Okay. Lots of crime and corruption by the President of the United States and his criminal henchman and women on today's BradCast. The good news, however, is that most of it falling apart on him, because he's not even good at criming. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Most noteworthy among our coverage today...

• As Donald Trump threatens a distraction war of regime change against Venezuela, two human rights organizations released a damning report last week finding that more than 250 Venezuelan detainees that Trump shipped to the CECOT gulag in El Salvador earlier this year were subjected to "systematic and prolonged torture and abuse". That, despite the fact that just 3% of those disappeared to the known torture prison by the Administration had been convicted of any violent crime in the U.S.

• Trump's corrupt indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James are absolutely falling apart in court before several different judges and different pretrial motions. Attorney KEITH BARBER (who writes at Daily Kos as "Keith DB") is here to help us break down a remarkable 24-page ruling (PDF) issued today by a federal magistrate judge in the Comey case.

  After reviewing the grand jury transcript in chambers, Judge William Fitzpatrick determined that Lindsey Halligan, Trump's former insurance lawyer turned unlawfully-seated U.S. Attorney in Virginia, engaged in a "disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps" that appear to have violated Comey's rights in numerous ways.

  Among those rights violation, as Barber details, Halligan's apparent instructions to grand jurors that Comey's refusal to testify before them could be used to infer his guilt. That's a "clear violation of Comey's 5th Amendment rights," explained Barber in a posting at DailyKos today. Comey's rights were also violated, according to the judge, when the grand jury was instructed by Halligan that they didn't need to rely on the record presented to them. Rather, they could infer that the government had far better evidence to be presented later at trial.

  Not unlike the judge who wrote that those two instructions alone were "fundamental misstatements of law that could compromise the integrity of the grand jury process," Barber was flabbergasted.

  "It's unprecedented. That is one of those things that is like 'Prosecutor 101', which, of course, Halligan never took," he tells me. "I honestly can't believe she's that dumb, but she certainly acted that way. Normally the most faint whiff by a prosecutor before a jury --- including a grand jury --- that suggests that a defendant's unwillingness to testify imputes guilt is sufficient to result in a mistrial or dismissal of charges. That alone, by itself, should end the day for this."

  But there was much more from both the judge in this matter --- who has taken the extraordinary step of turning over the grand jury transcript to the defendants, as we discuss --- and from a separate federal judge who heard a separate pre-trial challenge last week, as combined from both Comey and James, regarding Halligan's apparently unlawful seating as U.S. Attorney.

  "This case will never get to trial," says Barber, regarding the Comey case. "If it doesn't get dismissed for this reason --- the misconduct before the grand jury --- then one of the others will kill it or the cumulative weight of all of these irregularities are going to cause the judge to toss it."

  "There's stupid, and there's corrupt," he quips. "And then there's stupidly corrupt. It's just ridiculous."

• Next... in a Sunday night social media posting, Trump appeared to flip-flop on his statement from just last week describing any Republican who would vote to release the Epstein Files as "stupid". In his Sunday post, however, Trump called on Congressional Republicans to vote in favor of pending legislation to release the Epstein Files. The legislation is likely to finally receive a vote in the House this week, that calls on the DOJ to release "all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in DOJ's possession that relate to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein."

  But, don't be fooled by Trump's seeming reversal, for at least two reasons. 1) Trump could order the release of those files today if he actually wanted them released. He doesn't need legislation to force him to do so. And 2) the legislation would allow the DOJ to withhold "materials that would jeopardize an active federal investigation." While corrupt Attorney General Pam Bondi announced several months ago that there were no more loose ends and nothing more to investigate in the Epstein matter following the jailhouse death of the child sex offender and longtime close friend of Trump, she announced last week that she was opening a new investigation last week into Democrats alleged to have been involved with Epstein. That announcement followed a public request from Trump for such a probe just one day earlier. So, yeah, vote to release the files if you like, but you can probably assume that anything that might incriminate Trump will be withheld so as not to "jeopardize an active federal investigation."

• Then, we open the phone lines to callers on what they think about the Trump/Epstein mess and whether they believe those files will ever see the light of day as long as Trump has the power to continue covering them up...

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Tying up a few loose ends as another insane week wraps up on The BradCast today. But with a few laughs along the way and a song to help us over the finish line. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Donald Trump's corrupted Dept. of Justice joined a federal lawsuit filed by the California Republican Party to block Prop 50 on Thursday. The statewide measure was approved by voters in a landslide just last week at the ballot box in response to Texas lawmakers' Trump-ordered gerrymander of their state's already gerrymandered U.S. House map. It is likely to result in five "red" seats in CA turned "blue" in next year's mid-year elections. But Trump's corrupt Attorney General, Pam Bondi, with the announcement of DOJ joining the suit, hilariously characterized the voter approved measure as "a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process." She is very concerned that it will "entrench one-party rule and silence millions of Californians". Specifically, white Californians. When the suit was originally filed last week, the response from Newsom's office: "Good luck, losers."

• The longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history is now over. At least until the end of January. We detail all the loose ends, takeaways as we head into another election year, and how the Congressional Democrats' fight to restore massive Trump/GOP cuts to health care that will spike costs for tens of millions of Americans by January 1 is continuing.

• All of that, as Trump's approval numbers continue to plummet. Now, even among Republicans, as just 33% of Americans approve of Trump's management of the federal government.

• In one election from last week that couldn't be called until today, progressive, self-declared democratic socialist Katie Wilson, a community organizer and first-time candidate, appears to have narrowly won the race to become Seattle's next Mayor. She defeated the Democratic establishment supported incumbent Bruce Harrell while running on an affordability agenda being compared to Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's in NYC. The contest foretells the fascinating battle emerging between the younger, more progressive and older, more centrist wings of the Democratic Party as we move into another critical election year.

• Finally, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report, with news on the ongoing U.N. climate summit in Brazil (which the U.S. isn't even attending); Trump's newly reported plan to drill for oil off the coast of California (which Gov. Newsom describes as "dead on arrival"), and the 50-year anniversary of the tragic 1975 wreck of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, which inspired major, life-saving changes by NOAA (which Trump is decimating) and a haunting hit song by Gordon Lightfoot which also has a fascinating history that we discuss at the end of today's eclectic program...

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If it weren't for a handful of Democrats caving Sunday night in the U.S. Senate, we'd have spent the full hour on today's BradCast discussing last week's remarkable election victories for both the party and, more importantly, for democracy, voting rights and elections themselves. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Such as it is, however, today show is a bit bifurcated.

FIRST UP... We're joined by journalist ALEX BURNESS of Bolts Magazine. The outlet did their usual yeoman's job of covering not just the topline election contests you may have heard about, but hundreds of other smaller or more under-the-radar elections in more than 30 states last week that you likely haven't heard as much or even anything about.

Today we focus with Burness on his article last week covering five different ways that last week's off-year elections will reverberate moving forward on issues like mail voting, felony disenfranchisement, mid-decade gerrymandering and related election matters in at least five states. In almost every case --- from redistricting in California and Virginia, to restoring felony voting rights in Virginia, to a Photo ID initiative in Maine, to election scheduling in New York, to "the backstop of democracy" in Pennsylvania --- the news for voters and voting rights advocates was very good indeed. (Texas was, as usual, like a whole 'nother country. Tune in for those details.)

