constitutional Crisis instead, remains to be seen.

To discuss America's new Golden Age of Corruption, we're joined today by longtime public corruption and ethics expert CRAIG HOLMAN, Ph.D., Capitol Hill lobbyist on Government Affairs for the nonprofit watchdog Public Citizen. He steps us through some of Trump's most recent corrupt acts, such as the Friday firing of OGE Chief David Huitema who was finally confirmed by the U.S. Senate to a 5-year term in December, after Republicans blocked a vote for more than a year following his nomination by President Biden. Holman, last year, was instrumental in finally helping to push Huitema's confirmation through GOP obstruction in the Senate.

"The Office of Government Ethics serves a very fundamental purpose," Holman explains, "to try to educate and make everyone in the administration --- over 140 different federal agencies --- understand what the ethics rules are, understand what the conflict of interest code is all about, and then help public officials comply with those types of rules." Well, no wonder Trump hopes to neuter that office!

"What we're seeing here --- besides utter chaos on Capitol Hill --- is a full-scale assault on accountability, oversight, and the checks and balances. It goes way beyond the Office of Government Ethics. It's already affected the Office of Special Counsel, 17 independent IGs have been fired," Holman tells me, before adding: "And, by the way, almost all of these firings have a direct financial impact on Elon Musk. So we're seeing the conflict of interest code being torn apart. Every agency he's gone into, all those agencies were overlooking Elon Musk's business practices. The people who were in charge of that have since been fired from these agencies."

We cover much more today in my conversation with Holman, including what interest Congress (specifically, the Republicans who currently control both chambers) may have in all of this, as their own Constitutional powers are being stripped away from them; whether Trump will actual obey court orders as they come down against him; and whether the Humpty Dumpty of our Constitutional order will ever be able to be put back together again, after all of this is finally, mercifully over.

The situation is "dire," warns Holman today. "We are on the very precipice of losing American democracy here. In the first Trump Administration, he sounded like he wanted to end democracy, and by the end of it he actually tried throwing a coup d'etat on Jan. 6th. This time around, he knows what he's doing. That's why we've seen this flurry. He's just marching unrestrained over our democratic norms and our democratic institutions. This is a very dire situation we are seeing here."

As if all of that news isn't swell enough, we close today with Desi Doyen's latest Green News Report on the heels of the hottest January in global recorded history. Enjoy!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New data suggests utility company grid equipment sparked deadly Eaton Fire in Altadena, CA; Senate confirms Trump's pick, Lee Zeldin, to head EPA; Ireland hit with strongest storm on record; PLUS: Study confirms warming Pacific Ocean is changing marine life migration patterns... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Lutnick says he won't dismantle NOAA as called for in Project 2025; A.I. "DeepSeek" earthquake upends power forecasts; Trump EPA fires science advisers; Clean energy firms remain upbeat; Amid freeze fracas, uncertainty lives on for environmental programs... PLUS: Texas City approves new site for fracking near daycare and schools... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: Let the Constitutional Crises begin! As the Trump Administration attempts to Cancel Culture pretty much everything with a memo that orders nearly half of the total, already appropriated federal budget immediately (and unconstitutionally) put on ice! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We might have seen it coming, as several of our other stories today might have augured. Among them...

• Late last week, while touring fallout from last year's climate change-fueled Hurricane Helene disaster in a Republican-leaning area of North Carolina, and the then-ongoing climate change-fueled Los Angeles Fires, Trump suggested he might shut down (privatize) FEMA entirely and called for Photo ID voting restrictions in California in exchange for federal disaster aid to victims who had lost everything. When asked if NC would also see conditions placed on their federal disaster aid, Trump's meandering non-answer (full of one fantastical lie after another) made clear that, no, only Democratic-leaning states would have to agree to change policies in exchange for much-needed federal disaster aid.

• Amusingly, Trump pretended on social media last night that he'd ordered the U.S. military into California "under Emergency Powers" to turn on the magical, non-existent water "spigot" somewhere in Northern California, which the state chooses to keep turned off in order to somehow cause devastating fires in Southern California. Now that might sound like a ridiculous lie and a completely delusional fantasy that makes no sense at all, but at her first White House press briefing, Trump's Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed today that "the water has been turned back on in California." (That's great news, because I live in Los Angeles, had to evacuate briefly a week or so ago due to the fires, and had no idea the water had been turned off all this time! (OMG... this is only Week 2?!?)