THEN... We turn back to the federal government shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history, following last week's enormous wins for Democrats at the polls in state after state; Donald Trump's approval rating at all-time, historic lows; and clear pluralities of Americans blaming Republicans for the shutdown, as Democrats were seen as united in their fight to restore trillions of dollars in health care cuts for millions of Americans (to the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and even Medicare) made by Trump and the GOP.

With that backdrop and the wind very much at the backs of the Dems in this fight on Sunday night, seven Democratic Senators --- Tim Kaine (VA), Dick Durbin (IL), John Fetterman (PA), Maggie Hassan (NH), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Catherine Cortez Masto (NV), and Jacky Rosen (NV) --- and one independent who caucuses with them (ME's Angus King), decided this would be the perfect time to undercut their own caucus by jumping ship to vote with Senate Republicans to allow them to reopen the government. None of the eight turncoats are facing reelection next year.

What did they get for Dems in return? The promise of a vote in the Senate, perhaps in December, on restoring Affordable Care Act subsidies. That's it. No promise of a similar vote in the U.S. House (where Republicans control the majority anyway), and no promise that Trump would even sign such a bill if the GOP allowed passage in both chambers.

In other words, at least as I see it, those 7+1 Dems got nothing in exchange for their votes, and the rest of the caucus, in both the Senate and House, is reportedly furious about it. On the other hand, thousands of federal workers will be paid again and the critical Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will now eventually be restarted...albeit at lower levels following Trump and the GOP slashing some $180 billion from the program in their so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" over the Summer.

You'll note that Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is not among those who voted on Sunday night in favor of reopening the government. He voted against it. But, of course, those seven Dems would not have moved forward without his approval. Or, if they did, it's just more evidence of what an awful Leader he is for the Party right now, and how much he needs to be both replaced as Leader in the Senate immediately and primaried out of the Senate entirely next year.

That's my take anyway. At the end of today's show we have time for just a few callers. At least one of them sees things somewhat differently --- at least, sees a brighter side to all of this --- and, for the record, notes that the Government reopening also means that there will (or should) soon be a bipartisan vote on releasing the full Epstein Files in the U.S. House. We'll see if that comes about as the week proceeds. I'm not yet holding my breath...

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We've done quite a bit on The BradCast over the years, from investigative reporting, to deep dive explainers and interviews with experts and news makers, to ranting monologues, to taking calls from listeners on all manner of things. But, unless I'm mistaken, I believe this is the first time we've turned the show into a game show! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... Before we get to our fun (if disturbing?) game today, a few news items of note...

• Category 5 Hurricane Melissa looks to be a monster deadly storm in the Caribbean on several different levels. It's slamming smack-dab into Jamaica overnight tonight. In addition to record wind speeds (satellite records showed the storm, in record warm waters, topping 190mph for a time last night according to satellite records, which would be a Cat 6 if there actually was such a thing on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale), it's also incredibly slow moving. That means it is likely to dump a lot of water --- as much as 40 inches of rain in some places --- as it slowly swamps the entire island. Desi Doyen also joins us for a few insights on how climate change has worsened just about every aspect of this deadly storm.

• Earlier this year the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA), detailed how "multi-year contingency funds" would be used to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to "continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown." Last week, however, as the shutdown drags on, a USDA memo explained that, despite already appropriated Congressional funding to be used for such a contingency, federal SNAP money would no longer be made available to states after November 1 if the shutdown was still ongoing. That, after Republicans already slashed some $186 billion from the program in Trump's so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" earlier this year. More than 40 million people rely on SNAP to put food on the table --- the vast majority of them employed, by the way --- but the Trump Administration is now planning to help starve people (including millions of their own voters) rather than even negotiate with Democrats who are refusing to help Republicans keep the government open until hundreds of millions (in fact trillions) of dollars in Trump/GOP health care cuts for Americans are restored.

• Next Tuesday is Election Day in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City, California and elsewhere. On Friday, Trump's Dept. of Justice announced that federal monitors were being deployed to polling places in five counties in California and one in New Jersey (which both have Democratic governors), though none to Virginia, which has the most contests on the ballot next week...and a Republican Governor. DOJ has yet to explain why monitors are being deployed or under what law they are doing so. Election experts --- and CA's Governor --- warn this may be a trial run for what the Administration is planning for next year's critical midterms.

THEN... It's on to "Who Wants to be a U.S. Citizen?", the first BradCast call-in game show!

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced that it was making it more difficult to pass the test required for those applying to become U.S. Citizens. They are doubling both the number of questions asked PDF on the Naturalization Civics Test and the number of correct answers that need to be given to pass the test.

According to experts, the questions are also more difficult than they were previously. So, today, we open up our phone lines to listeners --- most of them, presumably U.S. citizens! --- to see if they could answer the questions now being asked of prospective citizens by this Administration.

Like the Trump Administration, we make up the rules of the game as we go. And our listeners did fairly well! But I'll bet they did a helluva lot better than our current President would have been able to had he been forced to pass this test!

Tune in for what turned out to be both an amusing and troubling hour of fun and games with our lucky listeners!...

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There are a lot of ongoing --- even worsening --- nightmares right now. But, before this past remarkable weekend recedes into the annals of history, let's at least offer one BradCast over to celebrating the joy of Saturday's coast-to-coast protest rallies seeking to make America good again. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Even prior to 7 million turning out for last weekend's "No Kings" rallies in some 2,700 cities and towns, instances of individual folks standing up to make America good again abounded.

For instance, our judicial system --- at least below the U.S. Supreme Court level --- continues to hold, by and large, as we saw in last week's ruling blocking Donald Trump (for now) from unlawfully firing some 4,000 federal workers during the ongoing federal government shutdown. U.S. District Judge Susan Yvonne Illston called out the Trump Administration, charging that they have "taken advantage of the lapse in government spending and government functioning to assume that all bets are off, the laws don’t apply to them anymore." But, as the Judge made clear, "The activities that are being undertaken here are contrary to the laws. You can’t do this in a nation of laws.”

We also saw the grand jury and regular jury system holding firm last week, as Trump's U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, former Fox "News" host Jeanine Pirro, was unable to attain even a misdemeanor conviction after three different federal grand juries had rejected her attempt to indict a D.C. protester which the Administration falsely claimed had assaulted federal officers. After defendant Sydney Reid's acquittal last week, she declared in a statement: "This verdict shows that this administration and their peons are not able to invoke fear in all citizens. Correctly describing Trump as "a crazy person who's in charge of the most powerful nation," Reid added: "Knowing that I can stand in front of 12 of my fellow citizens and be found not guilty for standing up for basic human rights makes me feel like, despite the scary times we live in, we have hope for the future."

That "hope" was on display across the nation over the weekend, in cities and towns, large and small, "red" and "blue", by joyous, peaceful protesters, young and old, black, brown, white and everything in between. Even one of our grumpiest listeners and occasional callers, Ron, rang in to today's show to note that attending a protest rally in Venice over the weekend, here in Southern California, "really changed my head."

"I have felt like a voice in the wind," he told me. "I know other people feel like I do. I had no idea it would be this much of a wave." Fighting back emotions, he notes: "It just completely knocked me out. It gives me a whole lot of hope. It's like these bastards aren't gonna get away with it. And I feel really good about that."

It wasn't "the left" which proved to be angry and dangerous on Saturday. There were virtually zero arrests despite the enormous crowds that turned out. These weren't "Hate America" rallies as House Speaker Mike Johnson and fellow Republicans falsely characterized them with lies in advance last week. As callers attest on today's program, they were attended by happy, patriotic warriors, banding together to fight like hell to save our country and Constitution from a tyrant and his enablers. Exactly like the nation's first No Kings protest, on July 4, 1776.

The President of the United States, however, was busy shitting on the nation on Saturday --- almost literally, albeit via AI --- and its peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment rights to speak out against being ruled by a monarch. Trump published a particularly childish (even by his standards) and disgusting artificial intelligence video showing himself as the pilot of a fighter jet, wearing a crown, and dumping tons of excrement on thousands of peaceful protesters in Times Square. The President of the United States actually posted that video to social media on Saturday night. I am told that none of the major Sunday network news shows mentioned it. Other than that, this wildly unpopular President wasn't bothered at all by the massive protests against him, as he claims...right?

Tune in for today's program. I think you'll enjoy it. It is, as you'll note from the very opening, a joyous and defiant celebration of democracy, free speech and all that is good, from a nation of people just like you and me who are standing up to declare that we're not gonna take it anymore.

And, unlike Trump's federal immigration goons, we're not afraid to show our faces in public when declaring as much in thousands of cities across this still-great land...

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I was hoping for at least some optimism from my guests on today's BradCast regarding the future of the landmark Voting Right Act of 1965. I'm sorry to say, I didn't get much in that regard. But I learned a lot. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The corrupted U.S. Supreme Court held a nearly three-hour Oral Argument this week after the activist Republican Supremes actually asked plaintiffs from a case last year in Louisiana to come back this term and argue something else entirely: Essentially, whether one of the last standing sections of the Act barring discriminatory election practices, Section 2, somehow violates the Constitution itself.

The case is Louisiana v. Callais. Its origins are complicated, though one of our guests explains it quite simply today. Basically, following the 2020 Census, the Republican legislature in Louisiana drew a U.S. House Map that all but ensured no less than 5 Republican Congressional Districts and just one that might be won by Democrats, because it has been packed with a large majority of the state's Black voters. But Louisiana's voting population is more than 30% Black. So voting rights advocates sued for a second majority-minority district under Section 2 of the VRA. They won. But now a group of White voters in the state (several of whom didn't even know they were listed as plaintiffs!) are attempting to turn the VRA on its head, arguing --- as Mark Joseph Stern summarizes it, that "it's racist to remedy racism" --- by claiming that minority voting opportunity districts amount to an unlawful racial gerrymander violating the rights of the white voters under the 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution.

By way of reminder, those Amendments, in brief, bar discrimination against voters on the basis of race, and allow for Congress to adopt laws enforcing the Amendments by protecting all voters. Almost a century after the Amendments were ratified, Congress finally passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to do exactly that. Republicans, including now Chief Justice John Roberts, have spent the better part of the last five decades or so trying to roll back the protections for minority voters afforded by the VRA and the post-Civil War Amendments.

After working for the Reagan Administration in the early 80s (unsuccessfully) to try and weaken the Act, in 2013, John Roberts, as Chief Justice, wrote the Shelby County v. Holder Opinion that gutted Section 5 of the VRA. That Section mandated that jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination at the polling place must preclear all new election-related laws before they went into effect to make sure they were not discriminatory. In 2019, in a case known as Rucho v. Common Cause, Roberts' Opinion for the Court's majority held that gerrymandering for partisan purposes was perfectly legal under federal law, leaving only racial gerrymanders protected against. Now, he and the rest of the far-right activists on the High Court are gunning for Section 2, which is meant to protect voters in all 50 states, including from racial gerrymanders of the kind that Louisiana was found to have engaged in after the 2020 Census.

We're joined today by two experts in election law and redistricting, from both the legal and political sides to try and make sense of all of this. Professor JOSHUA A. DOUGLAS teaches election law at the University of Kentucky College of Law. His latest book is, appropriately enough, THE COURT v. THE VOTERS: The Troubling Story of How the Supreme Court Has Undermined Voting Rights. DAVID DALEY is a Senior Fellow at FairVote.org, whose latest book, appropriately enough, is ANTIDEMOCRATIC: Inside the Right's 50 Year Plan to Control American Elections.

In addition to breaking down Wednesday's oral argument, we discuss why this case is being heard again the first place; how it demonstrates how much Section 2 of the VRA is still very much needed; why there is no specific time-limit after which legally-mandated, race-based solutions to discriminatory violations of the law and Constitution must be ended (as Justice Kavanaugh and others suggested); what is likely to happen if Section 2 is killed or merely eviscerated (at least a dozen minority members of Congress will almost certainly lose their seats in short order); and both if and, crucially, when the Court may issue its Opinion in this matter.

We dig into a lot of details and angles on all of this, so I'm not even going to try to summarize our conversation here. Please tune in for that. You'll be much smarter in the bargain. But, suffice to say for now, Daley, who has written several books on Rightwing gerrymandering, notes that, if Section 2 is struck down, it "would be an electoral bonanza for the Republican Party." He characterizes what will follow as an "unprecedented Gerrymander Armageddon".

Douglas, who also has a podcast and newsletter titled "Democracy Optimist", is not much more optimistic. "I think we are going to see a lot more states engage in this so-called mid-decade redistricting. We're already seeing some states do this in response to President Trump trying to make sure that he doesn't lose the House in the midterm elections," Douglas explains. "I think you're going to see a lot more states, Louisiana included, redraw their maps. And what this is going to mean is that you're going to have a much more partisan skew. It is going to be even that much harder for Democrats to take back the House in 2026, just because race and party are so closely aligned in many states, particularly in the South."

Daley believes a ruling is likely to come as early as January, in time for states largely in the old Confederate South, to rewrite maps before the 2026 primaries begin to prevent Black voters from being able to elect a candidate of their choosing next year.

Douglas, a self-described "glass-half-full kind of person" sees the potential for a bit of wiggle room on both the release date of an Opinion, and how it might be tempered by the ongoing Gerrymandering Wars already underway, thanks to Trump's desperation to avoid a humiliating loss of Congress next year.

FINALLY TODAY... Breaking news, mid-show, as Trump's former National Security Advisor turned Trump critic John Bolton is indicted on 18 federal charges related to his alleged retention of classified documents after being fired by Trump in 2019. And Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the cost of Trump's cuts to the National Weather Service begin to turn deadly...

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It's time for our monthly-ish reality check-in with two of our favorite BradCast guests. And we've got a lot to cover. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The great HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo and 'DRIFTGLASS' of the Professional Left Podcast are here once again to both freak us out AND, somehow, cheer us up all at the same time. Among today's topics of discussion...

SHUTDOWN POLITICS: Clearly this is becoming The Epstein Shutdown, at this point. Democrats are "very surprisingly united", says Digby, in their demands for reversing Donald Trump and the Republicans' radical health care cuts for tens of millions of Americans and for some sort of guarantee that Trump and his OMB Director Russ Vought won't simply double-cross any deal by rescinding it after Dems vote to reopen the government. Republicans, meanwhile, are revealing a number of cracks in their coalition, and appear to have no end game. That, even as House Speaker Mike Johnson continues to do Trump's bidding to prevent an almost certain vote on releasing the Epstein Files once he allows Arizona's Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva to be seated and the House to reopen for business. "It's clear that the government is being held hostage," observes Driftglass, "being shut down so that Russ Vought can gut it with impunity, and so that Mike Johnson can keep Trump's dirty secrets locked up."