• Last week, in Week 1, and receiving a bit less coverage than so many of the other nightmares Trump set off with his flurry of Executive Orders, is the fact that the Administration abruptly ordered the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to suspend all research grants, programs, travel and even ongoing cancer treatment trials. The result of putting tens of billions of dollars of research and grants on ice has sent confusion, anxiety and chaos throughout the American health community at what experts describe as one of the worst possible times, amid a slew of quickly spreading winter viruses and the increasing risks of avian flu in the U.S.

• On Monday this week, U.S. public health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were ordered to cease all work with the World Health Organization (WHO) just one week after Trump signed an order declaring the U.S. was ending its cooperation with the worldwide organization. (Unclear he can legally do so, by the way. But he doesn't care.) His Executive Orders also froze spending on a decades old global AIDS program that has saved 25 million lives, but now will block HIV the distribution of medication to more than 20 million people, including drugs already obtained with U.S. funds and sitting on shelves at local clinics around the world.

• All of that might have been a signal for where all of this was going. According to a two-page memo from the acting Director of Trump's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Monday, the White House has now ordered a "temporary pause" on "all federal financial assistance" with the exception of Medicare and Social Security payments. The memo directs federal agencies to pause "all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance," and any other programs that included "D.E.I., woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal" as of Tuesday (today!) at 5pm. That, even though there is no "Green New Deal." It never passed. (Shhh...don't tell them!)

  As the non-profit news site NOTUS explained, "the list of programs that could be touched by the order is vast: Medicaid, disaster relief, farm aid, student loan programs, Head Start, highway funds, nutrition assistance, rent assistance and dozens of other programs." Some 70 million low-income Americans alone, who are enrolled in Medicaid, could lose their access to health care. These are all funds already allocated by Congress and approved by previous Presidents including, in some cases, Trump himself.

  The impoundment of the funds --- said to amount to "more than $3 trillion," according to the memo, which is nearly half of the entire federal budget for fiscal year 2024 --- appears to be in strict violation of the federal Impoundment Control Act of 1974, enacted by Congress after Richard Nixon held back Congressionally-appropriated funding that he didn't like. According to the Constitution anyway (quaint!) Congress, not the President, controls the purse strings of the U.S. budget.

  As you may recall, attempting to withhold Congressionally-approved funding to Ukraine during his first term, unless they agreed to announce a fake investigation of the Biden Family, is what led to Trump's first impeachment. Ever since, Republicans have devised an argument that the Impoundment Control Act is actually unconstitutional. This is clearly their first volley in getting a ruling on that from their corrupted U.S. Supreme Court.

  Late on Tuesday, as Trump's deliberate chaos reigned shortly before the 5pm deadline to freeze the spending, a federal judge placed an administrative stay on the order, pending further arguments on Monday morning. She also made clear that the National Council of Nonprofits, the plaintiffs which sued earlier in the day, alleging the freeze would cause their members irreparable harm, must show evidence to support that argument on Monday or the judge would have no choice but to end her administrative stay and deny the requested temporary restraining order. And then... ???

• Finally, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report with more on Trump's attempt to weaponize FEMA, but also with some good news, for a change, for both Los Angeles and New York City!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Donald Trump weaponizes disaster, calls for dismantling FEMA; First rain in months helps douse Los Angeles Fires; PLUS: New York City's congestion pricing is working, with fewer crashes and pedestrian injuries... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump’s scorched earth executive orders for the environment; Ocean warming accelerating rapidly, new study warns; Stanford sea turtle study uncovers new effects of global warming in the Pacific Ocean; Trump looks to seize control of California water; Notorious WV chemical plant polluting water with toxic PFAS, lawsuit claims; Storm Eowyn brings hurricane-level destruction to Ireland... PLUS: How Big Insurance’s investment in fossil fuels came back to bite it... and much, MUCH more! ...