TRUMP SEEKS VIOLENCE: Yesterday, our delusional President, referring to his deployment of the U.S. military against U.S. citizens here in Los Angeles, absurdly claimed that "had we not gone in at the beginning with a very strong powerful force, they would have lost L.A." That is, of course, a fantasy, as Digby and myself (both of us L.A. residents) are able to attest. She is careful to avoid any FCC language violations in her full, furious response: "It's BS. It is utter nonsense. It is like something from another planet." Meanwhile, Illinois resident Driftglass stands with his Gov. J.B. Pritzker who, he argues, is doing a good job of being both tough and funny in standing up to Trump's madness. As to the President's absurd claims of "war-ravaged" U.S. cities that he must save by unlawfully deploying the military: "It is an attempt to just keep escalating the lunatic rhetoric that they already believe. He is simply a vessel for the delivery of fascism by Russ Vought inside the government, and by Stephen Miller using armed forces...Their brain cannot accept that they are the bad guys."

TRUMP SEEKS VENGEANCE: His beauty queen pageant contestant turned insurance lawyer turned interim U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, has secured ridiculous indictments against Trump's former FBI Director James Comey and the sitting New York Attorney General Letitia James on direct orders from the White House. "It would be very surprising if they were able to get any conviction," says Digby, careful to avoid predictions, but adding: "It's very clear what this is. This is retribution."

'NO KINGS': But there are, apparently, plenty of hilarious inflatable frogs to go around. It should be a very colorful weekend, likely including the largest American protests in U.S. history on Saturday. Find a protest near you. George Soros will send you your paycheck, as usual. Maybe wear a colorful costume because, as Driftglass quips: "A bunch of people parading in inflatable animal suits and various other costumes, making noise and being goofy makes them look like the clowns they are"...

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On today's BradCast: The War in Gaza may be in the middle of a very fragile ceasefire, but the Wars both For and Against Democracy in America continue apace today. And, according to our guest, the effort underway in one otherwise very "red" state today is heartening. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... Some news following our brief respite yesterday...

• After the good news yesterday, regarding the release of all living Israeli hostages held by Hamas as part of a cessation of hostilities in Gaza brokered by the U.S. and a number of other countries, a few violent flair-ups and Israel pulling back on several elements of the deal offer worrisome signs for the nascent, fragile peace deal. Israel reportedly killed six Gazans on Tuesday, and Hamas reportedly murdered a number of fellow Palestinians as the military arm of the group began to retake control of the war-torn enclave amid Israel's partial retreat.

• Back here at home, Democrats saw another big (and, according to Newsweek, "shock") victory up in Fairbanks, Alaska, where Democratic Mayoral candidate Mindy O'Neall ousted Republican-backed Mayor David Pruhs. It is both the first Democratic mayoral victory and first time that a sitting Mayor has been unseated in about a decade in Fairbanks. And yet, it is another instance of a huge shift by the electorate toward Democrats in special and local elections since Donald Trump took office again, just nine long months ago.

• Little wonder then that Trump has called on GOP-controlled states to gerrymander their U.S. House maps in hopes of flipping "blue" seats to "red" before a single vote is even cast in next year's critical midterms. Texas redrew their already-gerrymandered earlier this year in hopes of stealing five "blue" seats next year in majority-minority districts. And lawmakers in North Carolina announced plans on Monday for a mid-decade redistricting there as well, to take away yet another seat from Democratic voters in the closely divided state. NC had a fair, 7 to 7 court-drawn U.S. House map in 2022, only to see Republicans take control of the state Supreme Court, which allowed a redrawn, 10 to 4 gerrymander in 2024. On Monday, state Republicans announced plans to redraw the map again for 2026, to steal one more seat from Democrats. That, of course, rather than simply change their policies to ones actually supported by the majority of voters.

BUT AFTER... Texas and before North Carolina, it was my old home-state of Missouri whose Republican Governor and state Legislature last month moved to undermine voters with an unprecedented mid-decade gerrymander of the Show-Me State's U.S. House Map.

While Republicans already control 6 of 8 Congressional Districts in the state, with just two Democratic seats left --- one in St. Louis in the Eastern part of the state, the other in Kansas City in the West --- state lawmakers recently voted to split up the Kansas City district held for the past 20 years by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II.

Pro-democracy groups and voters, however, are pushing back. Several lawsuits have been filed challenging the new map as a violation of the state constitution. And a coalition of democracy advocates called People Not Politicians (PNP) is fighting back in another way: with a referendum that, if allowed on next year's statewide ballot, would immediately stop the gerrymander from moving forward in 2026, as a "citizens veto", until the entire state was able to ring in on the legislation at the ballot box.

Today, we're joined by PNP Policy Director RICHARD VON GLAHN, who has worked on 10 previous Missouri ballot initiatives, including the successful ballot campaign last year to raise the minimum wage and provide workers paid sick leave in the state. It was adopted with 58% of the vote. He seems very confident about the group's ability to get this referendum before voters next year.

"We can let the people decide if the legislation passed by the General Assembly should go into effect or if they should have to start over," he tells me. "We have done this 27 times in Missouri's history, and 25 of those 27 times that an issue has been put up for a vote, citizens have over-ridden what the legislature has done."

Von Glahn says the coalition is "not just on pace, we are ahead of pace" to qualify for the ballot, which would immediately restore the state's previous Congressional map for next year. "In the 72 hours after the legislature first passed this, we had over 2,000 Missourians volunteer, saying, 'Put a clipboard in my hands, I'm ready to go out and hit the streets and talk to my neighbors.'"

Of course, the state's Republican Attorney General and Sec. of State are already pushing back, attempting to disqualify about 25,000 signatures that were gathered even before the state's Republican Governor Mike Keyhoe signed the new law. Von Glahn explains today why he's confident that their objections will not stand. They are currently challenging the AG's determination in court. But, even if they lose that legal battle, he argues, they will qualify for the ballot anyway with well over the 110,000 or so signatures needed.

"It is a completely frivolous action by the Attorney General," he says, asserting that the AG "just made up words in the [state] constitution to try to thwart this." Nonetheless, the seasoned ballot initiative organizer vows: "We are also going to turn in such an overwhelming number of signatures, that whether the signatures from the first two weeks are counted or not is not going to be a factor."

He also notes that volunteers gathering signatures are not just Democrats in the otherwise supposedly "red" state where voters, just last year, voted for adding a right to abortion in the state's constitution after Republican state lawmakers adopted a near-total ban. "Voters don't ask us, 'Well, will this benefit Republicans or Democrats?' Because this is actually about centering VOTERS in our democracy. No one wants to feel like a political pawn or that our elections are manipulated behind our backs. That's why, as we are out working on this and talking to voters, it is not a PARTISAN message. It is really, like the name says, people, not politicians should be the center and focus of our democracy."

Please tune in for many more encouraging words about all of this from Von Glahn.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report, as at least three major storm systems from three different directions slam the U.S. at the same time from the East Coast to the West and all the way up to Alaska. Oh, and also, remember that National Weather Service meteorologist who Trump found to agree that a hurricane had been predicted to hit Alabama back in 2019? That guy, Trump's "Sharpiegate" dude, has just been confirmed by Republicans in the U.S. Senate to head up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which houses the National Weather Service...

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We've got just a ton of news for ya on today's BradCast. Here's the short version: Trump is a loser. On just about everything right now. And he knows it. So he's acting out. So far, it's not working. On anything. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Donald Trump is losing in the polls. An even larger majority of Americans oppose him than they did on Election Day, when a majority of Americans voted against him. He's also still losing on every single actual issue.

He's losing in the courts. At least the lower courts, which mostly still follow the Constitution and rule of law, unlike the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court.

He's losing in his various attempts to start a war against the American people in cities and states that voted against him. So now he's trying to lash out at elected officials getting in his way, like Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker who are suing to prevent him from deploying federalized National Guard troops against Americans in the Windy City. This morning, Trump called for both men to be arrested. For what? Nobody knows, of course. It's just Trump acting out.

He's also leading elected officials from his own party, like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, to lose their years-long claims to be "conservatives" who have pretended to support small government and states rights while opposing Big Government federal overreach. In truth, all of those things were lies. Abbott's flip-flop, allowing the federalization of his state's National Guard troops (which he condemned as a "power grab" just last year) to be deployed by Trump against fellow Americans in Oregon and Illinois is just one example. (Remember: Almost every Republican calling themself a "conservative" is not actually conservative and never was.)

Trump will soon lose his laughably weak, weaponized indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, who was arraigned today. The trial, on two ridiculous counts related to allegedly lying to Congress about something or other in 2020, has now been set for January 5 by the Biden-appointed federal judge randomly assigned to the case. For a long list of reasons, including Lindsey Halligan, the former beauty pageant contestant that Trump unlawfully assigned to indict Comey, will likely be tossed before the trial even begins. But, if it does begin, it will likely crash and burn, according to prosecutors who had refused to bring a case against Comey themselves previously. They think the case is a loser.

He's losing in Congress, where Dems are united for tens of millions of Americans who are about to see their health care costs doubled, thanks to Trump and Republicans. Americans support the Dems in this fight, so far, and are strongly in favor of restoration of health care funding that Republicans are allowing to expire at the end of the year. Even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene(!) is furious about the GOP doubling health care costs for those --- like her own adult children --- who purchased health insurance via the Obamacare exchanges. Trump is also screwing up the strategy of Republican leaders in Congress, by threatening mass firings and to withhold back-pay to furloughed federal workers once the shutdown ends (despite a federal law --- which he, himself, signed in 2019 --- that mandates the back-pay). So far, his threats have proven to be hollow, revealing him to be even weaker and more of a loser than he already was.

Oh, and as we discuss after Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report today, the billions of dollars in energy-related grants that Trump has (illegally) cancelled in 16 states that voted against him last year, as punishment against Democrats for the government shutdown, will also slash hundreds of millions of dollars from Congressional Districts represented by at least 20 Republican House members. That should help him be even more of a loser in next year's midterm elections.

Enjoy!

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As our corrupted U.S. Supreme Court begins its new term this week, its Chief Justice has a lot of explaining to do. Don't hold your breath for that explanation. At least from John Roberts. Our guest on today's BradCast, however, just wrote a book about him and has plenty to explain about him, what has happened under his leadership to our High Court, and the long road ahead toward reforming it. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Our guest today, the great LISA GRAVES, knows a thing or two about the Supreme Court, from her experience in all three branches of the federal government. She has served as a Deputy Asst. Attorney General at the U.S. Dept. of Justice, the Chief Counsel for nominations on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and as the Deputy Chief for the Article III Judges Division of the U.S. Court System. She has also exposed a lot of the corruption of the current members of the High Court, as a longtime researcher and as founder and Executive Director of True North Research.

Her brand new book is called WITHOUT PRECEDENT: How Chief Justice Roberts and his Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights. (Check out an excerpt here.)

In her most recent news letter, Graves argues that "we are in the midst of an unprecedented set of constitutional crises." She asserts that while Donald Trump's "belligerent and erratic orders --- and his appalling musings --- are shaking the foundations of our nation, it is the U.S. Supreme Court with John Roberts at the helm that is recklessly and aggressively emboldening him."

We begin there, after a long summer of the Roberts Court largely granting Trump's wishes, at least temporarily, in case after case after case on the Court's Emergency Docket (better described as its "Shadow Docket"), allowing him to largely get away with everything, no matter how radical, unlawful or unconstitutional. That, in unmistakably stark contrast to the Court's rightwing majority blockade of far less cataclysmic executive actions attempted by the Democratic Biden Administration when, for example, President Biden was barred by SCOTUS from offering about ten thousand dollars in school loan forgiveness during the COVID pandemic (as specifically allowed by law) or when attempting to regulate deadly emissions by power plants, despite the federal Clean Air Act's mandate to do exactly that.

Where the Roberts Court has allowed Trump to ignore the law and Constitution alike, the same corrupted majority blocked the Democratic President time after time, declaring a newly discovered "Major Questions" doctrine in the Constitution. It was apparently sitting right next to their invented "Presidential Immunity" clause they discovered last year, just in time to get Trump off the hook from very real crimes both retroactively and prospectively.

"If [Kamala] Harris had won, I don't think this Court would be bending over backwards to allow every new initiative of a Harris Administration," argues Graves. "What we saw when Biden was President, was the Roberts Court going out of its way to invent whole new magical phrases to try to stop signature initiatives of the Biden Administration, that were modest in themselves, and were even more modest when compared to the radical, reactionary, destructive actions of Donald Trump."

We've got a lot to speak to Graves about today, including all of that, as well well as the lies told by "documented liar" Justice Brett Kavanaugh about so-called "temporary" decisions made by the Court on the Shadow Docket; how Robert's nomination 20 years ago last month kicked off the full industrialization and weaponization of Republican Dark Money invested in seating Justices who would turn the Court, its precedents and our Constitution on their collective head; and how, even during his nomination hearings, John Roberts, a longtime anti-democratic, anti-Voting Rights Act Republican activist, was already playing the American people.

Graves also explains today what she sees as a long but viable path toward Court reform. "If we don't do so, it is at our peril. Because the Roberts Court and John Roberts is acting with such supreme arrogance in enabling Trump and in decimating our rights," she asserts. "It will continue to take blow after blow against our freedoms, against statutes that were passed to protect our rights, including efforts to mitigate climate change and so much more, until we reform this Court and pass laws to restore rights we've lost, and even expand upon them."

"So it's really a moral duty. It's a moral imperative that we not give in to hopelessness," she says, citing decades-long Civil Rights Era struggles. "Just because we can't do it this year, it doesn't mean we can't be building it. And, in fact, we must be building forward, to demand that we have representatives who are going to support reforming the Supreme Court, to protect our rights and to undo the damage that has been done by this packed, stacked and captured Court."

"The damage that has been done is done to us. We the people. So we have an obligation to work together to move those reforms into law in the years to come. Each year that we go forward, we hopefully will have the opportunity to have elections that will allow us to hold the people accountable who are advancing this extreme agenda and repel it. And in repelling it, have the opportunity to pass meaningful, real reform, the reform that's needed as well as the substantive restoration of rights, and expansion of rights, that is every American's rightful inheritance."

ALSO TODAY... U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is not just a Trump sycophant and corrupted tool. She is also a horrible human being, as she demonstrated over and over again today in obnoxious testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in her first oversight hearing as U.S. Attorney General.

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On today's BradCast: The partial federal government shutdown is soon heading into its second week. So far, Americans are blaming Trump and the Republicans for it. But that hasn't prevented our brain-addled President from deploying U.S. troops against U.S. citizens in U.S. cities that had the temerity to vote against him last year. Only the courts, so far, have been able to slow that down. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Before we get to our main topics today --- Trump's military invasion of the U.S. and the Democrats fight for affordable health care for tens of millions of Americans --- and listener calls to go with them, a public service announcement for listeners here in Southern California!

Vote-by-Mail ballots are now going out to all registered voters in the state for the November 4 Special Election for Prop 50. The ballot measure, if adopted, would allow the state to temporarily set aside the U.S. House Map for California created by the state's independent redistricting commission to allow new maps that could flip as many as five seats from "red" to "blue" in next year's midterms. That effort is in direct response to Texas redrawing its U.S. House Maps --- at the direction of Donald Trump --- to flip five mostly minority Democratic districts from "blue" to "red" next year.

But thousands of SoCal voters in temporary housing after their homes burned down during wildfires earlier this year are not getting their ballots automatically forwarded to them in the mail. Ballots aren't allowed to be forwarded. Those voters have to contact the Registrar's office to notify them of their temporary address in order to receive their ballot by mail. More details on that very important matter are currently right here. If you know anyone who has been dislocated by those fires, please refer them to that page, or let them know they must go to LAVote.gov (or call 800-815-2666) to add a temporary mailing address to their voter registration record to receive a VBM ballot in Los Angeles County.

Beyond that, we focus today in on the weekend's wild court actions up in Oregon, where a federal judge appointed by Trump during his first term has blocked his attempt to federalize the state's National Guard troops to invade Portland. Trump, consistently watching Fox "News" re-run five-year old footage from George Floyd protests in Portland, seems to believe the city is "war-ravaged" and "burning down". It is neither of those things, and U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut made that clear in her order [PDF] temporarily blocking Trump from federalizing the Oregon Guard and deploying them to Portland. In her ruling, she found the federal government argument was "untethered to facts" and that Portland was not "war-torn" or "under siege" by "Antifa, and other domestic terrorists." In fact, she warned, "This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law" and said that "Whether we choose to follow what the Constitution mandates …goes to the heart of what it means to live under the rule of law in the US." That all happened Saturday.

But then, in response on Sunday, Trump attempted to work around the judge's order by sending federalizes National Guard troops from California and Texas to Portland, forcing plaintiffs to go back to court in a late-night emergency hearing with Judge Immergut, who was forced to make clear, in a second ruling, that no troops from any state, were allowed for now to deploy to Portland.

In turn --- and even though he appointed her himself --- Trump is now attacking the judge, misgendering her by charging she "should be ashamed of himself." The attack comes as judges across the nation are facing hundreds of death threats --- particularly after blocking something Trump wants, even temporarily. Over the weekend, a judge's house in South Carolina was apparently blown up, with her husband and son hospitalized with serious injuries after the house was burned to the ground. She had reportedly been facing death threats for weeks after blocking the state from turning over its voter registration database to the Trump Administration.

By Monday, Trump was deploying hundreds of National Guard troops from Texas into Chicago, where both the state of Illinois and the city have now filed a similar suit to the one in Oregon. But, just an hour or so before airtime, the judge in that case declined, for now, to block the deployment. These stories, I'm sorry to say, are likely to continue, as Trump has threatened similar military attacks against "the enemy within" in states and cities that voted against him last year.

Moreover, the federal government shutdown continues today, as Democrats fight to prevent some 25 million Americans from seeing the costs of their health care more than doubled as of January 1. Despite what some have referred to as "conventional wisdom" that Dems would be blamed for the shutdown, so far early polling shows that Trump and Republicans are taking most of the blame and that, by huge majorities, Americans support the extension of Obamacare subsidies that will otherwise run out at the end of the year unless Republicans reverse their plan to defund the popular health care exchanges.

In the second half of today's show, we open the phones to a bunch of lively calls on all of the above!...

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On today's BradCast: Republican insistence on skyrocketing health care costs for tens of millions of Americans as of January 1 continues to keep much of the federal government closed for a second day. But it hasn't prevented Trump's ICE thugs from dragging American citizens, including women and children, out of their beds and into the streets naked in the middle of the night. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

It's Day 2 of the federal government shutdown, as Democrats vow to go the mat to prevent an explosion of health care costs for tens of millions of Americans beginning on the first day of the new year. The cost of monthly premiums for nearly 25 million Americans who purchase access to coverage via the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) exchanges is set to more than double, thanks to Donald Trump and Republicans cutting federal subsidies.

At the same time, Trump is vowing to exact maximum pain on his political foes by using cover of the shutdown for mass firings of federal workers and axing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of government services at what he describes as "Democrat agencies."

We're joined today by BOBBY KOGAN, formerly senior adviser in the Biden-Harris White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and, prior to that, chief analyst for the U.S. Senate Budget Committee under Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). He is now Senior Director of Federal Budget Policy at American Progress. Suffice to say, Kogan knows a lot about what happens during shutdowns, what goes on behind the scenes in these standoffs, how they (usually) work, and why they matter.

He's also very funny and good spirited, which is really appreciated on a day like today. So, mostly, I'm gonna recommend you tune in. You'll get a lot from our wide-ranging conversation on all of this, as I did.

But, there are two specific points that he made that I want to highlight here for the moment. In regard to Trump and his OMB Director, Russ Vought (architect of the hard-right Project 2025 manifesto that Trump pretended to know nothing about during the campaign), are promising "mass layoffs" of government workers during the shutdown. If they do so, Kogan tells me, it would be, "extremely illegal". As he details, a shutdown does not give the White House some sort of special shutdown powers to carry out mass Reductions in Force (RIFs) of federal workers.

"It's actually the opposite. You are allowed, within reason, to RIF people when the government is open. Doing it when the government is closed is actually extremely illegal. It's an Antideficiency Act violation," he explains. "They're doing it because they want to do it. There is no special power to do this. It's illegal to do it during a shutdown, because the work necessary to make it happen is not work that is allowed to happen under a shutdown. They're just doing it anyway."

"It's a criminal act that carries a jail term. But, of course, the Trump Administration won't prosecute itself, so it will be yet another lawless budget act that the White House does."

Kogan's other point that I want to underscore here is his response when I asked if this is the right fight --- to prevent health care costs from spiking for millions of Americans beginning on the first of the year, with $350 billion in Trump/Republican cuts next year alone, along with a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid and another half-trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare over the next ten years --- for Democrats to plant their flag on.

His response is passionate in explaining why he believes that, yes, this is exactly the right fight for them to stand on...

Tune in for much more.

THEN... Last month, in a decision on the Supreme Court's emergency docket allowing previously unconstitutional "roving" ICE raids to continue in Los Angeles, based on nothing more than criteria such as race, skin color, how one is dressed, where they work or hang out, Justice Brett Kavanaugh dismissed concerns about U.S. citizens and others with the legal right to be in the country who might get swept up in these raids.

"As for stops of those individuals who are legally in the country," Kavanaugh wrote in his much-derided concurrence, "the questioning in those circumstances is typically brief, and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States."

I wonder if Kavanaugh is standing by that what happened in Chicago this week, in an apartment building in the middle of the night, where federal agents busted down doors on every floor of a five-story building, dragged residents out of beds --- including men, women, children and U.S. Citizens --- without warrants, zip-tied them, brought them out into the streets, some of them naked, where they were left without explanation or attorneys until 3am, as part of Trump's "Operation Midway Blitz".

It was not the only such brutal, middle-of-the-night operation. Another was carried out in the Chicago suburbs this week, also ensnaring U.S. citizens. The masked, jack-booted thugs aren't "coming". They are here and coming to your town soon enough. Someone alert Justice Kavanaugh.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen helps us close things out this week with our latest Green News Report, in what, ironically, may include some of the brightest news we are able to offer you today...

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Trump lives and dies by ratings and reviews. Well, the reviews are in on today's BradCast for his sleepy, low-energy, hour-plus long campaign style remarks to the nation's top military brass at Tuesday's bizarre, in-person convocation of the nation's highest-ranking military generals. The unusual gathering was called at the U.S. Marine base at Quantico by his Defense Secretary. The reviews were not good. [Audio link to full story follows this summary.]

Before we get to today's weird military gathering, a few thoughts as the government is now all but certain to begin a partial shutdown as of midnight tonight. It is the first such federal shutdown since the last time Donald Trump was in the White House and Republicans held majority control of both chambers of Congress. He has been remarkably sanguine about it this time. He refused to even meet with Democratic leaders until yesterday, after which he went on to post an obnoxious, racist, AI-generated video mocking both House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Democrats refuse to sign on to a Republican bill that continues spending at current levels unless Republicans restore hundreds of billions of dollars that Trump and the GOP are cutting to American healthcare via the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid at year's end.

There may be several reasons why Trump is fine with the government shutting down. Beyond a delay in a mandatory House vote on releasing the Epstein Files, a government shutdown would also prevent the Bureau of Labor Statistics from releasing this Friday's much-anticipated jobs report for September, after previous monthly reports revealed grim numbers for Trump's second term. If the shutdown goes on long enough, BLS won't be able to gather its gold-standard data for future economic reports either, which are relied upon by the government, as well as businesses and investors worldwide.

For the record, the BLS didn't close during the last Trump shutdown. He could have mandated it stay open this time as well to continue its critical work. But, for some reason, he didn't.

Then it's on to the "urgent" in-person meeting of the nation's 800+ generals, admirals and other top military brass at Quantico today, as called at the last minute by Fox "News" weekend host turned Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth for unexplained reasons. It featured what amounted to little more than a live-for-the-cameras version of Hegseth's grievance-filled social media feed. The New York Times described his remarks to the generals as "a familiar litany of culture war talking points," including a lot of macho bullshit about the "warrior ethos", "wokeness" and "stupid rules of engagement" which Hegseth argues are somehow holding the U.S. military back.

For his part, Trump's partisan campaign-style rally that followed Hegseth seems to have fallen flat before the generals, who are not supposed to display approval or disapproval for political leaders. Media outlets described Trump's hour and ten-minutes of remarks as a "rambling and sometimes incoherent", "unusually meandering address" in which he attacked his perceived political enemies and called for the generals to use U.S. cities as "training grounds" for the military. Focusing on Democrats, who he described as the "radical left" and the "enemy from within", he suggested "the war from within" would be waged in cities like San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, presumably against Americans in cities that Trump doesn't like.

Experts and Defense officials are describing the comments as "embarrassing", with one telling The Intercept, "We are diminished as a nation by both Hegseth and Trump." Said another: "Listening to Donald Trump was deeply troubling and it is clear he is unfit for the role of commander in chief." Still another, citing the 25th Amendment, observed: "This is truly disturbing. He is clearly unwell even for Trump."

During his long remarks to a nearly quiet room, Trump described Illinois' Governor J.B. Pritzker as "incompetent" and "stupid", vowing that he was "going in very soon" to Chicago. Trump's invasion of the Windy City with U.S. military troops has been promised for several months now. But, over the weekend and into Monday, it looks like it began in earnest, even with just baby steps, including deployment of ICE thugs and other federal law enforcement and a mobilization of 100 U.S. National Guard troops to eventually join them. Pritzker pushed back hard against Trump and ICE as Trump's "jack-booted thugs" at a presser on Monday, charging them with showing up in the city on Sunday endangering citizens and "harassing people for not being white." We share some of his warning comments to the public.

Also over the weekend, Trump federalized 200 U.S. National Guard troops in Oregon to invade Portland "authorizing Full Force", even though there is no local insurrection, no assaults on federal buildings by "antifa", and the city is not burning down, as Trump seems to believe. The state's Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek tried to explain that over the weekend during a phone call with a confused Trump, who reportedly said, "Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening? My people tell me different." He is said to have claimed, "They are literally attacking and there are fires all over the place…it looks like terrible."

As I suggested yesterday, what Trump is describing appears to be what happened five years ago in Portland, during protests following the murder of George Floyd. Today, Philip Bump details how b-roll footage of those protests has been playing in a loop on Fox "News" ever since, any time they mention Portland, as they did on several different shows on Friday night, just before Trump's Saturday morning announcement about deploying troops there. Like Pritzker, Kotek is also taking to the airwaves to push back on Trump's unwelcome, completely unnecessary military thuggery.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as Hurricane Season kicks into high gear with a Trump-gutted National Weather Service trying desperately to keep up. And as the Dept. of Energy's fracking CEO turned Secretary, Chris Wright, cancels billions in subsidies for clean renewable energy in hopes of propping up the dying U.S. coal industry with millions of acres of new federal land access and new subsidies of the kind that he cited as evidence that the wind and solar industry are "maybe not a business that's going places." The DoE also expanded their list of banned words to include "climate change", "emissions", "green" and "decarbonization" among things that Department officials may not utter or use anymore in official documents...

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I couldn't even come close to getting us all caught up on today's BradCast to all that has happened since our last show late last week. The madness of the Trump Era --- in fact, the madness of Trump --- continues to quicken in pace and grow more intense each day as our sick and twisted President grows more sick and twisted, literally, with each passing hour. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Still, we covered quite a lot of ground, with stories you may have heard about, such as the weekend shooting and firebombing at a Mormon church in Michigan, but with background and context you may or may not have heard. For example, the fact that it was the 5th mass shooting of the weekend in the U.S. and the 324th of the year so far --- in a year that was just 272 days old as of Sunday. Oh, and also that the alleged assailant, a 40-year old former U.S. Marine and Iraq War veteran is being described as a "MAGA MANIAC" today by the rightwing Drudge Report, citing guy's apparent support of Trump in 2020, with Trump-Pence signs on his house and a photo of him proudly wearing a camouflaged Donald Trump campaign shirt with the slogan: "Make Liberals Cry Again".

For some reason, the Trump Administration and Republicans --- hell bent in recent weeks on pretending Democrats are responsible for political violence in the U.S. --- would rather you don't notice those details, or the fact that violent domestic extremism from the Right, has, for decades, far out-paced violent extremism from the Left. And the fact that Republicans haven't done a damn thing about gun violence, no matter where it comes from. And, oh yeah, the fact that they, with a lot of help from Fox "News" at the time, forced the Obama Administration's DHS to retract a draft report on domestic rightwing extremism, warning about veterans like the shooter in Michigan this weekend, and another U.S. Marine and Iraq war vet who carried out one of two mass shootings in North Carolina over the same past weekend. Like the shooter in MI, he also used an easily-purchasable assault rifle for his massacre.

But we covered much --- much --- more on today's show than I can possibly hope to share with you here, along with callers ringing in. So I'll post some links to some of the stuff we covered, and let you tune in for the full stories and critical context in a nation only now beginning to figure out that pushing back against bullies like Trump seems to work. Cowering in fear does not.

As former FBI Director James Comey said in his remarks after being maliciously indicted at Donald Trump's orders last week, in a ridiculous case virtually guaranteed to be laughed out of court by either a judge and/or jury: "Fear is the tool of a tyrant. ... But I'm not afraid and I hope you're not either. I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends on it --- which it does."

Among the stories covered and/or touched upon on today's show, before opening up the phones to listeners...

• Gavin Newsom Trolls Donald Trump Over Bonkers AI Video That Shows He's 'LOST IT'
• Trump questioned perception of Portland before approving military plan: 'Am I watching things on television that are different from what's happening?'
• Trump’s Bizarre Claim That 274 FBI Agents Were Planted ‘Prior to’ Jan. 6 Riot Gets Torpedoed By His Own FBI Director Kash Patel
• At least four dead and eight injured after shooting at Mormon church in Michigan
• Mormon church gunman was marine 'who supported Trump'
• Tracking the five mass shootings that occurred in the U.S. over this past week
• Hegseth's mystery meeting in Quantico could cost millions, require unprecedented security
• Trump cancels White House meeting with Schumer and Jeffries despite risk of a government shutdown
• As the shutdown deadline nears, Trump reverses his reversal on Democratic meeting
• Last Wednesday's BradCast with healthcare analyst Charles Gaba, discussing the trillions of dollars of healthcare funding that Trump and Republicans have gutted (leading to tomorrow night's likely federal Government shutdown.)
• Why the case against James Comey may end in humiliation for Trump's DOJ
• Trump says he "would think" the DOJ is investigating ex-FBI chief Wray
• Justice Department issues subpoena for Fani Willis travel records
• Eric Adams drops out of New York City mayoral race
• The Jimmy Kimmel blackout is completely over: Nexstar and Sinclair back down
• Democrats Accuse Mike Johnson Of Stalling New Member Swearing-In Over Epstein Files

I'm sure I missed a few in that list, but you get the idea. Please tune in to "enjoy" all of the above in amusing and informative BradCast format, along with a few thoughts on what we all can, should and will do about it...

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As detailed on today's BradCast, the cost of healthcare for tens of millions of Americans is likely to skyrocket as of January 1. It is likely to be far worse than you've heard. Congressional Dems are fighting to prevent it. Republicans, including the President, seem to be just fine with it. Those are basically the terms as we barrel toward a likely federal government shutdown next week. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We dig into the details, stakes, and positions of the two sides on that shutdown deadline (October 1) and the new costs for health care set to explode after December 31 with our guest today who knows a whole lot about all of the above. But first, a bit of news...

• Jimmy Kimmel returned to our public airwaves on Tuesday night, after a week-long suspension following threats by Donald Trump and his FCC Chairman, Brendan Carr, to revoke broadcast licenses from ABC affiliate stations if they didn't nix Kimmel. In the wake of public outrage (and cancelled streaming service subscriptions), Disney, which owns ABC, buckled and invited Kimmel back on air. To the hilarious despair of Trump, Kimmel received enormous ratings last night, and delivered a heartfelt, emotional, blistering, funny, courageous and important monologue. We play an extended portion of it today, given that tens of millions of Americans in dozens of major markets were not allowed to see it thanks to the Sinclair and Nexstar corporations, the nation's two largest local TV station conglomerates, which are refusing to reinstate the program.

• Democrats continued their winning streak in Special Elections on Tuesday by, once again, outperforming themselves by enormous margins as compared to last November. In Georgia, for example, in a special election for the State Senate in a very Republican district, while the Democratic candidate lost, she picked up about 18 points for Dems in that district as compared to last November. In Arizona, Adelita Grijalva easily defeated her Republican opponent in a special election to fill the U.S. House seat left vacant by the death of her 12-term progressive Democratic father, Rep. Raul Grijalva. But where Raul won reelection by 26 points last November, his daughter, on Tuesday, won by nearly 39 points. That's a 13-point swing for Dems. If you compare her Tuesday victory to the Presidential results in that same District last year, Dems improved by 16 points. Adelita has also vowed to sign the Congressional discharge petition to force a vote in the U.S. House on releasing the Epstein Files. Her signature is the last one needed to achieve a majority of House members signing on. That should allow the vote to finally proceed.

Little wonder then that House Speaker Mike Johnson has instructed Republicans to stay home next week, even though without a deal with Democrats to keep the Government open, it will shut down on Wednesday, the first day of the new federal fiscal year.

To that end, Democrats are desperately working to strike a deal with Republicans. But they are standing firm (so far) in demanding a permanent expansion of the enhanced premium subsidies for more than 25 million Americans who receive access to health care via the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) exchanges. Monthly premiums --- and health care in general for everyone, thanks to Trump's tariffs --- are set to go through the roof at the end of the year, without an extension. This will adversely affect millions of Republican constituents across the country, as well as Democrats and independents.

But where Democrats are trying to strike a deal, Donald Trump, who had agreed to meet with Democratic leaders to negotiate this week, abruptly cancelled the meeting on Tuesday night, citing all kind of false and, frankly, batshit insane phony reasons for chickening out of his first face-to-face meeting with Democratic Leaders since retaking office this year.

There is a lot on the line in the days (and weeks ahead), which could, in addition to scrambling politics in D.C. and putting government employees out of work, result in millions of Americans losing their access to health care.

We're joined today to break all of this down by CHARLES GABA, a longtime independent healthcare data analyst, who first began his work on this as a hobby in the early years of Obamacare. He is now regularly cited as a source by mainstream media. Most recently, Gaba has been publishing state-by-state breakdowns of how much ACA customers can expect to see their monthly premiums rise next year, if Republicans refuse to extend the enhanced premiums temporarily enacted by Democrats after Joe Biden took office in 2021.

"Basically," he tells me, some 25 million Americans are "kind of screwed" beginning next year, unless Republicans come around to extending the subsidies. "I am one of those," explains Gaba, whose family --- including himself, his wife and his child --- enjoy access to healthcare thanks to the ACA. "If they are not extended, then starting January 1st, if we are in the same policy that we are today, we'd be looking at around an $11,000 increase in our premiums next year. That's on top of what we're already paying."

Gaba's state-by-state analyses leads him to expect "90-95% increases on average" for monthly premiums next year without a renewal of federal subsidies. He underscores that that is an "average", and that while some might see less, "there are also going to be other households that are going to see their net premiums increase 200%, 300%. In theory they could be looking at going five or six times what they are paying now, which of course, nobody could possibly afford. A lot of people at the more extreme ends are going to have to drop their coverage entirely."

While Republicans have teased the idea of extending subsidies temporarily, for another year, Gaba, one of the first to warn about this potential healthcare-pocalypse, tells me today why he is rallying Democrats to allow the Government to shut down, if necessary, unless Republicans agree to expand the ACA subsidies permanently, roll back their recent massive cuts to Medicaid and include provisions in any budget agreement that would prevent Trump from simply rescinding any of the spending agreed to by Congress.

And, oh yes, all of this is likely causing huge problems health care company actuaries trying to set pricing for the Open Enrollment period beginning November 1. "I'm sure they are going through Pepto-Bismol and Tums by the bottle-full right now. The insurance companies, they actually started crunching their numbers back in March. This is a multi-month process. The final contracts [with state regulators] are supposed to be signed usually sometime in mid-September." And yet, on CNN today, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune called for a seven-week Continuing Resolution to keep the government open at current spending levels, kicking the can down the road to figure out whether ACA subsidies will be extended beyond the end of the year.

Tune in for insight on the very high stakes, potential horrors, and almost certain chaos that awaits over the next few days and weeks, even while few Americans have even noticed any of this just yet...

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